Thirty thousand years passed in the blink of an eye.
In this lifetime, with the joint assistance of the other Ancestors, Qi Fang had become an Ancestor-level existence, his aura vast and unfathomable as an abyss.
Within the grand hall, there were nearly a hundred beings like him.
At this moment, all wore solemn expressions.
"The world-destroying tribulation has begun once more?"
"Just what kind of entity is our enemy?"
"The Time Shuttle's energy is completely exhausted. If we cannot defeat the enemy this time, we will almost certainly... perish without a doubt!"
All the Ancestor-level existences felt immense pressure.
Their strength was formidable; with a mere breath, they could cause stars to plummet.
Yet their enemy was even stronger, mysterious and unknown.
The only thing they relied upon was the Time Shuttle.
The Time Shuttle was an exotic treasure, manifested from a unique Yang Four entity.
Or rather, that Yang Four entity had first been a Dao God who bypassed the Dao Lord realm to step directly into Yang Four.
The Lost Glowstick from the Ancestral Land—which had once helped Qi Yuan traverse time to meet the Holy Mother of No Food in an unorthodox manner—was a special creation forged under the Time Shuttle's influence, containing a sliver of the shuttle's power.
Time and again, the Ancestral Land had been destroyed, and time and again, these Ancestors had used the Time Shuttle to reset reality, caught in an untold number of cyclical reincarnations.
Now, the Time Shuttle's energy was completely spent.
This might very well be their final chance.
"Alas. The Dao numbers fifty; heaven enacts forty-nine, and one slips away into the unknown. Where is our elusive 'one'?"
Resist?
No matter how many Ancestors there were, they were likely no match for that entity.
"That 'one' is a variable. Yet through countless resets, this old man has continually sought that variable, only to find nothing."
Seated below, Qi Fang suddenly thought of his cousin, Qi Yuan.
In the original timeline, his cousin had died early.
Yet when he had still been an embryo, he had seen his cousin alive.
Could his cousin count as a variable?
Unfortunately, after his birth, he had never seen his cousin again.
In searching for traces of him, he had only caught sporadic whispers concerning his cousin and that girl in the bridal gown.
"Not good, It is here!"
At that moment, every Ancestor felt a trembling, peerless aura descend upon them.
They had cultivated for countless years, becoming immortals and founding ancestors, yet before this aura, they were as frail as ants.
Every single one of them smelled the stench of death at this instant.
It could not be resisted; only destruction and utter obliteration awaited them.
Yet right at that moment, an indifferent voice rang out.
"I kept wondering why this universe felt incomplete to my sight. Turns out I was missing you. Fortunately, I left an avatar here. Otherwise... I would have missed you entirely."
The newcomer was clad in a blood-red robe, his figure illusory, as if he did not belong to this world at all.
Having descended into this universe less than a century ago, Qi Yuan had taken Xiao Jia to behold ten thousand rivers and mountains, coming to understand all myriad beings.
Yet amid that perfection, a subtle sliver had always been missing.
Thus, he had left this avatar behind.
"Who is this?"
"An avatar?"
Seeing Qi Yuan, all the Ancestors showed shocked expressions.
Qi Yuan's arrival was undeniably a variable.
Yet this variable was merely an avatar.
Was an avatar... enough?
Qi Fang stared at that figure, tempestuous waves crashing through his heart. "Cousin?"
Who else could that blood-robed figure in midair be but his cousin?
"Hey... stop destroying the world. I've already taken note of them anyway," Qi Yuan spoke up, looking utterly languid. "The moment they die, I can just snap my fingers and resurrect them in my Netherworld."
The mysterious existence across the celestial vault remained silent.
Qi Yuan continued to chatter. "Do you want to come into my Netherworld for a look? I want to see... just who you are."
"No refusing allowed. I've already passed the exam for my law enforcement license. You've destroyed this world so many times, breaking the law, and so I have stripped you of your right to privacy. Therefore... I'll look whenever I want!"
As his words fell, that mysterious existence seemed to erupt in fury.
The heavens and earth felt on the verge of collapse, and time seemed ready to shatter into fragments.
Yet Qi Yuan merely extended a finger and tapped lightly.
All ripples flattened into utter calm.
The mysterious entity's figure froze, as if caught in a single frame.
Countless streams of information flooded into Qi Yuan's mind.
"I see. A Dao Lord who controls time?"
In an instant, Qi Yuan understood the being before him.
In this world, an extraordinarily talented woman had truly comprehended legendary time and was revered as the Time Dao Lord.
Time was a mysterious and magnificent Dao.
The Time Dao Lord was equally magnificent.
This Dao Lord was unwilling to stop at the Yang Five Dao Lord realm.
Reaching out with temporal tendrils, she pierced the past, anchored the present, and reached into the future.
Ultimately, a wisp of her spiritual light traversed space-time and landed in the Mortal Heart Realm, encountering the Holy Mother of No Food. Through the timeline entwined around the Holy Mother of No Food, she glimpsed a certain possibility.
Within that possibility, she caught sight of the Three Pure Ones Method.
Thus, emulating Sansheng, she sought to attain the Three Pure Ones Method.
Her past body entered Yang Four, becoming the Time Shuttle.
Her present body remained as a Dao Lord, cycling endlessly.
However, she had never witnessed the true Three Pure Ones Method.
Consequently, she sought to unify the three manifestations into one.
Her past body, the Time Shuttle, turned into an exotic treasure, becoming the foundation of her Dao attainment.
By subsequently devouring her future body, she would achieve ultimate fruition.
And she indeed swallowed her future body.
Yet she had underestimated it.
She had never truly assimilated her future body.
Later, when combining her three bodies into one, a grave problem arose.
She had to either perish, leaving behind a sliver of hope for a breakthrough, or live on, solidified for all eternity as a muddled, bewildered Dao Lord.
She chose to perish.
Even so, in death, she used her supreme magic power to leave a ray of hope for the place of her Dao attainment.
Through countless resets, there was a minute possibility that she might return amid the evolving permutations.
Yet she had miscalculated regarding her future body.
How could the future body ever permit her return?
Even though the probability of her return was far smaller than one in TREE(3), the future body refused to tolerate even that.
Thus, the future body destroyed this world time and again, exhausting the Time Shuttle's energy solely to snuff out any chance of the Time Dao Lord's return.
"This Time Dao Lord really wasn't cautious enough, leaving an enemy—or rather, her future body—running loose out there, putting these people through utter misery."
"See that? Your future body comes to destroy you every single day!"
Qi Yuan sighed in lament.
Then suddenly, as if struck by a thought, his face drastically changed.
"Oh crap! When I wiped out the Black Mountain Sect back then, I only beat them to death! I didn't hunt down their past bodies or devour their future bodies! What if, just like this Time Dao Lord's future body, they're still alive?
"Could an innate saint have divined that I hail from Blue Star and attacked it?!"
The more Qi Yuan thought about it, the redder his face grew, and the more frightened he became.
"Actually, if the Black Mountain Sect wiped out Earth... that wouldn't necessarily be so bad. That way, nobody would ever know I plagiarized so much poetry!"
"Wait, no! Wouldn't the Black Mountain Sect people know?!"
"Hurry, back to Blue Star!"
Qi Yuan's figure dissipated, leaving behind a hall full of utterly bewildered Ancestral Land Ancestors.
"Our crisis is... resolved?"
"Just what kind of entity was that?"
"This person was pretty god... godly," one Ancestor stammered, trembling with trepidation.
***
Meanwhile, amidst the endless sea of stars, Xiao Jia sat upon a slender crescent moon.
Her red bridal gown was blazing like a star, aloof and coldly alluring, yet her temperament felt like a tranquil nebula, standing solitary above the mundane world.
When a pair of hands wrapped around Xiao Jia's slender waist, the scarlet gown seemed all the more coldly striking and her aura increasingly noble and aloof, yet she leaned bashfully against the newcomer.
"You... Lingxuan..." Xiao Jia seemed a little shy.
Xiao Jia caught the fragrance of Shen Lingxuan lingering on Qi Yuan, along with the scents of Ning Tao and the Canary.
Accompanying Qi Yuan across rivers and mountains, there were times when Qi Yuan would leave for a while.
When he returned, his body would often carry the fragrances of other women, just as it did today.
Sometimes Jin Li, sometimes Jiang Lingsu, sometimes Shen Lingxuan, or perhaps the Canary and Ning Tao.
The scents of the latter two always appeared together.
This time, it had become three.
She was not Shen Lingxuan; Shen Lingxuan was a part of her.
"Xiao Jia, your sense of smell is getting better and better." Qi Yuan waved his hand where Xiao Jia's nose should have been, though sadly, that place was empty.
Sometimes, he wondered what Xiao Jia looked like, and what his master, Ruan Yixi, looked like.
Would she be like Shen Lingxuan, embodying ten thousand forms of allure in a single frame? Aloof as frost and snow, yet radiating bone-deep enchantment; jade-smooth skin concealing a thousand graces, like white plums reflecting snow—vibrant amidst the chill.
Every figure he beheld struck the exact chord of his aesthetic desires, like the moon mirrored across a thousand rivers, every reflection shining upon the softest corner of his heart.
Whether pity, intimacy, doting affection, cherishing, admiration, or a fierce desire to possess.
One moment, she was like a neighborhood girl in a schoolgirl uniform, pure and lively; the next, like a mysterious maiden seated high in the Nine Heavens, cold and solitary; in an instant, she transformed into an enchantress of a demonic sect, every glance brimming with innate allure; then, she seemed a court lady beside a pool, plump and graceful, radiating dignity and beauty; and finally, she appeared like a princess locked within the palace depths, her brows clouded with lingering sorrow that moved one to tender pity.
Yet no matter what guise she took, she was his most precious treasure.
Throughout all these years, Xiao Jia had stayed by his side, their souls entwined like true soulmates.
"Do you want to come back to Blue Star with me? I feel like Blue Star is in danger."
He told Xiao Jia everything that had happened in the Ancestral Land.
And of his worries.
What if the Black Mountain Sect really had invaded Blue Star?
Regardless, it was better to be cautious.
Besides, he also wanted to revisit Blue Star, take Xiao Jia along to register for an official marriage certificate, and contribute to raising the marriage rate.
"Okay..." Xiao Jia's voice came haltingly, stumbling just as it had when Qi Yuan first met her.
"Then we'll go back through the Gate of Myriad Manifestations. I'll take the lead. Hold onto my hand tightly so the Black Mountain Sect can't ambush us!" Qi Yuan said.
This time, his right eyelid hadn't twitched, which meant there was no disaster looming.
Evidently, even if the Black Mountain Sect had gone to Blue Star, they wouldn't pose any threat to him.
This trip could serve as a vacation with Xiao Jia to see if Blue Star's moon was rounder than the Canglan Realm's, and whether the air was as sweet and fragrant as it was here.
Holding Xiao Jia's cool little hand, the two stepped into the Gate of Myriad Manifestations.
"Blue Star... your sun and moon have arrived!"
Chapter 636