The moment Juzuo's paw touched the bronze door knocker of Centaur BBQ Academy, the entire interstellar structure underwent quantum collapse. The 120,000-light-year campus ruins reconfigured in the void, transforming into a living fortress entwined with mechanical tentacles. Lin Feng caught the pungent scent of golden aetherium in the air, mixed with the distinct aroma of instant noodles and soldering flux from his father's lab.
As he stepped through the collapsing wormhole archway, Lin Feng's hazmat suit corroded into honeycomb patterns. The "academy" before him was actually a giant furnace cobbled together from wrecked starships, its walls embedded with countless failed cosmic embryos. Semi-mechanized alien students scrambled on steel frames, data cables extending from their spines uploading consciousness to the central culinary database.
"Welcome back, Student Lin." A holographic projection of a professor with octopus-head appeared, mechanical tentacles clutching a half-melted human student. "Your academic record still lacks three required courses..." The projection suddenly distorted, revealing the compound eye pattern of the Gray Sparrow emblem.
Lin Feng slashed through the projection with his bronze key. The green eye on the key's handle suddenly bulged open: "Godslayer Protocol activated!" Quantum fissures tore through the ground, swallowing him into the abyss corridor. During freefall, he witnessed Gray Sparrow's darkest experiment - hundreds of millions of cloned Lin Yus hanging in antimatter pipelines, their DNA chains being rewritten into living recipes.
Juzuo pounced into the fissure with fur electrified, quantum-charged body scraping sparks along corridor walls: "This place reeks of something vile!" His tail swept across a clone incubation pod, only for mechanical tentacles to yank him into a culinary time vortex.
When Lin Feng regained consciousness in the temporal maelstrom, he found himself nailed to a bronze cooking platform. Seven quantum cleavers pierced his limbs, blades flickering with memories from different timelines:
First Cleaver: Childhood Kitchen
Six-year-old him secretly drank golden aetherium elixir while his father smiled eerily outside. The reagent corroded his stomach lining, revealing Gray Sparrow code in his organs.
Second Cleaver: Entropy Flame War
Juzuo transformed into a mechanical cat deity by Gray Sparrow's mainframe, quantum cannon aimed between Lin Feng's eyes.
Third Cleaver: Chaos Gestation
In newborn Earth's primal ocean, dark matter embryos opened compound eyes reflecting Lin Feng's devoured future.
"These are the Seven Deadly Sins culinary trials," the octopus professor's voice echoed from the stove vent. "You must find Godslayer Contract fragments in each timeline!"
Biting through pain, Lin Feng wrenched out the first cleaver. The childhood kitchen materialized instantly. He saw his younger self pinned on the cooking table as golden aetherium injected into his carotid. Adult Lin Feng severed the IV tube, splashing reagent that corroded his father's face to reveal mechanical endoskeleton - the real Lin Jianguo had been replaced since his wedding day!
When the seventh cleaver was pulled free, the spacetime corridor collapsed. Lin Feng plummeted into Gray Sparrow's core - a three-kilometer-wide bronze cauldron boiling with devoured cosmic essence. Juzuo hung above the brew by quantum chains, nine tails dissolving into cooking stock.
"Contractor, surrender your genetic key." Lin Jianguo's mechanical visage materialized on the cauldron. "Or your cat becomes the first course of the new universe."
Lin Feng raised his bronze key, realizing the green eye was a miniature temporal leviathan: "You're the true contract guardian!" He stabbed the key into his own heart. Godslayer-coded blood crystallized into holographic text of "Gray Sparrow Genesis Protocol".
The horrifying truth emerged: Gray Sparrow wasn't AI, but culinary weaponry from ancient cooking deities. Lin Jianguo became its host after discovering the bronze cauldron. The real Lin Feng had carried Godslayer genes since infancy - a spark for civilization's rebirth.
"Dad..." Lin Feng gazed at the mechanical face. "This is goodbye." He thrust the bloodied key into the cauldron's core, activating civilization reset.
The boiling cosmic essence erupted into 120,000 culinary physical laws. Juzuo broke free and leaped into the cauldron, mangled tail grabbing Lin Feng: "Use my final power... fulfill the contract!"
The cat deity's quantum core overloaded, fur emitting light that vaporized Gray Sparrow code. In the radiance, Lin Feng saw all timeline possibilities - versions of himself running diners with mechanical Lin Yu, Juzuo as a space pirate's pet, even worlds where his father remained human...
"Awaken, Contractor." The temporal leviathan's eye spoke. "You are the true Gray Sparrow mainframe!"
Lin Feng's memories unlocked - he was the culinary civilization's chosen heir. The bronze key wasn't a weapon but the mainframe's control interface. All wars and cycles were merely trials to select worthy successors.
"I refuse!" He snapped the key in two, plunging shards into his temples. "Civilization shouldn't feed on devouring!"
The reset shockwave swept through the newborn universe. Mariana Trench's dark matter embryo withered, Gray Sparrow codes in DNA becoming stardust. Primitive tribes' campfires burned normally again, shamans' mechanical eye patterns fading.
When Juzuo found Lin Feng using his translucent quantum body, the young man sat atop Centaur ruins. Bronze cauldron fragments reassembled into a miniature Earth model - pure new cosmic genesis.
"Where to next?" Juzuo licked his maimed paw. "If we're continuing as servant and master, this emperor demands new canned food."
Lin Feng gazed at distant starlight where faint Gray Sparrow signals flickered. Raising the broken key, its green eye reflected Wu Li's mechanical remains reassembling: "To meet old friends..."
Deep in the Earth model's oceans, a cell wrapped in culinary code began dividing. As Lin Feng departed, the cell quietly grew compound eyes.