Chapter 1849: A Million Headless Supremes
Time was an illogical construct. Though it was wholly without reason, the orders of time were the most exact.
Back during Lu Yun’s time on Earth, someone raised the paradox of time traveling. If one returned to the past and killed one’s grandmother, then one would never exist.
But if one really traveled back to the past and successfully killed a family ancestor, that would only prove that the traveler was not of that familial bloodline. Time itself would create a substitute if someone attempted to change history. The substitute would replace the history that was being targeted.
It was a similar case to when Lu Feng traveled back to the past to establish the Wind and Cloud Pagoda and auction house. While it appeared that he’d changed the past from the future, the appearance of the pagoda, auction house, and Lifeline Talisman was preordained in the long river of time. If it wasn’t him, someone else would appear at that point to accomplish those tasks.
Such was the same for the future.
If there really was a future, then it was also a type of past. What one saw as the future was the past to an even further future. Intelligent beings could see the past, but not the future. Everything about the future was unknown, so they thought the past was the truth and the future impossible to define.
The Land of Reincarnation was the best proof of this theory.
Outsiders who entered the land knew full well what would happen in the future, but they were powerless to stop it. They could only repeat their lives again and again, living through loop after loop. They had to undertake the same actions despite knowing the outcome, never changing and never stopping until Lu Yun appeared.
Such was the nature of an anomaly—an anomaly in time.
That an anomaly would appear in the Land of Reincarnation meant that anomalies could also appear in the river of time. They could change time, alter the predefined future, and cause each step to become a new future.
Lu Yun was the anomaly of the Land of Reincarnation and he’d destroyed its time reincarnation system. The land was normal again. Where he looked to now was the chief worlds.
Space and time in the outside realm was strictly defined. No one could travel through it and affect it other than the spacetime travelers. It was almost impossible for anomalies to appear. Lu Yun kept his cool when things from other eras appeared before him, but his mind shook when the battle flag manifested.
He was human and experienced the full range of emotions. It’d be one thing if the battle flag was from the past. That would mean Tianqi’s version was based off of a past creation, or that it was even a repaired battle flag manifesting in the world again.
But if it was from the future… The chain of events behind that didn’t bear speculation.
Of one thing Lu Yun was certain of, and that was the flag in Tianqi’s hand was suffused with a dense power of death. Not one of hell, but a true destruction and terminal devastation of all things.
The headless soldiers beneath the battle flag in front of him were one with the flag. He didn’t know what they were; their armor was not from this era. He was equal parts afraid and mystified.
Lu Yun couldn’t deduce anything about them or the battle flag over their head. Were they from the past? Or the present? He wasn’t even certain if the dog that’d appeared earlier was the one kept by the primeval heavenly court of old, or the one that he knew from its future—the demon of immortal dao.
Lu Yun forced himself to be calm, a mental state that the demon inside the Tome of Life and Death had regained. He knew what was taking place outside since Lu Yun was projecting the outside world into the treasure—including the image of the dog of war.
“Do you know where those soldiers come from?” Lu Yun asked expressionlessly as he manifested a replica in the book.
“I… I don’t remember.” The demon reverted to human form and stared intently at the images. He’d forgotten so much and only remembered that he was a dog. But whose dog was he?
Lu Yun nodded and dismissed his projection. He’d just struggled free from the countless loops of the Land of Reincarnation, he really didn’t want to plunge into a bigger cycle. He could only look to Chu Xingran or the god of Mount Tai for answers.
The number of headless soldiers grew until they reached one million. They stood silently at the starting part of the spacetime tide, seemingly looking down at an assembly of ants. There was no more fighting, everyone stared in horrified shock at the mass of headless soldiers. Only heavy breathing could be heard throughout the crowd.
“They’re, they’re all real existences… They’re not a phenomenon from the tide…” Liang Ruyue suddenly said in a shaking voice.
In previous spatial tides, the accompanying phenomenon had been intangible images. Though they were highly dangerous, it was possible to fight them. But these headless soldiers existed in reality and they were all supremes!
One million supremes!
There were certainly more than one million supremes in the fourth realm. Only to the weak were supremes lofty existences that were too sublime to consider. To those below them, they were invincible.
In the circles of the truly strong, sequence experts were teenagers and supremes were adults. Such were the chief worlds. They encompassed and incorporated everything. All Lu Yun had seen was the tip of the iceberg.
But now that one million headless supremes stood facing them, assessing less than two hundred thousand cultivators with nonexistent eyes, the cultivators despaired. Legends regarding these headless soldiers were too awful to recount. Even though everyone was here with the acceptance that failure meant death, they still nursed a ray of hope.
With the appearance of these supremes, that hope was no longer.
……
“Don’t move!” Lu Yun boomed. “These headless soldiers bear us no ill will. They can’t get close to us with the spacetime tide in the way.”
The rest of the realm called it the spatial tide because most did not walk the path of time. Hence, they couldn’t identify the reincarnation of time in the tide. Hope flared anew when the cultivators heard his words.
“Stop fighting and killing. Calm down, control the impulses of your heart, dismiss your bloodlust. If the barking starts again, not even someone like Yun Yi will be able to save you guys!” Lu Yun shouted at the assembly. He noticed a tiny ripple from the Firmament Prison when he said Yun Yi’s name.
Yun Yi lied, alright! When Lu Yun refined the origin hell, Yun Yi said that it was his replica chasing Chu Xingran. It now looked like it was his replica that’d gone to the Land of Reincarnation instead!
Lu Yun had purposefully used Yun Yi’s name to raise his attention. The young man wanted to leverage that opportunity to analyze what was going on in the ruins and why the spacetime tide had come into existence.
All powerhouses had their taboos and bottom lines. For someone beyond supreme like Yun Yi, a weaker being directly using his name was a mark of grave disrespect. Not to mention, Lu Yun hadn’t said his name with any veneration, but rather with some contempt.
Thus, Yun Yi instantly sensed the usage and looked viciously in Lu Yun’s direction. The gaze didn’t come from his home in the chief worlds, but from the ruins close at hand.
Lu Yun hadn’t meant much by what he said, so he was just as surprised as any to gain information on Yun Yi’s whereabouts. Yun Yi’s primary body being here meant a great deal different compared to his replica being here.
His replica wasn’t afraid of death, but his primary body certainly was. He wouldn’t be bothered with ordinary creatures disrespecting him—only Lu Yun’s presence would elicit any reaction. This was one of the few who could call to his gaze through the Firmament Prison.
And since Lu Yun had done so on purpose, Yun Yi definitely knew the young man was here. He just didn’t know which one out there was Lu Yun since they were separated by the ruins.
