Chapter 1576 1569: Heart of a Galaxy (9)
Chapter 1576 Chapter 1569: Heart of a Galaxy (9)
As mad laughter stirred the heart and flustered the mind, no one interfered, refusing to expose themselves to any potential dangers, while simultaneously staying close and guarded with their protection, World-Saint Neo-Dawn.
Eventually, the World Emperor began to cry tears of blood while whimpering weakly, falling asleep after several minutes of this. His body was caught by an ally of his of similar cultivation, brought back to his group, and slowly sealed his Sea of Consciousness and Mystic Core to prevent deviation of his cultivation while slumbering.
The World Emperor refused to give any of the corpses a deeper look. A sinister feeling enveloped everyone's heart, yet the question hung on everyone's soul: "What had he seen?"
"..." Young Master Shang took several swigs of his flagon.
"Death in a mirror,Reflection of spring's futureMadness seeps deeply."
"What did he see?" Qing Qiumu couldn't restrain her curiosity as she stared at Young Master Shang. Wei Wuyin held Yue Songli while the Void Image was solemn, repeatedly telling her to simply wait. She wanted to know what drove a World Emperor to madness.
Young Master Shang heaved a deep sigh. Innocence and curiosity were remarkable traits for cultivators to possess, and Qing Qiumu certainly had the latter in spades, her heart wrapped in a want for adventure and exploration. For freedom. "If I told you, I fear my Brother-In-Law would slap me where I stand before a single syllable leaves my lips, haha." He chuckled without any anxiety or nervousness, yet there was a hint of solemnity within his tone as he spoke.
"..." Su Mei glanced at Young Master Shang.
"Haha. No worries! My lips are sealed," Young Master Shang said heartily.
"Will he die?" Cao Cuifen asked. Seeing how the other sealed him off to prevent any potential deviation of his cultivation, if what he experienced was so traumatic, then would he simply perish after?
"No," Wei Wuyin answered flatly.
"What did he see?" Qing Qiumu refused to give up on this and asked Wei Wuyin's true body directly. This entire White Abyss was full of strange and seemingly impossible things, and it was unclear as to why or how. The Abyssal Overlords gave Qing Qiumu a look before turning to Wei Wuyin.
Yue Songli clenched Wei Wuyin's arms, seemingly drawing strength from him. "I want...to know too." While Wei Wuyin had told her to wait and he would take her out of this sinister graveyard that was the violet zone, her curiosity was unable to be suppressed either. Without Spiritual Sense, it was extremely difficult to gain information about these corpses.
"..." At this point, everyone was looking toward Wei Wuyin. Since the very beginning, Wei Wuyin had conceded to Yue Songli's wants without hesitation, willing to hold up the sky and shuttle the world. Will he relent here?
Shockingly, Wei Wuyin seemed to turn a deaf ear to Yue Songli's spoken desire and looked to Qing Qiumu, asking: "Are you sure you want to know?"
Qing Qiumu could feel the oppressive air within his voice, and she clenched her fists and felt her heart grow taut with anxiety. However, the light in her eyes solidified like steel. She firmly nodded, "I do. I won't regret knowing."
Wei Wuyin nodded, turning his head to kiss Yue Songli's nape, causing her to blush slightly. That small gesture was enough for her to realize that he would alleviate her curiosity and satisfy her desire. He pointed at an empty space on the deck. A flash of silvery light erupted at that point!
The Abyssal Overlords all blanched at the sight that followed. Meanwhile, the rest were taken aback and shaken to their core.
It was a corpse.A corpse...of that World Emperor. The glow of a pendant hung on his neck. There was no sign of damage, but his soul had been thoroughly dispersed, a sign of peacefully exhausting its soulspan. They've seen corpses like this before!
There were signs of a greater degree of age than the living one they saw. More importantly, there was faint evidence of its cultivation base.
"A Heavenly Saint? It has his face?! Why? How?!" Cao Cuifen exclaimed in explosive disbelief that resonated with each individual watching, excluding Wei Wuyin, Young Master Shang, the Abyssal Overlords, Yao Houyi, and Su Mei. The World Emperor was a Worldly Saint, and he was just sealed! How could he be here? As an Original Magistrate? As a corpse?!
"Is this real? Or an illusion? Perhaps a Temporal Illusion?" Qing Qiumu asked as she eyed the corpse. She wasn't too shaken by the discovery.
"It's not," Yao Houyi answered.
"Not an illusion?" Cao Cuifen was unable to believe that. She wanted to reach out and touch it to verify that. However, Su Mei grabbed her wrist. She couldn't move an inch closer.
"You?"
"Don't get closer and don't touch it." Su Mei warned with a forceful tone, immediately shutting down all of Cao Cuifen's thoughts of investigating further. She instead retreated closer to Wei Wuyin. For some odd reason, she was feeling incredibly unsafe after Su Mei's warning. After a brief moment, that feeling dissipated.
"I'm shielding you all from the temporal paradox," Wei Wuyin eased their hearts.
"Paradox? What paradox?" asked Cao Cuifen.
"The knowledge of the future," Young Master Shang answered as he eyed Wei Wuyin, unable to understand why he was willing to bring them into this paradoxical event. There was a difference between a guess and a truth. Even though the Abyssal Overlords and himself, perhaps even some intelligent beings on board or watching among the escorts, the difference between a guess and a truth was the factual, unquestionable reality of it all.
They were all now embroiled in a paradox. Moreover, this was enough to answer the question that was purposefully and subconsciously elusive in the minds of everyone, and why the debate of one and thousands kept repeating without an answer, to the point where Heavenly Seers had never tried to rectify the truth. In fact, they might have, but the consequences of knowing these paradoxes were enough to experience a drastic life-threatening backlash.
Who knows how many curious Seers have died because of that? As for why Ming Shufeng survived, her Radiant Fate Qi and her Cultivation Method deeply involved the profundity of time. She wasn't as bothered as long as the situation remained unclear and muddled in her mind.
"Wait...are you saying?!" Qing Qiumu and Yue Songli both said at the exact same time, their voices infused with surprise and heartfelt shock.
Wei Wuyin decided to take the lead here, "He saw himself. He saw his death."
"How is that possible?! Is this corpse real? If so, how does he...how old is it? Why is that even...I just...what do we... Are we in the past or the future? Is this the present...ARE WE EVEN HERE?!" Cao Cuifen was slowly losing her mind with the inconsistency of it all, questioning reality itself. However, a cool sensation seeped into her psyche, slowly easing her from descending into madness.
"And that's how he felt, but a thousand times more intense," Young Master Shang said as he gestured toward Cao Cuifen. She was on the verge of entering a state of temporal madness, a type of illness that far exceeds spatial sickness.
Cao Cuifen soon settled and she found herself by Wei Wuyin, his left arm wrapped around her waist, and her lips pressed on by his. All signs of temporal madness in her eyes vanished as she relaxed. With two beauties in his arms, Wei Wuyin would be envied by many if it wasn't for the situation and grim environment.
After a while, Wei Wuyin stopped kissing Cao Cuifen and then pointed at the corpse. "This is a perpetual paradox of a Substantial Future and Actualized Future clashing with itself. After learning of it, it slowly enters into becoming an Actualized Future for your time, but due to the nature of the world, that's impossible. As you are, you can't actualize a future, so the River of Time will end you if you don't end yourself.
"He has died. He has seen himself die, and he has realized the truth of this world. That each colored zone isn't consistent in the flow of time we exist in. Right now, we're in an Isolated Time Zone. It's hard to explain, but I'll try to simplify it.
"Each zone exists in every point of the flow of time from its beginning to its end. There's only one, but due to the White Abyss' chaotic pressure by its chaos mana, these Isolated Time Zones usually can't move, move and have irregular movements while doing so. Therefore, you'll find thousands if you use unique sensory methods. But each zone exists at a different point in time.
"Our current zone is roughly seven thousand years into the future-Our Substantial Future. The blue zone we found is located in our past. Tens of thousands of years back, to be exact. However, upon leaving any of these zones, we return to our present. So do those of our past or future."
Su Mei's eyes flickered, "So the blue zone was looted by those of the past, tens of thousands of years in the past, and we entered it before it could replenish itself with time?"
Wei Wuyin nodded, "Very recently. As we entered, they had just left."
The listening crowd was shaken! That explained why sometimes the zones were considered great safe zones and other times areas of great calamity! Who knows if the story of the green zone being empty was because they had refined all the greels? Acting as a safe zone for others!
Soon, questions flooded their minds.
Wait...
Wait...?
Wait...!
When their thoughts cascaded into a singular swirling point of confusion, all converging on several thought-provoking questions, thousands felt their heads pound ferociously with throbbing pain.
"Haaa..."
Wei Wuyin slowly let Yue Songli go, his breath a grayish hue and visible as the Minor Time Law began to coalesce with his Draconic Void Starforce and Alchemic Eden Starforce. Their confusion eased as the paradoxical confusion growing within them began to regress.
"Calm your mind. A paradoxical event isn't meant to be understood by typical beings. At its core, it's an event of impossibility derived from inconsistency. How can you understand an impossible inconstant so easily? Knowledge of a paradox like this is unable to be removed by basic means which is why I've avoided speaking directly.
"However, this is meant to be a learning experience. So the only solution left remains: Destruction of the Paradoxical Source. To eliminate this Substantial Future and make it an unrealized point in time in any flow."
Wei Wuyin's eyes morphed into that of a True Dragon's exuding boundless might and endlessness of the void. Then, raising his hands to the sky, Wei Wuyin tapped into Little Defiant's energies.
"Collapse!"
Within the perception of everyone, the world fragmented as if at its seams. All of space, time, and reality cracked.
No one could resist.
"Is that the last zone? The indigo zone?" Yue Songli asked excitedly within Wei Wuyin's arms.
"What will we do after this zone? Are there more colored zones or other regions?" Qing Qiumu asked Wei Wuyin's Void Image, her emerald eyes brighter than stars.
"Gurgh!"
Suddenly, Su Mei vomited, her hands clutched at her chest.
Thud!
Young Master Shang collapsed with a thud, unconscious.
Boom!
Shui Fengbao erupted into a fiery humanoid, fluttering violently as if besieged by a raging spring gust. The heat was so intense that everyone nearby had to take several steps back.
Yao Houyi clutched at his eyes and throat while veins protruded from his temple and neck. They pulsed intensely as if threatening to burst.
The shadow beneath Su Mei's feet shimmered chaotically, sometimes looking like a woman's other times as an elderly, hunched figure fishing with a long rod. The woman and elderly figure seemed to be both in pain.
Wei Wuyin held back a shout as he didn't wish to place too much strength on Yue Songli. Despite her cultivation, a little lack of control could shatter her entirely given his draconic strength.
Suddenly, both Yue Songli and Qing Qiumu's eyes lit with a temporal radiance that was grayish in hue. A flash of seven-colored light accompanied it for a brief moment, and then all resumed back to normal. Their expressions were slightly pale but nothing more.
The Abyssal Overlords had all been brought to their knees on deck, barely hanging on as they spewed out copious amounts of colorful blood. Not a single one wasn't struggling to remain upright and conscious.
"Wha-what just happened?!" Crimson Blade growled. The reverberation of his voice screamed agony and suffering alongside confusion and uncertainty.
"Was that...our future? An unsubstantiated future? A potential substantial future that collapsed?" Fairy Silence revealed her incredible level of knowledge and experience, her age and cultivation base allowing her to zero in on what she had just experienced while everyone else was still trying to gather information and memories.
Wei Wuyin coughed, "I had to destroy it. If I hadn't, our futures may have been set and determined. Affecting our existence at all points in the flow of time." Earlier, Wei Wuyin hadn't delved into the consequences of existing in that zone, to have a substantial future set at a point in time. It was extremely dangerous and could affect the casualty of time and space, affect the very River of Time itself.
Even if they left normally, the consequences would not have been insignificant. The Abyssal Overlords understood this, and that was why they were pale from the moment they entered and realized the truth of the zone and all the other zones. If the Keeper of Time didn't erase them for being living containers of a paradox, then they would just go mad and die.
"The Blessed Yri Empire was said to have a portion of the River of Time within them, so Young Master Shang knew that his life, this body of his, was essentially over after entering with a clarity far exceeding anything the Abyssal Overlords understood."
Only Wei Wuyin who grasped the Law of Time would have an understanding of the depth of shit they had entered besides him!
"Did you reverse time?" Qing Qiumu asked as she looked around and saw the violet zone before them. She had retained her memories of the event, except some key points as if omitted purposefully, but she gathered a few things from just recalling it all.
Wei Wuyin shook his head, "No reversal, no regression. We never entered. We never will. Don't think too much, and let me bring you all out of here. Our sightseeing trip is over."
Qing Qiumu and Yue Songli silently nodded while most felt nothing, confused by the events on the Minor Elysium. However, those at the Heavenly Saint Phase felt as if something strange had occurred, and their Mystic Souls were quivering intensely.
Fortunately, only those who've grasped laws to a certain extent would feel any lingering effects.
Wei Wuyin sighed as he looked at his spirits, specifically Kratos. The representation of the Law of Time circulating around his Astral Soul was bulging intensely and shrinking quietly, brimming with a lively temporal aura.
"I can feel it growing stronger..." Kratos growled.
Wei Wuyin didn't know the requirements to progress the various laws with in-depth knowledge, but he could feel that it had made considerable improvements after that Isolated Time Zone event. Was it the experience? Or was it his control increasing by continuous usage and varied applications? Both?
Wei Wuyin thought about it and perhaps shattering or experiencing an Unsubstantiated Future was a requirement to progressing beyond the Minor Authority, similar to how experiencing an Actualized Future or Substantial Past was needed to grasp the Seed of Time Law. If so, what was the next stage?
Yue Songli sighed after a long while, smiling brightly soon after. "I've enjoyed this!"
Wei Wuyin smiled, "Good." That was enough.