Chapter 5704: Eternal Slumber

What lay beyond time? Eternity. And what was beyond eternity? Transcendence.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Within High Heaven Aegis was an artificial eternity shaped by the endless rotation from the temporal wheel - a mystery known only to a select few.

Previously, the empress and her allies utilized this special domain and an eternity to finally slay the mysterious guest of Celestial Court.

They disappeared afterward, never to be seen again in this eternal expanse. Some could only see remnant images, not the true cultivators.

Li Qiye embarked on the path and was engulfed by this special domain. Time passed by in the blink of an eye, rendering it impossible to tell truth from false - reality from illusions.

He saw himself standing in front of a cave, battered by the chilling winds due to his flimsy clothes.

He shuddered from fear and the cold; the cave entrance looked like a beast opening its jaws - aiming to devour him.

Nonetheless, he still wanted to enter to find his lost sheep, clenching his sleeves.

***

From the mountain top looking down, he saw mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. The stench was unbearable, not to mention the gruesome state of the frightened, dismembered victims. Killing a single ancient ming required considerable planning and sacrifice.

***

In a radiant location, he looked up and saw the high heaven. With one step forward, he activated the myriad laws only to be faced with the heavenly might. A single thought could destroy three thousand worlds.

***

A girl persevered through the rainy night, unaware of hidden assassins. He, as the Dark Crow, perched on a branch and observed her.

***

An explosion stemming from a primordial light reduced everything to ashes. The pain was intolerable even for beings deemed immortal and indestructible. They were reduced to particles countless times - dying and reviving, reviving and dying... Eventually, their souls entered the yellow river.

***

In this eternal timeline, one could just be a newborn baby, a man during their prime, or someone in the twilight years.

If one couldn’t reach their true self, they would be lost in this timeline forever.

Whether it be the frightened Li Qiye standing before the cave, the Dark Crow amidst a sea of blood, or Li Qiye stuck in the primordial explosion, his dao heart remained firm.

He eventually returned to the source - or the present. The past was long gone and the future was yet to be here - only the flow of the present was guaranteed and everlasting.

Once returned to his true self, he finally found the right direction instead of being lost forever.

This special domain was freed from the shackles of reality. Nonetheless, eternity in this state came with a price.

Eventually, Li Qiye made it to his destination - a place with blood drops. Each contained a separate temporal present.

Through each, he could see numerous iterations of time - different empresses and monarchs traveling through time.

Raising her hand to activate Emperor Suppression, roaring to create an immortal dao...

Another showed a version of when she was a child walking through the rain at night.

Then there was a proud princess who was yet to become a monarch.

The emergence of an empress capable of suppressing heaven and earth. The story of a princess choosing to live reclusively while only one step from finishing her grand dao.

They were none other than Empress Hong Tian and Lunargrasp Immortal Monarch, albeit fake versions. Their real self seemingly disappeared after the fight.

“An eternal slumber in time.” Li Qiye let out a sigh and said: “I’ll fix the timeline but it depends on you two when you can finally emerge again.”

Having said that, he clenched his fist and time started flowing.

“Boom!” He became gigantic and escaped the boundary of the worlds. Eight Desolaces and the six continents were only a river of time flowing near him.

An infinite length of time condensed on his fingertip. Worlds floated around him like dust specks.

His eyes became radiant enough to illuminate all timelines; creation and destruction rotated within his blinks.

“Buzz.” A primordial light appeared near the unreachable location of Empress Hong Tian and Lunargrasp Immortal Monarch.

Both pulsed weakly, on the verge of extinguishing after overcoming the insurmountable odds and imprisoning Trinity Ancestor.

Due to their injuries, they couldn’t return to the original timeline and had to slumber. A full recovery was required before their return.

“Rumble!” The colossal Li Qiye lifted the entire river of time and reversed its current. His primordial light penetrated the special domain and melted its stagnation, fusing it with the actual timeline.

Time melted like water and started flowing in a loop, connecting end to end. The past and the future flowed toward the present once more. This would allow the countless versions of the two to converge toward their present self.

Only the present was eternal; the past was unattainable and the future was uncertain. As the timelines converged, the missing duo gradually appeared again.

Nonetheless, the versions were still pulsing with instability. As they flowed toward a single point, a maelstrom attracted the past and the future versions, creating a fixed point in the present.