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.
"Has the world-destroying tribulation 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 entirely to step straight into Yang Four.
The Ancestral Land's Lost Glowstick had once helped Qi Yuan travel through time to meet the Holy Mother of No Food in an extraordinary way. That peculiar creation had been forged after being steeped in the Time Shuttle's influence, containing a sliver of the Time Shuttle's power.
Now, the Ancestral Land had been destroyed time and time again. These Ancestors had repeatedly used the Time Shuttle to reset the world, cycling through who knew how many cycles of reincarnation.
And now, the Time Shuttle's energy was spent.
This would likely be their very last chance.
"Alas. The Great Dao has fifty, heaven unfolds forty-nine, and one escapes—where is our 'one'?"
Resist?
No matter how many Ancestors gathered, they would likely still be no match for that entity.
"'One' represents the variable, yet through countless reboots, this old man has ceaselessly sought that variable, only never to find it."
Seated below, Qi Fang suddenly thought of his cousin, Qi Yuan.
In the original timeline, his cousin was supposed to have died early.
Yet when Qi Fang was still an embryo, he had seen that his cousin was still alive.
Did his cousin count as a variable?
Unfortunately, after being born, Qi Fang had never seen his cousin again.
When he investigated his cousin's traces, he caught only fragmented whispers concerning him and that figure in the bridal gown.
"Not good, it's here!"
At that moment, every Ancestor felt a trembling, peerless aura descend upon them.
They had cultivated for untold millennia, becoming immortals and revered Ancestors, yet before this aura, they were as fragile as ants.
Everyone smelled the scent of death.
There was no resisting—only destruction, total dissolution.
Yet right at that moment, an indifferent voice rang out:
"I was just wondering why this universe never felt complete. Turns out it was missing you. Good thing I left an avatar here; otherwise... I would've missed you."
The newcomer wore a blood-red robe, his figure ethereal, as though he did not belong to this world at all.
Having descended upon this universe for less than a century, Qi Yuan had traveled through countless mountains and rivers with Xiao Jia, coming to understand all myriad beings.
Yet amidst that perfection, a single thread had always felt lacking.
Thus, he had left this avatar behind.
"Who is that?"
"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.
Could an avatar... possibly be enough?
Qi Fang stared at that figure, a tempest surging in his heart. "Cousin?"
Who else could that blood-robed figure in the sky be but his cousin?
"Hey... don't destroy the world just yet. I've already memorized them all anyway.
"The moment they die, I'll snap my fingers, and they'll be resurrected in my Netherworld."
Qi Yuan spoke with a lazy expression.
The mysterious existence across the cosmic firmament remained silent.
Qi Yuan rambled on, "Do you want to come take a look inside my Netherworld? I want to see... who you are.
"You're not allowed to refuse. I've already passed my law enforcement certification! You've destroyed this world so many times that you've committed a crime, and I've stripped you of your right to privacy. So... I'll look whenever I want!"
As the words fell, that mysterious existence seemed to fly into a rage.
Heaven and earth seemed on the verge of collapse, and time itself threatened to shatter into fragments.
Yet Qi Yuan simply raised a finger and tapped lightly.
All ripples smoothed into utter calm.
The mysterious existence froze, as if locked in place.
Countless fragments of information flooded into Qi Yuan's mind.
"I see. A Dao Lord who controls time?"
In an instant, Qi Yuan understood the existence before him.
In this realm, an astonishingly brilliant woman had truly comprehended the legendary Dao of Time, revered as the Time Dao Lord.
Time was a mysterious, majestic Dao.
The Time Dao Lord was equally majestic.
Yet she had been unwilling to stop at the realm of a Yang Five Dao Lord.
With tentacles of time, she connected to the past, established the present, and pierced through the future.
In the end, a wisp of her divine spark traversed time and space, descending into the Mortal Heart Realm. There, she encountered the Holy Mother of No Food, and through the timelines wrapped around the Holy Mother of No Food, she glimpsed a certain possibility.
Within that possibility, she beheld the Three Pure Ones Method.
Thus, she sought to emulate Sansheng and cultivate the Three Pure Ones Method to attain the Dao.
Her past body entered Yang Four, becoming the Time Shuttle.
Her present body remained a Dao Lord, cycling over and over.
Yet she had never truly seen the genuine Three Pure Ones Method after all.
Thus, she wished to merge the Three Pure Ones into one.
Her past body, the Time Shuttle, became an exotic treasure, serving as the foundation of her Dao attainment.
By then devouring her future body, she would achieve complete fruition.
And she indeed devoured her future body.
However, she had underestimated her future body.
She had never truly assimilated it.
Later, when she attempted to fuse the three bodies into one, a grave problem arose.
Either she had to perish, leaving behind a slim thread of hope for a breakthrough, or remain alive, permanently locked for all eternity as a muddle-headed Dao Lord.
She chose death.
Yet as she died, she still used her supreme power to grant the land of her Dao attainment a sliver of life.
Across countless resets, there remained an infinitesimal chance that she might return amidst the unfolding changes.
Yet she had miscalculated her future body.
How could her future body ever allow her to return?
Even if the probability of her return was far smaller than one in TREE(3), her future body refused to let it happen.
Thus, her future body destroyed this world time and time again, exhausting the Time Shuttle's energy, all to thoroughly snuff out any chance of the Time Dao Lord's return.
"This Time Dao Lord wasn't cautious enough. Leaving behind an enemy—or rather, a future body roaming free—really made these people suffer.
"Do you see this? Your future body comes to destroy you every single day!"
Qi Yuan sighed.
Then, as if suddenly realizing something, his expression changed drastically.
"Oh no! 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 they're still alive, just like this Time Dao Lord's future body?
"What if some innate saint calculated that I'm from Blue Star and invaded Blue Star?!"
The more Qi Yuan thought about it, the redder his face turned, his heart trembling with dread.
"Actually, if the Black Mountain Sect destroyed Earth... it wouldn't be all that bad either. That way, nobody would ever find out that I plagiarized so many poems!
"Wait, wouldn't the people from the Black Mountain Sect know?!"
"I need to get back to Blue Star right now!"
Qi Yuan's figure dissolved, leaving behind a hall full of bewildered Ancestors.
"Our crisis... has been resolved?"
"Just what kind of existence was that?"
"He was quite... divine," one Ancestor said nervously.
***
Meanwhile, amidst the endless sea of stars, Xiao Jia sat upon a slender crescent moon.
Her red bridal gown was as blazing as a star, cold and detached, yet her aura was like a tranquil nebula, solitary and independent of the mortal dust.
When a pair of hands wrapped around Xiao Jia's slender waist, the red hue grew even colder and more alluring, her demeanor increasingly noble and aloof, yet she leaned against him with shy hesitation.
"You... Lingxuan..." Xiao Jia seemed somewhat bashful.
She caught the fragrance of Shen Lingxuan on Qi Yuan, along with the scents of Ning Tao and Canary.
She accompanied Qi Yuan through mountains and rivers, but occasionally, Qi Yuan would leave for a period of time.
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, and sometimes Canary and Ning Tao.
The scents of the last two always appeared together.
This time, it had become three.
She was not Shen Lingxuan; Shen Lingxuan was merely a part of her.
"Xiao Jia, your sense of smell is getting better and better." Qi Yuan waved his hand where her nose should have been, but unfortunately, the space beneath her veil remained completely 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 grace and allure? Aloof as frost and snow, yet radiating a bone-deep temptation. A thousand charms hidden within jade-like skin, like white plum blossoms set against snow, cold yet exquisitely vivid.
Every figure he saw matched his aesthetic preferences perfectly, like the moon mirrored across a thousand rivers, every reflection striking the softest spot in his heart.
Pity, yearning for closeness, pampering, cherishing, admiration, or a fierce desire for possession.
At one moment, like a neighborhood girl in a school uniform, pure and vivacious; in the next, like a Mystic Maiden enthroned in the highest heavens, cold and aloof; an instant later, like an enchantress of a demonic sect, natural allure rippling in her gaze; then, seemingly a palace lady by a pool, voluptuous and richly graceful; and finally, like a princess deep within the Changmen Palace, her brow knit with an incurable melancholy that evoked boundless pity.
Yet no matter what form she took, she was his most precious treasure.
For so many years, Xiao Jia had been the one accompanying him, their souls intertwined like 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 his worries.
What if the Black Mountain Sect really had invaded Blue Star?
In any case, it was better to be cautious.
Besides, he wanted to go back to Blue Star to have a look, take Xiao Jia with him, and get a proper marriage certificate, doing his part to help raise the marriage rate.
"Okay..." Xiao Jia's voice came intermittently, stumbling just as it had when Qi Yuan first met her.
"Then we'll head back through the Gate of Myriad Manifestations. I'll go first, and you hold tight to my hand so the Black Mountain Sect people don't ambush you!" Qi Yuan said.
Returning this time, his right eyelid hadn't twitched, which meant there was no disaster.
Evidently, even if the Black Mountain Sect had gone to Blue Star, they wouldn't pose any threat to him.
This time, he would treat it as a vacation with Xiao Jia, to see whether the moon on Blue Star was rounder than in the Canglan Realm, and whether the air was just as sweet.
Holding Xiao Jia's cool, delicate hand, the two of them stepped into the Gate of Myriad Manifestations.
"Blue Star... your sun and moon have arrived!"
Chapter 638