Soul of Negary

As everyone in the Ultra Space-Time Squad entered the phone booth, they instantly exited the timeline with a flash of light.

“What’s the situation?” Major Cage dismounted from his exoskeleton and asked Rip who was sitting next to a machine.

“Still in chaos… alright” a large amount of data was flowing through the screen in front of him. As he spoke, the data began to show consistency again, so he went back to work, transcribing this data into a visual form for everyone to see.

…

Due to the Ultra Space-Time Squad’s interference, the Temporal Explosion was detonated prematurely, causing the undeads and Dino Sapiens to lose a large number of crucial personnel, leading to their failure and the success of this rebellion.

A few undead and Dino Sapiens managed to infiltrate the Central tribe’s army and city guards, but due to the loss of manpower, they were forced to go through with the rebellion despite their lacking preparations.

The other tribes also took this chance to rise up, several small hit squads of elites attacked Central city directly. The undead and Dino Sapiens took this chance to break through the tribe’s defenses to enter the altar of the Divine flame, coming into direct contact with the golden fire.

Mi You and Central Huo managed to arrive just in time with their men and engaged in combat on top of the altar.

In the end, Central Huo borrowed the explosive force of the Divine flame, paying his life to kill the Dino Sapiens of the Raptor group; this time, both Chrysosaurus and Flame Dino didn’t manage to escape.

On the other hand, Central Huo’s death caused the Divine flame to fully activate, displaying the glorious grid of the Divine flame that covered the sky, twisting both space and time. Humanity thus became scattered to various places in the world’s present, past, and even future.

The Central tribe lost their heir to the Divine flame, while none of his heirs managed to inherit it, leading to many believing they had been discarded by the Divine flame. Without this orthodoxy backing them, a rebellion on an even larger scale erupted.

This came to be known as the Great War, with many tribes becoming enemies, as well as allies with one another. The concept of ‘nations’ began to form, and with the rise of nations, even more wars took place.

Occasionally, a common sovereign would rise, but their reign wouldn’t last, at least not until a thousand years later when a king of great wisdom and might rose to power. He conquered every other nation and placed their capitals within his range of influence, forming an empire and declaring himself Emperor.

Alas, even an unparalleled man of great wisdom had his own worries, lifespan being one of them.

…

“The next pivotal point is right here, to get rid of the undead tribe” Rip said as he looked at the screen.

“Rory is right…” The Doctor lightly said, then suddenly scowled and smiled: “It seems the long years have affected my memories. Rip is right, through our guidance, the Mi clan whose speciality lies in eliminating the undead tribe has appeared, and so has ‘his’ fated enemy”

Hearing The Doctor getting his name wrong, Rip furrowed his eyebrows slightly, feeling as if something was wrong with his current life.

In his memories, he began as a member of an organization called the Time Masters who held possession of a certain temporal anomaly. Due to the death of his wife, Amy, at the hands of the immortal temporal criminal Savage, he used the Time Masters’ anomaly to gather a team to kill Savage. Even though he managed to succeed, he also destroyed the Time Masters in the process, after which he was recruited by the SCR Foundation.

The Doctor miscalling his name caused Rip to recall another life. He knew a person very similar to The Doctor and followed him on an adventure through time. In the end, he ran into a certain kind of statue lifeforms, these living statues weren’t the same as the undead, they seemed to hold temporal abilities, which one of them used to take him to the past, where he died from old age. It felt like he had lived almost his entire life as a Centurion who waited for 2000 years.¹

This bit of memory was extremely faint, so faint that it only took Rip a moment’s lapse to immediately forget that he had it in the first place, which took form in the trembling of the phone booth as it landed.

The Ultra Space-Time Squad exchanged glances, feeling a strange sense of deja vu.

However, the sound of knocking at the very next moment caused them to forget this strange sensation. A tall man could be seen standing on the outside of the phone booth, curiously looking in through the window.

“Liang…” Black Widow was a bit surprised to see him, then realized what was going on. He was a member of this generation’s Mi clan, except he looked so similar to Mi Liang that Black Widow was a bit stunned when she saw him, seeing how she had also spent some time alone with Liang.

However, after the very first impression, they noticed that the two of them were completely different people. Mi Liang carried with him a stable, heavy aura that always looked back to the past; while this Mi Ze wasn’t the same, he seemed to have countless thoughts in his head that jumped all over the place.

“The great ancestor’s diary had spoken of this phone booth. It is a phone booth, right? I can’t believe there would be a day when I actually see it” Mi Ze curiously looked at the phone booth and the Ultra Space-Time Squad who were inside, proudly saying to himself.

Mi Ze had received news that someone had found a statue with a mask in its hand. This statue was highly probable to be the progenitor of all undead, as well as the wicked stone mask that was the beginning of everything, so he hurriedly came running, only to see this phone booth making its sudden landing.

“Ahaha, this great one is definitely favored by Heaven. Once I defeat Xu Fu and destroy the mask, would I be able to leave my name in history?” Mi Ze chuckled triumphantly as he thought about his rosy future, then excitedly asked the members of the Ultra Space-Time Squad: “You guys are able to travel through time, then do you know if this great one’s name was left in the future?”

“Probably” Black Widow smiled and glossed this issue over. If history had taken its natural course, the Mi clan wouldn’t have existed in the first place. Without the stone demon mask incident, the original disaster would have been the Earthbound phenomenon, which resulted in the Xu tribe being destroyed and integrated into another tribe, which were then wiped out during the Great War.

However, since Xu Fu would use the fake name Xufu to deceive the emperor during this timeline, and Mi Ze’s destiny was to face Xu Fu, regardless of whether or not he succeeded, his name would still be recorded in the history books. Although, could this jumpy young man really win against Xu Fu?

The Mi clan was only a possible branch of the timeline that they helped guide and prolong, while Xu Fu borrowing the power of the emperor to build his own undead empire was another possible branch. In that branch of the timeline, Xu Fu was the Protagonist, he would receive the reinforcement of the timeline itself which would be displayed as the unique characteristic of extreme luck.

If Mi Ze failed, the Ultra Space-Time Squad would have to pay a heavy price to interfere with this historical moment. This was different from the Tower of Babel incident, the Raptor group had both a possibility to succeed and fail their plan, so the Ultra Space-Time Squad only needed minimal effort to ensure their failure.

This time around, if they didn’t interfere, Xu Fu’s undead empire timeline would have definitely succeeded. Their guidance of the Mi clan only served to introduce a possibility of failure into the timeline, it was still highly probable for the undead empire timeline to become real.

“Regardless, we have to succeed. A large number of undeads have already appeared in the future, if we fail here, we would also disappear, and the timeline would be completely changed. Wasn’t this our goal in the first place? To stop the undead timeline from resurging” Black Widow solemnly said.

The other members of the Ultra Space-Time Squad nodded, but some of them suddenly felt that something was wrong, but couldn’t really tell what.

——

Author’s note: In Legends of Tomorrow, actor Arthur Darvill took on the role of Rip Hunter; while in Doctor Who, he took on the role of Rory Williams.