Allison embedded the crown of thorns into the pocket watch, and the gears erupted with a blue light of dimensional resonance. She stepped into the void split by the coordinates, plummeting into a purgatory composed of gear-shaped planets—each planet's surface was carved with the crests of Winston and Lancaster, where mechanical gears and flesh tissue grew in a hybrid fusion. Time fragments bound by chains floated in the sky, and wails transmitted between dimensions like electric currents.
"The Gate of Immortality lies on the core star, but you will not reach it alive," a mechanical voice echoed from all the planets. Her grandmother's face flickered in the gaps between the gears. "Subject #07, your destiny is to be a sacrifice, not a curse-breaker."
Thorny roots pierced the void from Allison's palm, weaving into temporal anchors. She discovered that the chains between the planets were not restraints, but pipelines transporting the temporal memories of her clansmen—the moment her father was poisoned, the cries of infants in plague villages, and all of Allison's death scenes looped in the pipelines, providing energy for the Gate of Immortality.
"Feeding immortality with family suffering... this is your answer." She tore off her armor, and a furnace-like flame burst from the core of her heart. Thorny vines devoured the chains, converting the pain of memories into explosive fuel. The planetary gears began to crack, and mechanical guards surged from the fissures: their bodies were the remains of past enemies, their weapons coated with toxins from different time periods.
Allison's roots reversed to analyze the toxin components, and the vines differentiated into antibody blades, slicing through the guards' attacks. But each destroyed planet only released more guards, and her grandmother's voice mocked from among the guard horde: "The Gate of Immortality needs the blood of martyrs, and you have voluntarily become the fuel."
She leaped into the center of the gear storm, and the crown of thorns suddenly split open, revealing the hidden "Temporal Reversal Wheel" inside. Allison gritted her teeth and turned the wheel, and the dimensions began to collapse in reverse—the guards' attack movements replayed backward, and the devoured memories of pain flowed back into the planetary cores. Her grandmother's face screamed amid the collapse: "You've tampered with the ritual!"
The collapsing planets transformed into temporal dust, which gathered into a bridge leading to the core star. As Allison stepped onto the bridge, she found that each footprint was branded with the death symbols of her clansmen, and the thorny roots automatically absorbed the symbols to strengthen themselves. The core star was close at hand, its surface flowing with liquid immortal energy, and its doorframe forged from the vertebrae of countless Allison clones.
"A curse-breaker is ultimately just a tool." A deep resonant voice came from beyond the gate. A figure rose from the liquid energy—it was not human, but the "Immortality Ritual Entity" condensed from four centuries of the family curse. Its body was a dragon composed of gears, its scales carved with runes of temporal paradoxes, and its pupils glowed with the killing memories of all enemies.
"You raised me in bloodline vessels; now it is your turn to become my nourishment." The ritual entity spewed temporal vortexes, and Allison's crown of thorns began to corrode. Realizing conventional attacks were ineffective, she embedded the Reversal Wheel into the core of her heart. Her roots pierced the dimensional barriers, directly tampering with the ritual's source code.
"Tampering with immortality? You are not qualified!" The ritual entity tore through her armor, its scaled claws piercing her heart. But in the midst of intense pain, Allison reversed to devour the temporal paradoxes of the claws, and her thorny roots melted and forged into a new "Dimensional Blade." She swung the blade to sever the ritual entity's code chains, and with each strike, the dragon's body decomposed into the vengeful spirits of past enemies.
"My pain, your despair—return it all to you." Allison ed roared amid the storm of vengeful spirits, and her roots recompiled the fragmented code into a "Curse Termination Protocol." The ritual entity dissolved into gear debris, and the Gate of Immortality collapsed into a heart entangled with thorns—it was precisely her grandmother's original heart, completely devoured by the thorny roots.
As the dimensional rift closed, Allison held the collapsed heart in her hand, and the pocket watch's dial displayed the brand "Curse Terminated." But a mechanical voice signal sounded again, this time from the depths of the void: "The experiment is terminated, but a new game is about to begin—temporal rifts will always need stitchers."
She looked at the collapsing cluster of gear planets, realizing that although the family curse was broken, the rifts between dimensions might breed new threats. The crown of thorns turned silvery-white, and its roots lay dormant quietly, waiting for the unknown call.