Chapter Twenty-One: The Ouroboros

During the voting, Yang Qiu was even more nervous than Natasha. What was with these people? Originally, this script was meant to be extremely short, but now, a portion of its energy was being used just to replicate Natasha. If things continued this way, the outcome of the evolutionary product would be greatly diminished.

Fortunately, the final result was as Yang Qiu expected. Watching people who looked exactly like herself moving about every day, most of the Natashas found it hard to accept and chose to interact with the anomaly directly.

As the first person to appear, Natasha took the lead and walked straight to the clock, reaching out to touch it.

Click. The moment her hand touched the clock, a jamming sound entered Natasha's ears. She then discovered that her perspective was stretching farther and farther, until she saw the back of her own head and her hand gripping the clock.

In the eyes of the other Natashas, after "she" grasped the clock, she vanished from sight. As everyone looked at each other in confusion, they noticed that their distance from the clock was steadily decreasing, drawing closer and closer.

In the next moment, everyone stood before the clock, and slowly began to merge into one entity.

To Natasha, the cycles of time connected one after another, then the image began to flatten and elongate, transforming into a snake—a snake forever chasing its own tail.

Epilogue: Ouroboros

"Miss Scarlett? Are you alright?" Cory's voice pulled Natasha back to reality.

"Ah, I'm fine." Natasha regained her composure to find everything around her had returned to normal. The movements of those present were unfamiliar to her, suggesting she had escaped the time loop.

The sensation in her palm made Natasha look down. Lying there was a small stopwatch, which looked much like an ordinary vintage stopwatch, except with more ornate decorations. Its hands were frozen at eight o’clock in the evening.

Is this what trapped me for so long?

Natasha considered stowing the stopwatch away. This object was clearly far more important than the original mission Nick Fury had given her—it could influence time itself.

Whoosh—a shadow flashed before Natasha's eyes, and the stopwatch vanished. Natasha drew her gun, aiming to her left.

There, Ann was holding the stopwatch's crown in her mouth, swinging it gently.

"Put it down!" Natasha gripped her pistol, ready to fire at any moment.

Beside her, Cory was terrified. In his understanding, this was a bizarre turn of events: the young lady had pulled a gun from her dress and aimed it at a cat?!

Ann lifted her right paw and lightly tapped Natasha. In that instant, Natasha's whole body went rigid, her finger unable to pull the trigger. Simultaneously, she felt a burning sensation in her right arm, as if something had scalded her.

The next moment, the sound of helicopters echoed from above the yacht. Teams of agents descended by rope, securing the area.

Natasha looked down at her arm. It bore a faint black pattern—the very ouroboros she had seen when she grasped the stopwatch.

In Yang Qiu's home, Ann returned with the stopwatch and placed it in Yang Qiu's hand. Then, with a flicker, she leapt beside the fish tank, her eyes shining as she stared at the blue pouch fish inside, nearly drooling.

Yang Qiu shook his head. Ann had performed admirably this time, so he let her be. Even if she wanted to pounce on the fish, he had no objection.

Script Five: Ghost Ship

Plot Synopsis: The tick-tock of the hands continues, yet time does not advance normally. On this seemingly ordinary yacht, a most bizarre incident unfolds—agents endlessly duplicated, a mysterious black cat appearing suddenly, strange fish roaming around the ship. What is the origin of all this...?

Script Evolution Result: Qualified

Script Evolution Product: Kieran's Time Stopwatch

The powerful time mage Kieran, due to the side effects of his experiments, found his consciousness separating from time. He experienced every moment, from the past to the present and onward to the future, but could not affect reality. The greatest agony in life is knowing you will lose something, yet having it not happen yet. To solve this, Kieran attempted to use time loops to escape the sea of time and return to reality. The time stopwatch was his perfected creation, but though the loop was completed, he remained unable to break free from the sea of time.

The instant the stopwatch is activated, the user constructs an internal loop from their current timeline, thus affecting others' ability to perceive their place in time.

After reading the introduction, Yang Qiu flicked the stopwatch and pressed the activation button with his thumb.

A golden clock spun inside his pupils, then sank deep into his mind. The time loop was established.

In the sea of time of the Marvel world, a figure suddenly vanished from Earth's timeline. Among countless spiraling, entangled, and advancing individual timelines, one person's disappearance was like a drop of water lost in the ocean—unnoticed.

Whoosh—Yang Qiu exhaled, and when he opened his eyes, the whole world seemed to have changed. Though he could not yet track the flow of time, it was as if he had gained an extra sense, able to perceive shifts in time more easily than others.

For example: Under the power of the Time Stone, ordinary people caught in repeating loops would have no awareness; each cycle would seem like the first to them. Only at the level of Dormammu, or after studying and comprehending the rules of time, could one sense its fluctuations.

Thus, the method used by the future Doctor Strange to drag Dormammu away with time would not work on ordinary people. Yet, against them, there was no need to rely on time loops to achieve victory or stalemate.

"Now, I should be safe," Yang Qiu breathed a sigh of relief, intending to see whether his fish and cat were still peacefully coexisting.

Knock, knock, knock—a gentle knocking came from the door.

Yang Qiu glanced that way, feeling something strange, though he couldn't immediately identify what it was.

Instinctively, he walked to the door, turned the handle, and only then realized—it was time!

Time had just tangled together. If time were like iron filings evenly scattered across the world, then the doorway now held a giant magnet.

Click—the stopwatch in Yang Qiu's pocket made a sound, its spinning hand halted, and the whole device reset to its pre-activation state.

Gulp—Yang Qiu swallowed hard. On Earth, there was likely only one person capable of such a feat!

The door slowly opened, revealing a bald head. The face wore a gentle smile, but in Yang Qiu's eyes, that smile seemed to hide endless danger.