Chapter 977: Invincible

"The future... will depend on you..."

The information that did not exist in any spacetime flowed along the river of time and reached beneath Li Pin's feet. When Li Pin looked back, he could also see that at this moment, he had smoothly completed the breakthrough into Eternity.

For an Eternal, time had always been a single whole. The past, present, and future all happened at the same time.

“......”

"..."

Eternal Zhan Yuan had vanished. He disappeared completely once Li Pin reached this point. No one could remember him anymore. Even the Transcendents who had lived in the Ancient Astral World era with him no longer remembered his existence.

At this moment, Li Pin understood why, before achieving Eternity, when the river of time was masterless, he had felt melancholy and sorrow. It turned out that not only could Eternity transcend spacetime, but emotions could also transcend spacetime.

Li Pin looked forward. All traces of Eternal Zhan Yuan's existence were completely erased, but Li Qiuxian's figure still remained. However, Li Pin could see clearly that Li Qiuxian's state did not belong to Eternity. He had come into contact with destiny.

He had tried, from the Transcendence Realm, to take a leap to the Eternity Realm after Zhan Yuan had severed his path, attempting to reach Eternity's end, to the Origin, directly.

But he had failed. He fell into the eternal emptiness and nothingness, with no one knowing what his outcome would be.

Just like when a story ended, no one cared about the characters' futures anymore.

But even though he had failed, he was still the first person to touch destiny, and he passed everything down through different existences like Li Xian.

And at first, Li Wuzhi had obtained this inheritance, thus the Void Emperor came to be. And thus also came the following.

"Me," Li Pin murmured. "The cause of all things, the effect of all things."

He finally understood why, long ago, the concepts of the cause of all things and the effect of all things had already formed in his mind. Why, even before becoming an Astral God, he had already set his goal upon the origin of all things.

That was because he had never been just himself. He had always stood on the shoulders of giants to gaze ahead. To gaze upon the origin! Until one day, he could reach the origin, surpass the origin, and break destiny!

"Hope..." Li Pin muttered softly and continued forward.

Gradually, he reached the side of that figure ahead. However, compared to Eternal Zhan Yuan, this figure was immersed in the eternal emptiness and nothingness that was equivalent to the deepest layer of the river of time.

The figure remained unnoticed and unmentioned until this moment, when Li Pin extended his hand.

At this moment, Li Pin's extended hand represented hope.

Like scattered moonlight passing through the clouds, shining upon the sea, and then passing through the surface, becoming light that illuminated the seabed.

Finally, he grasped that figure’s hand and pulled him from the seabed, the abyss.

The instant their hands joined, Li Pin seemed to see something. It was reliance and hope. Li Pin understood that this figure had entrusted the final step of hope onto him.

"Perhaps in some ways I did better than Void, but I always believed it was not because of others' influence. It was because of myself. I enjoyed doing this, I enjoyed challenging my limits, and I saw surpassing myself as the only path forward. So, I cannot make promises."

Li Pin paused.

"The only promise I can make is one thing."

His tone was filled with unshakable will.

"Before I die, I will break him!"

Thus, a smile appeared on the figure's face. His entire being turned into light and fused into Li Pin's body. Just like when Li Pin had broken through to Eternity, he saw that giant figure of light scattering hope across the river of time.

"Destiny."

Li Pin shifted his gaze and once again looked at the Frostbound Star Abyss.

"I once promised someone... that if one day in the future I could touch destiny, surpass destiny—"

He paused.

No, there was no “if.”

He was going to do it. As long as he drew breath, that belief would never falter, not even in the slightest.

***

Li Pin continued forward.

At this moment, no one was paving the road of Eternity for him. Nor was anyone guiding the light of origin for him. The only one he could rely on was himself.

What appeared before him was no longer the river of time he stood in, but rather, the multiverse spacetime. The more timelines he touched, the greater the spacetime concept he embodied. The greater the spacetime concept he embodied, the faster the timelines passed by. Magnitude and speed, at this moment, intertwined madly, reaching an unprecedented extreme.

As for himself, the ever-expanding and tangled timelines only highlighted his insignificance. And in his insignificance, he appeared to move even slower within this cluster of timelines.

The sun, moon, and stars were eternal, yet they traversed forty thousand kilometers in a day. Insignificant humans, even if they exhausted all effort and ran day and night, still needed thousands of days to circle the Earth.

Greatness and smallness; speed and slowness. Two concepts clashed and collided... before becoming lost in the end.

Just like the most brilliant being, the most precious treasure. Placed among ten thousand people, one planet, a galaxy, they still struggled to draw the gaze of any other lifeform. Even if they shouted with all their strength, only to release one final brilliance.

"I will defeat him."

As Li Pin felt the infinite expansion and vastness of his timeline, his consciousness continued to shrink, becoming infinitely small. But his beliefs and will were always balanced within this vastness and smallness, unwilling to be crushed, torn, or shattered by this terrifying disparity. This was destiny's corrective mechanism erasing illogical existences.

"To have walked to this day, to this time, to this moment..."

He carried hope more precious than the world's most beautiful treasure, guarding his heart tightly. And with it as his source of power, he pressed onward until he reached the absolute limit of this very moment.

Thus, he knew that if he did not change, he could go no further. This was the end of his path.

"So, this thing called hope..."

Li Pin felt the burden placed upon him.

"I knew that I could not do it."

At this moment, he was as small as dust drifting in the vast starry sky. He sincerely believed he could not represent others' hope, nor could he bear their faith.

"After all... I myself was only an accident, so..."

Li Pin looked up.

"I have disappointed you guys."

After admitting he could not do it, his heart suddenly became ethereal. Shedding all burdens, he moved forward unrestrained, feeling so light that it seemed he could carry countless times and spaces.

He grabbed out.

On the verge of being erased by infinite expansion and endless collapse, he forcibly tore from himself the legacy of hope others had placed upon him.

Let this hope... be left for those who come after.

Li Pin's thoughts turned, and he prepared to cast this hope into the distance.

But he paused.

For a moment, he felt that the concept of hope was too abstract and ethereal.

Take Li Qiuxian's entrusted hope as an example. After going in such a huge circle, Li Pin had sworn to others that he would reach the peak of the starry cosmos on his own, and yet he still ended up tied to Li Qiuxian’s inheritance.

If that protagonist of the Ancient Astral World had clearly stated that the Clairvoyance gift came from his legacy, Li Pin would not have embarrassed himself by saying those words that contradicted these truths.

He had always been one to act openly and uprightly; thus, he naturally disliked such a style.

Therefore, this hope—representing two people....

After pondering for a moment, Li Pin also integrated his own journey up to this point into the mix.

Something embodying the hope of three Eternals, three great beings, took shape.

It was a simple and straightforward statistics window where everything was clear at a glance.

"As long as you have a heart that can surpass yourself and surpass everything, with the determination and faith to turn the impossible into possible, as long as you prove yourself again and again by defeating opponents who theoretically cannot be defeated, then you can inherit this hope, gain this power... and follow this hope to reach Eternity, and even... the origin!"

Reaching origin might have been a bit exaggerated. After all, at this moment, he was already on the verge of annihilation whilst on the path to do so. But as long as he had not truly been annihilated or died, then not a single moment could count as true failure.

Likewise, he firmly believed that as long as he lived, he would never meet the one who could defeat him and tell him his path was wrong.

"This gate, I will push open for you; this path, I will pave for you!"

Li Pin suddenly threw this new hope forward, into the depths of time and space, flying toward the starry cosmos.

As he sent this hope away, his timeline, expanded to the extreme, began to collapse rapidly.

This meant that he was weakening. Already on the verge of failure, giving away this hope was like adding frost to snow.

Perhaps the help I promised you... I can no longer fulfill it. Li Pin whispered in his heart.

Yet strangely, at this moment, the light of humanity and the flame of faith within him burned to an unprecedented extreme. It was something even more dazzling and blazing than when he was shrouded in the radiance of hope.

"Origin? Destiny?"

Li Pin suddenly raised his fist and struck.

Those extremely massive time, possibility, and concept were, at this moment, stirred entirely by his infinitesimal self through the brilliance radiating around him.

"Either you crush me completely, turn me entirely into ashes, into nothingness..."

Countless spacetime planes burst apart, all possibilities shrank at this moment, and with his annihilation among them, countless radiances were released. Like thoughts colliding with brain nerves, bursting forth into dazzling sparks of inspiration. Countless possibilities were awakened and countless thoughts were deduced, crashing against the shackles and cages forged by destiny.

At this moment, an unprecedented tremor filled the cognition of all existence, as if... something was about to change.

"Or... I break you! At any cost, even if no one in the world remembers..."

At this moment, all the time Li Pin had compressed shone simultaneously, turning into divine light illuminating everything.

"Even if only once."

Rumble!

Everything was being annihilated. The predetermined destiny, the immutable origin.

"I cannot represent anyone's hope, nor will I represent anyone."

Faintly, an unprecedented obsession resounded across the boundless spacetime.

"I am me!"

All things collapsed.

"I am Li Pin!"

The world restarted.

"Invincible Li!"