The moment Sonia and Diya stepped into the Flowing Gold River, they understood why Yaxiu had hesitated.
While time inflicted no physical harm on them, that did not mean time could not hold them back.
Knowledge.
Every single drop of the Flowing Gold River held the condensed life of a mortal. Merely laying eyes upon the river was enough to rapidly deepen one's experience in the time faction. Otherwise, sorcerers would never have endured the agony of aging to death just to soak in the Flowing Gold River and attempt to cross the threshold of the time faction.
To Yaxiu and the others, however, this knowledge was nothing more than redundant static. Just as solving a hundred basic arithmetic problems would never advance one's grasp of mathematics, having attained the Gold rank in the time faction, they could glean no further nourishment from it.
"Follow behind me," Yaxiu said simply. With that, he plunged straight into the Flowing Gold River, paddling downward to dive deep into its depths.
The resistance was immense!
It was not merely the crushing pressure of the water, but more importantly, a powerful upward thrust. Yaxiu felt less like he was diving and more as if he were swimming upstream against a roaring waterfall.
Of course. The rain fell in reverse, so naturally the river flowed in reverse as well.
Before long, the resistance grew so overwhelming that Yaxiu's amateur swimming skills could carry him no further. Beyond the physical drag, the relentless deluge of knowledge carried by the river battered him mercilessly. Extraneous thoughts flooded his mind until it was completely packed, leaving him incapable of thinking about anything else!
Suddenly, two streaks of color swam past him. Yaxiu looked closely and saw the Witch and the Sword Princess diving with their gold and silver wings unfurled. Realization struck him, and he hurriedly unfolded his own void wings as well.
Swimming through the air or through water was fundamentally the same, so void wings naturally worked here too. Sure enough, Yaxiu easily dived deeper. Because the void wings required virtually no physical or mental exertion, the impact of the temporal knowledge plummeted.
Yet soon after, an emotion far more vast, desolate, agonizing, and inescapable than the torrent of knowledge rapidly seized Yaxiu's mind.
Insignificance.
Confronted by this magnificent river forged across millennia, tens of millennia, and immeasurable spans of time, Yaxiu felt he was not merely diving into the Flowing Gold River—he was like a lone droplet dissolving into the water. The twenty-odd years of his past life were just a single drop here. Everything he cherished and everything he loathed would, under the scouring wash of this great river, swiftly turn into a traceless past.
Give up.
Faced with such a magnificent river and his own minuscule self, he felt that his existence was utterly devoid of meaning. All his struggles and strivings were merely insignificant ripples. It was better to drift with the current, float downstream, and merge into this grandeur...
No.
A faint purple glint flashed in Yaxiu's eyes. He snapped out of that self-destructive nihilism just in time to reach out and catch the Sword Princess, who was on the verge of losing herself. The moment their hands met, the six-colored armor they wore seemed to connect as well, and a faint golden light flickered between their hands.
Drawing upon their Gold rank in the time faction, an epiphany dawned on them—
For a will to withstand the scouring of the river of time, it had to possess a sufficient length of life. If one person's lifespan was not long enough, several people could piece their lives together.
Yaxiu swam forward with all his might and caught the struggling Witch. With the three of them joined, Sonia's and Diya's consciousness gradually returned. Diya cast Water-Born Line to bind their hands firmly together, and together they pushed deeper into the depths.
Not old enough, not enough people.
Only then did Yaxiu realize that, just like the Golden Fish, the Seven-Colored Tail had a headcount requirement.
If they were two weathered old sorcerers who had lived for decades, they would only need to hold hands to easily resist the temporal scouring.
However, aside from Yaxiu having a little more life experience, the Sword Princess was merely a college student who had not yet left her ivory tower, while the Witch was an innocent young girl who had received no formal schooling and saw everything through fairy-tale picture books. The spans of their lives were far too short; a single wash of time reduced them to mere foam.
If only they had a few more operators, if only the girls were a little older, if only Yaxiu had pulled off a dozen more earth-shattering prison breaks... then they could have seized the Seven-Colored Tail with ease.
Unfortunately, there were no "ifs."
Seeing that they were on the verge of giving in, Yaxiu shook them awake. He wanted to speak, but sound could not travel through the water, nor were glances sufficient. Struck by an idea, he traced words onto the palms of their hands.
"Demilo."
The two startled slightly, recalling their first arduous battle on the Time Continent. Although Demilo was merely a logistics commander, he had still exerted immense pressure on them. They had exhausted every scheme and narrowly escaped death before barely triumphing over that formidable foe.
"Legendary Library."
Diya's face flushed. Back then, her greed had driven her all the way to the fourth floor, only to leave empty-handed.
"Amnesia Wooden Cabin."
Not just Diya—even now, whenever Sonia recalled her behavior in the Amnesia Wooden Cabin, her face burned with embarrassment.
"Concept Incarnation, Heroic Spirit Empress."
The beginning of all their misfortunes in the Void Realm.
"Colosseum."
Recalling the two male sorcerers they had pummeled into the ground, the Witch and the Sword Princess could not help beaming with satisfaction.
"Book of Chaotic Shopping."
Though they had later accidentally stumbled into the Oasis's Main City zone and triggered an early war in the Void Realm, the root of it all was simply that they had simultaneously been afflicted by the curse requiring them to maintain mutual gaze with others...
"Destiny Q&A."
"Garden Battlefield."
"Dark Phantasmal Sound Miracle Paradise."
At this one, Sonia pinched Yaxiu's hand with a bit of extra force.
Under Yaxiu's guidance, their memories of their adventures across the Time Continent gradually resurfaced—their setbacks and triumphs, risks and rewards, formidable foes and hardships. Everything transformed into their nourishment, turning them into anchors for one another.
Yaxiu vaguely deduced what the six color mechanisms modified by the gods truly were—they were surely "anchors" meant to keep sorcerers lucid as they pursued time amidst the grand narrative of eternity.
Unfortunately, the colors had been usurped by the gods. To obtain the anchors of their souls, they not only had to risk life and limb to slay commanders, but the anchor of their will had to be forged entirely by themselves.
The gods are guilty of heinous crimes, leaving sorcerers full of grievances.jpg
The combined will of the trio ultimately held firm against the wash of endless time. Down and down they plunged, sinking deeper like three seven-colored fish striving to transform into dragons.
Suddenly, Yaxiu and the others caught sight of a white light appearing in the depths of the Flowing Gold River. Clasping each other's hands tight, their three pairs of void wings beat forcefully, leaving trails of seven-colored tailfins in the Flowing Gold River as they broke completely free from the shackles of time!
The instant they broke out of the Flowing Gold River, an uncanny sensation of being turned upside down struck them. They nearly tumbled back into the river, but by supporting one another, they managed to steady themselves in an instant.
They had emerged from the Flowing Gold River.
This was a purely white, transparent world.
Yaxiu looked down and saw four colossal pillars striding across the golden sea. They were positioned at the top of the tail. Yaxiu could see that this tail was pressed tightly against the beast's belly, and from every single strand of hair on the tail, a golden river extended outward.
The Flowing Gold River that they had struggled so agonizingly to dive through had now become a hanging waterfall.
And as they swam all the way up clad in the Six-Colored Anchor, their colors had rapidly tainted the entire tail. The strands of hair at the very tip were one thing, but the closer one got to the top, the more seven-colored the tail became.
Not only the tail, but they themselves were dyed in the hues of the Flowing Gold River, wrapped in seven-colored luminescence, dazzling and brilliant.
The White Giant Ox, the Seven-Colored Tail.
The Golden Fish was not in the sea, but in the sky; the Seven-Colored Tail was not above, but in the river.
This was the true form of the Ox of the Sky Carriage; this was the truth behind the Seven-Colored Tail!
"Over there," Diya said suddenly.
Yaxiu looked over and noticed the source of the Flowing Gold River not far away. It was a massive gate composed of purple steles, green vines, red soil, blue ore, orange fruit, and cyan bones. From the base of the gate, an endless stream of golden river water poured forth.
They walked up before the colossal gate. Though beyond the portal lay a blank void, they all knew that what awaited them was no void, but a rainbow.
Sonia stepped into the middle and took both of their hands. There was no need for words. The three exchanged a look, and together, they stepped through the colossal gate within the body of the White Ox.
The next second, they were disintegrated.
Chapter 482