Chapter 760 – The Bonsai of Time, Evil God Ping'an, and the Return of the Northern Dipper - Part 2

A wind blew through the corridor.

A cold wind.

A

deathly

cold wind.

Within it, a sudden surge of black smoke burst forth, rushing straight at Li Yuan. Within the smoke, faint outlines emerged, shapes that defied logic and reason.

These things were nothing like the blood fiends. They were

far

more powerful.

As the smoke rolled toward him, Li Yuan caught a glimpse of numbers flickering within the haze, each hovering around 10 million.

By contrast, even the strongest blood fiends they had faced lately barely reached numbers in the low millions.

A peak third rank cultivator in the mortal world typically only reached a little over one million. Someone in the True Will Realm might reach two million at best.

That meant...these entities before him now were among the top three most powerful beings he’d ever encountered.

And there wasn’t just one of them.

Had this been a thousand years ago, Li Yuan would’ve hesitated at the sight of so many beings with such terrifying power. He’d have been forced to fight cautiously, retreat if needed, maybe barely escape with his life. Then he would spend years cultivating, eventually returning with other top experts to suppress them, after they had already wrought havoc on the mortal world.

But now, Li Yuan clasped his hands behind his back and stepped forward.

The black smoke surged like a tidal wave. The shadows within it grew clearer by the second.

They were grotesque and malformed, their bodies sprouting tumors, eyeballs, limbs in all the wrong places. Their twisted flesh pulsed with a sickly rhythm, and from their gaping maws came a chorus of cries. Old men weeping, babies wailing, women laughing, men screaming, it was a maddening, overlapping cacophony of every kind of human voice.

The closer Li Yuan drew to them, the more the very fabric of space began to twist around him. These creatures weren’t just trying to destroy him. They were trying to tear him apart at the dimensional level.

Unfortunately for them, the moment the space around Li Yuan began to twist, those grotesque abominations began vanishing, one after another, disappearing without a trace.

As Li Yuan walked, countless miniature worlds bloomed into existence around him, capturing and sealing each twisted creature inside. These worlds didn’t come from a special skill or move, they were instinct, as natural to him now as breathing. They were his version of a

basic attack

.

But the abominations were no ordinary foes. While they couldn't break free from these

one-day worlds

immediately, they didn’t sever their connection to the Ancestral Land, either.

From the void, disembodied limbs would suddenly stretch out, arms, legs, heads, hunks of pulsing, blood-soaked flesh. And wherever the flesh protruded, bloodshot, unfocused eyes would open and begin to spin wildly, as if searching for a way back in.

Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, these fragments vanished again.

What Li Yuan had done was

stack

multiple one-day worlds, trapping these abominations not in just one world, but several layered beyond each other.

Of course, these worlds were temporary. Once a day passed and one broke down, the abominations wouldn’t just be cast into the voidveil, they’d be drawn back into the Ancestral Land. But before that happened, Li Yuan would patch the breach, layering another world into the chain. That way, the cycle continued. One day at a time, stretched endlessly forward.

To destroy them outright, he’d need to use something like the World Destroying Finger.

But Li Yuan had no intention of killing them, at least not yet.

What mattered to him wasn’t victory, it was uncovering the mystery of this world.

So he kept walking, tossing the abominations into makeshift worlds as casually as someone flicking pebbles into a pond. And when time ran short, he simply reinforced the layers from within.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Several days passed like this.

Eventually, he came upon a faint trace, remnants of the Radiant Treasure Buddha’s aura.

The environment had changed significantly since he last came here, but that lingering presence confirmed it: this was the Hall of Life, the very place he had once explored alongside Ping’an, Bai Xinxuan, and Meng Xingxian.

A flicker of unease stirred in his chest.

Li Yuan quickened his pace. By the time he reached the far end of the corridor, he was trailed by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of floating

world prisons

.

From a higher perspective, one would see these miniature worlds trailing behind him like strands of luminous seaweed drifting in the void, dancing through space in a mesmerizing procession.

Then he stopped.

What appeared before him was so staggering, so utterly beyond reason, that even Li Yuan, who had seen more than most, was momentarily stunned.

A monstrous

motherform

stood ahead, nearly a thousand feet tall, its entire body covered in grotesque tumors and countless swiveling eyeballs. It emitted a cacophony of overlapping human voices. Screams, laughter, sobbing, all twisted together into one maddening chorus.

Chunks of flesh dropped continuously from its bloated body.

And from those hunks of meat...were born the same horrifying, 10-million combat power abominations that Li Yuan had been fighting.

Yet the motherform itself didn’t possess a singular, overwhelming power. It wasn’t a unified being, but rather a writhing nest of those same creatures, like bees crawling within a hive, each acting independently.

Sensing Li Yuan’s presence, the flesh began to shriek in glee.

Dozens of abominations launched themselves at him.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh!

But this time, Li Yuan didn’t rely on his layered worlds. Instead, he casually pulled out a cloth pouch.

With a flick of his wrist, the mouth of the bag opened wide, and every last abomination hurtling toward him was instantly sucked inside.

This pouch was the last of Li Yuan’s world sealing armaments.

Over the years, he had forged six in total. The earliest was the old gourd, followed by the branch staff, the jade ruyi, the vajra bangle, the jade purification bottle, and finally...this pouch.

Its mouth gaped open, and the abominations dove into it with eerie eagerness. With a

shoop shoop,

they vanished into the pouch's depths. Once inside, however, escape was no longer an option.

The towering, thousand-foot-tall motherform rapidly began to shrink collapsing in on itself until it revealed a core body, one that wouldn’t stop splitting and spawning copies of itself.

And that splitting method...was one Li Yuan knew all too well.

He stared at it for a moment, then squinted carefully to make out the features of the original body.

“Ping’an...” Li Yuan murmured the name.

But all he got in response was a guttural, twisted roar.

Li Yuan didn’t hesitate. He sealed what was left of Ping’an into the pouch and turned his gaze past him, looking for anything else, any trace, any connection.

But there was nothing.

The link to the cycle of reincarnation had been severed. This place had become a sealed-off fragment, a drifting island of the Hall of Life, cut off from everything else.

Li Yuan fastened the pouch next to the gourd at his waist.

He’d seen something like this in the old era. Now, with all the clues falling into place, a theory was beginning to form in his mind. His son had probably managed to make contact with the realm of reincarnation at the last possible moment, but was then overwhelmed. Countless shattered remnants of ancient souls, powerful and unwilling to die, forced their way in through that connection and took over.

Now, trapped in this dead-end corner of the Hall of Life, his son had become the vehicle for their madness. They had lost their chance at rebirth and clung to his body instead, using his power to endlessly spawn flesh, create avatars, and attempt possession. They wanted to return. They wanted resurrection. They wanted to walk the human world again.

These were not your average cultivators who had failed to pass through the Soul Furnace. These souls hadn’t simply died. They had clung to existence, even through the flame. And they were anything but ordinary second ranks.

Li Yuan had a theory.

These things...might be starkin. Or even chaosborn.

If the world had once held a Starkin Path, or Chaos Path, then surely it had also given birth to special souls aligned with those paths.

To Li Yuan, the abominations felt very much like

evil gods

. So for now, he gave that name to the pouch that held them, the

Evil God World

.

Artifacts like the gourd and the pouch weren’t just tools. They were bound to him in a special way, deeply attuned and spiritually linked.

That link allowed him to suppress entire worlds with his will alone.

But now...with both the Mountain Sea World and Evil God World hanging at his waist, he was starting to feel the strain.

He had to constantly apply pressure, maintain his grip on both worlds. It was becoming too much. He could no longer fight at full strength while bearing their weight.

He scanned the surroundings one last time before releasing Yan Yu’s soul fragment from the voidship and explained everything that had just happened.

“Yan Yu,” he said, “in your honest opinion...could Ping’an still be alive in there?”

Yan Yu’s fragment fell silent, eyes closing as she reached out to her main body.

After a moment, she said, “We’ll need to go to the Underworld.”

Li Yuan nodded. “These souls...every last one of them is something else entirely. When we get there, what’s your plan?”

She replied, “The main body wants to try something, see if these special souls can serve as a substitute for the lost Chaos Path.”

Li Yuan thought for a moment and said, “Then let’s go back first. I’ll deal with the Evil God World...and then we return.”

Yan Yu’s soul fragment nodded in agreement.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Some time later.

The two stepped into the voidship. Ripples spread through the fabric of the void as the vessel sliced across reality.

In the blink of an eye, they arrived in a bustling mortal city, where Li Yuan gently dropped off Yan Yu’s soul fragment, before travelling to the Underworld.

The Primordial Earth Mother appeared without delay, and together with Li Yuan, she departed into the deeper regions.

The ghostly palanquin soared through the skies, yet did not cross the River of the Yellow Springs.

Li Yuan glanced outside. “Are we heading to the Wild Ghost Village?”

Yan Yu nodded. “The order north of the Yellow Springs was hard-won. Not a single ghost there can be disturbed. But the Wild Ghost Village is different. It’s where the truly twisted, erratic, and forbidden ones are. They can handle these evil gods. And even if something goes wrong...it doesn’t matter. You and I will stand by and help suppress them if needed.”

“Got it,” Li Yuan said, understanding the logic.

The Yellow Springs flowed in silence. From afar, a haunting melody drifted through the mist, like someone performing a ghostly opera. At the entrance to Wild Ghost Village stood a small stage. In front of it sat rows of pale-faced figures, their faces blank and motionless. On the stage, painted in garish colors of red and green, a grotesque figure sang under heavy makeup.

Li Yuan transformed, overlaying his form with the power of the Earth Soul, revealing the visage of a crowned Ghost Emperor.

The Primordial Earth Mother, however, required no such disguise.

As the two approached, the performer onstage froze mid-note. The ghostly audience rose in unison, then scattered with a rustle like dead leaves, silently vacating their seats, as if clearing the way for visiting dignitaries.

Yan Yu said simply, “Begin.”

Li Yuan carefully unsealed the Evil God World and tossed out a lump of flesh.

The moment it hit the ground, the air shifted.

The ghosts who had just vanished reappeared in an instant, drawn to the scent like sharks to blood. They surged forward, one after another, diving into the bloody mass.

The flesh convulsed, withered, and then disintegrated into ash.

It was, in simpler terms, a soul extraction.

What was a

soul extraction

? When the body’s Yang energy was depleted, only Yin remained. And the soul, with nothing to anchor it, would slip free.

Li Yuan studied the wild ghosts.

This place was soaked in malevolent energy. Any soul below second rank thrown into this village would be torn to shreds instantly.

As the blood and flesh withered, the broken remnants of ancient souls began to reveal themselves. Some attempted to resist, to rage. But they were quickly overwhelmed, encircled, and devoured by the ghosts of the Wild Ghost Village.

These village ghosts belonged to the Underworld. The souls, though equally terrifying, were outsiders.

A new feast had begun.

Eventually, the Underworld...swallowed that mouthful.

Li Yuan, seeing the process working, continued releasing more fragments of flesh.

One after another, the ruined souls emerged, and Li Yuan began to make out their faces, the echoes of what they once were.

And then, all at once, he froze.

Among the broken souls, he saw a familiar figure.

A hunched woman with hair draped like a curtain, face hidden in shadow.

But Li Yuan recognized her. It was her, the Northern Dipper, once known as Ying Zhuoyao.

And with that, his suspicions were finally confirmed.

These shattered remnants were the souls of ancient starkin, perhaps even the lost souls of the Chaos Path as well.