I can rewind time to prevent death

Chapter 160 Tricky Silk Sub-Quest (Part 6) (2/3)

At this moment, Yan Junze felt awkward.

He had completed the task, but he hadn't foreseen the severe repercussions that followed. The silken threads at the entrance of the hole kept spreading with blackness; it was clear he couldn't touch them.

However, after ripping off all the Tricky Silk, the blackness that had crept out of the hole seemed to halt, staying just at the rim of the entrance.

Ripping off the Tricky Silk was effective, but he himself couldn't touch it, nor could he touch any of the corpses here.

Because by the look of it, every corpse here seemed to have been tainted with the blackness, meaning they were "poisonous".

He had to think of another method.

Even though the task was already complete, Yan Junze had no choice but to Rewind at this moment, or else not only would his hands be ruined, but his life might also be in danger.

After the Rewind, Yan Junze stood behind the young corpse and didn't touch anything anymore.

He looked at the remaining Different Dimension Energy in the Spacetime Atlas.

Before executing this branch mission, his energy could maintain a 540-minute, or 9-hour, Rewind cycle.

He started the energy cycle with the outermost iron gate and continued through entering the first hole and moving the wooden boxes outside it; this took 37 minutes. Crawling through the hole took 22 minutes, and upon entering this underground space, the first round took roughly 20 minutes.

Altogether it was 79 minutes.

However, up to this point, Yan Junze had initiated the Rewind three times, and after each Rewind, time was consumed again. The total time consumed and the energy spent on Rewinds had almost reached 70 minutes.

Unnoticed, there were about 390 minutes left of the 540.

Before the last Rewind, it had been proven that as long as he could rip off the Tricky Silk at the entrance of the hole, he could complete the branch mission. The target was clear; the question was how to rip off the Tricky Silk without using his own hands.

Since he couldn't touch it, maybe he could try using tools instead.

Yan Junze felt a bit remorseful at the moment. The crowbar he'd brought earlier would have been an excellent tool, perfect for snapping off those sticky threads. It was precise every time.

But at this moment, the crowbar was stuck in the body of the male corpse in the tunnel, and he couldn't reach it.

If he released the mallet, its round blunt end couldn't peel off the Tricky Silk.

What about using the flashlight in his hand?

Yan Junze looked down and smiled bitterly—none were the best tools.

Just then, his gaze toward the flashlight shifted as he looked down at his right hand holding the flashlight.

On his right index finger, a smudge of black was slowly emerging. In just a few seconds, the topmost segment of the index finger was fully saturated with black.

"How... what's happening?" Yan Junze exclaimed in shock.

He vividly remembered that after the Rewind, he hadn't touched any corpse here at all.

No, something was still wrong!

Looking down at his right index finger, the speed at which the black spread was increasing. He had been so focused on the Tricky Silk at the entrance of the hole that he hadn't noticed—just now, his entire index finger was nearly fully blackened.

The blackness continued to spread, creeping toward his palm and other fingers.

With a thought, Yan Junze Rewound again.

This time, he chose the moment just after he had fallen into this underground space from the tunnel, leaning against the rocky wall beneath the tunnel and waiting for the corpse in the tunnel above to leave.

The sound of friction between the crowbar stuck in the corpse and the rocky wall of the tunnel gradually faded. Yan Junze didn't turn on the flashlight at this time.

When the sound finally faded away, and it didn't return upon discovering the light, he then turned on the flashlight.

Knowing beforehand that the area was full of standing corpses, he didn't look around but immediately shone the light on his right index finger.

It was intact, with only some dirt on the skin, seemingly nothing out of the ordinary.

However, Yan Junze was not reassured. He did not shift his gaze and kept staring at the finger.

About two or three minutes later, his expression gradually turned to surprise as the finger began to show a layer of blackness, which quickly covered the fingertip and then the uppermost knuckle.

"What on earth is going on?"

Yan Junze shone the flashlight around the underground space; the numerous corpses still looked the same, their backs turned outward.

He had only just come in and hadn't touched anything—how could he still be "poisoned"?

He looked at his finger again, and at that moment the blackness continued to spread on his index finger.

Well, now it had become a Golden Finger, or perhaps the "Hand of God".

It seemed that the blackening of his finger was faster than before the Rewind. Why was that?

Yan Junze looked up at the underground space—maybe he wasn't supposed to enter here? Was there something wrong with the air?

He remembered the hint in the main quest Tricky Silk: "It is advised not to touch it before having enough Different Dimension Energy for a Rewind."

This "it"—does it refer to the big boss of Tricky Silk, or to the... silk threads?

At this moment, Yan Junze was somewhat bewildered.

If he couldn't even enter this underground space, then the difficulty of this branch quest was extraordinarily high! Although he knew that tearing off the Tricky Silk outside of that hole could complete the task, he couldn't escape the invasion of the Dark Poison.

After thinking it over, he decided to Rewind again to the moment in the tunnel, but definitely not to the moment after encountering that male corpse in the tunnel.

That fellow crawled incredibly fast; if he were to Rewind to after encountering him, he'd have to run for his life as soon as he emerged, which was unacceptable.

However, the Spacetime Atlas could only Rewind, not jump forward in time, meaning that if he Rewound to before encountering the tunnel male corpse, he would have to bite the bullet and go through the chase and sprint with that tunnel male corpse again.

Seeing the speed at which the blackness spread to his other fingers, Yan Junze didn't hesitate any longer.

"If heaven has given me the chance to do this again, no, to do this n times, there's no reason not to seize it properly!"

If he had to restart, it was better than dying of full-body atrophy.

Yan Junze chose to Rewind to shortly after entering the tunnel, at the moment before he had encountered the tunnel male corpse.

A familiar feeling of dizziness came over him, and he found himself once again lying inside the tunnel, with a bend about twenty meters ahead. Beyond that bend lay the male corpse in front of the Deadwater Pool.

Yan Junze didn't crawl forward immediately; he was thinking about how he might tear off those silk threads.

It now seemed that shortly after entering that underground space, he would be infected by the eerie blackness, just like those standing corpses, even without touching anything.

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So, he wondered if there was another way to destroy those silk threads, for instance, by using the tunnel male corpse.

Looking at it now, directly releasing Long-tongued Zhenzhen or the Crawler Monster seemed highly likely to fail, as their first encounter had shown that these strangenesses could not be assimilated by this eerie place.

At this thought, Yan Junze subconsciously glanced at his right hand and then jolted sharply.