Chapter Forty-Six: The Unusual Future Branch

The Lunar Emperor continued, “When I once quelled the chaos of darkness, many supreme beings from the Forbidden Zones became my enemies. It’s very likely they have united.”

“Though the path to immortality has become their obsession, they are unwilling to engage in a supreme-level battle before the path officially opens, fearing it would disrupt the balance.”

“But once a person crosses a line, there is no limit to how far they will fall...”

The Lunar Emperor’s face grew increasingly somber as he recalled what he knew. Beside him, the Solar Emperor remained silent and grave.

There is an old saying: the moon’s phases reflect one’s fate, and the lunar cycle is the wheel of destiny.

Possessing the Lunar Constitution, the Lunar Emperor had endured a harsh past during the ancient era when humans were lowly. He had once been a pill slave, fed rare medicinal herbs, awaiting the grueling alchemical process.

Determined to change his fate and that of humanity, he gradually discovered the path of cultivation.

After growing strong and escaping, he found himself surrounded by enemies due to his identity.

For a long time, to survive and flee, he continuously stole various secret techniques from countless races.

He eventually developed his own secret art, drawing from curse techniques, allowing him to observe causality through the moon’s phases, concealing causes or using them to strike enemies.

This secret art could also predict fate by divining the moon’s phases.

Listening to the Lunar Emperor’s words, Fang Zheng recalled the shamaness from the village shrine and curiously asked, “Isn’t this just like doll stabbing and fortune-telling? Can you actually perform shamanistic rituals too?”

The Lunar Emperor paused, then admitted with a hint of helplessness, “I really can.”

He continued his explanation.

For all beings bound by the river of time, the current flows relentlessly forward, and it is difficult to change one’s course.

Yet, under certain rare circumstances, like a fish leaping out of water glimpsing downstream, some can foresee fragments of the future through dreams.

Practitioners skilled in divination can perceive more detailed outcomes, thereby prolonging life, avoiding death, understanding fortune and misfortune, and comprehending celestial mysteries.

Yet, to grasp celestial secrets comes at a great cost. Those who delve deeply into divination often encounter strange fates—dying under divine punishment or unnatural causes.

Just today, upon returning to the Nine Heavens and Ten Realms, while busy administering healing potions to revive the Solar Emperor’s human skin, the Lunar Emperor also took the opportunity to perform a divination.

Using the Blood Cubes gifted by Fang Zheng, which could endlessly produce massive amounts of essence blood, the Lunar Emperor offered these as a sacrifice and glimpsed a fragment of the future.

A terrifying future.

He spoke softly, the weight of his discovery evident in his tone.

“To you, Fang Zheng, I say this: just as a river flows onward, when it encounters stubborn rocks or mountains, it changes course and forms different tributaries.”

“This river of time is no different. During divination, I glimpsed two possible futures.”

In the first future, neither the Lunar Emperor nor Fang Zheng existed.

The path to immortality did not yield the ever-flowing law chains that could endlessly refine imperishable material law cubes.

Therefore, many self-severing supreme beings across the Nine Heavens and Ten Realms did not break the seal early. Instead, they waited until several years later, at the official opening of the path, to fully unseal.

Years after this moment, at the so-called right time and place, a rift in the path to immortality appeared on the Big Dipper star.

Supreme beings from the Forbidden Zones, believing this moment was the correct one, broke through the seal and launched an assault on the path.

In this future vision, the Lunar Emperor saw his former carcass falling from the rift.

He witnessed supreme beings from various life Forbidden Zones working together to pierce the void deep within the path, entering a chaotic cave.

However, at the cave’s end, although there was indeed a barrier formed by fragments of the Immortal Realm, without the Heaven’s Heart Mark as a key, the gate would not open.

Even though it was the right time and place, the Immortal Realm fragments would not yield; they could not be broken.

Neither the supreme beings’ all-out assault, nor the Primordial Bell wielded with the Primordial Emperor’s blood, nor the Amitabha Buddha’s divine self invoking the entire Mount Sumeru and universal Buddhist faith, succeeded.

The barrier endured relentless attacks. Several supreme beings, never having initiated the dark chaos to devour beings before, were in poor condition and suffered backlash from the Immortal Realm fragments, falling immediately after their transcendence ended.

The remaining self-severing supreme beings once more broke through the path to immortality and returned, sparking an even more devastating dark chaos.

At this, the Lunar Emperor’s face darkened, fists clenched.

During that chaos, countless lives were lost. The Lunar Emperor saw several human descendants fighting desperately against the self-severing supreme beings to protect all beings.

The Solar Emperor’s human skin revived, the revenants of the Void and the Eternal Universe Emperor’s corpse returned, and many others, including Gai Jiuyou and Ye Fan, endured brutal battles.

In the end, in a scene of mutual destruction, they dragged several devourers of beings to death alongside themselves.

Yet still, a few supreme beings consumed enough life to barely regain their strength and returned to the Forbidden Zones, resealing themselves.

This marked the end of the first future the Lunar Emperor saw.

Fang Zheng asked, “Oh? Lunar Emperor, do you mean in this future, there is neither you nor me?”

He tilted his head, pondering briefly, recalling science fiction novels he had read, then suddenly said, “Isn’t what you’re describing a parallel world?”

“Parallel world?” The Lunar Emperor raised his brow. “What is that?”

Fang Zheng explained, “It’s something mentioned in the science fiction I’ve read. Every different choice leads to a split future, like two parallel lines that once separated, never meet again.”

“In different parallel worlds, there are identical people and events, but also some differences.”

“Like stepping out with your left foot or your right foot—two different worlds.”

After hearing Fang Zheng’s explanation, the Lunar Emperor nodded thoughtfully.

“Parallel worlds, huh? Different tributaries in the river of time’s future might truly be considered different parallel worlds.”

However, he shook his head and continued, “If I had only seen this one possible timeline, it wouldn’t be such a big deal.”

“After all, I have already returned. History has changed and so will the future.”

“But the second future I saw…”

His expression grew grave as he continued his revelation.

After performing divination and seeing the first future, the Lunar Emperor initially paid it little mind.

History had changed, so that future was only a past possibility.

Yet the second future was far harder for him to accept.

Unlike the scattered images of the first, in the second future, the Lunar Emperor seemed to personally experience a tragic catastrophe.

It was a future where the Lunar Emperor existed but Fang Zheng did not.

As if awakening from a deep dream, the Lunar Emperor opened his eyes to a vast starry river, standing amid the boundless cosmos.

“Why am I here?” he wondered, deeply confused.

“I was divining just now, wasn’t I?”

Looking around, at his feet spread a vast array of runes, continuously expanding.

At the center of the formation stood a golden-red cube. Every moment, law chains of the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird, wielding power akin to a supreme emperor’s all-out strike, surged endlessly from within it.

It seemed this formation had been personally set by the Lunar Emperor himself.

Upon closer inspection, he recognized it as the Four Symbols Killing Formation on the path to immortality, constructed from the spectral laws of the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird that guard the stronghold’s gate.

The formation was exquisitely intricate and powerful; once fully activated, even supreme beings could suffer grievous harm.

He felt puzzled. “Why would I set up this formation?”

“Could it be a memory gap, or perhaps…”

Instinctively, he attempted to use divination to analyze the situation.