A Dream of Days Gone By

What rushed toward him seemed to be infinite light. Yet the brilliance contained within that blazing radiance was far too dazzling, far too blinding. Ji Jue could see nothing at all. In that fleeting instant, all he could perceive was the distinctive aura emanating from the Sovereign Virtue: Eternal Gate. It was so pure, untainted by the slightest flaw. It felt as though he had plunged headlong into the torrent of time, surrendering himself to be carried away to an unknown, distant past. Not until the boundless radiance faded before his eyes. A gentle breeze blew in from afar. The ringing of bells echoed across the square. Birds took flight and settled once more, looking down curiously from swaying branches at the visitors who did not belong here. Ji Jue looked around in a daze, only to discover that he seemed to have returned to the surface once again. Yet the surface was clearly nothing like this. The ruins were gone. The collapsed high-rises had vanished without a trace. All that stood along the streets were slightly weathered buildings. Pedestrians bustled past in droves, chatting and laughing as they walked right through his body, leaving behind only faint ripples. In the distance, the bells of the sanctuary echoed as though in celebration. "What... is this?" Ji Jue reached out his hands in bewilderment, instinctively trying to touch the things around him. But his hands passed through them without the slightest resistance, stirring only ripples like disturbed water. "Did we travel through time?" Unable to suppress the thought, he questioned it, yet he was also the first to dismiss the idea. This was not a real world. It was more like a reflection caught in time, utterly fragmented... Looking closely, even some of the potted plants along the roadside flickered constantly, the flowers morphing and their colors shifting restlessly. The weeping willow branches twitched incessantly, unable to settle into a fixed shape. Most of the pedestrians' faces were blurred and indistinct, their voices sounding terribly far away. In even more places, the buildings and scenery were completely devoid of color, their positions shifting continuously. At the edge of the sky, the majestic tower soaring into the clouds was so glorious, so resplendent—yet fissures repeatedly surfaced across it, spreading outward, only to mend themselves just as swiftly. It looked like a video game riddled with bugs. "What on earth is this?" "Fragments of time, reflections of the past—nothing more." The Prophet stared at everything before her. "These are the phenomena Quicksilver gathered... the culmination of what the workshop achieved over all these years— "—the way her homeland looked before it was destroyed." [Holy shit!!] Within Ji Jue's robes, the puzzle ball shuddered violently, as though it had finally reconnected: [I get it! I finally fucking understand why that dog Quicksilver went to all that thankless trouble to expand her workshop across the entire Border Realm!] For a master of Celestial Craft, this had been the most baffling question. To command a Border Realm and manipulate everything within it. It sounded grand and terrifying, to be sure. In truth, however, it possessed no cost-effectiveness whatsoever. If one merely wanted to achieve the same effect, there were countless secret rites within the branch of Tianyuan, capable of stitching together multiple Border Realms. Wind would blow at one's command; rain would fall at one's whim. A workshop could easily coordinate and regulate things from the center. There was no need to laboriously convert the entire Border Realm into part of the workshop itself. The sheer extravagance and expenditure of such a colossal project reached an astronomical figure. No matter how mad Quicksilver was, she was not incapable of doing basic math. Besides, bigger was not necessarily better for a workshop. Maximizing alchemical efficiency was the primary concern, not expanding its radius of influence. With Quicksilver's abilities, if the workshop's reach had been reduced by half—or even by a third—she would never have fallen into her current state of collapse. [It wasn't that Quicksilver wanted her workshop to cover the Border Realm—it was the exact opposite! She needed this Border Realm to become her workshop!] The puzzle ball realized in shock: [The entire Border Realm has been overhauled into an alchemical work centered around the workshop—a collector built exclusively for the Sovereign Virtue: Eternal Gate! [Spending that many blessings and materials, taking decades, even a century, just to accomplish the harvesting of time!] It was just like the remote corners of Yacheng or the small settlements outside the cities, where people erected massive satellite dishes in areas with poor reception. The entire Border Realm had been remodeled by Quicksilver into an unprecedented, colossal receiver! Such a preposterous scale would bankrupt even a Sage, driving them to incur endless debts... Over the long span of years, isolated from the mortal realm and drifting among the stars, it relentlessly pursued the sun, trying to capture those scattered fragments of the past in the dark. Day after day, year after year. For four hundred years, it had continuously gathered related moments of time, tirelessly piecing them together and replaying them, attempting to rewind to what once was. Everything on the surface was merely the outward manifestation of this endeavor. The records and phenomena harbored within this deep shaft were the true treasure she sought! "What on earth is she trying to do?" Strolling amid those bygone records, Ji Jue could no longer hold back his question. "Haven't you already seen it?" The Prophet gazed at the old times, sighing softly. "She merely wished to return to days gone by—nothing more." She wanted to reclaim everything she once had. She wanted to reclaim her homeland, her loved ones, and their future from death and their predetermined fate... from the very catastrophe she had brought about! The town trapped in an endless daily loop, the great Tower of Tianyuan constantly crumbling in the sky. And all of this, beyond any hope of repair... Finally, before Ji Jue's eyes, a fleeting phantom emerged amid the countless phenomena. A lonely silhouette wandered among the ruins. She dug with all her might using her bare hands, moving aside rubble, only to uncover piled skeletons. She bent down, clutching half of a bloodstained wedding dress, weeping in silence. No cry of grief could be heard. This was the price Quicksilver had paid. In an instant, as if a flash of lightning had struck his mind, everything he had seen before entering the Border Realm—all those ancient histories and bygone events—seemed to finally connect. "The catastrophe that struck the town was caused by Quicksilver, wasn't it?!" Ji Jue whipped his head around, asking, "Was it because of the collapse of the Tower of Tianyuan?" *Rumble!* That world-shattering scene manifested once more from the reflections of time. Amid the groaning collapse of the fractured tower, catastrophe descended from the sky once again. Netherfires spread, consuming everything. Wails and weeping echoed through the wind. Swallowing all. Every blessing belonging to Tianyuan dissipated completely, leaving behind only endless sinful mutation. The prosperity and glory founded upon it vanished with the wind, leaving only that broken visage seemingly etched forever into time. Tianyuan was dethroned! "Slaying the Lord of Eternity, severing the Tower of Tianyuan, shattering a world that had stagnated and rotted for millennia, and cutting off all the accrued karma of the Eternal Empire—a cherished aspiration passed down for twelve hundred years was fulfilled at the hands of the Mohists, and Quicksilver was the crucial linchpin." The Prophet said, "The blade of Revolution that severed Tianyuan was tempered and brought forth by her very hands... But the price? What was the price?" She said, "The price was losing everything." Just as everything unfolding before their eyes showed. The moment the Tower of Tianyuan shattered, all who participated were bound to suffer the backlash of collapsing order. Regardless of their original intentions, from the fall of the Eternal Empire onward, endless disasters swept across the land. This was the bitter fruit she had sown with her own hands. She knew she would lose everything. She should have realized it long before. Yet she loved too much, and there was too much she could not let go. Even after seeking the aid of the Sage of Aether, wiping away her original name forever, and rewriting the history of her past, fate was not something that could be so easily fooled. She thought that once the empire fell, she could retire having accomplished her deeds and return to her homeland. But after everything ended, she had nowhere left to go except the ruins. Everything she held dear had been utterly annihilated along with the empire's downfall. First came the natural disaster, then the earthquake, followed closely by the mutations triggered by the loss of Tianyuan, and the horrors of war stirred up amid the chaos... Everything she cared about was completely destroyed in a mere seven days. Her daughter, her elder brother, her younger sister, her mother, her friends... even every ordinary soul who recognized her name—all were wiped out by the calamities. Leaving only the solitary Sage to wander among the ruins and wasteland, bearing both honor and a curse. "How ironic. She ended the rule of the Eternal Empire with her own hands, hoping to forge an ideal realm, yet in doing so, she created disaster and unleashed endless poison... "And because of that, she became the first Cursed One in history to survive through disaster." The Prophet surveyed the illusory yesterday before them and sighed softly. "Even if she spent the rest of her days and poured out all her heart's blood trying to return everything to before the disaster struck, trying to take back what she had lost... "What is lost is lost. Even an imitation can never truly return. "All that remains is this illusory dream and an agonizing cycle that can never be stopped." In the brief silence, Ji Jue stood stunned. After a long while, he asked, "It can't be done?" "It cannot be done," the Prophet answered resolutely. And so, Ji Jue fell silent. As if petrified, he stared blankly into the empty air. In his ears, he seemed to hear the distant whistle of a departing train, along with a drifting, faraway melody. How could it not be done? The Sages achieved Exaltation above the mortal realm, and Embers possessed boundless power of creation! This world was so vast, so dazzling. The Twelve Virtues, the Nine Vile Follies, the Federation, the Empire, the Mid-Continent, the Security Bureau, the Wild Gathering, the Ring of Taiyi... so many blessings, so many abilities, and so many powers far beyond his reach. He had once—no, even until now—harbored illusions. Perhaps when he became strong enough in the future, when he possessed sufficient power, he could undo everything that had been lost, and even—prevent that catastrophe from ever happening. "I thought there would be a chance," he muttered to himself, unsure of whom he was speaking to. "She thought so too. What you see before you is the result," the Prophet sneered. "A person cannot change their past, nor can they choose what made them who they are... "What is gone will eventually be gone, no matter how unwilling one is, no matter how many regrets remain. "That is why the present is far more precious than the future." At first her voice was cold, unable to suppress her disdain, but by the end, she could not help pausing, letting out a sigh. "Why should a puppet like me, who cannot even control her own life, have to teach you such a lesson, Ji Jue?" "Who knows?" Ji Jue murmured softly, speaking to himself, "Who would ever accept it?" When facing fate, should one bow meekly and endure in silence, or rebel beyond one's strength? Laid out before him was the pathetic end left behind by the pioneer.