Lynch's silhouette merged into the distorted light and shadow, as if stepping into the domain of another dimension.

Everything before his eyes had lost its normalcy. The ancient towering trees experienced the cycle of growth, flourishing, withering, and decaying at a speed visible to the naked eye. Some parts still bore tender green buds, while other branches had turned into charred bones.

The vines sometimes squirmed madly like giant pythons, sometimes solidified mid-air like dark green crystal sculptures. The grass on the ground flickered between verdant green and withered yellow, as if countless invisible hands were manipulating the hands of time.

The light here was torn apart into fragments, forming twisted light bands like visions seen through a broken prism.

The Space itself presented unstable folds; nearby stones might be out of reach, while distant tree shadows seemed within arm's reach. In the air lingered a sense of chaos from Time Acceleration, deceleration, and even reversal, causing dizziness and vertigo.

In the center of this chaos, Lynch was enveloped by a thin yet tough pale blue aura.

This was not an ordinary Magic Shield, but a barrier woven by the power of Time Rule. Countless tiny time runes flowed on the surface of the shield, flickering with a sophisticated rhythm, constantly adjusting their frequency to achieve a dynamic balance with the surrounding turbulent time currents.

It was precisely this Rule Level shield that allowed Lynch to remain whole in this distorted domain of time. Outside the shield, a falling leaf completed the entire process from bud to decay in an instant; inside the shield, Lynch's breathing was steady, his steps composed.

Without protection of the same level, any intruder would be torn apart in this temporal maze—

Perhaps aging to dust the moment they stepped in, or forever frozen in a moment of time, or endlessly leaping between spaces of time until their consciousness collapsed. This was the cemetery of time, also the testing ground of rules.

Lynch stood amid the grotesque and kaleidoscopic twisted forest, keenly observing the frantically changing scene outside the shield. "Such peculiar energy fluctuations," he murmured to himself, "so chaotic and disorderly, yet faintly adhering to some kind of trajectory... Could this also be an extreme form of time rule manifestation?"

With a touch of curiosity, he made a move that would make any onlooker's heart pound—he slowly raised his right hand and carefully extended a section of his left index finger beyond the protective range of the pale blue shield.

The moment the fingertip left the shield's protection, a mutation broke out!

That section of the finger began to age rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye. The skin instantly lost its luster, covered with deep wrinkles, then shriveled, turned black, and rotted, as if enduring decades or even centuries of time erosion in an instant.

Soon after, the skin and flesh peeled away, revealing the white bones underneath, which too were not spared, swiftly becoming brittle and yellowed, ultimately turning to dust like millennia-old weathering, dispersing into the chaotic light and shadow.

The entire process lasted but a brief moment, and a perfectly good finger had utterly disappeared.

Lynch's expression remained unchanged as he calmly withdrew his arm, looking at the bare stump of his left index finger. In the next moment, with a mere thought, without needing incantations or gestures.

In the spot where the finger was lost, the light and shadow twisted and retreated, like an invisible loom rewinding the threads of time. Flesh, bone, nerves, skin... all the material and structure that constituted the finger were restored along the timeline, from nothingness to reality.

In just the blink of an eye, a finger as whole and indistinguishable from before had regrown, complete with every minute fingerprint perfectly reproduced.

After advancing to the Rule Level, the so-called Time Magic had long since merged with his being. He was a living embodiment of Time Rule, and manipulating time for him had become as instinctual as breathing.

What he had just done was merely a localized Retrospect of the time state of his finger to a "save point" before its destruction.

As long as the source of his rules remained intact and his consciousness persisted, within the bounds allowed by this Time Rule, he stood virtually invincible.

Lynch gazed at the newly restored finger, a slight energy fluctuation lingered at the fingertip, harmonizing with his own Time Rule yet appearing more chaotic and disorderly.

He murmured to himself, "Indeed, it's a manifestation of time rule... only, it seems fundamentally different from the order I command in its flow? More inclined toward... chaos and breakdown?"

Immersed in analyzing and pondering these rules, suddenly, a clear voice like a silver bell pierced through the hum of surrounding temporal disarray and reached his ears distinctly.

"Haha! Lynch, come quickly, look at this beautiful flower!"

The instant he heard the voice, Lynch felt as if struck by silent thunder, his body trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly.

Despite nearly two hundred years having passed, filled with countless life and death experiences and changes, this voice was recognized by him immediately and clearly, as if it were imprinted on the deepest part of his soul —

It was Avery!

His heart instantly filled with an indescribable urgency and flutter, discarding any further analysis of the surrounding rule disturbance, he immediately followed the direction of the voice and hurriedly walked towards it.

Pushing through a few abnormal shrubs that constantly switched between states of stillness and wild growth, the scenery opened up, revealing a small relatively "peaceful" clearing in the forest.

In the clearing, the sunlight was warm, the grass lush, in stark contrast to the surrounding twisted and chaotic environment, as if an independently isolated slice of tranquil time and space.

And on that soft lawn, a very familiar figure was crouched there.

It was Avery.

She wore a light purple knee-length dress, her flaxen hair shimmering with warmth under the sunlight, as youthful and radiant as in his memory. She was carefully touching a lightly glowing blue flower blooming on the grass, her face glowing with an immaculate, dazzling smile.

Beside her stood another figure—unmistakably Lynch himself in his youth! His face still bore traces of apprenticeship naivety, clad in a simple gray apprentice robe, his eyes exuding a gentle and focused regard for the young girl in front of him.

"Lynch, come quickly!" Avery turned her head, waved to young Lynch with a sweet smile, "Look at these petals, don't they resemble the glow of a Starlight Stone? Let's bring it back to plant in the castle, shall we?"

Young Lynch knelt to inspect the flower closely, responding gently, "Indeed, it's beautiful. However, Avery, this 'Starlight Orchid' requires a very specific environment, the castle garden may not suit its growth."

"Oh… is that so…"

Avery pouted slightly, but quickly smiled again, naturally extending her hand to grab young Lynch's wrist, gently shaking it, "Then let's come here often to visit it! After all, you promised to explore this Forest with me, no backing out allowed!"

Young Lynch glanced at their intertwined hands, blushing slightly, he averted his gaze bashfully, yet his voice was firm, "Mmhm, a promise to you, I won't back out of it."

The scene before him was as beautiful as a fragile dream.

Standing amidst the turbulent time flow, Lynch quietly watched this scene playing out anew after two hundred years of elapsed time, his gray eyes, capable of mastering time itself, filled with indescribably complex and unfathomable emotions.

He knew this was not the real Avery, but merely a vivid shadow of her, captured and cyclically replayed by the power of this area when she was engulfed in the time flux, a memory fragment engraved deeply.

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