Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1280: An Empty Past, a Distinct Present

The old man in the hemp sandals in the Fifth Star Ring watched as the dusty light from his hands rose up and disappeared.

Memories of the past seemed to flit through his eyes. They were memories of the life of his son, Aurora. They ended with Aurora’s bitter smile as he begged to die.

The old man’s eyes filled with a brilliant light, and he began to pulse with an indescribable pressure. As a result, the void around him seemed to fill with bubbles. They contained life, death, and reincarnation. They contained beginnings and destructions. And they all stitched together to form what seemed to be a fairy tale that was very nearly true and real.

The old man reached out with his right hand to grasp the fairy tale! He was going to take the figures from within the memories and extract them through time. He would bring out the illusion and make the fairy tale real. They could become real in an instant!

The bubbles trembled as various versions of Immortal Lord Aurora appeared. Guided by the old man, the bubbles converged. As they did, the fluctuations that had filled the Fifth Star Ring ceased. Then, for some reason unknown to them, all living beings and all inanimate objects in the star ring began to tremble.

Something unspeakably terrifying was coming to life in the Fifth Star Ring. It was as if some mysterious thing that had been sealed for millions upon millions of years was on the verge of being released….

The old man’s hand faltered. Ultimately, he lowered his hand, and the image of Immortal Lord Aurora that had been about to form… once again faded away.

The ripples left the Fifth Star Ring. Everything went back to how they had been before.

The old man closed his eyes. In the end, he sighed with regret and pain.

“I can’t bring you back…” he murmured, looking at the palms of his hands. “Just give me some more time…. What’s happening now is what you always wanted to see….”

He lifted his hands again. This time, he did not summon anything. Instead, he shoved his hands in the direction of the Fourth Star Ring. His palm prints suddenly seemed to erupt with a gravitational force that could devour rivers of stars.

In an instant, that force spread through the Fifth Star Ring. All of the heavens beyond heaven, as well as countless star domains and universes, encompassing infinite stars and living beings… suddenly became destiny aura commanded by him!

The power of destiny aura surged, converging into an hourglass of immortal command. As it spiraled down toward his palm, it shrank. As the process continued, innumerable heavenly bodies formed, and unending starlight flourished.

All the dazzling light slipped through his fingers, turning into silver streams. It fused with the destiny aura and remained within the old man’s palm.

Then he suddenly clenched his hand into a fist! In a manner unknowable to all living beings in the Fifth Star Ring, an immaculate immortal pressure swept out to form a scroll painting. All the stars were glittering dots on the canvas. There were innumerable black holes collapsing and turning into dust, which became designs on the painting. Trillions of living beings were like crystals in amber.

This was not a destruction. Instead, it was the process of gathering all the destiny aura, which was what happened any time a new Immortal Lord ascended the throne. Today, the old man was taking the karma that had been hidden for a thousand years and releasing it.

The Nineshores Epoch was ending, and the Aurora Epoch had arrived!

Immortal Lord Aurora had been set to ascend the throne, but had ended up perishing. And thus… the Immortal Paragon would guide the destiny aura of the Fifth Star Ring into his only descendant. Young Lord Aurora.

“I’m waiting for you to get back,” he said softly.

The destiny aura of the entire Fifth Star Ring became an unstoppable river that swept out of the star ring to… the primeval motherworld of the Fourth Star Ring!

***

On the primeval motherworld, Xu Qing heard the words spoken by Young Lord Aurora. He looked at the living things proliferating in heaven and earth, and the fog of his confusion was dispelled by a large amount!

“First, he becomes a god,” he said, “and then a God Lord. And then what…?”

“Then,” Immortal Fairy Spirit Phoenix said softly, “this is something that will be an unprecedented first in all of the thirty-six higher star rings…. A god becoming an immortal!”

Although Xu Qing had already guessed that this was what was coming, it was still mind-blowing to him. He had witnessed more than one instance of someone changing their dao to become a god. But he had never even heard of a god becoming an immortal!

It was something related to the environment of the thirty-six star rings. After all, gods… were grand and noble! There was no way that thēy would even consider the possibility of walking the immortal path. And of course, there were surely other factors that would make it impossible for gods to do such a thing.

As those thoughts ran through Xu Qing’s head, he looked up at Young Lord Aurora rising into the sky with countless blood vessels stretching behind hīm.

Young Lord Aurora looked down at the primeval motherworld; hē sensed the ringsource of the Fourth Star Ring, hē felt hīs godliness growing stronger, and hē suddenly smiled. Though the smile seemed a bit twisted, the words hē then spoke… were astonishingly shocking!

“The dao of gods… is pure savagery!”

As hē spoke, hē lifted his right hand, then waved it, causing all of the blood vessels connecting hīm to the primeval motherworld to start vibrating violently. In the depths of the flesh and blood, where the blood vessels connected to the subterranean meridians, the blood vessels suddenly snapped away and began to retract. The primeval motherworld rumbled loudly as Young Lord Aurora’s voice filled the Fourth Star Ring.

“Cultivator Mi Ming hereby changes from a god… into an immortal!”

The primeval motherworld trembled as all of the newly formed civilizations and lives began to wither! It wasn’t just on the motherworld. The True Gods prostrating on the outside spasmed, and all of the other gods in the star ring experienced a sensation like lightning striking thēir god souls. Countless temples to the gods collapsed. Countless statues crumbled. The words hē had spoken astonished all living beings!

At that moment, heaven… transformed! Destiny aura flowed from the Fifth Star Ring, appearing in the Fourth Star Ring, where it began to replace the void around the primeval motherworld!

As Xu Qing watched, more of the fog of confusion in his heart disappeared. He was a true monarch, and thus he was augmented by the destiny aura of the Fifth Star Ring. As a result, he could see exactly what was happening, and knew where that destiny aura came from.

“I get it now…” he murmured.

This was the plan that the Fifth Star Ring had meticulously been carrying out this entire time, step by step. And the designer of the plan was the Immortal Paragon.

That said, though the plan had been implemented, it hadn’t been completely carried out, as the Immortal Paragon had been missing some pieces. But then he had run into Xu Qing and Erniu in the Revered Ancient mainland. By that point, the important parts of the plan were already underway. Things fell into place from there.

He needed to do it at a special location: the primeval motherworld, where the first god in the Fourth Star Ring had been born. He needed to do it at a special time: when Immortal Lord Nineshores was leaving office and Immortal Lord Aurora was succeeding him. That was when it could be completed…. That was when a god could be used to create a new Immortal Lord!!