Chapter 54: An Ethereal Will on the River of Time and Space

(Afternoon of the 1st Day Post-Return)

Yet, even as Taiyin was jolted awake, ripples upon the River of Time underwent subtle alterations.

The very instant his divine consciousness returned from that future tributary, high above the River of Space and Time, a will as merciless as the Heavenly Dao itself—originating seemingly from the infinitely distant past or perhaps from the endlessly far future—gently stirred the currents of time—

*(He transforms into freedom, he transforms into eternity...)*

As his consciousness returned, Taiyin started violently. "What manner of existence resides upon the River of Time?!"

However, accompanied by yet another ripple upon the river's surface, a trace of bewilderment flashed through Taiyin's eyes.

Memories, teetering between the illusory and the real, emerged within his primordial spirit.

Deep within that spirit, those ethereal and indistinct memories morphed into a soaring streak of sword light, yet also seemed to transform into a wisp of sinister black Qi.

The sword light and the black Qi intertwined with one another, and gradually, the sword light vanished.

Time rippled faintly.

Taiyin's memory of that profound will thereupon turned illusory.

Above the River of Time, those ethereal words ceased to have ever existed from the very beginning.

Only that wisp of black Qi lingered within Taiyin's primordial spirit for a fleeting moment before it, too, lost its vitality anew and transformed into illusion.

***

Following the return of his divine consciousness, deeply shocked by having unexpectedly divined such a future, Taiyin had hastened immediately to the Jiang family.

Only after confirming that Fang Zheng had not abruptly vanished as he did in that future did he let out a sigh of relief and begin reformulating an entirely new plan.

"Roughly speaking, that is how it stands..." Taiyin uttered his final sentence.

His recounting of the future thus came to an end.

"So," Fang Zheng tilted his head and asked, "are you saying that outside this current universe, a dark storm is about to strike very soon, and a supreme dark Immortal King is coming to destroy the world?"

"And now you need to step up your pace, quickly build the Universe Ark, and escape from that fellow in advance, is that it?"

Taiyin nodded, looking sincerely at Fang Zheng as he replied, "Having witnessed such a future, I refuse to let it become reality. Therefore, I must seek your assistance!"

Hearing these earnest words, Fang Zheng immediately responded in a serious tone, "Since the world is going to be destroyed, I naturally have to lend a hand."

"Having finally managed to get out of that blocky pixelated ghost town of a place, I certainly can't let this world get destroyed."

Having agreed to save the world, Fang Zheng broke into a cheerful smile once again: "Back when I watched Ultraman, I really wanted to be a hero. If I end up saving the entire universe, I suppose that qualifies me as a major hero."

Taiyin nodded solemnly and said, "If we succeed, you will be the greatest benefactor of all living beings in the entire Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, across the entire universe!"

"Except..." Fang Zheng paused for a moment after giving his assent, a hint of hesitation crossing his features.

He was simply far too curious about what Taiyin had just narrated, and pressed on: "Since you're able to divine the future so effortlessly, why didn't you divine more in the past?"

"Since you can divine so many detailed matters..."

Fang Zheng's words grew increasingly excited.

"You could just lay down a rule for your present self, forming a habit where you record all your future realm insights and comprehension, and then directly divine the future to look at the information your future self recorded."

"And then, your future self would similarly divine the future to observe even more distant information."

"If you did that, wouldn't it mean you only need to divine once to look as far into the future as you ever wanted?"

"Wouldn't that be like stepping on your left foot with your right foot and spiraling in a explosive ascent straight to the heavens?"

Yet Taiyin merely shook his head, his expression grave.

He stretched out his hand, and an illusory phantom of a bright moon materialized in his palm.

Clear lunar radiance flared, and in the mere fraction of a second, a hair-raising sound of squirming flesh immediately followed.

That illusory moon, which should have been used for divination and manifested through secret arts, suddenly twisted.

Black-and-red meridians spread rapidly across the moon. The lunar orb, which ought to have been constructed solely from Dao laws, bizarrely began to take on a decaying appearance, its hollows clearly revealing writhing flesh.

An obnoxious, repulsive stench emanated from the rotting sores, causing the Solar Holy Emperor beside them to knit his brows tightly.

He instantly unleashed an boundless, destructive light of the Great Sun, completely shrouding this entire region. Countless Dao principles flowed forth, manifesting a colossal stone tower.

All manner of Dao marks surfaced upon the furnace, completely sealing off the transmission of any information within it, while standing ready to incinerate everything inside to ashes at a moment's notice.

Immediately thereafter, the phantom moon rotting in Taiyin's hand erupted from within and without, sprouting dense red hairs and tearing open a maw filled with sharp teeth.

Under Fang Zheng's curious gaze, this fleshy, red-furred mass let out an ugly howl while turning to viciously tear and bite at Taiyin's palm.

Yet Taiyin remained expressionless, closing his fingers into a fist. Within the patch of space-time enclosed by his palm, the space-time curvature was completely sealed off. The ultimate power of supreme Yin erupted, freezing that sealed space-time bubble solid.

With a fierce squeeze and grind, the frozen space-time shattered accordingly, and the inexplicably vitalized lunar phase was thereby ground into nothingness.

Yet this still was not the end. The Solar Holy Emperor likewise channeled his divine power, fusing it with Taiyin's force to evolve chaos and split Yin and Yang, returning everything once more to primordial chaos. Acting like a giant millstone, they ground the patch of space-time repeatedly for a long while before finally dispersing the energy.

Outside this Yin-Yang Chaos Millstone, watching everything that had transpired, Fang Zheng felt a slight chill run down his spine: "What on earth is this ball of red-furred meat?"

"From where I was looking, it turned out from the little moon in your hand."

Pausing for a moment, Fang Zheng asked hesitantly, "Could it be... that black Qi you mentioned earlier has chased us all the way here?"

Nodding, Taiyin lifted his gaze toward the sky with an unfathomable expression and said, "The so-called divination of the future has never been anything more than catching a blurred glimpse of a corner of tomorrow."

"The greater the karma involved, the less one is typically able to see."

"For figures at the Emperor level, the karma they can forge is terrifyingly extreme."

"Even when merely observing events that have already occurred in the past, once it involves Emperor-tier figures, even the heavenly secrets are obscured. To forcefully pry into them requires piercing through the traces they left behind in the River of Time, which invariably invites terrifying karmic backlash."

"Yet this time, I observed two future tributaries spanning a period so vast, so clear, involving dozens of Emperor-level figures, hundreds of dark True Immortals, and a dark Immortal King."

"The backlash caused by such massive karma ought to have obliterated me in a split second, but..."

Observing Taiyin's expression, Fang Zheng roughly deduced something: "Following the usual tropes, there must be some grand conspiracy behind this, right?"

"There's definitely someone plotting something behind the scenes."

"A conspiracy?" Looking down at the lunar disc in his palm that still refused to manifest properly, Taiyin murmured with an uncertain, shifting expression:

"Indeed. Rather than saying I was performing divination, it was more as if some entity forcefully shoved these future intelligence reports into my mind."

"Speaking of which, although I am indeed proficient in the Dao of Divination, I have never truly relied upon it."

A flash of bewilderment crossed his gaze as Taiyin muttered, "Why on earth did I choose to do this divination this time? Was this genuinely my own volition?"

"The heavenly punishment and karmic backlash that should have accompanied prying into heavenly secrets vanished entirely, replaced instead by the intrusion of a bizarre power resembling that black Qi."

Gazing sorrowfully at the sky, Taiyin felt as though he could see an invisible giant hand shrouding the entire River of Time.

This nameless giant hand constantly churned the waters of the River of Time.

Extending countless tentacles toward the past and the future, toward every cultivator—and even mortal—who dared to pry into time, it poured in that bizarre and unfathomable power.