Chapter 84

Rushing toward them, it seemed like there was infinite light.

But the brilliance contained in that fierce light was too dazzling, and too bright. Ji Jue couldn't see anything. In the instant he could feel, there was only the unique aura originating from the Supreme Good: Gate of Eternity.

So pure, without any flaws.

It was as if he had leaped into the torrent of time, letting it take him to the distant past unknown to anyone.

Until the infinite light dissipated from before his eyes.

A breeze blew from afar.

The bell echoed over the square, birds were startled, fell, and looked curiously from the branches at the visitors who didn't belong here.

Ji Jue looked around blankly, but found that he seemed to have returned to the ground again.

But the ground was not like this at all. The ruins were gone, the collapsed high-rises disappeared without a trace, and only mottled buildings stood on the street.

Pedestrians were like weaving, laughing and talking, passing through his body, leaving only faint ripples.

In the distance, the bell of the sanctuary echoed, as if celebrating.

"This is... what?"

Ji Jue stretched out his hands blankly, subconsciously wanting to touch the things around him, but his palms passed through them without any obstruction, leaving only water-like ripples.

"Did we travel through time?" He couldn't help but doubt, and at the same time, first denied such an idea.

This is not a real world, more like an inverted image in time, so incomplete... If you observe carefully, some flower pots on the side of the road are constantly flashing, flowers changing, colors hard to determine.

The willow branches hanging down are also constantly twitching, unable to fix their form.

The faces of pedestrians are mostly blurry, hard to see clearly, and the voices are so distant. There are more places where buildings and scenery don't even have colors, and even their positions are constantly changing.

At the end of the dome, that solemn high tower towering into the clouds, so brilliant, shining—but cracks are constantly appearing, blooming, and at the same time, recovering rapidly.

Just like a game full of BUGS.

"What exactly is this?"

"Fragments of time, inverted images of the past, nothing more."

The Prophet stared at everything before her: "This is the event collected by Mercury... the results achieved by the workshop over so many years—"

"—the appearance of her hometown before it was destroyed."

【HOLY CRAP!!】

In Ji Jue's arms, the Ghost Work Ball shook violently, as if it finally went online: 【I understand, I finally understand why Mercury, that dog thing, was thankless and spread her workshop to the entire Rift Realm!】

This is the most difficult problem for Heavenly Work to understand.

Control the Rift Realm, manipulate everything.

It sounds exaggerated and terrifying.

But in reality, there is absolutely no cost-effectiveness.

To achieve the same effect, I don't know how many secret rituals there are in the Heaven lineage, and even several Rift Realms can be pieced together.

If you want wind, you get wind; if you want rain, you get rain.

The workshop can be adjusted centrally, there is no need to rack one's brains to transform the entire Rift Realm into a part of the workshop. The extravagant cost of this huge project is simply an astronomical figure.

Even if Mercury is crazy, she wouldn't be unable to calculate a math problem.

Moreover, the workshop is not the bigger the better. Ensuring the effect of alchemy to the greatest extent is the first thing the workshop must ensure, not the radiation range.

With Mercury's ability, if the workshop's radiation range could be reduced by half, no, even one-third, it wouldn't have fallen into the out-of-control state it is in today.

【It's not that Mercury wanted to cover the Rift Realm with the workshop, it should be the other way around, right? She needs this Rift Realm to become her workshop.】

The Ghost Work Ball realized: 【The entire Rift Realm has been transformed by her into a piece of work with the workshop as the core, a collector specifically built for the Supreme Good: Gate of Eternity!

Consuming so many blessings and materials, taking dozens or hundreds of years, just to complete the collection of time!】

It's like in remote areas or small gathering points outside the city where the signal is not good, someone will set up a huge pot lid to receive the signal.

The entire Rift Realm has been transformed by Mercury into an unprecedentedly huge receiver!

Such an exaggerated scale, even for a sage, is to go bankrupt, and even borrow infinitely...

For a long time, it has been independent of the present world, floating among the stars, chasing the sun endlessly, trying to capture the dissipated past in the darkness.

Day after day, year after year.

For four hundred years, it has constantly collected relevant time, tirelessly piecing together and repeating, trying to trace back the past.

Everything on the ground is just the appearance shown by this result.

The records and events contained in this deep well are the treasures she truly wants to obtain!

"What exactly does she want to do?"

Ji Jue walked between the records of the past and couldn't help but ask again.

"Haven't you already seen it?"

The Prophet stared at the old time and sighed softly: "Just, wanting to return to the old days, nothing more."

Wanting to take back everything of the past.

Wanting to take back her hometown, relatives, and their future, from death and the predetermined ending... from the disaster she caused!

The town that reincarnates endlessly day after day, the Heaven-pillar giant tower that constantly collapses above the dome.

And everything that cannot be repaired...

Finally, before Ji Jue's eyes, what appeared in those countless events were fleeting phantoms.

That lonely figure wandering between the ruins.

Digging with her own hands, moving away the rubble, what she saw was only piles of bones.

She bent down, holding the half-piece of blood-stained wedding dress, weeping silently.

Www? ttkдn? ￠O

Can't hear the wailing.

This is the price Mercury has ushered in.

In an instant, as if lightning flashed across his brain, everything he saw before entering the Rift Realm, those ancient histories and pasts, seemed to finally connect together.

"The disaster that appeared in the town was caused by Mercury, right?!" Ji Jue turned his head suddenly and asked: "Because of the collapse of the Heaven-pillar tower?"

Boom!

That scene of the collapse of heaven and earth appeared again from the inverted image of time.

In the wailing of the tower's fracture, the natural disaster appeared again from the dome, earth fire spread, swallowing everything.

Wailing and crying echoed in the wind.

Swallowing everything.

All blessings belonging to Heaven dissipated, leaving only infinite evil changes. The prosperity and brilliance established because of this passed away with the wind, leaving only the broken appearance that seemed to be eternally engraved in time.

Heaven lost its position!

"Killing the Lord of Eternity, cutting off the Heaven-pillar tower, breaking the world that had been stagnant and corrupt for thousands of years, cutting off all the evil karma accumulated by the Eternal Empire—the wish that had been passed down for 1,200 years was completed in the hands of the Mohists, and Mercury was the crucial key."

The Prophet said: "The blade of change that cut off Heaven was sharpened and reproduced by her... but what about the price? What is the price?"

She said, "The price is, losing everything."

Just like everything shown before her eyes.

The moment the Heaven-pillar tower shattered, all participants would receive the backlash when order collapsed—regardless of the original intention, from the moment the Eternal Empire fell, endless disasters spread across the land.

This is the evil fruit she created with her own hands.

She knew, she would lose everything, she should have understood long ago.

But she loved too much, and there was too much she couldn't let go of.

Even if she sought help from the sage of Aether, she forever erased her original name and modified her past history. But fate is not something that can be easily fooled.

She thought that after the empire fell, she could retire and return to her hometown. But after everything ended, she had nowhere to go except ruins.

Everything she cherished was completely annihilated with the collapse of the empire.

First natural disasters, then earthquakes, followed by the distortion caused by the loss of Heaven, and the military robbery stirred up in the chaos... Everything she cared about was completely destroyed in just seven days.

Daughter, brother, sister, mother, friends... even every ordinary person who recognized her name was destroyed by the disaster.

Only the lonely sage remained, wandering in ruins and deserts, receiving honor and curses.

"How mocking, she ended the rule of the Eternal Empire with her own hands, hoping to create an ideal country, but because of this, she created disasters and endless poison...

Because of this, she became the first cursed person in history to survive a disaster."

The Prophet looked around at the fake yesterday before her and sighed: "Even if she exhausted her life and painstaking efforts for this, wanting to return everything to before the disaster happened, wanting to take back what she lost.

But what is lost is lost, even if it is fake, it cannot return.

What remains is only this fake dream, and the suffering cycle that can never stop."

In the short silence, Ji Jue was stunned, for a long time: "Can't do it?"

"Can't do it."

The Prophet answered, categorically.

Thus, Ji Jue was silent.

As if frozen, staring blankly at the air, he seemed to hear the roar of a train leaving in his ears, and the floating and distant singing.

How could it not be done?

Clearly the sage is transcendent in the world, clearly the Ember creation is infinite!

This world is too huge, and too gorgeous.

Twelve Supreme Goods, Nine Great Evil Ignorances, Federation, Empire, Central Land, Security Bureau, Wilderness Collection, Ring of Taiyi... so many blessings, so many abilities, and so many powers he couldn't reach.

He once, no, until now, had fantasies.

Perhaps when he is strong enough, possessing enough power, he can retrieve everything he lost, and even—prevent that disaster from happening.

¤ttkΛn¤￠O

"I thought there would be a chance."

He muttered to himself, but didn't know who he should say it to.

"She thought so too, what you see is such an end." The Prophet sneered, "Humans cannot change their past, nor can they choose why they are achieved...

What is gone will eventually be gone, no matter how unwilling, no matter how many regrets.

So now is more precious than the future."

She was cold at first, unable to suppress her contempt, but in the end, she couldn't help but stall, just a sigh: "Why let a puppet like me who can't even control her own life teach you such a truth, Ji Jue?"

"Who knows?"

Ji Jue whispered to himself: "Who would be willing?"

When facing fate, is it to bow down obediently, endure silently, or resist without knowing one's own strength?

Placed before him is the tragic end left by the pioneer.