# 1502
Chapter 1503: Reversing to the Fishing Village
"Then what should I do?"
Lingbao Tianzun took a cloth bag from his sleeve and solemnly placed it in Wang Mian's arms. "What I'm about to say, listen carefully..."
Lingbao Tianzun's voice echoed through the main hall. After hearing it, Wang Mian was stunned for a long while.
"Will this really work?"
Lingbao Tianzun nodded. "Going back to more than a year ago has already consumed most of your lifespan. If you don't minimize the impact of the causal force, you'll likely have your lifespan exhausted and never be able to return."
Wang Mian stared at the bag in his hands, contemplating for a moment. "I understand."
"Go."
Lingbao Tianzun stood before the alchemy furnace, waving at Wang Mian.
Wang Mian clutched the cloth bag in his palm, took a deep breath, and the time circle in his eyes rapidly rotated in reverse! Time laws surged throughout the main hall!
The spacetime around Wang Mian twisted violently. A crack spread behind him. Before this, he had never reversed time by more than a single day. Only now, with the law of time, could long-term time reversal become possible.
Silver-white strands of hair fell from his head. The wrinkles on Wang Mian's face grew denser. He felt his lifespan draining frantically, yet he felt no regret. In those turbid eyes, instead, there was an unprecedented anticipation!
As the spacetime distortion intensified, the time crack tore open and swallowed Wang Mian's figure!
After Wang Mian disappeared, time in the entire main hall returned to normal. In the silence, only the crackling of the alchemy furnace's flames could be heard.
...
The river of time rapidly flowed backward beneath Wang Mian's feet, making his figure unsteady.
He tapped downward with his fingertip, and a canoe was outlined from nothingness, carrying his form as he sailed upstream against the river of time. Past timelines flowed and vanished within his vision.
Wang Mian sat alone in the small boat, coughing violently. His eyes tightly fixed on the upstream of the river of time, as if searching for something.
Finally, his eyes lit up. His figure steered the canoe toward a certain segment of the river of time. A time crack bloomed before the boat, and his form vanished within it.
The river of time receded behind Wang Mian. At this moment, he was already above a silent sea surface, with hazy fog covering the surroundings. In the distance, the mist wall along Great Xia's border was faintly visible.
Joy appeared on Wang Mian's face.
He had succeeded.
Using the law of time, he had directly returned to history more than a year ago. At this point in time, the Mask Squad was still trapped in the time loop of the fishing village, and neither the Night Watch nor the Gods of Great Xia had noticed this place.
"Cough cough cough cough..."
Now Wang Mian appeared even more decrepit than before, like an old man on the verge of death. Even just a light cough seemed to expel his lungs.
Wang Mian assessed his body's condition. This reversal of more than a year had directly cost him at least six years of his lifespan. Had Queen Mother of the West not fed him a peach of immortality before he left, he probably wouldn't have had enough lifespan remaining to return to the future timeline, let alone save the Mask Squad.
Clusters of blood mist burst from Wang Mian's body, then reverted back under the reversal of time. Wang Mian, his body on the verge of disintegration, sailed slowly into Great Xia's territory. Soon, he saw the familiar coastline.
As his body entered the fishing village's range, Wang Mian sensed the spacetime shift clearly. He knew he had entered the time loop.
BOOM—!!
An earth-shattering explosion rang from the seabed. A dazzling ring of time began from the sea surface, rapidly spreading in all directions!
Wang Mian steered a lone boat, drifting calmly on the sea. Instead of evading, he sailed directly toward that ring. As the silver ring passed through his body, the time around him shifted instantly, completely ignoring the ring's effect as he continued forward.
At the coastline's edge, shouts rang through the clouds:
"Vortex!! What are you doing!!"
"Captain... it seems this time, we're really done for... The Mask Squad needs to leave at least one survivor, right?"
"But..."
"There's no 'but' about it, Captain. You're the man who will become the God of Time in the future. How can you die here? Besides, don't you have the ability to traverse time? If you really escape from here, you can just travel back in time later to save us.
Captain, remember this — as long as you don't die, the Mask Squad will never perish!"
"..."
"Run, Captain! Run... As long as you can outrun the river of time, one day, all of us will return to your side!!"
"..."
Hearing these familiar words, Wang Mian's body trembled violently. He stared blankly at the edge of the coastline. Two streams of turbid tears slid down from the corners of his eyes...
A flash of temporal light appeared along the coastline. The past Wang Mian had stepped into the Human Apex, outrun time, and escaped this fishing village loop. Almost simultaneously, a silver ring swept across the land, and the noisy coastline fell silent in an instant.
Wang Mian's hands trembled slightly. The boat beneath him glided over the waves and slowly docked at the shore.
His hunched figure struggled to stand from the boat. Using the Mandarin Arrow to support his body, he walked onto that fresh stretch of land. At this moment, there wasn't a single figure by the coastline, not even a corpse remaining.
The cold sea wind brushed against Wang Mian's silver-white hair. That solitary gray cloak fluttered silently in the wind.
"Vortex, Moon Ghost, Sandalwood, Star Scar, Rose, Tianping..." Wang Mian's aged voice rasped by the coastline. In those tear-filled eyes, a pair of time circles, head connected to tail, slowly flowed.
"I... outran it..."
He took out the cloth bag from his chest. His low voice echoed across heaven and earth:
"Return, souls—"
As the words fell, several blurred spirit shadows counter-flowed from the river of time. They circled around Wang Mian, as if celebrating, as if in shock.
Guided by mysterious forces, they were drawn into the cloth bag. Wang Mian gently tied the bag's opening. With his other hand, he drew the Mandarin Arrow from his chest and thrust it forcefully into the ground beneath him. A deep ravine instantly appeared in the earth.
Wang Mian buried the cloth bag into the ground, murmuring softly, "I'm sorry. I can't take you directly through time. Bear with being here for a year. In the future, I will personally bring you back..."
After burying the bag, Wang Mian hung the Mandarin Arrow back at his waist. The law of time rippled once more, and in the next instant, his figure vanished without a trace...
...
More than a year later.
An old man draped in a gray cloak returned to this land.
Coughing as he walked, he began digging into the soil here. As the layers of earth gradually went deeper, a familiar cloth bag appeared in his sight.
The old man's lips finally curved into a smile.
His trembling hands lifted the cloth bag from the earth. Those turbid eyes reflected crystalline glimmers in the sunlight. He whispered softly:
"Welcome... home."