# 1851
Chapter 1851: Time Axis
Lin Qiye withdrew his gaze and carved a "0" at his feet using Ame-no-Murakumo.
As everyone was about to continue forward, Lin Qiye's command this time changed:
"How many people are left now?"
No. 22 swept his gaze across the group. "Counting you, five."
Though No. 22 didn't understand what Lin Qiye was doing, his understanding of this Temporal Maze was clearly greater than the others'. In this situation, he naturally wouldn't go against Lin Qiye.
Lin Qiye nodded. "One person takes a step forward, one person steps left, one person steps right. After stepping, stay where you are and don't move."
Although confused, everyone followed the instructions. Three figures vanished into thin air.
Lin Qiye turned to the remaining No. 22:
"You, follow the steps of the person in front, then step back. Don't make a single mistake."
No. 22's brow furrowed tightly. After hesitating for a moment, he still stepped forward. His figure disappeared from Lin Qiye's line of sight.
One second, two seconds...
Lin Qiye watched the direction where No. 22 had vanished and silently counted the time. Just then, a hand patted his shoulder from behind.
Lin Qiye's pupils contracted sharply. Ame-no-Murakumo slashed backward!
Clang—!!
A long sword blocked Lin Qiye's blade. No. 22's angry curse rang out:
"What the hell? It's me!"
Seeing No. 22's face, Lin Qiye's gaze froze. "When did you come back?"
"Just now!" No. 22 said理所当然ly.
Lin Qiye's experiment was to find out whether a person, after stepping into another time, could return to the previous location. From No. 22's situation, the answer was yes.
He first stepped forward, arriving at a different time, then stepped backward, returning to Lin Qiye's time. This proved that in this maze, time was bound to space.
Lin Qiye took a step forward and saw the first Lesser God who had disappeared. Standing there and looking back, he saw the "0" clearly visible on the ice not far away, but there was no trace of the "1."
"Does this piece of ice correspond to a time between 0 and 1..."
Lin Qiye murmured to himself.
He casually carved a "0.5" into the ice beneath his feet.
Standing on this ice surface, he could see 0, indicating the time when 0 was carved was before "now." But he couldn't see 1, meaning the time corresponding to ice surface No. 1 was later than the current time—the act of carving 1 had not yet occurred.
These numbers represented the temporal sequence corresponding to each space. If time were mapped to an axis, then the "0" Lin Qiye had first carved would be the starting point of that axis. Higher numbers represented the future, lower numbers represented the past.
Using this method, one could artificially mark the temporal sequence of each ice surface in the maze, revealing the maze's pattern across both time and space dimensions!
This was the simple method Lin Qiye devised to crack the Temporal Maze.
The only drawback was that clocks and timing devices Lin Qiye had brought into the maze had all stopped working. Otherwise, he could have even used them to precisely calculate the time span between each ice surface.
After carving 0.5, Lin Qiye went to the other two Lesser Gods' ice surfaces in turn and carved "2" and "-1" respectively.
Looking at the numbers appearing and disappearing across the ground, No. 22 seemed to sense something. He fell into contemplation.
The group continued this process, advancing slowly through the Temporal Maze. More and more numbers were marked on the ground, and the脉络 of time was cleverly laid bare before them.
When Lin Qiye carved the "-14" mark and was about to continue forward, a sudden change occurred!
No. 22 exchanged glances with the other Chief Gods and Lesser Gods. His form blurred and he darted out beside Lin Qiye,冲向 the unmarked left side!
His figure vanished instantly.
Almost simultaneously, the other deities darted left without hesitation, vanishing into time one after another.
In the Temporal Maze, moving a meter or so could instantly transport one to a different time. This was undoubtedly an easy escape route for them. As long as they crossed a few meters in an extremely short time, they could easily lose Lin Qiye—even he couldn't possibly know which time they had entered.
They moved too fast. By the time Lin Qiye raised his head, they had already vanished.
Lin Qiye stared at the direction where they had disappeared. He made no move to pursue.
He shook his head and said calmly:
"A bunch of idiots..."
...
No. 22 and three others passed through several different times in succession, heading in one direction before finally stopping.
From a spatial perspective, they had only moved forty or fifty meters, but from a temporal perspective, no one knew how much time had passed between them and Lin Qiye... Days? Months? Or years?
After confirming Lin Qiye hadn't caught up, the four of them relaxed simultaneously.
Either way, they had finally escaped that terrifying Commander Lin. The sword hanging over their heads could be considered gone for good.
"Holy Sovereign, I think I've figured out the pattern of this place!" Kubera said excitedly.
No. 22 gave him a sidelong glance. "No kidding? After all this time, even an idiot could see it!"
"After watching him operate a few times, I realized this maze isn't actually that difficult." Another Chief God nodded. "Once you understand the maze's essence, as long as you keep marking the path to determine your temporal position, you won't get lost.
Even without him, we can continue forward. Plus, we have more people and move faster, so we should be able to crack this maze before him!"
What this Chief God said was exactly what No. 22 had been thinking. Since they had learned the method to navigate the maze, there was no need to be free laborers for Lin Qiye. They had four people, after all, which meant their speed of solving the puzzle would be four times faster!
This meant they could even solve the ahead sections first, then hide in some time period to ambush Lin Qiye!
"For safety's sake, let's get even further from that guy's direction. Right now we only have four people, and combined we still might not be his match." No. 22 glanced at the number markers nearby and spoke.
Everyone nodded and followed behind No. 22, moving gradually away from Lin Qiye's direction...
After a long while, only when they could barely see Lin Qiye's marks did they begin carving into the ice, imitating what Lin Qiye had done.