Welcome to Ability Store

Chapter 277 - 276: Kindred Spirits

This confusion was quickly resolved, as Elorie appeared before her with a bag of food, accompanied by another person.

Seeing that person, Honglian couldn’t help but widen her eyes.

The other person also showed a surprised expression.

"Group leader! Long time no see!" Elorie immediately put down the bag and walked up happily to hug Honglian. "Oh, right, I’m no longer a Mechanical Officer, so I should call you Ms. Honglian."

Honglian still held her gaze with the woman, both of their eyes filled with perplexity, though their confusion stemmed from different directions.

"May I ask who you are?" Honglian was the first to speak up.

"My name is Lin Qing." Lin Qing stared at the contours of her eyebrows and lips and said slowly, "Are you Honglian?"

"Yes." Honglian confirmed, knowing this was the first time hearing this name, "Are you a real person... or a shadow Elorie conjured up?"

Asking this was undoubtedly rude, but she couldn’t help it.

Otherwise, she couldn’t understand why the other person looked so much like her.

Lin Qing was also overwhelmed with emotions. She had long heard the name of the rebel leader, always wondering what she looked like when she was young. However, no matter what, she never imagined that Honglian’s features would resemble her own so closely, or rather... her own features before any modifications.

But despite the shock, the show had to go on... According to Chen Xuan’s plan, she was also an ability user summoned by the World Ability Center, a key figure in rescuing Elorie.

"Of course I’m a living person." Lin Qing gathered her thoughts, "Just not in Beitian Academy, but in a more distant place, accessing this consciousness field in the same way as you do."

"Have you met before?" Elorie asked curiously.

"No, we haven’t..."

"Then why do you both look so strange, like you’ve been apart for many years?"

Honglian coughed twice, "Can’t you tell we look very similar?"

"Do you?" the Angel puzzled, "Not really, one has red hair, the other multicolored, different eyes, and accessories too. Even a blind person wouldn’t get them wrong."

The room fell into silence for a moment.

"Liuli, what do you think?" Elorie turned to her friend for help.

Liuli nodded in agreement, "The two indeed don’t look alike, one can only say they are both very striking, but I believe they are undoubtedly two distinct swords full of unique differences."

"See, I wasn’t wrong," Elorie said confidently.

"Pfft." Honglian couldn’t help but laugh, "Sorry, I forgot you’re a foreigner, face blindness is quite normal."

As for the other one, she couldn’t even feel the presence of a "human."

"Did you go grocery shopping?" she patted the young girl’s head.

"Yes, because I heard you were coming." Elorie let go of her, turned around to pour water and make tea, "My fridge is small, can’t store food for many days."

This feeling was really strange.

Honglian originally thought consciousness exchange would be cold and stiff, like facing a lifeless body, hearing responses that might not even be true. However, the actual situation was quite different; she sat in a small yet cozy bedroom, not only with a living, breathing Elorie in front of her, but also with two of her friends. The three kept joking around, much like a daily comedy act.

Listening to their conversation, she also recalled the bits and pieces of her time with Elorie. The person in front of her was indeed her team member, both in personality and behavior, overlapping with the girl in her memories.

Honglian took a sip of the freshly brewed green tea that the other handed her, the fragrance lingering at the tip of her nose.

Everything in the consciousness space was terrifyingly real.

"Sorry, I don’t remember you going missing." She put down the cup and looked at Elorie, "Back then, you should have been with Jiang Siqi, Li Xing, and others, guarding the reception hall. But I have no memory of what happened afterward, as if you had never joined the Dimensional Limit Mechanism at all."

"This is not your fault." Elorie shook her head, "I actually don’t quite understand what happened either. According to Lin Qing, it’s all due to world changes."

So this person belongs to the World Ability Center side? Honglian glanced at Lin Qing, deciding to clarify the main issue first, "Can you tell me what exactly happened after that?"

"Hmm...that starts with why I came to your world." Elorie also sat at the round table, "At the beginning, it was because of a demon..."

She detailed the entire sequence of events to the other person.

Of course...it was the version modified by Chen Xuan.

She omitted the parts about Chen Xuan and Lin Qing in New Paris City, only saying she was swept into the future alone. In the underground fortress a hundred years later, she unexpectedly received assistance from the World Ability Center and returned to the original world with the apocalyptic truth. Due to the demon’s failed plan to raid the Holy Temple Treasure Vault, the future underwent significant changes, and the Mechanical Officers in that timeframe were affected by the changes, completely forgetting about Elorie’s affair.

"You mean... all our memories were rewritten?" Honglian couldn’t help but feel a chill, this change was too terrifying! Although the Mechanism repeatedly emphasized the dangers of historical pollution, with capturing Wanderers being a major goal to prevent them from altering history, it was never mentioned that altering history could reshape everyone’s perception so thoroughly that they couldn’t even detect the changes themselves!

Undoubtedly, there is a contradiction between these two statements.

The Mechanism believed historical pollution would only have localized, small-scale impacts, such as certain people suddenly disappearing or a district turning dilapidated overnight.

This pollution is irreversible, only manageable, which is why the defensive efforts of the Execution Team are so crucial.

But if what the World Ability Center says is true, then it’s simply indefensible! Because history would rewrite everyone’s fate, making everyone unconsciously accept the world’s transition, and once accepted, how could there be any rebellion?

"Ms. Honglian, why do you think you can remember?" Lin Qing suddenly interjected.

"Is it because of... your reminders?"

"Not at all." She shook her head, "If one day you see Elorie in person, you would also remember having such a partner. But if you were born into that world and had never been to another, then even if someone told you history had changed, you’d only find it absurd."

Honglian felt a tweak in her heart, suddenly realizing the difference between the two.

"Indeed, an ability user like you who has seen more worlds is already essentially a Wanderer." Lin Qing said slowly, "And Wanderers themselves...are the root of being able to perceive changes. The Dimensional Limit Mechanism doesn’t want to see Wanderers entering this world precisely because they pose a threat to their information monopoly."

She fell silent for a moment, her mind tumultuous.

This was her first time considering the issue of Wanderers from this perspective.

"But the ability crime issues they bring..."

"Are all Wanderers like that?" Lin Qing directly interrupted her, "Theoretically, Elorie also fits the definition of a Wanderer. Do you think she’s a vicious criminal? Now you and Wang Baihu are also Wanderers; has wandering itself changed your nature?"

Of course not.

This point was beyond doubt.

"It’s a pity that even such harmless people have still become a thorn in the Mechanism’s side." Lin Qing returned the topic to Elorie, "Why don’t you tell her what happened afterward yourself?"

Elorie started from the historical changes and explained that in order to prevent the apocalypse from reoccurring, she returned to the future to find key intelligence that might determine the course of history. Then, she was suddenly ambushed by demons, and the person who betrayed her information was none other than Team Captain Xiao Canong—the demon posing as Honglian’s identity, confirming her location via phone.

Fortunately, "Shixin" noticed the change and sent Lin Qing to the scene to rescue her, bringing her critically injured body back to Jiang City.

"This is the story after my ’disappearance,’" Elorie sighed softly, "If they hadn’t been protecting me from the shadows, I would have died long ago."