Allison followed the direction of the pocket watch's gears and stepped into the spatial-temporal rift that split open at the coordinates. She plummeted into a chaotic realm—clouds woven from alchemical runes, the ground flowing with liquid time, and countless transparent pyramids towering in the distance. Inside each pyramid, generations of members from the Winston and Lancaster families floated suspended, their bodies connected by mechanical pipelines like larvae in a beehive.
"Welcome to the 'Dimensional Hub'," her grandmother's voice echoed from all the pyramids. Her figure was projected above the liquid time, clad in a golden robe inlaid with gears, holding a beating heart covered in thorny patterns in her hands. "Here lies the collected experimental data from all timelines, and you—have finally become the perfect key."
Allison's crown of thorns revived automatically, its roots piercing through dimensional barriers to draw energy. She realized the clansmen in the pyramids were not corpses, but living specimens whose temporal memories had been extracted—her father frozen in the moment of screaming as he poisoned himself, her grandmother in her youth performing a vertebra transplant, countless clones of Allison opening their eyes in cultivation pods.
"You're the true immortal," she shouted, swinging her vines to slash at the projection, only to find her attack refracted by the dimensional barrier. Black mist seeped from her grandmother's robe, transforming into a new Guardian—this time, a fused entity of countless Allison mirrors, each face bearing scars and rage from different timelines.
"I've spent four hundred years optimizing the bloodline vessel," her grandmother manipulated the pyramids to unleash a temporal tide, in which plague villages, Berlin ruins, and modern wedding venues collided. "Every time you traveled through time, you strengthened the experimental data. And today, you will open the Gate of Immortality for us."
A blazing white flame erupted from the core of Allison's heart, and her thorny roots reversed to devour the tide, forging temporal shards into new layers of her crown. She realized her grandmother's goal was not personal immortality, but elevating the entire family to become rulers of time and space. Every strike from the mirror Guardian was forged from her own battle memories, yet Allison retrieved all the weaknesses of her past enemies through her roots; her vines transformed into a thousand blades, piercing the mirrors' cracks one by one.
"Using my memories against me? You underestimate the will of a curse-breaker." She embedded her crown of thorns into the core of the Dimensional Hub. The liquid time began to boil, and the experimental specimens in the pyramids dissolved into data streams that surged into her veins. Her grandmother's projection shrieked as it materialized, her golden robe tearing to reveal a body filled with mechanical organs.
"Allison, you were supposed to be my most perfect creation!" She lunged at Allison, her heart organ spewing time-corroding poison mist. But Allison's heart suddenly began to beat in reverse, her roots converting the mist into fuel for her thorns. She tore open her grandmother's mechanical spine, discovering an ancient pocket watch hidden within—its face displaying the death moments of all experimental subjects, its gears forged from the vertebrae of the first Winston woman.
"So you're the true host," Allison drove the pocket watch into her grandmother's heart. The grind of interlocking gears detonated the Dimensional Hub. The pyramids collapsed, and the experimental data streams backlashed into her grandmother's mechanical body. Her face in corrosion: "You can't kill me... the immortality ritual endures in higher dimensions..."
Before the rift closed, Allison caught a glimpse of higher-dimensional outlines—countless gear-shaped planets floating there, each bearing the crests of Winston and Lancaster on their surfaces. She fell back to reality, her crown of thorns extinguishing. A new coordinate appeared on the pocket watch: "Dimension No. X-07. The Gate of Immortality remains operational."
An encrypted signal buzzed on her phone again, but this time a mechanical voice spoke: "Subject #07, your mission is incomplete. Activate the crown of thorns and proceed to Dimension X-07..." Allison crushed the signal source, realizing her grandmother's death was merely an illusion, and the true source of the family curse awaited beyond the dimensions, at the Gate of Immortality.