Chapter 2321: Dark Time-Space Substance
Zhang Ruochen and Bore flew three hundred miles away from the black vortex, not daring to advance further. The powerful pulling force made it difficult for them to stand steady, their bodies swaying unsteadily.
Even more terrifying was that within the black mist storm, the density of time imprints had greatly increased. Sharp spatial rifts flew past rapidly, while black lightning bolts darted through.
Time, space, and darkness—these three forces had evolved here to a point where they could easily kill a Great Saint.
"Spatial rifts can move this fast? I understand now. It's the result of space and time merging together." A flicker of realization lit up Zhang Ruochen's eyes, a brilliant gleam appearing within them.
In truth, within Zhang Ruochen's understanding, the spatial rift technique had always been the simplest and most ruthless attack method of spatial power.
Like the thrust and slash in swordsmanship.
Without too much flourish, it aimed solely to strike with the fastest speed and deliver a fatal blow.
But reality was not like that. Once facing a cultivator with profound cultivation, the spatial rifts Zhang Ruochen unleashed could always be evaded by the opponent using their speed to dodge in advance, or they could employ formations, talismans, war weapons, and other means to suppress space, causing the spatial rift to close again and lose its power.
In essence, it wasn't fast enough.
In all martial arts under heaven, only speed cannot be overcome.
The key to a spatial rift wasn't its size, but its speed.
If the spatial rift flew out fast enough, the opponent simply couldn't dodge it, and they wouldn't have the chance to deploy defensive sacred arts to counter it.
Combining time imprints with spatial rifts might be a promising path.
"As the master of both time and space, I should walk a path that no other time cultivator or space cultivator can tread. Time and space, united as one."
"Ssshh."
Between the five fingers of Zhang Ruochen's right hand, a one-inch-long spatial rift manifested.
Around him, specks of time imprint light particles were captured by him and converged toward the spatial rift, merging together.
"Whoosh!"
Zhang Ruochen swung his arm, and the one-inch spatial rift flew out, disappearing into the massive black vortex. Its speed was ten times faster than before.
This was only an initial attempt, with a limited number of time imprints integrated.
Clearly, the more time imprints fused in, the faster the spatial rift would move.
Of course, to fuse more time imprints, more time was needed to activate it.
Everything had its pros and cons; it was hard to have the best of both worlds.
"When facing top-tier experts head-on, this might have limited effectiveness. But if used for a sneak attack, it could pose a considerable threat even to Great Saints in the Ten Thousand Deaths One Life realm."
Zhang Ruochen pondered how to imbue the spatial rift technique with more attributes.
For instance, combining it with flame rules, or with the sword path.
The first things that came to mind were the paths he had cultivated to the highest level. As for the path of darkness and the path of fate, although they were eternal paths, Zhang Ruochen was neither a darkness master nor a fate master, nor was he a darkness cultivator or fate cultivator. He could only be considered an observer with a superficial understanding.
It was worth noting:
The path of darkness was easiest for a darkness master to cultivate, and their future achievements would be the highest.
But darkness masters were extremely rare, countable on one hand.
Next were the elites of the Darkness Temple, who were darkness cultivators. Before stepping into the Saint realm, they had integrated a single darkness rule as a darkness seed into their sacred soul.
Finally, there were cultivators like Zhang Ruochen, who had failed to integrate a darkness rule into their sacred soul before cultivating a sacred soul. For them, comprehending darkness rules would be extremely difficult. Moreover, even if they managed to comprehend darkness rules, they couldn't integrate them into their sacred soul.
Thus, the path of darkness and the path of fate were merely paths Zhang Ruochen wanted to study and understand. Without integration into his sacred soul, his achievements in them could never be high.
Zhang Ruochen had spent ten years here, comprehending only tens of thousands of darkness rules.
With his current cultivation, using the path of darkness to deal with Saint Kings was certainly possible. But if he were to clash with someone like Wujiang, the path of darkness would have almost no use.
Even the path of truth had not been integrated into Zhang Ruochen's sacred soul, so it shouldn't have led to high achievements.
However, the Truth Temple was selfless, offering truth esoterica as rewards to geniuses, giving Zhang Ruochen the opportunity to glimpse the great path of truth.
It could be said that without truth esoterica, Zhang Ruochen would not have cultivated the truth realm form, nor obtained the heart of truth. At the Saint King realm, he would not have been able to cultivate the path of truth to perfection.
For Zhang Ruochen to achieve great success in the path of darkness and the path of fate, he would need to obtain darkness esoterica and fate esoterica.
The spatial rift Zhang Ruochen had unleashed flew so fast that Bore, standing nearby, hadn't seen it at all. She said, "Those black lightning bolts aren't real lightning. They're highly condensed dark force."
As if to confirm her speculation, she shot out a divine bone arrow.
"Bang."
A black lightning bolt struck the divine bone arrow.
The divine bone arrow snapped in the middle, splitting into two pieces that flew off at an angle.
Zhang Ruochen reached out with his hand, grabbing one of the broken arrow pieces through the air and bringing it before his eyes. The break was pitch black, carbonized like sand.
"What terrifying dark force. Even divine bone can't withstand it."
A grave expression appeared in Zhang Ruochen's eyes. He released the truth realm form, space domain, and virtual time domain, enveloping his body.
"The raindrops in the black mist vortex should be dark time-space substance."
Zhang Ruochen took out the Ghost Head Whip and infused it with sacred qi.
"Rustle."
The Ghost Head Whip lit up with dense king-level inscriptions, releasing thick ghostly qi as it flew out like a black whip serpent. The skull at the whip's tip opened its mouth wide, swallowing a single raindrop.
With a "crack," the black raindrop pierced through the skull and continued flying onward.
Zhang Ruochen quickly withdrew the Ghost Head Whip and found that it had been damaged by spatial force, its king-level inscriptions corroded by dark force.
"The Ghost Head Whip is considered a fine piece among monarch sacred artifacts, yet it can't even collect a single drop of dark time-space substance? Do I have to use a supreme sacred artifact?"
Zhang Ruochen grabbed the Purple Gold Gourd in his hand, hesitating slightly.
If the Purple Gold Gourd were swept away by the black mist vortex, the loss would be immense.
Bore said, "There are very few vessels in heaven and earth that can hold dark time-space substance. Even supreme sacred artifacts might not be able to do it. However, some methods can merge with dark time-space substance and thus collect it."
"Gate of True Self."
The radiantly shining gate of fate flew out from behind Bore, steadily approaching the black mist vortex.
Zhang Ruochen narrowed his eyes, staring intently. He saw a drop of dark time-space substance, spinning as it flew, collide with the gate of fate. Immediately, it was intercepted by countless fate rules, space rules, darkness rules, and time imprints, which entangled it like a spider's web.
Bore waved her arm, and the gate of fate flew back.
A single black liquid droplet flowed across the light gate.
Her gate of fate was primarily formed from fate rules, with no more than fifty thousand space rules and time imprints. There were more darkness rules, but still less than half the number of fate rules.
Bore didn't continue collecting dark time-space substance. Instead, she closed her eyes, carefully analyzing and studying it.
"She only took one drop, but why did the raindrops in the black mist vortex decrease so much? Even the vortex's rotation speed has slowed."
Zhang Ruochen didn't spend too much time thinking about it. He decided to collect one drop first.
"She has the gate of fate; I have the time sacred form and space sacred form."
Zhang Ruochen first released the space sacred form, sending it toward the black mist vortex.
The space sacred form was formless and intangible, but Zhang Ruochen could sense that it resembled a vortex, quite similar to the black mist vortex before him.
Before long, the space sacred form captured a drop of dark time-space substance, assimilating it and bringing it before Zhang Ruochen.
Even a single drop of dark time-space substance contained immense energy fluctuations and was incredibly heavy.
Zhang Ruochen finally understood why Bore had stopped after collecting one drop. It wasn't that she didn't want to continue, but that she lacked the strength to do so. Given her cultivation, collecting one drop was already her limit.
"Continue."
Zhang Ruochen used space rules to seal this drop of dark time-space substance, then urged the space sacred form to keep collecting.
The space sacred form collected thirteen drops of dark time-space substance in a row before reaching its limit and being unable to carry more.
Zhang Ruochen then switched to the time sacred form and continued collecting.
Bore thoroughly studied that one drop of dark time-space substance, sealed it, and began collecting a second drop.
It took about seven days for Zhang Ruochen's time sacred form and space sacred form to each collect thirteen drops of dark time-space substance. Bore's gate of true self collected three drops.
The raindrops in the black mist vortex vanished completely, not a single one left.
The spatial rifts and black lightning bolts in the vortex also decreased significantly, losing the terrifying power they had at the start.
"The dark time-space substance has all been taken by us." Zhang Ruochen said.
Bore frowned slightly, puzzled. "Were we hallucinating at the beginning? I saw the dark time-space substance turning into a shower of raindrops, seemingly endless in number. Why did we only take twenty-nine drops before they were all gone?"
Zhang Ruochen said, "I thought that having read through the Destiny Temple's scriptures and cultivated the gate of true self, you would know everything. I didn't expect there to be things you couldn't see through."
"Do you know the reason?"
Bore's starry eyes finally met Zhang Ruochen's gaze again, wanting to know the answer.
"No." Zhang Ruochen said.
Of course, Zhang Ruochen knew the reason. It was an optical illusion caused by multiple layers of space. Twenty-nine drops of dark time-space substance appeared as twenty-nine thousand drops, twenty-nine billion drops...
The more chaotic the space, the more dark time-space matter one would see.
Bore snorted coldly.
She understood perfectly well that Zhang Ruochen definitely knew the reason but was deliberately not telling her. He was dissatisfied with her, and this approach was simply turning the tables on her.
If she kept asking, she would be playing right into Zhang Ruochen's hands.
So Bore dropped the matter and turned her gaze to the yellow light point at the center of the black vortex. "A small bronze cauldron appearing at the center of the black mist vortex is too suspicious. Black lightning can destroy divine bone arrows, and dark time-space substance raindrops can damage monarch sacred artifacts, yet neither can harm it. What do you think it is?"