Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1305: Today I Become a Summer Immortal!

Liu Xuanji, the fortune teller, burned his scroll of fate. The moment his life burned out, he managed to divine the heavenly dao of the world he lived in.

“All fates are the same fate!”

Chen Mo, the historian, worked hard for his whole life to investigate the truth. And in that moment when starlight and candlelight intermixed, he came to understand everything. He realized that history as a whole was really just an endless cycle, like reincarnation.

Whenever someone tries to grasp the trajectory of history, they actually become that trajectory.

He wasn’t the only one. Xu Qing was making full use of the illusion provided by the god of pain. There were scholar versions of himself, as well as government officials, commoners, and beggars. He lived many, many types of lives. And eventually, all of those different lives would reach a certain point in which, by various methods and destined opportunities, they would reach the same type of enlightenment. Ultimately, it was that very unique painter version of himself who sighed with emotion as he gave voice to the complete explanation….

“Unification is not just about space. It’s also about time.”

He finally saw another space-time version of himself. He gained enlightenment of everything, and then used space-time itself to inform himself of the result.

All of them were Xu Qing. All sought dao enlightenment, and no matter how they floated along, they seemed to follow the same route.

But after Xu Qing’s canon reached the ultimate height, dao enlightenment became circular. The future. The past. The present. Different space-time versions of himself. All of them became his teachers. As the painter smiled, and the surrounding world crumbled, Xu Qing looked at the painting, and his mind thrummed with the sound of a great dao. That sound seemed to be a combination of all of the different versions of space-time, which in turn gave birth to the dao!

Xu Qing stepped forward, and it took him out of the crumbling world of the painter. When he reappeared, he was back to the original chaotic flow of space-time. This place was his anchor, and it was also the very center of all of the parallels.

In that spot, Xu Qing sat down cross-legged.

Shortly after, he closed his eyes and softly said, “Unify!”

The moment he uttered the words, space-time rumbled, and the consciousnesses from all the parallels vibrated. A tempest erupted!

Xu Qing could sense the auras of all of the various parallel versions of himself that had scattered about. Now, he was summoning them back. Like birds returning home, they flew toward him, swirled around him, and fused into him. The unification was officially beginning!

***

Time murmured like water as the consciousnesses from the various space-times returned.

At the moment, time held little meaning to Xu Qing. But he still floated gently through the River of Time, sending out strange space-time ripples around him. The numerous parallel worlds he had created with his canon were motes of light that stretched out, becoming threads that interweaved and merged together. And in the end, they fused with Xu Qing’s true body in the chaotic flow.

The majestic space-time transformations also caused all of the living beings in the endless parallels of Xu Qing’s canon to similarly experience heaven-shaking, earth-toppling transformations. Mountains and rivers in the countless space-times were molded as if by a pair of massive, invisible hands.

Of the peaks that existed high in the clouds, some rose sharply to higher heights, while others shrank and became rolling hills. Rivers and seas no longer followed their previous flows and currents. Some dried up and became deserts, while others overflowed to create new marshes and swamps.

Something special happened to birds and animals alike. They evolved. Some sprouted wings and flew to the highest heights, while others began to speak human languages and develop higher intelligence. As for all of the people in those worlds, they experienced transformations both to their souls and their physical shells. Some gained glittering bits of light on their foreheads, while others developed mysterious and amazing powers.

Unfathomable transformations occurred because of Xu Qing’s thoughts and his parallelism.

As for Xu Qing, he sat cross-legged in the chaotic flow in the void, his mind clearer than ever. He did not feel joy or sorrow. His cultivation base and his level were both climbing in a way they never had before! Put most precisely, it wasn’t that they were climbing. Rather, they were experiencing a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering metamorphosis!

His skin grew more lustrous. His bones developed silver striations. His hair grew longer. He became more like an illusion, but at the same time, he had a profundity about him that only immortals could have, flowing constantly from his soul! It caused the void around him to become magnificent!

This was the birth of an immortal!

As the immortal profundity appeared, a magnificent consciousness was made manifest. It was immortal sense, and at the same time, it was the statute born from Xu Qing’s canon. It was more tenacious than divine sense, being on a completely different level. It could pierce through space-time, and like a vast and magnificent web, it could tightly connect all aspects of Xu Qing’s canon. As those parts connected, Xu Qing’s unprecedented transformation was instantly completed!

He had completely upgraded himself to a higher level of life! His eyes opened, and the chaotic flow of space-time rumbled loudly. Darkness was ripped apart, and the chaos was instantly adjusted. Xu Qing merely opening his eyes caused all things to come under his control!

His immortal sense stretched out, piercing from ancient to modern, and causing heaven and earth to shake violently! And that immortal sense was formed from all of the parallel space-time versions of himself! Every version was a singularity that poured his personal power into the immortal sense.

With himself as the source, Xu Qing could clearly sense every shift of thought in the versions of himself from the parallel worlds. It didn’t matter how different they were from him, or what different things they had experienced. They would follow his actions! The versions of him in the parallel space-times seemed like singularities, but once connected with immortal sense, they became complete, and seemed to contain the secrets of the universe!

They were made of infinite possibilities, innumerable worlds, and unending stories. It became the source of all sources, containing all space-times and all karmas.

Theoretically speaking, that source represented unbounded time and unending space. It was as if standing there, it was possible to span from ancient to modern, and pierce through the borders of the universe.

This was Xu Qing’s tenth extreme…. And the painter version of himself had given it the name… ontology!

Xu Qing had reached the breakthrough he had long dreamed of. He had become a Summer Immortal! He had transcended the shackles of mortality. He had stepped into the extraordinary domain of the immortals.

When he opened his eyes, the chaotic flow of space-time rotated around him in an astonishing fashion. Within it were numerous lively fragments of chaos that were like loyal officials bowing to their ruler.

On the outside, everything shook. In the Fourth Star Ring, time transformed. Living things all seemed to suddenly lose a fragment of time, except that it returned an instant later. It happened so quickly that few people even detected it.

Only cultivators and gods who cultivate the power of time were suddenly dazed to realize that the path they were walking… now featured a huge mountain blocking their way! It was because, at that moment, Xu Qing’s canon of space-time… had reached the ultimate peak!

In the past, gods and cultivators alike could walk that path, yet none had ever advanced as far as Xu Qing had.

As of now, there was nothing in front of him. He… was one of the most advanced among all who cultivated the godly authority or canon and statute of space-time!

The reason for saying he was “among” those who cultivated it was that, the moment he formed his tenth extreme, he could sense that there were five others who were in a similar position to him in the thirty-six star rings.

Of those five, none were cultivators. They were all gods. Thēy were all at the God Lord level, and all were exploring the concept of space-time, and were on the verge of taking the next step. Based on Xu Qing’s senses, he could tell that in the Seventh, Thirteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Sixth, and Thirty-Fifth Star Rings, there were God Lords who emitted fluctuations similar to his own.

In the Seventh Star Ring there was a God Lord named Dustrisen whose people sang songs of worship that described hīm as having a body made of flowing sand. Hīs eyes were like the dividing point between dawn and dusk. Legends said that silver sand would pour from hīs left eye, and that it could freeze anything on the battlefield. Meanwhile, golden sand would pour from hīs right eye, and it contained the power to bring life and civilization. Hīs physical body would devour all fragments of time that deviated from the trajectory of fate.

In the Thirteenth Star Ring Xu Qing sensed a god with human shape, who looked like a woman. In fact, shē was currently walking through the star ring there. Shē wore a robe as pale as the moon, with a hem as dark as the eternal night. As shē walked, shē left behind flaming footprints in time that affected the starry river around hēr. Hēr long, silver hair, which was interspersed with nebulae, also contained broken gears. Shē was the Mother of Orbits.

Then there was Lotusbud from the Nineteenth Star Ring who had come to be called the Weaving Mother. Within hēr god kingdom, hēr main form was that of a flower blooming at the end of a host of jadeite vines wrapped around an antler. Four threads, each of a different color, were intertwined with the flower. The green thread of spring could breathe life into withered bones. The crimson thread of summer could smelt heavenly bodies. The golden thread of autumn could weave fate. And the silver thread of winter could freeze the soul. When shē weaved, space-time transformed.

The two gods from the Twenty-Sixth and Thirty-Fifth Star Rings had equally astonishing personhood.

One was the pupil of an eye! Hē had no physical form, but instead, was made of innumerable overlapping instants. Hīs body would be different based on who observed hīm. Upon appearing in hīs god kingdom, hē looked like a mirror covered with scales. And every single scale contained a reflection of Xu Qing. The reflections included all possible space-time linchpins of the future. But then, an instant later, all of those possibilities were destroyed. Hē could not sense them anymore!

The other god was the Lord of Ruins. Hē was an enormous snake that was wrapped around the time of the Thirty-Fifth Star Ring. Hīs scales were made from darkness and gloom, and every time hē breathed, hē would exhale a black sand that devoured memories. And hīs tail was wrapped around a rusty, mottled geomantic compass.

In that star ring, there were many legends about the Lord of Ruins. One such legend described how, when hē stretched out hīs bony wings, the leathery membrane of the wings would reveal the memories of lost civilizations. In fact, hē was currently stretching those wings, and Xu Qing’s name appeared everywhere on them. But then, shortly after, those names disappeared.

That was because Xu Qing had the same canon as thēm…. It was the statute of an Immortal Lord!