Chapter 1 A Glimpse of Gray Hair

A flash of gray hair caught the corner of Hao Ren's eye, and he instantly gave chase.

Nolan was incredibly fast, dashing through the corridor like an agile leopard while constantly scanning her surroundings, seemingly also avoiding the patrolling soldiers like Hao Ren. He almost lost her at the first couple of turns, but ultimately human legs couldn't outrun his superhuman speed. As they entered a straight passageway, he spotted Nolan's figure not far ahead and quickly called out, "Nolan!"

She was sprinting at full speed and couldn't afford to hide and take things slow, so Hao Ren chose the simplest and most effective way to stop her: with his shield, he didn't need to worry about small-caliber rifles, even if Nolan was as ruthless as Karl.

Nolan paused at the sound of his voice, but her movements were fluid and decisive. Her gray hair traced a beautiful arc in the air as she used the momentum of her stop to twist around and crouch, instantly aiming the rocket launcher on her shoulder in his direction.

Hao Ren was startled: "..."

What about the small-caliber rifles? This girl was running around with a rocket launcher?

"Why does the situation always develop differently from what I expect?" Hao Ren hopped about in frustration, waving his hand behind him to stop the corpse witch terminal from jumping out. He looked up at the gray-haired girl not far ahead. "Nolan, don't shoot—launch! It's me! Er, actually, you too..."

He noticed that Nolan's clothes had also changed, from the Gray Fox mercenary uniform to a light gray, thick-cloth military uniform that resembled neither the marines they had encountered earlier nor the guards in this facility. Perhaps she was with a third party. In any case, the change in clothing meant one thing: Nolan had also been reset.

Did she remember what had happened before? Or had she become a completely different person like Karl?

Hao Ren frowned, waiting for Nolan's reaction, but if he was right, this girl should be able to remember information from each change in the world: that was the source of her unusual skills and experience.

Nolan looked at Hao Ren with some surprise: she had prepared to fight everyone around her when the world began to change again, but this man's reaction seemed to indicate that he remembered her. She frowned but didn't lower her weapon. "You remember who I am?"

"Nolan, codename Gray Fox, leader of the Gray Fox mercenary group," Hao Ren smiled. "You're the one who brought me here."

Nolan slightly lowered the weapon in her hand. "Then do you remember who you are?"

"Hao Ren, a guy wandering the wastelands, an expert at smashing people with gold bars," Hao Ren knew that Nolan had lowered her guard. "We met in Rift City."

Nolan frowned. "Anything else?"

Hao Ren was stunned. Seeing Nolan's serious expression, he wanted to cry. He tugged at his hair. "Do I really have to say 'necrophiliac'?"

A faint smile seemed to flicker across Nolan's face, but it was quickly replaced by surprise and a hint of excitement. This was the first time Hao Ren had seen such a range of emotions on her face. Nolan walked towards Hao Ren, her voice undisguised with surprise. "You actually remember the last cycle?"

"So it really is a cycle," Hao Ren sighed after hearing those words from Nolan, feeling a mixture of clarity and deeper confusion. "So you know everything. What exactly is going on with this world?"

"First time retaining your memories?" Nolan looked Hao Ren up and down. "If you'd experienced it as many times as I have, you wouldn't be asking that question."

Hao Ren knew that his situation was too complicated to explain, so he simply waved his hand. "My situation is too hard to understand, and I'm still confused myself, so I basically can't answer your questions. You tell me what's going on here. If I'm not mistaken, we're probably the only 'partners' in this world right now."

Nolan nodded and was about to say something when she heard the corpse witch terminal's voice from behind. "Partner! You guys started chatting without calling me?"

Hao Ren turned his head and saw the golden-haired girl, who was essentially a brick, walking stiffly towards them. Nolan was stunned at the sight. "She... she's alive? And she can remember what happened before?"

Hao Ren realized in an instant that compared to his situation, this corpse witch terminal was the hardest to explain!

He pressed his forehead and mumbled vaguely, "Er, something like that... Anyway, she's alive now, and she knows about you. Don't ask how she knows, I can't explain it."

"What's wrong with her legs?" Nolan noticed the corpse witch terminal's limp. "Is she injured?"

Hao Ren said expressionlessly, "Consequences of a cerebral thrombosis."

Nolan looked at Hao Ren strangely. "You two really are disaster-prone... Last life, she died and you went crazy; this life, she has a cerebral thrombosis..."

Hao Ren was about to lose it. "Yes, yes, whatever you say! Last life, I was carrying around a dead girl like a necrophiliac; this life, I have to take care of a blabbermouth with a cerebral thrombosis, and my PDA has cultivated into a spirit. I go everywhere and people treat me like a lunatic—can we please stop talking about this kind of thing? Is there no end to it?!"

Nolan was taken aback by Hao Ren's sudden outburst. When she heard his last few words, she suddenly understood. She thought that this man's madness probably hadn't been cured: after all, he had retained the memory of the last "cycle," so perhaps he had retained his insanity as well.

After being an assistant to God for more than a year, Hao Ren had finally achieved the realm coveted by many clergy members, which was to share the glory with his own god—he and his immortal sister were both treated as incurable lunatics.

Fortunately, he couldn't read minds.

"Let's find a safe place first," Nolan tossed the thought in her mind aside. She motioned for Hao Ren to follow her. "This place is full of people with unclear intentions, so surviving is the top priority. Otherwise, we'll have to wait for the next cycle."

"Seriously, you're just running around with that thing?" Hao Ren looked at the rocket launcher in Nolan's hand with a strange expression. Although the technology in this world was more advanced than on Earth, and the rocket launcher was therefore much lighter and more precise, carrying a weapon of this size didn't seem conducive to escaping. "Isn't it inconvenient?"

"No choice, this is the only thing I had when I opened my eyes," Nolan said, tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I've been looking for a chance to snatch a weapon from some unlucky loner, but it hasn't been going well. But I'm very strong, so carrying this doesn't affect my movement, and it's better than being empty-handed."

Hao Ren looked down at his hands. He had a light assault rifle before, but it had disappeared sometime after Ulanov vanished. He thought for a moment and simply took a silver short staff from his dimensional pocket and handed it to Nolan. "Take this."

Nolan stared blankly at Hao Ren's "magic trick." "How is this..."

Hao Ren had his own ideas. After discovering how bizarre the changes in this world were, he felt that there was no need to hide his supernatural powers too much: after all, the effects on others would be reset, and Nolan, the only one who wouldn't be reset, was hiding secrets that were no less than his. The most urgent thing was to find a safe place, and if he could slightly intimidate Nolan, many things would go more smoothly.

Of course, there was also a very important reason: he had to ensure Nolan's survival, since she was the only person he could ask about the situation, as far as he could tell.

"It's a weapon. Don't worry about how it came to be or what the principle is. Everyone has secrets, but just know that I'm on your side," Hao Ren taught Nolan how to use this piece of Aerym elf weaponry. It was one of the many weapons taken from the Aerym armory, but since Hao Ren was already used to the plasma rifle and psionic pistol combination, he hadn't had much use for it until now. "This thing is called a Sentinel Staff. Hold this part, this is where you can open the safety. This end of the staff is the firing port, the red button is the trigger, the black button is the force field shield, and the patterned side should face forward, like this..."

Nolan memorized these strange operations in a daze. She held the staff horizontally in front of her and pressed the black button. An oval, green shield with elegant curves and glowing patterns immediately opened, blocking most of her body.

The sudden appearance of the shield left her dumbfounded.

"The shield and firing functions can't be activated at the same time, after all, this technology is limited," Hao Ren explained in conclusion. "But it's more useful than running around with a rocket launcher."

Nolan continued to stare blankly.