Beyond the Timescape [Wuxiaworld]

Three days passed. During that time, the taboo poison pill slowly began to integrate with his third palace.

Ten percent. Twenty percent. Thirty percent....

Much of Xu Qing’s body was rotting, but he simply sat in place and focused on fighting against it. Over the past three days, he hadn’t just relied on his violet crystal, the life lamps, and the ghost emperor mountain. He had also released all of his beetles. Under his control, the beetles had bored into him and begun feeding on the poison that filled his flesh and blood.

Those were the various methods Xu Qing had prepared as his first line of defense.

However, the poison power of the pill was so intense that even all of those preparations weren’t enough. As a result, his body was visibly rotting. All he could do now was focus fully on the integration process and hopefully step past the point of death.

Four more days passed, and the taboo poison pill was seventy percent integrated into the third heavenly palace. Those four days had been full of pain and torment for Xu Qing. By the end of them, he was left feeling weak and powerless, with no option left other than to endure.

The spot upon which he sat was covered with black gore, which was his own rotten flesh and blood. His clothing hung limp over his shriveled, rotten frame. Not much flesh could be seen on his hands; they were mostly black bone. The poison from the taboo pill was wreaking havoc on him, to the point where his sea of consciousness was dilapidated and his soul was incomparably dim. It looked like he was heading straight toward death.

Just being able to hold out for this long showed how deeply prepared Xu Qing was. Not even the almighty figure who had put the pill into the wish box had ever done something like this. After all, if he had, then he wouldn’t have put the pill into the wish box to begin with. If someone as almighty as that person had been unable to succeed, it went to show how difficult this effort was.

Everything Xu Qing was doing was based on theory. Even though he had two life lamps, the Ghost Emperor mountain, natural resistance, and the black beetles, he was still like an oil lamp flickering on the verge of being extinguished. The violet crystal continued to pump life force into him, forestalling death, but... he would eventually reach a limit.

The shadow was emitting constant fluctuations of emotion, and Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior looked extremely nervous. Both could sense the aura of death building up around Xu Qing, and it filled them with mixed emotions.

That said, Xu Qing’s awe-inspiring veins of steel ensured that neither of them dared to think about betraying him in the moment. And even if such thoughts did occur to them, they wouldn’t act on them.

Another half a day went by. Xu Qing’s legs were now only black bones, and his hair was gone. His face was once bewitchingly attractive, but now it looked skeletal. The floor beneath his feet was covered with rotten flesh and black blood. His eyelids were gone, and the eyes in the socket seemed lifeless. His life force was rapidly draining away. The violet crystal couldn’t do any more. It looked like Xu Qing was about to fail.

But then, at the very last moment, his eyes suddenly glittered. The sight caused Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior and the shadow to shiver inwardly.

Ignoring them, Xu Qing looked down, a motion which caused popping sounds to ring out. It seemed like the slightest amount of force applied to his head would knock it off his shoulders.

After looking down, Xu Qing expended great effort to reach out with a hand that had only a few scraps of flesh on it. With that hand, he picked up a tiny bottle in front of him. He crushed the bottle, and the drop of Void Returning dao blood inside shot into his body.

This was Xu Qing’s second line of defense.

The blood entered him, and caused life force to spread through him. It nourished his flesh and blood, and also caused the Ghost Emperor mountain in his sea of consciousness to shine brightly.

That said, though there was life force in the blood, what was more relevant was the dao resonance it contained. Though the pure life force was useful, it had limitations. But to the Ghost Emperor mountain, the dao resonance was very useful. As soon as the Ghost Emperor mountain absorbed the dao resonance, it instantly became more corporeal.

It emanated a stronger resonance of its own, and what was more, it looked even more similar to Xu Qing. In fact, it seemed to be only one step away from being a perfect materialization of him. That materialization would be such a fundamental change that, without the dao blood, it wouldn’t be possible. The role of dao blood was like the bestowal of soul seeds or spirit roots.

Under normal circumstances, Xu Qing would have taken more time to observe the mountain. But he couldn’t spare the attention right now. Relying on the life force from the dao blood, he endured another day. His third heavenly palace had gone from being seventy percent black to eighty percent. After that, the rotting effects on his body grew even more intense. Shivering, he took out a piece of wood and put it down in front of him.

This was his third line of defense.

The black wood glittered, and then a large black door appeared, which slowly opened, releasing white light that could lock one’s life force in place.

The moment the light appeared from within the Darkspirit Everwill Door, it became a sealing force that froze his life force. Back when he had gone through the Seazombies’ zombification process, that sealing light had worked perfectly. But right now... it couldn’t stop the process that was playing out, only slow it down. The poison from this taboo poison pill was too formidable. Only raw life force could fight back against it; no other methods would be completely successful. That said, at least the light helped. [1]

With the time Xu Qing had bought, his violet crystal was able to fight back against the poison pill, which bought him additional time.

Another day passed. The third heavenly palace within him was now ninety percent black. However, that was when the sealing power of the door ceased being effective.

Ninety percent, huh...?

Xu Qing’s eyes were dull and he couldn’t see clearly. But he wasn’t in a state of panic. Despite everything, he was still fully in control. He was just severely weakened, and that was as he had anticipated.

Xu Qing looked down at all the bottles and jars that he’d taken from August Spirit Nethersprite. They all had medicinal pills in them, and though they were a mixed and varied lot, Xu Qing had analyzed them all and set out the ones that contained varying amounts of life force.

These were going to be his fourth line of defense.

Without hesitation, he smashed the bottles, causing a host of multicolored medicinal pills to fly into him. As they melted, they released waves of life force to nourish him. The individual effects were only middling, but given how many of them there were, the cumulative effects were sufficient.

It was at this time that Xu Qing’s gaze suddenly shifted to his right wrist. There was no flesh or blood there, only blackened bone. Looking at the bone of his wrist, Xu Qing’s dim eyes suddenly flickered with confusion.

There was something there, glowing a faint golden color. It was so weak that, normally speaking, it would have been impossible to spot. And with flesh covering it, it would be even more difficult to notice. Not even divine will would be able to find it, much less the physical sense organs. It appeared very briefly, flashing for a moment before disappearing. [2]

After it was gone, Xu Qing didn’t get any sense it had done something. There had been no change to his situation.

As he pondered that briefly, life force surged out even faster from the medicinal pills. As it filled him, nourishing his body, the poison power from within his third heavenly palace waned slightly.

At the same time, the integration of the taboo pill sped up. The third palace went from being ninety percent black in color… all the way to a hundred percent! The moment the pill fully integrated, Xu Qing suddenly sensed a connection to it in his mind. A tremor passed through him, and the poison within him retracted back into the third heavenly palace.

The violet crystal started to heal his extremely weak body, though this time it seemed to be happening a bit faster than it normally did in the past. His flesh started growing back. His sea of consciousness was restored. His soul began to shine brightly. Beneath his garment, his muscles filled in. Though he still looked much thinner than before, he was already much improved.

Eventually, the powers of the violet crystal went back to normal.

There was something unusual about all of that, and it caused him to think back to that sudden flash of golden light on his wrist. If he hadn’t noticed that golden flash, then he might not have thought anything about how things turned out. He might have just been too excited about the result to think about the sequence of events. But analyzing it now, he was convinced that it was simply too coincidental. Something unusual had happened.

What really happened?

Rising to his feet, he looked down at his right wrist.

Meanwhile, now that the taboo poison pill was fully integrated into his third heavenly palace, and also connected to his own life force, it began to show signs of reviving. It was just as Xu Qing had predicted.

Those signs of reviving manifested in ravenous hunger. Xu Qing shivered as the flesh that had just recovered instantly started to wither again. Though there was no rotting like before, the consistent withering made him feel incredibly hungry.

The sensation caused his eyes to turn bloodshot. It was similar to what happened back when he cultivated Golden Crow Assimilates Myriad Spirits. [3]

Breathing unsteadily, he turned to look at Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior and the shadow. The patriarch and shadow nearly screamed in response, and could only tremble and look at him in terror.

Xu Qing seemed to struggle to control himself as saliva dripped down his chin.

***

Far out in the Forbidden Sea, a great distance away from Emperor-Receiving Prefecture, were the sprawling ruins of a city deep beneath the surface of the water. Precisely speaking, those ruins had sunk down into the darkness and gloom of the sea.

Someone with eyes that could pierce the darkness would be able to see countless ancient structures there. They had collapsed innumerable years in the ancient past, and had been interred in the sea since then. The ruins were decayed and dead, but it was still possible to see occasional dilapidated statues within the city. Without exception, all of those statues depicted women in black suits of armor. All of them were extraordinarily beautiful and majestic. Each of them had a white snake coiling around them.

Deep beneath the ruins of that city was an enormous cave temple that the mutagen-filled seawater had not encroached upon. Within the temple were two things: a teleportation portal and an eminently majestic altar.

Atop the altar was a skeleton.

Looking at the skeleton, it was obvious it had been a woman in the past. She had obviously been tall in life. Surrounding her were two skeletons, one of a snake, the other of a dragon. The way they were coiled allowed her to sit on the head of the dragon, while the snake’s head was next to her. It seemed like they had been standing as dharma protectors for her, and had ultimately died with her.

Seated in front of the skeleton of the woman, right in the middle of the altar, was a person. She was a spectacularly beautiful young woman with skin as fair as snow. She wore a white dress as she sat there cross-legged. Her long eyelashes fluttered slightly, and her face was a bit flush. Suddenly, she coughed up a mouthful of blood which splashed onto the ground as well as her white dress.

The moment that happened, a shout of rage echoed from off in the distance.

“Damnation! DAMNATION! How many times is this going to happen? Just what did you do? Don’t you want to live?? I can’t believe you secretly took a slip of your life essence and attached it to that Xu bastard! ARRGGGHHHH!!”

The enraged shouting came from the innkeeper from Plankspring Way. Though he was shouting curses, his face was full of tenderness as he rushed over and put a medicinal pill into the mouth of the teetering young woman.

“Ling’er! You shouldn’t use your innate abilities that way. That little bastard is going to die young. You can’t just casually bless him with your destiny aura whenever you feel like it!”

The young woman’s eyelashes fluttered as she opened her eyes. Her gaze was innocent and pure as she timidly said, “Big Bro Xu Qing won’t die young.”

The innkeeper was so mad he nearly coughed up blood. Looking down at Ling’er, he stamped his foot and sighed.

“Damnation! I should never have gone to Seven Blood Eyes to sell that grue. And why didn’t I just kill that little bastard the first time I saw him? If I had known things would turn out like this, I would have put him to death the moment I laid eyes on him. I just don’t get it. You’ve only been around him a few times? Nothing happened! What do you even like about him??”

Hearing this, Ling’er’s eyes glazed over slightly. “I don’t know. I just know I love him. And when I’m close to him, I feel happy. My heart beats faster, and I feel worried he might not like me. As long as Big Bro Xu Qing is happy, I’m happy.”

“You! You’re just too young, that’s all. You don’t understand anything about love, so how could you say you love him? Just wait until you’re a bit older and know what you really want. Then you’ll understand what love is!” The innkeeper was speaking from his heart.

As for Ling’er, her eyes seemed to further glaze over. Then she looked up at the old innkeeper. “Papa, I don’t understand what you grown-ups mean when you talk about love. Do you mean loving someone is about wanting to get something from them? Is that really loving them? Or is it loving yourself?”

The innkeeper’s jaw nearly dropped. Then he opened his mouth to say something. However, after seeing the innocent look in Ling’er’s eyes, he decided not to say anything at all.

1. Xu Qing used the Darkspirit Everwill Door during the zombification process in chapter 319. ☜

2. This is not the first time something odd was observed regarding Xu Qing’s wrist. Similar things happened in chapter 296 and chapter 319. ☜

3. Xu Qing’s ravenous hunger after the golden crow breakthrough was in chapter 178. ☜

Deathblade's Thoughts

Author note (translated from Chinese):

After writing this, something occurred to me. Maybe one day I can explain to all of you the background inspiration for the events in the story. For instance, the ‘light’ in this chapter. The inspiration for that came from my final visit to the psychiatrist last year, when I realized something while under hypnosis.

Love means something different to adults than it does to young people. I’ve been thinking about that recently. A girl once asked me if I really knew what she wanted. I was struck speechless. I wanted to say that I knew. But after consideration, I realized I had no idea.

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