Chapter 2602: Stopped at One Hundred Thousand Years Ago
Qiangu Nüdi walked out of Xumi Temple, stood beneath a withered tree, and faced the surging River of Time. Gazing at the shimmering water’s surface, she seemed to contemplate stepping into it.
After repeated hesitation, she took out a purple-cyan long spear at the Monarch Sacred Artifact level and tossed it with a flick of her wrist.
“Whoosh!”
The spear had barely flown out of Xumi Temple, breaking free of Time Esoterica and Space Esoterica, when it immediately suffered terrifying spatial compression. With a loud crack, it shattered into dozens of iron fragments.
The fragments rusted at a visible rate, and by the time they fell into the River of Time, they had corroded into ash, as if they had endured billions of years of decay.
Zhang Ruochen, watching from afar, felt his heart sink sharply.
Too terrifying!
Even a Monarch Sacred Artifact was crushed to pieces, then corroded into dust by the power of time.
No matter how strong a Saint-realm cultivator was, entering that place would mean instant death.
Qiangu Nüdi grew wary. Even with her Divine-realm cultivation, she chose to retreat back into Xumi Temple.
Suddenly, she stopped and murmured softly, “There is a vast amount of Time Esoterica and Space Esoterica here. If I absorb some of it and master it, I should be able to enter the River of Time.”
The female emperor sat down cross-legged in the courtyard. Her long skirt spread out like the petals of a divine flower from the Other Shore. Her slender jade hands formed a strange gesture, and in an instant, she seemed to become the center of this space, entering a state of enlightenment.
Lines of Rule Divine Patterns surrounded her, and a soft, radiant glow emanated from her body.
Zhang Ruochen stared at her for a long time. She was as still as a beautiful stone carving, motionless.
“The female emperor probably won’t wake up anytime soon.”
Zhang Ruochen bypassed Qiangu Nüdi and went to explore other areas of Xumi Temple, searching for the Hunting God’s Divine Star Soul.
“The Ice Fire Phoenix isn’t a deity; there’s no way she could have entered the core area of Xumi Temple.”
“The Sundial—it was brought out of Xumi Temple by her. Back then, where did the Saint Monk store the Sundial?”
As he walked, Zhang Ruochen was surprised to find that the soil beneath his feet had turned multicolored.
He crouched down, picked up a handful of dirt, and a look of joy appeared in his eyes. “Rainbow Soil!”
Looking up into the distance, he saw a large patch of multicolored vines among the scattered rocks and withered trees. The vines covered most of Xumi Temple. However, since Zhang Ruochen had entered through the front gate, he hadn’t noticed these multicolored vines at first.
The multicolored vines were called “Rainbow Transformation Vines.”
When a Buddhist Saint Monk passed into nirvana, a rainbow transformation phenomenon would occur, turning the surrounding soil into Rainbow Soil and causing Rainbow Transformation Vines to grow.
Back in the Ancestral Spirit Realm, Zhang Ruochen had seen the Ice Fire Phoenix’s Phoenix Nest, which was built from Rainbow Transformation Vines.
The vines must have been dug out of Xumi Temple by her.
“No mistake—the Ice Fire Phoenix definitely came here.” Zhang Ruochen was overjoyed.
When burned, Rainbow Transformation Vines could aid cultivators in enlightenment, making them a rare treasure. But at this moment, Zhang Ruochen only wanted to find the Hunting God’s Divine Star Soul and had little interest in them.
He carefully searched the area covered by the Rainbow Transformation Vines three or four times but found nothing.
The joy in Zhang Ruochen’s heart faded. He sat down on a broken stone lion and sighed. “It seems there are only two possibilities. Either the Ice Fire Phoenix never placed the Hunting God’s Divine Star Soul in Xumi Temple, or the Divine Star Soul was left in the original time and didn’t come back to the past with us.”
Zhang Ruochen stood up, ready to return to the main hall and hide. If the female emperor discovered him, his life would be in danger.
“Eh!”
Suddenly, Zhang Ruochen turned his head and looked at the glowing forest of Rainbow Transformation Vines. His expression grew wary as he secretly mobilized space power, forming a Space Blade and slashing it forward.
“Whoosh!”
The blade was about to strike a vine as thick as a wine glass.
That vine suddenly emitted a divine aura completely different from the other Rainbow Transformation Vines, with specks of starlight radiating from it. The vine seemed to come alive, twisting to avoid the Space Blade.
“Could this Rainbow Transformation Vine have developed intelligence and wisdom?”
Zhang Ruochen was surprised. He had noticed that the shape and patterns of that vine had changed, leading him to believe there was some incomprehensible danger hidden here, which was why he had attacked first.
“No! This Rainbow Transformation Vine is very different from the others. The aura it emits is the power of a god, not the power of Buddha.”
Zhang Ruochen didn’t approach immediately. Instead, he summoned Purifying Divine Flame for defense and activated his Heart of Truth to sense the surroundings.
Suddenly, Zhang Ruochen’s eyes seemed to pierce through time and space. He saw a beautiful figure with wings of Ice Fire Phoenix burying a mass of brilliant starlight in the multicolored Rainbow Soil.
She then cut her own wrist and sprinkled sacred blood over the Rainbow Soil.
She seemed to be murmuring something, her expression sorrowful, but Zhang Ruochen couldn’t hear her voice.
The strain was too great. Zhang Ruochen’s eyes ached sharply, and the sacred qi in his body was nearly depleted. The vision before him disappeared.
“Was that the Ice Fire Phoenix?”
Zhang Ruochen thought carefully, speculating that the Heart of Truth, combined with the Time Esoterica and Space Esoterica here, had allowed him to see scenes from the past that didn’t belong to this time and space.
This ability shocked him.
If, with the Heart of Truth, Time Esoterica, and Space Esoterica, he could see all the historical events that had occurred at the same location, what secrets in the world could still be hidden from him?
Unfortunately, the Time Esoterica and Space Esoterica here didn’t belong to him. With his current cultivation, he couldn’t master this ability at will.
Zhang Ruochen approached that Rainbow Transformation Vine and looked beneath it.
Sure enough, the soil under the vine was a deeper red, as if it had been drenched in a large amount of blood.
Zhang Ruochen roughly understood what had happened. Back when the Merit Battlefield in the Ancestral Spirit Realm erupted, the Hunting God—the only deity of the Ancestral Spirit Realm—must have known he was doomed. Before dying, he entrusted his Divine Star Soul to the Ice Fire Phoenix, hoping she could use it to quickly break through to godhood, continue to support the Ancestral Spirit Realm, and protect its mountains, rivers, and countless living beings.
But after the Hunting God died, the Ice Fire Phoenix didn’t refine the Divine Star Soul. Instead, she brought it to Xumi Temple and planted it beneath the Rainbow Soil.
She must have believed in the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation and trusted that Xumi Saint Monk had the power to bring the dead back to life.
By planting the Divine Star Soul in the Rainbow Soil, perhaps one day the Hunting God could re-gather the remnants of his divine soul scattered across the world, grow from the soil, and be reborn.
Unfortunately, her wish could never come true.
The Hunting God had only eight Divine Throne Planets and was a deity of a weak realm. He couldn’t compare to a god like Xiu Chen Heavenly God, who once stood at the pinnacle of the universe.
Even though Xiu Chen Heavenly God’s original body was shattered, his divine source destroyed, and his divine soul broken, he still managed to re-condense his shattered divine soul after ten thousand years. Even that remnant soul possessed the strength of a divine giant.
The Hunting God was far inferior to Xiu Chen Heavenly God—by more than a hundred thousand miles. With his divine body devoured by the Rakshasa Clan deity and his divine source taken, only his Divine Star Soul remained. He was, in truth, already fallen.
There must have been a beautiful story between the Ice Fire Phoenix and the Hunting God.
But that story had no happy ending. It was too tragic.
The Hunting God died horribly. The Ice Fire Phoenix also fell. Even the Ancestral Spirit Realm they had protected turned to ashes.
Everything was so miserable.
Except for Zhang Ruochen, probably no cultivator in the world knew of their story, and no one would care. Such tragedies happen every day.
All living beings in the universe are filled with a kind of helplessness.
Zhang Ruochen didn’t want to think about why the Ice Fire Phoenix hadn’t refined the Hunting God’s Divine Star Soul to break through to godhood, instead planting it beneath the Rainbow Soil and watering it with her own blood, just to give him a sliver of hope for revival.
Too foolish. Too infatuated.
She was a top-tier Great Saint. Didn’t she understand that if she could break through to godhood, she might not have died?
Perhaps it was precisely because the world had so many people who were foolish and infatuated enough that it felt more human, more worth cherishing, and made one understand that cultivation had meaning.
Of course, all of this was Zhang Ruochen’s speculation. There was another version: the Ice Fire Phoenix had actually died before the Hunting God. The Hunting God buried her in the Phoenix Nest, then went beyond the realm to fight the Rakshasa Clan deity, dying tragically.
The truth was already unknowable.
Some truths would never be uncovered, fading away with the passing of a generation.
Zhang Ruochen reached out his hand, trying to grab that Rainbow Transformation Vine.
The vine dodged again.
Unfortunately, it only knew how to dodge. It was no different from an ordinary spiritual plant, with no higher intelligence.
It was just a Rainbow Transformation Vine, no longer the Hunting God.
Zhang Ruochen could feel the immense power of the Divine Star Soul within it. If he mastered it, he would control the Hunting God’s Divine Star Soul. Refining it would strengthen his sacred soul, greatly increase his spiritual power, and allow him to mobilize the power of the “Hunter’s Eight Stars,” unleashing combat power comparable to a False God.
But seeing it dodge, Zhang Ruochen’s heart softened. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to refine it.
Zhang Ruochen decided to leave it for Mu Lingxi. After all, she had inherited part of the Ice Fire Phoenix’s legacy and might gain its recognition.
“I’ll rely on myself. With the Dragon Lord’s Origin Divine Dragon Fire, breaking through to the sixty-ninth level of spiritual power shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Zhang Ruochen temporarily set aside the idea of condensing his Space Sacred Intent. He remembered Xumi Saint Monk’s words: the key to condensing a First-rank Sacred Intent lay in time and space.
Since he was going to the beginning of time and the singularity of space, he could condense it then.
Letting the Space Sacred Intent take shape now might not be a good thing.
Time passed quietly.
“Boom!”
A deafening sound jolted Zhang Ruochen awake from his spiritual power refinement.
Blood flowed from Zhang Ruochen’s ears. Thinking it was Qiangu Nüdi making a big move, he quickly wrapped himself in the “Sixth Patriarch’s Zen Meditation Diagram” and rushed out of the main hall.
He felt divine might surging from all directions, piercing through time and space, shaking the River of Time.
On the River of Time, Zhang Ruochen saw the most shocking battle scene he had ever witnessed since he began cultivating. He murmured to himself, “This is… one hundred thousand years ago!”
A strange thing happened. Xumi Temple, which had been moving forward, suddenly stopped.
It stopped in this time and space.
Zhang Ruochen was even more alarmed. What was it trying to do?
Stopping one hundred thousand years ago—what could he, just a Great Saint, do? Could he participate in a chaotic battle of gods?
Those divine giants could kill him with a single glance!
“Saint Monk, let’s go quickly. When I become a god and step into the God Venerable realm, I’ll come back to this time and space to fight,” Zhang Ruochen said bitterly, pleading.
But Xumi Temple had come to a complete stop.
…
There will be another chapter tonight.