Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1259: Gruish Dao Weapon!

“A God Lord’s dao weapon!” The sight of the curved blood-colored blade coming out of Xu Qing’s forehead caused the pretty True God to reel! The full mightiness of a God Lord became a crushing will that made it a struggle for hīm to breathe. An intense sensation of deadly crisis covered the heavens and moons of hīs god kingdom.[1]

He has a God Lord’s dao weapon!! No, wait. That can’t be. A Quasi-Immortal shouldn’t be able to use a dao weapon like that…. What’s more, my omniscience couldn’t sense it…. Someone made it so that this person’s information can’t be accessed via omniscience!!

The pretty True God was shaken to the core. As of this moment, the scarlet blade coming out of Xu Qing’s forehead hadn’t even emerged by half. Yet even that small portion caused his face to distort. His fleshly body felt like it was being ripped apart, and his soul was writhing. It seemed like he was just on the verge of being killed in body and soul.

This dao weapon was just too powerful. Despite being a true monarch and the destiny aura of the Fifth Star Ring, there was no way he could unleash it in its entirety.

And yet, Xu Qing’s eyes flashed with immense determination. Using the destiny aura, he continued to activate the crescent moon blade!

It emerged from his forehead by another inch. The scarlet glow expanded, causing fights on both sides of the conflict to look over in astonishment and back away. Eventually… a strange grating noise filled the depths of the starry sky.

It sounded like some entity scraping bone with a fingernail. The sound caused all the nearby asteroids to start vibrating. Countless corpses and the rubble of planets also vibrated. At the same time, vein networks appeared on them similar to what covered the blade. Anyone in range to hear, be they cultivators or gods, were visibly astonished.

The pretty True God’s pupils constricted as the shock in hīs heart escalated. Hē quickly started falling back.

Unfortunately, just as hē started moving, Xu Qing, his eyes bloodshot, shouted something in a voice that hardly sounded human.

“Come forth, Crescent Moon!”

Xu Qing shook violently as the flesh of his forehead split and blood spilled down, soaking him. That was the price he paid to pull the blood-red blade one more inch out of his forehead!

Now, more than half of the blade was visible. What was immeasurably gruish was the fact that a host of tiny black holes covered the surface of the blood-colored blade. From within them emerged the distorted voices of souls.

“The fingernail brings tribulation to the gods; when the tribulation ends, the fingernail is born again.”

The voice split the void, causing numerous rifts to open in the starry sky. Out from those rifts poured a rain as thick as blood. It looked extremely ghastly.

All hearts were shaken by the voice, but the effects were especially pronounced on the gods. Out on the battlefield, an Altar God accidentally ran into one of the rifts. The god suddenly screamed with madness, reached up, and clawed hīs eyeballs out of their eye sockets.

Hē threw them to the side. But then the eyes transformed into twitching projections of blades that seemed to possess a life of their own as they cackled and started flying about on their own.

All cultivators in the area felt themselves drawn to the destiny aura of the Fifth Star Ring. However, because the item had been forged by Immortal Lord Deepgloom, the effect wasn’t very strong. Despite being shaken, they took advantage of the moment to attack.

As for the pretty True God, hē was too close, and suffered a huge effect from the attack. God blood sprayed out of hīm as hīs golden armor started cracking. Then a boom could be heard as the armor exploded, turning into a host of fragments that shot in front of hīm to form a barrier.

That just managed to spare hīm from the attack, and hē fled backward even more quickly, all while drawing on the full power of hīs godhood. Countless golden threads spun out in all directions, forming something like a defensive cocoon around hīm.

However, the scarlet light just kept coming. As soon as it hit the cocoon, the light caused the golden cocoon to rust. The effects of the rust were bizarre! If you looked closely, you would see that the golden surface had spiral designs, almost like the fingerprint of a curse.

Deep red light shone from the designs, within which concealed millions upon millions of distorted faces. Altogether, they made a design that started to break open the cocoon to devour its contents.

The pretty True God’s godhood was trembling. At that moment of crisis, hē wasn’t thinking at all about hīs mission. Hīs instincts were telling hīm to get as far away as possible.

Unfortunately, the battlefield was shattered. Space-time was in chaos, and since hīs godhood related to space-time, it meant that hē couldn’t easily escape. Hē couldn’t teleport away. The only chance hē had was to find a spatial nexus. Unfortunately, just because hē wanted to find one didn’t mean hē would be able to right now.

Even as hē went all out to defend hīmself, all while fleeing, and also while using divine will to search for a spatial nexus… Xu Qing was soaked in blood and looked more ferocious than ever. With his left hand, he held nothing back to drain Starryeyes of ringsource.

And with his right hand, he reached up… grabbed the blade protruding from his forehead and he ripped it out! Intense rumbling sounds echoed out from his head. He… dragged the blade out into the open!

It was fully out in the starry sky! Crimson light shone everywhere. Within that light was the five-inch blade that resembled a crescent moon, with its tip pointed in the direction of the pretty god.

Then he flicked his wrist, and the blade shot out of his hand toward the fleeing True God.

Looking at the scene from a distance, the way the blade sliced through the starry sky made it seem like it was cutting open skin. Blade light surged as the blade slashed into the golden cocoon.

The cocoon vibrated briefly before collapsing into fragments. The countless faces in the rust joined the blade as it slashed toward the True God.

The True God was stunned. However, hē quickly unleashed a secret magic, which hē used to rip open hīs chest, rip out hīs heart, and stuff it into hīs mouth. Hē devoured it! That was the origin of hīs god kingdom and hīs godhood.

Upon swallowing it, hīs destroyed god kingdom turned into pure god power. By using hīs godhood to devour the flame of hīs true name, hē achieved a huge boost in battle prowess.

Hīs energy surged, and it blocked the blade! Intense rumbling sounds echoed out as the blade stopped in place. By losing hīs heart, the pretty True God was able to mount a brief defense and fall back. But then the veins covering the blade erupted.

What came out wasn’t blood. It was a sound pressure that could exterminate universes. The result was that the god power formed when the True God devoured hīs god kingdom began to crumble. Then, the mouth-like black holes on the surface of the blade opened and exerted a sucking force. To hīs shock and horror, the True God’s god power began to stream toward the black holes. Those ‘mouths’ began to devour all of it!

Then the surface of the blade began to wriggle gruishly as a host of fleshy tendrils spread out from it. In the middle of the writhing tendrils, a host of blood-red eyes appeared. It made it seem like the crescent moon was smiling!

The pretty True God was struck senseless by the sight of it. Then the crescent moon shone with dazzling light as it slashed toward hīm. From a distance, it looked like a long, red river flowing up from the Nine Serenities underworld!

It swept past the True God’s head. God blood sprayed everywhere!

The pretty True God spasmed and staggered backward. Hē could sense the grievous injury to hīs head, and could sense hīs life force flowing out of hīm. Acting on instinct, hē reached up to push hīs hand down onto the head wound.

Yet as hē did, he realized that there was a host of bizarre green fingernails burrowing out between hīs fingers. In a daze, hē looked down to find that there were gruish fingernails growing out of hīs skin all over.

As a result, hīs entire body looked like it was covered with demonic scales.[2]

And then… the scales all flipped around and burrowed directly into hīm toward hīs soul. Indescribable torment filled every part of the True God, starting in hīs soul and exploding outward from here.

An anguished, grating scream escaped hīs mouth. It was the sound of life force being cut away. God blood then spurted out of all the wounds. But the flow of blood quickly dried up, and then what came out wasn’t god blood, but coldly shimmering fingernails!

The blade that had slashed through hīs neck then appeared behind hīm in its full form. The blood vessels that covered it had spread outward, surrounding it to form a wheel of life.

It looked like a gear, and on every gear tooth was sealed the life force that had been devoured by the blade. And deep on the wheel, it was possible to see blood-colored inscriptions that looked like they had been scratched there by a fingernail. For more chapters visit novel[f]ire.net

“When you look at this blade, the reflection you see will be of nine reincarnations, growing in your fingernails, that are not your own. And thus, whoever returns will not be you. The work of Deepgloom.”

As the pretty True God looked at the blade, it was reflected in hīs eyes. Those eyes could not sustain the effort, and exploded. The blade remained. Those eyes had already been drawn into the crescent moon, and were now part of the dao weapon!

The skin of hīs face began to collapse, as if it were being peeled off by fingernails. Revealed beneath was blood and bone and flesh. Then the wound on hīs neck opened wide, and hīs head fell off.

Taking the pain in hīs eyes with hīm… hē collapsed into ashes. Hē had been destroyed in body and soul.

The blade turned into blood-red moonlight that returned to Xu Qing, entered his forehead, and was seen no more. Everything was quiet for a moment. Then the sound of slaughter and battle returned.

Xu Qing coughed up a huge mouthful of blood. He had been severely weakened, and his heart was pounding.

This was his first time using the dao weapon, and the sensation had been bizarre! It felt like his own fingernails were itching, as if life were forming within them. Scalp tingling, he burst into motion and headed toward the spot he had identified earlier.

It was a spatial nexus. Xu Qing had space-time canon. While the space-time in this location was in chaos, Xu Qing was actually much better at identifying spatial nexuses than the pretty True God. That was why he had chosen to make his stand against the True God in that spot. If he wanted to leave the battlefield, he could attempt a teleportation at a spatial nexus.

He had no idea where the nexus led. But given his weakened state, anywhere but this battlefield would be good. Without any hesitation, he raced toward it.

Along the way, he noticed that, though he was still extracting ringsource from Starryeyes, and the goddess was trembling, shē was peaceful, as if shē wasn’t cursed like before.

Xu Qing looked over. Starryeyes immediately closed hēr eyes, not daring to make eye contact with him. Shē feared him. Before, shē had not feared him. Shē had hated him. It was a very deep-seated hatred. But after what shē had just witnessed, especially that gruish dao weapon, hēr heart was filled with terror.

Dying in that way, and especially in the way described in the inscription, which was the same as not returning at all, turned hēr hatred of Xu Qing into dread. Add in what had occurred with Spirit Jade, and shē now believed that the Fifth Star Ring really was a place that had figured out the secrets of the gods’ ability to return from death!

Xu Qing noted hēr reaction thoughtfully, then focused on reaching the hidden spatial nexus. He had no time to pay close attention to Starryeyes. Upon reaching the nexus, he didn’t hesitate to activate his canon and send it into the nexus.

At the same time, a golden stream of light appeared off in the distance as a three-headed six-armed True God suddenly started racing toward Xu Qing. Clearly, hē believed that Xu Qing couldn’t use the curved blade again, and considering how weak he was, it would be easy to kill him.

Xu Qing looked down. Not pausing for a moment, he continued to activate his canon and open the spatial nexus. Then… it erupted! Rumbling sounds echoed out as space collapsed, destroying everything.

Xu Qing was no longer visible on the battlefield!

1. This is the third time in the novel that god kingdoms have been mentioned. The previous times were in 1196 and 1243, however neither of those chapters defined them or explained exactly how they work. Starting at this point, we will learn more about them, but it’s all by ‘observation.’ The author never outright explains them in the narrative. ☜

2. Visually, this works fine in English, as you can imagine fingernails looking like scales. But there is an additional level of wordplay in Chinese, as the words for fingernail and scale (of a fish, the type of armor, etc.) contain a shared character. ☜