Chapter 4147: Willforce Wave

Luo Yan sighed. “I stalled too much while trying to help you. Don’t be fooled by the fact that there’s still a year left before the evacuation. The fact is that everyone on the list has already left for the Spirit Nidus. What takes up the most time isn’t even moving people around—that can be done very quickly. What takes time is covering up all of their tracks so that nothing blows up.”

“What about you?” Mo Bai asked.

Luo Yan shook his head. “As you can see, I didn’t make it either.”

The last of Mo Bai’s doubts about Luo Yan then vanished. If humanity was plotting against her and the Nest civilization, why wait? She had already agreed to evacuate.

Clearly, Luo Yan was not the one setting her up.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I can still leave with the second group. This time, make up your mind. Are you going or not?”

“I’m going, absolutely. It doesn’t matter when they leave.”

Luo Yan nodded. “Wait to hear from me. It shouldn’t be anytime soon, as we need the first group to get settled first.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

After that, Mo Bai could only investigate whether or not some people had disappeared. She did find that a few had. There were perfectly valid reasons for their absences, whether that be seclusion, training, or something else, but the bottom line was that some people had stopped appearing in public.

In this way, more than two years passed, and Lu Yin arrived at the Mindscape Megaverse.

The last time he visited the Mindscape Megaverse, he had comprehended the Heartrift power. By combining that with the Wayfinder Sutra, he had gained the ability to merge with the will of any megaverse; he was no longer limited to merging with just the Tianyuan. After that, Lu Yin had come up with another idea that he wanted to try. He wanted to use the pressure of the entire Mindscape Megaverse to push himself to the limit and see if Extremes Must Be Reversed could evolve.

However, while he had come up with the idea, he had lacked the time to try it out. His current visit was specifically to make that attempt.

Extremes Must Be Reversed was not a battle technique that was restricted to a single cultivation realm. Instead, it was more of a philosophy, a method of using one’s body and energy.

Lu Yin greatly admired Progenitor Ku for creating such a technique, and Lu Yin knew that he had been the technique’s greatest beneficiary.

Even when he faced off against Immortals, Extremes Must Be Reversed had played an enormous role in battle.

While he hoped to evolve it, Lu Yin did not know what the ultimate result would be, and he could not even deduce the possibilities. Once the technique evolved, it would become a technique for Immortals, which was a realm that he had not reached yet.

Let me feel what it’s like to push myself with the limit of an entire megaverse.

Lu Yin had Ku Zhan withdraw from the Mindscape Megaverse while he sat down cross-legged and merged with the will of the megaverse. From the Aevum Inch, Ku Zhan stared in shock at the enormous phantom of Lu Yin.

Did he just swallow the entire Mindscape Megaverse?

Ku Zhan had witnessed this same scene once before, and the shock of that sight had never faded. Seeing it play out again was just as shocking as the first time.

He had no clue how Lu Yin had pulled it off. This felt even more awe-inspiring than his master’s breakthrough to the Immortal realm.

Lu Yin’s body kept withering. As he merged with the megaverse’s will, the rift within the Mindscape Megaverse spread and expanded, as though it was truly going to swallow the entire megaverse. A pressure built, the kind produced when a megaverse reached its limit, and it pressed down on Lu Yin.

For living creatures, the Aevum Inch was regarded as “outside” while a megaverse was considered “inside.” The scope of a single universe was the natural limit of what creatures could comprehend.

This was the same process that had allowed Lu Yin to comprehend Extremes Must Be Reversed, and through a piece of Withered Bark, also the power of time.

Anything pushed to its limit produced a counterforce. In that moment, Lu Yin felt the counterforce of a megaverse pushed to its limit.

Extremes Must Be Reversed did not need to apply only to his body. It was an attempt, a realm, a possibility of breaking past fixed understanding.

Lu Yin was searching for that possibility in order to transform how he used the technique.

Day by day, the rift continued to expand and fill the entire megaverse, creating temporal vortices. It became more and more difficult for time to find a balance inside and outside of the Mindscape Megaverse. This was most clearly observed from the Mirari Realm, on the banks of the River of Aeons in the Tianyuan.

Zhao Ran was observing a stretch of the river, but she did not interfere with its flow.

The River of Aeons flowed throughout the entire human civilization. At the moment, only Immortals and Lu Yin were capable of throwing the river into such chaos.

Regardless of who was interfering with the River of Aeons, she would not intervene.

The time outside flowed completely differently compared to within the Mindscape Megaverse.

Lu Yin continued to endure the full pressure of the megaverse, continually feeling the limits of the megaverse while searching for a counterforce. His body repeatedly recovered and dried up until it reached its own limit. This was another kind of limit, but attempting to push past this meant exceeding the amount of damage that his body could handle. A single misstep could kill him.

Uncertain that he could grasp the counterforce, Lu Yin released an attack outward.

Ku Zhan stared in stunned stupefaction as a force blasted away from the Mindscape Megaverse, cleaving the Aevum Inch in two for as far as his eyes could see. The destructive might of this attack completely horrified him. It felt as though he had just run into an Immortal.

Could a mere Dukkhan really produce such power?

It was clear to Ku Zhan that he and Lu Yin were both Dukkhans, and yet the man knew that he could not survive even one blow from Lu Yin.

He was not confident that Ku Deng could take such a blow, even after becoming an Immortal. The shock produced by that blow rivaled the awe that had come from witnessing Lu Yin merge with the Mindscape Megaverse.

After that, Ku Zhan saw more similar blasts rocket out, and he silently moved farther away from the megaverse. He did not want to end up as collateral damage. How could he guess when Lu Yin’s strikes might suddenly go in a different direction? If Ku Zhan died, no one would ever know about it.

Time flowed on. Three years passed outside the Mindscape Megaverse, though Lu Yin no longer knew how long he had spent inside it. He had lost count of how many attacks he had released after Extremes Must Be Reverses had reached its limit. He felt numb, and yet his sense of the Mindscape Megaverse’s pressure being pushed to the limit kept growing deeper. There were times when he could not even tell if he was himself or the megaverse.

One moment, he was himself, enduring the pressure of the entire Mindscape Megaverse, but the next, he was the megaverse, trying to crush himself.

The situation was reminiscent of when he had comprehended the mural in the Sea of Karma.

At that time, one of his selves had been Greater Sancte Green Lotus, while the other had been the observing mind. Lu Yin had successfully deceived himself, which had ultimately helped him comprehend the karmic wall.

What about this time?

There was no self-deception. His mind was clear, his body acted on instinct, and the megaverse remained passive.

He focused more on the idea of being the Mindscape Megaverse, being a colossal entity that sprawled out large enough to contain universes. He could see Ku Zhan, as tiny as an ant, and he could also peer far into the distance. At that moment, Lu Yin’s perspective of the Aevum Inch’s vastness changed.

He kept feeling that the Mindscape Megaverse could move.

Yes, a megaverse could move. It could act, it could want to act, yet it could not.

It was as if the megaverse was missing a pair of legs.

In that case, how did other megaverses move about the Aevum Inch?

From the standpoint of the Mindscape Megaverse, Lu Yin felt lost. He pondered with a consciousness that was not his own as time continued to pass.

In that manner, another two years passed in the outside world.

Within the Mindscape Megaverse, Lu Yin’s eyes abruptly snapped open, and he ended the merger. He calmly stared straight ahead as the rift returned to normal.

Far away, Ku Zhan let out a breath of relief. Things were finally back to normal.

Lu Yin lifted his hand and studied it. He had gained new ways of using Extremes Must Be Reversed, and while they were powerful, the technique had not undergone a metamorphosis. Evolving it was far harder than he had imagined. He had simply unlocked a new angle by viewing things through a megaverse’s perspective, allowing him to use Extremes Must Be Reversed in the manner of a megaverse and reach its limit.

He raised his right hand and lightly swept it across outer space, creating ripples that caused the nearby space to collapse. At the same time, dark ripples appeared at his fingertips. He tapped out, and the ripples became a dark beam that pierced through the void before vanishing.

From far away, Ku Zhan stared in a daze at the flickering above his head, feeling rather perplexed.

“How did that feel?” Lu Yin appeared in front of Ku Zhan, and stared at the man.

“What?”

Lu Yin said, “That last strike attack. How did it feel?”

Ku Zhan replied, “It was far weaker than any of the attacks you threw out over the last few years.”

Lu Yin smiled. “Not its power, just its feeling. Just that.”

Ku Zhan thought back, and then feeling confused, said, “It felt like it didn’t come from you.”

“So what did it feel like?”

“Like... how should I say it... It was very familiar, but I just can’t place it. I don’t know.”

“The Mindscape Megaverse?”

Ku Zhan’s eyes lit up. “Right! The Mindscape Megaverse. That felt like the megaverse’s power. That feeling of familiarity was because they felt exactly the same.”

He then stared at Lu Yin in astonishment. “But how could the Mindscape Megaverse have launched an attack of its own?”

Lu Yin merely smiled, not giving any answer. Even if he explained the matter to Ku Zhan, the man would not be able to understand.

That final strike had only used the collapse of the surrounding space as its price, or rather, its limit. It was simple and posed no threat to Ku Zhan. But what if the same attack was carried out by an entire spacetime, or an entire megaverse?

Lu Yin had not tried to release an attack on that scale. He did not know who would be the target of his first attempt.

It’s an attack that uses the limit of a megaverse to release counterforce, and its form resembles a rippling beam. In that case, I’ll call it Willforce Wave.

This was not merely an attack produced through Extremes Must Be Reversed. Only by merging with the megaverse’s will could one release a strike that used the megaverse’s limit to generate counterforce. Willforce Wave was the most fitting name.

Humans could make countless attempts, only to achieve a transformation through a single coincidence.

He had previously also needed the Wayfinder Sutra in order to experience a transformation.

Humanity’s greatest weapon was their creativity. They could create more and more inventive changes, until eventually, a qualitative change appeared.

Lu Yin did not know how long he had spent within the Mindscape Megaverse, but it had been five years outside.

With the addition of the travel time back, he would arrive approximately at the same time that Luo Yan had claimed the second batch of evacuees would leave.

Lu Yin immediately started heading back to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

...

In the Spirit Nidus, people were lined up in the Arcanum Domain, moving across a vast distance. When people saw that the line was finally advancing, many of them were able to breathe easier.

“At last! I never imagined I’d live to stand in line for over a year!”

“There was no helping it. Our disappearance needs to look reasonable to anyone uninvolved, and this is the only way. Didn’t you see how many were already taken away?”

“They couldn’t erase those people’s tracks, so they had to bring them back to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse to avoid rousing any suspicions.”

“Now you see the perks of being an independent cultivator. They don’t have to worry about any of this. They can go wherever they like.”

“But it’s a lot harder for independent cultivators to get chosen.”

“That’s true...”

Standing in the line, Mo Bai moved forward with everyone else. The line was so long that neither end could be seen. There was only one line, and yet more than a million people were evacuating. This was the second group. Afterwards, there would be a third, a fourth, a fifth, and more. The intervals between each group would continue to shrink until every elite cultivator was sent away.

Ultimately, how many would be sent away depended entirely on luck.

Mo Bai could not find Luo Yan. In this place, his status meant nothing. Just being able to add someone to the roster was already quite impressive.