Du Yanze jolted awake in the familiar golden light of the City Lord's library, his heart already racing before his mind caught up to the horror. The floating formations above hummed their gentle tune, jade shelves gleamed in the afternoon sun, and everything was exactly as it had been two days ago.

Again.

"No, no, no," he whispered, pressing his palms against his temples. The memories crashed over him like a tide: Little Bloom's desperate cries, the ancient oak burning alive, Feng Zhaoyang simply ceasing to exist. All of it real. All of it happening again.

This was the third time.

The first time, he'd been too shocked to think clearly. He'd stumbled through the same conversations, made the same choices, watched the same people die. The second time, he'd tried to change things: warned everyone early, prepared better defenses. It hadn't mattered. The Tribunal's purifying fire had still consumed everyone he cared about.

"Divine being?" Du Yanze called out internally, already knowing there would be no answer. "Ke Yin?"

Silence. Just the quiet hum of his own spiritual energy and the ticking of time moving inexorably toward disaster.

Du Yanze forced himself to stand, to move, to think. He had infinite chances to get this right. The question was whether his sanity would last long enough to find the solution.

***

The loops continued, but the worst part wasn't the dying; it was the hope.

Every time Du Yanze emerged from the City Lord's library, he'd see the same scene: Little Bloom bouncing excitedly, the ancient oak's branches swaying with anticipation, Feng Zhaoyang's face lighting up with relief. Even the Stone Emperor would somehow manage to look expectant despite being a boulder.

"Divine Mister!" Little Bloom would cry, racing toward him on her tiny legs.

"I’m not him," Du Yanze would have to say, watching the light fade from her eyes. "The divine being is gone. It's just me."

The disappointment was crushing every single time. In one of the loops, Feng Zhaoyang had actually stepped back, his expression shifting from joy to barely concealed despair.

"You mean... the divine being has truly departed?" the City Lord had asked, his voice hollow. "Then we face the Tribunal alone?"

"I'm still here," Du Yanze had protested, but even he could hear how pathetic it sounded.

What was one newly-advanced World-Writ Sovereign against the full might of the Tribunal?

By the seventh loop, Du Yanze had started trying to project more confidence when he emerged.

"The divine being entrusted me with his power," he'd declared, trying to channel some of Ke Yin's calm authority. "I can protect everyone."

Little Bloom had clapped her tiny branches together. "Really? You can grow trees?”

"Well... not exactly that specific technique, but…"

"What about the blue writing in the air?"

"I... that’s a technique that only the divine being can do…"

"Oh." Little Bloom's enthusiasm had deflated like a punctured balloon. "So, you can't do the divine being things?"

"No," Du Yanze had admitted quietly. "I can't."

The ancient oak had tried to be encouraging. "I'm sure you have your own strengths, Young Master. The divine being chose you as a vessel for a reason."

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But they all knew the truth. When the Tribunal arrived with overwhelming force, they weren't facing Ke Yin, they were facing Du Yanze, who'd spent most of his life being humiliated by Lu Wenjun.

By the ninth loop, Du Yanze had stopped trying to pretend he was anything more than what he was. The crushing weight of everyone's disappointed expectations was almost worse than the knowledge of their coming deaths.

"It's just me," he'd say simply as he emerged from the library. "The divine being is gone, and it's just me."

And then he'd watch their faces fall, knowing that in a few hours, he'd have to watch them die.

***

In those early loops, Du Yanze tried everything he could think of.

He'd attempted evacuation; the Tribunal forces simply hunted down every fleeing civilian like wolves after sheep. He'd tried negotiating; the masked figures had laughed at his offer of surrender before executing everyone anyway. He'd even tried hiding, letting Feng Zhaoyang face the threat alone, but watching from a distance as his friend was erased from existence had been worse than dying himself.

"I know this sounds insane," Du Yanze said desperately to the assembled group in the courtyard, "but this has all happened before. We're trapped in some kind of time loop, and—"

"Young Master," Li Qiang interrupted gently, "perhaps the stress of becoming a divine vessel has affected your mind? You've been acting strangely since the divine being left."

Little Bloom tilted her tiny crown of leaves. "What's a time loop, Big Brother Yanze?"

Du Yanze felt his heart break a little more. How could he explain that he'd watched her burn to death dozens of times already? That every time he closed his eyes, he saw her tiny branches reaching for him as the purifying fire consumed her?

"It means... it means we get to try things again if they go wrong," he said finally.

"That sounds nice!" Little Bloom chirped. "Like when I try to grow a new leaf and it comes out crooked, so I make it fall off and grow a better one!"

If only it were that simple.

***

The thirtheen loop was when Du Yanze first tried to run. Not just evacuate, actually flee the city by himself entirely. Maybe if he could get strong enough somewhere else, he could come back and make a difference.

He made it three hundred li from the city before Zhao Mingwei caught up to him. The Tribunal member's spiritual pressure crushed him to the ground like a mountain falling.

"Did you really think you could escape judgment, Disbeliever?" Zhao Mingwei's voice carried cold amusement. "The corruption in your soul calls to us like a beacon. There is nowhere in this realm you can hide."

The white-robed figure raised a brush loaded with golden Xuan Yi. "Your cowardice only proves the depths of your spiritual decay."

Du Yanze tried to speak, to plead, to explain, but the words wouldn't come. The Tribunal member's technique was already forming: Cowards Die Alone and Forgotten.

The last thing Du Yanze saw was the character for "forgotten" blazing with righteous fire as it descended toward his head.

***

"Listen to me," Du Yanze said urgently in the fifteenth loop, grabbing Feng Zhaoyang by the shoulders. "In six hours, Tribunal forces led by Zhao Mingwei will arrive. They have a formation that can absorb and reflect Disbeliever techniques. When you attack with your binding formation, they'll turn it into pure conviction and use it to erase you from existence."

Feng Zhaoyang's eyes widened. "How could you possibly know—"

"Because I've seen it happen!" Du Yanze's voice cracked with exhaustion. "Fourteen times now! They're going to kill Little Bloom while she's calling for her Papa. They're going to burn the ancient oak alive. They're going to—"

"Du Yanze," Feng Zhaoyang said gently, "I understand the pressure you must be under, but—"

"I'm not crazy!" Du Yanze shouted, then immediately regretted it as he saw Little Bloom flinch. The tiny sapling had never seen him angry before. In her limited experience, Big Brother Yanze was always patient and kind.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, kneeling to stroke her leaves. "I'm sorry, Little Bloom. Big Brother is just... tired."

"It's okay," she said softly. "Mama Tree used to get tired too, before she went to sleep forever. Maybe you need a nap?"

Du Yanze closed his eyes. If only it were that simple.

***

The twentieth loop brought the first real breakthrough. Not in the battle, that still ended with everyone dead and Du Yanze torn apart by five World-Writ Sovereigns, but in his cultivation.

The stress of dying repeatedly, the constant circulation of Xuan Yi during combat, the desperate attempts to master techniques beyond his level... it was all adding up. As he reset back to the library, Du Yanze felt his spiritual foundation trembling on the edge of advancement.

"Interesting," he murmured, settling into meditation.

One advantage of the time loop was that he had endless opportunities to push his cultivation without fear of permanent damage. If he crippled himself attempting a breakthrough, he'd just reset and try again.

He dove deep into his Throne of Will, examining the Mandelbrot Recursion pattern that hummed with temporal energy. The mathematical structure was more complex than he'd initially understood, with layers upon layers of self-referential loops that somehow existed outside normal causality.

As he studied the pattern, Du Yanze began to understand why Ke Yin had chosen this specific formation. It wasn't just about creating time loops; it was about preserving growth across temporal resets. Every technique he learned, every cultivation insight he gained, every moment of understanding... all of it was being recorded in the pattern's infinite complexity.

He wasn't just reliving the same two days. He was accumulating centuries of experience in compressed time.