Chapter 741

“Success.”

Joy welled up in Lin Yuan’s heart.

He had descended into this time-loop world for one hundred and fifty years.

Everything he had done was for this moment.

To break the time loop.

To become a Time Being.

And now it was done.

And he had not used Boundary-Breaking Source Power to force a “clear.”

Naturally, Lin Yuan was pleased.

Boundary-Breaking Source Power was the last resort.

If it could be avoided, it was best not to use it.

“The world is collapsing.”

Lin Yuan overlooked the entire time-loop world.

After passing the trial, this world’s suppression on him rapidly fell away.

Even without borrowing the viewpoint of a replaced world-will, he could easily look down from on high.

Every mote within the time-loop world was within Lin Yuan’s perception.

“Stripped of the support of the Supreme Rules, all things are turning unreal.”

So thought Lin Yuan.

This looping world had been formed by the operation of the Supreme Rule Dao.

Now that Lin Yuan had passed the trial, the Supreme Rule Dao withdrew; the world itself naturally ceased to be, rapidly falling apart like a bubble.

“Except me.”

Lin Yuan looked down at himself.

Everything else was becoming unreal; only Lin Yuan was real.

Though this body was also a product of this world, after one hundred and fifty years of tempering with mind-runes, it had gained a trace of true essence.

“And him.”

Lin Yuan’s gaze shifted to the bottom of the Endless Deep.

The place where the coffin of primordial divine metal lay.

The Great Feng emperor who had slept within had been erased by Lin Yuan’s mind.

But only reduced to the most microscopic particles; the particles themselves still existed—and some of them showed a trace of reality.

“As expected, that Great Feng emperor—like me—came from outside, not a temporary creation of the Supreme Rule Dao.”

Lin Yuan looked thoughtful.

In the eighty years since founding Great Yan, he had basically understood the emperor’s methods.

Especially at the end, finding him within that coffin on the seabed—Lin Yuan had been almost certain the emperor was not a native life of the loop world.

Now he could remove the “almost” and conclude he too came from outside.

“I just don’t know—since he was the target of my trial—why did he enter this time-loop world? Was he also going from the twelfth rank to the thirteenth?”

Lin Yuan faintly sensed the other was not a twelfth rank life, but he wasn’t sure.

After all, they had never fought; their only “meeting” had just been now, when Lin Yuan, riding the great momentum of replacing the world-will, erased him without a shred of restraint.

In truth, Lin Yuan’s win had been hard-won.

Even the final replacement of the world-will could have failed.

Even with the right time and the right place, success was not guaranteed.

And this was premised on Lin Yuan’s Rune Dao—his ability to continually observe future timelines.

If an ordinary perfected twelfth rank fell into this loop world and faced the Great Feng emperor, to pass the trial and kill him, the only chance would be within the first twenty years after arrival, to throw everything into infiltrating the palace before the double-puppet was installed and the cicada-skin shed.

Fight to the death.

But the odds there were not great.

With only twenty years of cultivation, even someone as strong as Lin Yuan, charging into the most heavily defended palace in the world would be easily ground down.

And even this assessment was made by Lin Yuan after passing the trial, knowing the emperor’s entire set of methods and arrangements, as the one faintly possible route.

Other perfected twelfth ranks, unable to foresee accurately—how could they stake everything within twenty years of the loop’s start?

No perfected twelfth rank would have that nerve.

The more cautious they were, the longer they would delay—waiting until their strength could advance no further before acting.

Lin Yuan had done much the same.

And once you did that, it nearly guaranteed failure in this time trial.

“Hard.”

After a brief review, Lin Yuan understood the difficulty of this loop.

The Supreme Rule Dao suppressed all methods—including the technology Lin Yuan excelled in.

He might never have tried to take heaven’s will with his own and “seize” the world-will, but simply kept searching for the emperor.

As Lin Yuan pondered, the world’s collapse accelerated.

Suddenly—

Lin Yuan’s expression shifted.

He could clearly feel that as the world fell apart, something like a brand was being peeled from him—disappearing along with the world.

At the same time—

The fluctuation of the Supreme Rule Dao descended in an instant.

It engaged Lin Yuan in a brief exchange.

“My experience in this time loop is being copied, turned into a brand—to become a calamity other tribulation-takers must overcome?”

Lin Yuan’s look turned a touch strange.

Simply put—

The Supreme Rule Dao judged Lin Yuan’s performance in this loop excellent, and so condensed a brand of him to serve as the calamity for tribulation-takers like the Great Feng emperor?

Lin Yuan was well-versed in this kind of thing—he had experienced it once.

From the Spirit Realm to the Immortal Realm one had to climb the Ninth Heaven; on the ninth, the brands of the ten strongest beings in the Spirit Realm’s history were gathered. To enter the Immortal Realm, you had to defeat those ten.

When Lin Yuan reached the Ninth Heaven, his own brand became the last of the ten, also the strongest being in the Spirit Realm’s history.

As a result, for millions upon millions of years, no Immortal King entered the Immortal Realm again.

“It’s only a brand—not impossible to pass…”

Lin Yuan stood, thinking from the other side’s perspective. The biggest difference between the brand and his true self was that it couldn’t use a final trump card: Boundary-Breaking Source Power.

Thus, his brand could still be defeated, by cutting him off early.

Given Lin Yuan’s performance within this loop, the later it got, the more terrifying he became—especially in the final month before his lifespan’s end, when he replaced the world-will.

In that state Lin Yuan was invincible; any number of tribulation-takers would die.

So if you wanted to win, you had to kill him early. If you failed to kill him in the first ten years, you might as well declare the attempt lost.

“So that Great Feng emperor was a ‘tribulation-taker’?”

From his brief exchange with the Supreme Rule Dao, Lin Yuan inferred a few things.

For instance, the emperor was not like him. Lin Yuan had been thrown into the time-loop world to pass a trial.

As for the emperor, he was undergoing a tribulation; and his calamity was Lin Yuan.

And the challenge Lin Yuan faced was the emperor.

In the end, only one of them could be the “winner.”

If Lin Yuan failed the first loop—failed to kill the emperor before dying of old age, his memories would be wiped and he would loop again; and the emperor he faced then would likely be a brand.

Normally, if you failed the first trial and were wiped for the second loop, you’d likely fail again.

Even with Boundary-Breaking Source Power as a final fallback, Lin Yuan was loath to push the trial to a second or third loop.

Who knew what his memory-wiped self would think then? With uncounted martial cultivators in the outside world as “anchors,” he could roughly fix which loop he was in, but it was never fully secure.

So if you could pass on the first loop, you passed on the first loop.

As for “cooperating” with the emperor for a “win-win”? The Supreme Rule Dao likely wouldn’t allow such a thing.

“As compensation for copying my loop experience, the Supreme Rule Dao promises that once I become a Time Being, I can watch the operation of the Yin Origin Dao and the Yang Origin Dao?”

Lin Yuan’s spirit brightened.

The Supreme Rule Dao wasn’t even a world-will; it instinctively maintained balance across endless dimensions. It wouldn’t copy Lin Yuan’s brand for no reason.

There would be payment in exchange.

And Yin and Yang’s Origin Daos belonged to the thirteenth rank Time Being’s field of study.

The road Lin Yuan walked—the Tao of Chaos Tai Chi—was self-created; across endless dimensional tiers there was no corresponding complete Origin Dao to study as reference.

But as the two foundations of the Tao of Chaos Tai Chi, Yin and Yang did exist across infinite dimensions—as the Yin Origin Dao and the Yang Origin Dao.

Watching these two Origin Daos operate directly would be of immense help to Lin Yuan in pushing the Tao of Chaos Tai Chi to a third layer—forming the Origin Dao of Chaos Tai Chi.

“Didn’t expect the time-loop trial to have such a perk.”

A smile spread across Lin Yuan’s face.

But he also knew—the bar to be actively copied and archived by the Supreme Rule Dao as a “template” calamity was extremely high.

First, it had to be a true calamity—one that applied enormous pressure to “tribulation-takers.”

And that, Lin Yuan clearly met.

In the final month of lifespan, his replacement of the world-will made him absolutely invincible. No “tribulation-taker” could match him—he could find them no matter where they hid.

Second, there had to be a sliver of hope.

It couldn’t be utterly unsolvable.

If Lin Yuan had, upon arrival in this loop, immediately used Boundary-Breaking Source Power to kill the emperor.

That would have been absolutely unsolvable for tribulation-takers, with no hope at all and would not have been copied and archived by the Supreme Rule Dao.

“Tribulation-taker? Is that another cultivation system—or something else?” Lin Yuan was curious about the emperor’s nature, but he also understood this should be information at the thirteenth rank level.

Once he crossed into the thirteenth rank and became a Time Being, he might learn more.

Buzzz—As the loop world rapidly unraveled, Lin Yuan sensed, at its deepest point—or rather, under its suppression—the presence of his true self.

To “fall into a time loop” meant the true body was suppressed, and a thread of mind entered the loop world.

This was also why the stronger you were, the larger the loop region formed; if the region wasn’t big enough, it couldn’t suppress the corresponding true body.

“Mind, return.”

At Lin Yuan’s thought, the mind that had passed the trial merged back into his true self at once.

At a place unimaginably distant from the Chaotic Void.

Here lay the domain of a Time Lord: a thirteenth rank, third-realm Time Lord, who gathered in his own timelines; his domain encompassed not only space, but the temporal plane itself.

A Time Lord’s domain was itself a kind of deterrence.

Rumble—the deepest part of the domain was occupied by a colossal tentacled being—its body perhaps a tenth the size of the Chaotic Void itself. This was the Time Lord of this domain.

At that moment, the vast mind of the tentacled being slowly revived, radiating a wave of terror: “How could the last of ten billion and eight thousand tribulations be so hard?”

He had done everything he could to cross it—sleeping in a coffin of primordial divine metal, sinking to the deepest depths.

And still, at the end, he died.

“Was my opponent in this tribulation the world-will itself?”

Images flashed through the tentacled being’s mind—the final feeling was of power from the world itself crushing him.

“How can I pass this?”

Despair filled him.

At the same time, he clearly felt his vast mind rapidly vanishing.

With each of the ten billion and eight thousand tribulations he passed, his strength grew.

But likewise—fail one, and true death awaited.

The mind would scatter to nothing, not a trace left.

“Transcend! Transcend! If I can’t even pass the ten billion and eight thousand, how do I transcend?”

His aura spread; within his domain, heavens collapsed and earth cracked, time and space unmade.

Moments later—

The tentacled being gradually calmed.

By now his mind had faded more than halfway, and the rest was dissolving faster and faster.

He cast one last look at his domain—then the final shred of intent dispersed.

Before his mind vanished, he proactively erased his body.

No strong one wished to leave their corpse behind.

A Time Lord’s body had many uses—refined into a puppet, or absorbed and devoured, and so on.

Such uses were an “insult” to the lord himself.

So, if they could, Time Lords would always erase their bodies before dying.

As for the Lord of Heavenly Radiance of the Second Source World leaving behind his dark and light bodies—that was only because he had no time to erase them.

When charging for the fourteenth rank perfect Time Being, his mind burned; his final failed charge dissolved him too quickly to leave time to erase anything.

But for the tentacled being’s ten billion and eight thousand tribulations—even in failure—death was not instant; there was time to attend to the aftermath.

The vast tentacled being fell completely; his causal threads dissipated.

This immediately drew the gaze of several nearby Time Lords.

“Lord Qingzhang has fallen?”

“Failed at his attempt to transcend?”

“I always thought Lord Qingzhang’s chances on that path were faint.”

Time Lords murmured to each other.

As Time Lords, if they didn’t want to die—they wouldn’t.

The only thing that could truly kill a Time Lord was transcendence.

And transcendence was their common pursuit; only transcendence could break fate.

Thirteenth rank Time Beings could watch future timelines and, to a degree, change the future—change their fate.

But that change was small-scale, a change to “small fate.” The great fate—tied to the final destiny of the endless dimensional operation—could not be altered.

Therefore, every Time Lord pursued transcendence.

Among many transcendent paths, metamorphosing into a fourteenth rank perfect Time Being was the most orthodox.

But it was also the hardest; to date, none had succeeded by that route.

Besides that, there were several other transcendent paths; each Time Lord chose according to his conditions and strengths.

Chaotic Void.

Lord Mo Xu-jun and six other Time Beings gathered with Rahu, the newly ascended Time Being.

“The Time Beings of the Taixu Dimension are truly mad—fighting like they’ve no lives to lose for that Heart of the Celestial River.” A human-headed, serpent-bodied figure spoke, anger and helplessness in the tone.

Lately, the seven Time Beings had kept their main bodies in the Celestial River Dimension, clashing with the Time Beings of Taixu.

The results were less than satisfying—the Taixu Time Beings weren’t holding back at all.

“If they won’t hold back, neither do we.”

Lord Mo Xu-jun’s face was grim.

As the strongest Time Being in the Chaotic Void, Mo Xu-jun and the Taixu Master of the Taixu Dimension had not yet entered the field.

Once beings of their level stepped in, the slaughter would escalate.

But the Taixu Time Beings’ behavior displeased Mo Xu-jun greatly.

They had found the Heart of the Celestial River first. To claim it, the seven Time Beings of the Chaotic Void had long since made arrangements with the other powers of the Celestial River Dimension.

Then Taixu barged in—and with no mercy.

“Do you need me to act?” Rahu asked softly.

As a newly ascended thirteenth rank, he had been stabilizing his realm within the Chaotic Void.

He had not gone to the Celestial River yet.

“Not yet.”

Mo Xu-jun shook his head.

The situation in the Celestial River Dimension was not urgent—yet.

It wasn’t time for a new Time Being like Rahu to move.

And with Rahu’s current strength, even if he did, it wouldn’t help much.

A newly ascended Time Being needed time to master his power and future timelines.

The gap from the seven veteran Time Beings was still large.

“Your priority now is stabilizing your realm.”

Said Mo Xu-jun.

“Alright.”

Rahu nodded.

In the century since he’d crossed into the thirteenth rank, he had gradually adapted to a Time Being’s true methods.

“Three days hence—”

Mo Xu-jun was about to discuss countermeasures with the other six Time Beings—how to handle Taixu—

When—

Mo Xu-jun’s expression shifted.

He turned to look at the deepest part of the Chaotic Void.

The other six did the same.

The new thirteenth rank Rahu also looked to the deepest part of the Chaotic Void.

That place had once been a time-loop zone. Since the opening of the Chaotic Void, all beings attempting the thirteenth rank had fallen into that region.

Not long ago, as Lin Yuan began his breakthrough, the largest time-loop zone in history had formed in the depths of the Chaotic Void—bigger than all past loop zones.

And now—

Eight thirteenth rank Time Beings clearly felt the loop zone in the depths of the Chaotic Void trembling.

The tremor was so great that even the Great Saints of the Chaotic Void noticed, lifting their heads toward its source.

“It’s the Milky Way’s loop zone.”

Mo Xu-jun concluded at once. With a tremor so vast, they could think of no one but Lin Yuan.

Back when Rahu broke through his loop, the disturbance compared to this was a mere splash.

“The Milky Way Great Saint is about to cross into the thirteenth rank?”

Rahu marveled. He had long since heard from Mo Xu-jun and the others that Lin Yuan’s ascent was inevitable.

He just hadn’t expected it so soon.

How long had it been since Lin Yuan began attempting the thirteenth rank?

Not even two hundred years.

“Go.”

“Let’s wait for the Milky Way to emerge.”

Mo Xu-jun looked at the other seven Time Beings, then headed for the deepest part of the Chaotic Void.

As his mind returned to his body, Lin Yuan’s life-essence began to metamorphose toward the thirteenth rank.

The thread of mind that had passed the trial had already crossed to the thirteenth in the instant the loop world began to collapse.

Now that it had returned to the body, like a drop of ink into clear water, Lin Yuan’s life-essence transformed with it—rising at a terrifying speed.

As his essence rose, Lin Yuan’s perspective abruptly broadened.

Stand high, see far.

Why could Time Beings observe future timelines?

Because of life-essence. For the thirteenth rank, seeing timelines was instinct—like a fish born knowing how to swim.

And now—

Lin Yuan had that instinct.

Without borrowing the Rune Dao or any Lord's Status mantle, he could easily observe stream after stream of future timelines.

Compared to a newly ascended Time Being like Rahu, Lin Yuan was long since adept at watching timelines.

So there was no “getting used to it.”

“This is the timeline from a normal perspective?”

For the first time observing timelines purely by his essence, Lin Yuan felt an unprecedented ease.

“Now, in concert with the Rune Dao?”

Runes glimmered in the depths of Lin Yuan’s eyes.

In an instant, both the number and the depth of the timelines he viewed surged.

In a flash, he watched thousands of timelines a million years out.

“Timelines without end—there’s no way to see them all.”

At the thirteenth rank, Lin Yuan felt a certain smallness.

Like a worldbound lifeform first glimpsing the starry sky.

Countless timelines braided together; every node birthed countless branches—countless and countless—without an end.

Strong as a Time Being is, he can only alter a small range of timelines; and even then he must contend with other Time Beings. Against a near-infinite weave, what are those few lines a Time Being can adjust?

“The Lord's Status?”

Lin Yuan ceased watching and turned to sense something within.

The Lord of Heavenly Radiance’s Lord's Status.

Before entering the thirteenth rank, Lin Yuan had little sense of it.

He could only use it passively.

But now, with his essence transformed, he could sense it with perfect clarity.

“A Lord's Status is the condensed Dao-fruit of a Time Lord—not every fallen Time Lord leaves one behind.” Lin Yuan thought.

The Lord of Heavenly Radiance’s mantle, strictly speaking, hadn’t condensed; it had shattered into the bodies of the Second Source World’s beings.

Only by leveraging the peculiarities of the Martial Evolution Path and spending over ten thousand years had Lin Yuan recondensed it.

Other powerhouses—not even Eternal Lords—could have gathered a shattered mantle from the bloodlines of billions.

Otherwise, the Eternal Lords of the Second Source World would not have left it unplanned.

“With my grasp of the Rune Dao, if I wished, I could refine this status in a short time—and become a Time Lord.”

Sensing the aura of the status within, Lin Yuan drew a conclusion.

By watching the timelines where he refined it, he even knew how long it would take to fully absorb it.

Fifty thousand years.

In just fifty thousand years, he could inherit everything in this status.

And become a new Time Lord.

“Except…”

Lin Yuan shook his head lightly.

If he did that, he would abandon the Tao of Chaos Tai Chi he now walked, and switch to the Lord of Heavenly Radiance’s path.

The Lord of Heavenly Radiance had become a Time Lord; his road was certainly well-developed. But the Tao of Chaos Tai Chi was Lin Yuan’s own creation—the condensation of his heart’s blood.

He would never abandon it.

And the Lord of Heavenly Radiance had failed at the fourteenth rank perfect Time Being—proof that his path could not reach that level.

Lin Yuan would be even less likely to abandon the Tao of Chaos Tai Chi to walk a dead end.

“Even without refining the status, I can wield it. It helps me watch future timelines more than most second-realm Time Beings.”

Lin Yuan thought.

At the twelfth rank, with the status’s aid, observing timelines was already much easier; now, with his essence at the thirteenth, he could draw out even more of its power.

“Mo Xu-jun and the others are waiting for me?”

With a slight expansion of his senses, Lin Yuan noticed the auras of the eight Time Beings.

“Time to press through the final step.”

Lin Yuan looked into the Chaotic Void.

Breaking the time loop only meant his life-essence had reached the thirteenth rank.

As for flesh, body-temper, soul, and so on—they were still at the twelfth.

More precisely, between the twelfth and thirteenth; in truth, his physique had already reached the thirteenth threshold, but this breakthrough would raise it another level.

“And…”

Lin Yuan looked at the suddenly oppressive Chaotic Void.

This dimensional space would grant a boon of origin to any life who grasped the rule of time and crossed a great realm.

How much origin you could bear was up to you.

Rumble—Lin Yuan felt the whole Chaotic Void shaking; it even actively drew in the energies of the dimensional interstices around it.

The next instant—

Endless origin of the Chaotic Void poured down madly upon Lin Yuan.

The universes within him transformed swiftly; infinite sand-grain worlds metamorphosed—devouring the descending origin without end.

“What…”

Lord Mo Xu-jun and the other eight Time Beings, who had been waiting for Lin Yuan to emerge, stared, dumbfounded, as the entire origin of the Chaotic Void was swallowed without limit by Lin Yuan.

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