Chapter 489: Glimpsing the Past, the Supreme's Back

"The connection is severed."

Facing this sudden development, An Shen spoke thus, showing no panic, and quite cleanly cut off the connection between himself and the artifact key.

In any case, he had already mastered the refining method; as long as there were materials, he could refine it again, so there was no need to care too much.

To tell the truth, if it were possible, he had actually wanted to try self-destructing just now, but unfortunately, his cultivation in this aspect was not as good as Du En's.

Thump! The keyhole, along with the swallowed key, seemed to drop suddenly, crashing into a deep hole.

Creak, creak, creak...

The great gate began to slowly open amidst a series of faint, fragmented sounds.

Du En shook the spear in his hand, appearing eager to try; once any ambush or accident appeared, the Phoenix Blood Spear in his hand would be thrown out directly, letting the Remnant of the Divine Venerable take the arrows first.

If necessary, pulling out the main body would also work; after all, having reached the inner layer of the Supreme's scheme, the level of crisis could be said to be fully maxed out, and without the level of the Remnant of the Divine Venerable's main body, it might truly be impossible to block it.

This was also the reason why he needed to unify their opinions just now.

Because the road ahead was truly not optimistic; with such a formation already on the front side, the reality on the back side would only be even more terrifying, and even for the three of them, a slight carelessness would likely lead to them falling on the spot and dying completely.

However, this expectation was completely dashed.

Because after this Upper Realm gate opened, there was only a hazy red sky behind it, and absolutely no danger surged out; there was not even a very obvious malicious intent from evil spirits, but merely a lingering density within a normal range.

Since that was the case, what was it that hit the door before? Such a doubt arose spontaneously, yet there was no way to know at all.

The unknown brings fear and makes people feel uneasy.

Although Du En felt no fear, his gaze sank slightly.

Clack! The gate opened completely.

It remained quiet.

On this surface side, whether it was the Red Star or the Inverted Jianmu, everything was perfectly normal, exactly the same as it had been just a moment ago.

Clearly, in theory, the front and back should be connected now, and one could say that the situation of them beginning to formally intermingle was occurring, yet they remained distinct from one another, as if there were an invisible boundary, like heaven and earth, separating everything.

The three of them could not help but look at each other, and then began to employ their respective techniques.

When things are abnormal, there must be demons! This was completely abnormal! Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils, Saint Pupil of Seeing the Source... not enough, still unable to see the anomaly, then add the blessing of Dao might, hmm? It seems, there is something? But it was still a bit short of being able to touch the edge...

Du En immediately pinched a hand seal, and a precious mirror floated out from within his body.

Adorned with fire, round like a dark sun, with a three-legged divine bird patterned on the back; as the two great divine fires lit up two legs, and a self-generated divine fire lit up the third leg, the whole thing suddenly became vivid, and the mirror surface immediately rippled with waves.

Dark Crow Mirror! With the blessing of its ability to penetrate truth, Du En's eyesight was deepened once again, able to further see into the deep layers of the phenomenon.

At this moment, he could barely see clearly.

It seemed he could see a back.

That should also be a remnant image of the past; at some moment in the past, this Upper Realm gate—no, did the gate not exist yet?

In short, at some moment in the past, a person was standing right in front of this gate, looking far away with their back to them, not knowing what they were looking at, because there was only an empty sky ahead.

That back was not particularly transcendent or outstanding, nor was it tall and heroic; it was just exceptionally ordinary, even a little bit hunched, as if they were already advanced in age.

Mmm...

The moment he captured the back relatively clearly, Du En's pupils and the mirror surface of the precious artifact suffered fine, deep cracks, bringing an impact and pain that even he found difficult to endure; in an instant, the back in his eyes began to flicker, and intense, screeching noises rang in his ears.

He continued to endure, persisting in listening and watching.

Since it was a remnant image of the past, there should be other information...

Then, the remnant image changed flavor without him noticing; all around was a kaleidoscope of bizarre and motley sights, but the figure was still that same figure, and the back remained the same.

The difference was that this was already that corner at the other end of past space-time.

Being detected peeping and eavesdropping, it was as if a star were captured by the sun's gravity—no, it should be said that a small pebble had stumbled into the field of vision of a black hole, and was silently swallowed.

Vision and hearing, the five senses of the physical body, and the consciousness and divine sense above them, all seemed to begin to blur and vanish.

Next, he could hear a sigh resonate in his heart.

"Difficult, difficult, difficult; man and heaven, two realms apart; heaven and immortal, even more different... Forget it, it was just a whim, flowing with the current... Then, let's take the opportunity to see a bit more, see... what the specific situation will be after you open it."

The final sentence suddenly became clear, ringing directly in the ears of the two people and one god.

It shook them so that they suddenly broke away from the other end of space-time and returned to the present, not having been swallowed and obliterated.

Who was that? The answer was obvious.

The Supreme!

Supreme Luoyu!

Whether it was the Red Star or the Jianmu, it was actually just a whim, a casual act, so this so-called Upper Realm gate being opened here actually had no changes, because this situation was just a move made casually; it's just that the Supreme must have seen it now, the various changes that occurred after they opened this gate! That was something they could neither see nor touch now...

"Cough, cough, cough!"

"The majesty of the Supreme is indeed extraordinary!"

"Hey, Junior Brother Du, can you not get to the bottom of things so much in the future?"

The three remained silent for a long time on the spot, finally steadying their minds and shaking off the greatest discomfort; then, Sheng Zhaoshui began to vomit blood, wiping it away while coughing, and spoke intermittently with great helplessness.

The An Shen Rhombus Mirror developed cracks, and the An Shen within flickered, appearing even dimmer; at this time, there were no words, only the mirror nodding up and down, as if silently agreeing with Sheng Zhaoshui's words.

In fact, it was indeed because Du En had been too inquisitive that he saw what he shouldn't have seen, and was subsequently captured to the other end of space-time, dragging the person and the god beside him into it as well.

And the Supreme at the other end of space-time did not care whether it was said to one person or three, because it was actually the same; they were like three specks of dust, whether added together or as a single speck, they were equally insignificant and not worth treating specially.

It looked like that...

Du En, in silent speechlessness, was quietly recovering from the Dao wounds he had sustained.

By comparison, the depth of the injury he had just received was simply unimaginable, even deeper and heavier than when the Phoenix Remnant's main body squeezed out to cover him for a moment.

If it were truly regarded as not worth mentioning, it shouldn't have reached such a level; of course, it is also possible that the Supreme is far, far more powerful than the Divine Venerable, and far more than everything seen and heard on the surface before...

In short, Du En silently swallowed a pill. Nine-Turn Life-Returning Precious Pill!

He hadn't expected this life-saving Dao pill to be used at such a moment.

Just because he saw the Supreme and heard a single sentence...

They had no choice but to consume it, for the malice within the back was not dead; it had already noticed them lingering at the entrance, and thus the blood-mist sky began to churn, a certain crisis brewing, and they had to recover quickly.

As the pill's power took effect, both the eyes and the Dao wounds, all of them, seemed to undergo a reversal of time and space, rapidly returning to their most perfect state.

Du En lowered his head, glancing at the Phoenix Blood Spear in his hand.

It had not changed in the slightest just now, but within the Divine Palace, the lingering resentment of the God Venerable that had been expanding and floating upward had sunk back down; although he could faintly sense the clamor at its edges, he could no longer utilize the radiating heat for the time being.

It had been invisibly suppressed; there was simply no power to fight back!

The gap between a Supreme and a God Venerable was indeed ridiculously large.

When it came down to it, how did such an existence as a Supreme even appear in this world? Du En could not help but continue to distract his mind with this thought for the moment.

Normally, whether it be a Venerable, God Venerable, Emperor Venerable, or Supreme, they were all merely Great Vehicle stage cultivators, at the eighth tier of the path to immortality, but right now, at this fixed upper limit where no tribulation descended, it was as if it had been forcibly split into three realms.

If one were to say that ordinary Venerables and God Venerables/Emperor Venerables could barely be classified in the same tier, being merely the difference between a heaven-gifted talent and the absolute peak, then what was going on with the Supremes?

Were they deformed and mutated Tribulation Transcendence stages, or alternative half-immortals walking among the human world? "Spirit Severing and Void Refinement are only the starting point; even an ordinary True Monarch probably couldn't investigate anything. Only special cases like the True Monarch are barely qualified to look at the chessboards of the Supremes and try to do something inside or outside the board..."

Du En felt some emotion in his heart, then shook his head.

Because the vengeful spirits were already surging over in a black mass.

Sheng Zhaoshui and An Shen actually wanted to say something more, for instance, how exactly did they get dragged into being the targets of the Supreme's words while just watching?

If one were to speak of their courage, it was actually quite large; although they were almost wiped out in one fell swoop, not a single one of them felt any heartfelt terror or fear.

Although it was also because one man and one god had not directly seen the other side of time and space.

However, it was clearly not the time for idle conversation now.

"Aooooo!!!"

The tide of vengeful spirits surged over like thick, heavy rain clouds; the three of them leaped, broke into the gate, and crossed the invisible barrier. Instantly, resentment rushed toward them, and malice stirred spontaneously.

Du En first retracted the Dark Crow Mirror to nourish and repair it within his body, then threw out the Profound Turtle Shield to block and seal the Gate of the Upper Realm, lest something sneak out and cause the Red Star Jianmu in front to change again.

At the same time, he whipped up a sandstorm, raised mountains, and used both artifacts and puppets to launch a fierce charge against the tide of vengeful spirits. The Phoenix Blood Spear in his hand quietly transformed into the Thunder Command Seal, which he threw out to create a realm of thunder, with all kinds of extremely rigid and extremely yang true thunder crashing and booming.

Just by himself, he held off the sky-filling vengeful spirits and rapidly cleared them out.

It could be considered sharing the burden for the companions he had accidentally implicated just now.

At the very least, An Shen did not consume a precious pill, but was recovering in his own way.

This was also because he had only suffered collateral damage.

Then, looking at Sheng Zhaoshui, he was still there vomiting blood.

Du En: "..."

Sheng Zhaoshui: "Cough, cough, cough!"

He was visibly trying to slack off!

Forget it, he wouldn't say anything to him for now.

Du En sighed silently.

And Sheng Zhaoshui suddenly looked as if he had triumphed over this side, instantly satisfied and beaming, unable to help but puff out his chest.

"Fellow Daoist Sheng is truly exceptionally leisurely!"

An Shen's voice transmission came faintly.

It was as if he could no longer bear to watch his constant grinning and devil-may-care attitude.

"Oh, I wasn't originally like this, but who told the True Monarch to lock me up for a hundred years, making me feel stifled? Besides, there aren't many opportunities to make Du En silently suffer a setback. Moreover, with his rate of progress, he might achieve the True Monarch realm before the age of a hundred, which is really unimaginable. Anyway, I feel I can't keep up, so to avoid not being able to get back at him later, I can only try to collect some interest little by little..."

Sheng Zhaoshui replied, babbling on.

Although he knew that what An Shen wanted to say, ask, and investigate at this moment was actually how he could be so heartless after hearing the words of the Supreme, he would not easily expose his own secrets.

An Shen seemed to be just probing casually, the key point being another matter: "That said, Fellow Daoist Sheng saw it too, right? Although not as deeply as Du En, but... what is the origin of those traces of past phantoms?"

As he asked, he appeared intriguing, his gaze sweeping toward Du En's side.

To be precise, it was those eyes.

He had long since witnessed the Fiery Golden Eyes here; although the level had been raised now, it was not hard to guess what kind of power and utility they had, but the Source-Seeing Holy Pupils were a new trick.

And this new trick could always stay one step ahead of the two of them, seeing all kinds of things they found hard to see... After observing so many times, he also generally knew their specific utility.

Therefore.

"Those phantoms are the scattered threads of the Star Realm's life source. The life source is like a record library, the origin flow of a star's life path. After living beings die, their souls return to the netherworld and their bodies return to the life source, thus leaving behind various records; it can be called the history book of the stars."

"Fellow Daoist An is very knowledgeable about the life source!"

Facing such blunt words, Sheng Zhaoshui could only reveal the information he hadn't mentioned before, which he had long since matched up: "The Supremes reshape space. The main star of this Star Realm, which has spiritual energy, life, and the immortal path—that is, the star where the life source is located—is naturally also reshaped, and will undergo earth-shaking changes.

However, in fact, the Green Profound Star Realm didn't have that many earth-shaking changes. Oh, the Red Star Jianmu doesn't count. Those two things—the Jianmu is easy to understand; it's probably just a seed or sapling that ruined itself, thrown here casually to serve as a gate foundation. As for the Red Star, it is faint and hard to understand, like a projected object.

In short, those various external influences are like squeezing juice with force, forcing the life source to spit out all kinds of things. I just used those things, following the connection of the life source's karma and fate, to be able to instantly pull all the living beings of this realm into the cave heaven. And as for the others, those are the phantoms, the nodes; they follow key karma and appear where they should appear."

"So that's how it is."

So that's how it is.

Du En smiled without mirth in his heart.

Relying on the outstanding strength of his divine sense, he had naturally been eavesdropping just now.

(End of chapter)