Chapter 384: Traveling the Primordial, Hollow Ancient Willow

The human race is too weak.

The leader with the highest cultivation among them has barely reached the Return to Emptiness Realm.

A fierce beast opened its blood-red maw and swallowed over a dozen humans into its belly in one gulp.

As its sharp claws swung, severed limbs and broken arms flew across the sky.

Fresh blood stained the valley floor.

Yet, the humans did not retreat.

The leader raised a blood-stained stone spear and let out a roar of despair and fury.

Hundreds of young and able-bodied tribesmen rushed forward one after another, using their flesh and blood to fill the defensive line torn open by the fierce beast.

They bit with their teeth and clawed with their hands; even when trampled into meat paste by the beast, they would drive bone clubs into the gaps of the beast's scales before dying.

Behind them, women and children huddled tightly together, their eyes filled with terror, yet they clamped their hands over the children's mouths to keep them from crying out.

It was extremely tragic.

Sun Wukong stood up abruptly, golden light surging in his eyes as his magic power at the Late Stage of the Great Luo Jinxian Realm erupted.

He raised his hand to pluck a tuft of monkey hair, bringing it to his lips, ready to blow out a clone.

"Stop."

A hand pressed firmly onto Sun Wukong's shoulder.

Sun Wukong turned his head and glared at Su Chen: "Little brother, what are you doing! Those are humans! Your own kind!"

Su Chen looked straight into Sun Wukong's eyes, his hand on the shoulder not loosening in the slightest.

"I see it," Su Chen said in a low voice.

"You see it and still won't let me act?" Sun Wukong gritted his teeth. "It's just a beast; I could smash them into meat paste with a single strike of my staff!"

"And then?" Su Chen countered.

Sun Wukong was stunned.

"You can save them once, but can you save them for a lifetime?" Su Chen released his hand and cast his gaze back toward the valley below. "The Primordial world is filled with ten thousand races, and the law of survival is that the weak are prey to the strong. The human race is born frail; they lack the formidable physical bodies of the Sorcerer Clan and the innate divine abilities of the Demon Clan. If they want to gain a foothold on this land, they must water a path of survival with their own blood."

Su Chen closed his eyes, masking the compassion in his gaze.

"We do not belong to this era. Excessive interference will only make them dependent and break their backbone of self-improvement. That would be the greatest cruelty to the human race."

The veins on the back of Sun Wukong's hand, which gripped the Ruyi Jingu Bang, bulged.

He watched the humans below falling one after another, his chest heaving violently.

After a long while, Sun Wukong sat back down on the cloud and turned his head away, refusing to look anymore.

"Let's go." Su Chen channeled his magic power, and the Somersault Cloud shifted direction, diving into the void and leaving the valley, filled with blood and shouts, far behind.

One day later.

The two traveled to a quiet and deep ancient mountain forest.

Here, ancient trees towered into the sky, and spiritual energy was abundant, yet eerily, not a single bird, beast, or insect could be heard.

Just as Su Chen was about to release his spiritual sense to investigate, the surrounding environment suddenly changed.

A withered leaf drifting from the canopy hung suspended in mid-air.

The air stopped flowing, and the spiritual energy ceased its circulation.

Space had completely solidified.

Sun Wukong's magic power at the Late Stage of the Great Luo Jinxian Realm erupted instantly, the Ruyi Jingu Bang appearing in his hand as he prepared for battle.

The chaotic blood energy within Su Chen's body burst forth, his Seventh Turn physical body forcibly carving out a sliver of space to move.

He raised his head and looked forward.

Ten zhang away, an old man appeared without warning.

The old man's hair and beard were white, reaching his waist.

He wore a grey cloth robe and held a willow branch that looked as if it were dripping with green.

The old man stood there; though he was close at hand, he felt as far away as the ends of the earth.

He seemed not to belong to this world, but stood independent of all things.

The moment Su Chen saw the old man, a violent throb came from deep within his dantian.

That incomplete spatial Dao pattern, obtained from the future timeline and originating from the remains of Yang Mei Daxian, was now trembling crazily, emitting a brilliant silver light and resonating with a longing to return to its source.

Su Chen's heart was shaken.

This aura, this absolute control over the spatial Dao.

A Chaos Demon God, the Ancestor of Space, Yang Mei Daxian!

The old man looked at the two with a calm gaze, releasing no pressure, yet making Su Chen feel a trembling from the depths of his soul.

"Strange," the old man said slowly, his voice ethereal and devoid of any worldly air. "All living beings in the Primordial are within the net of the Heavenly Dao. Yet you two have void fates and severed karma. You are like spectators drifting outside this world."

The old man had spoken the truth of the heavens.

Sun Wukong and Su Chen exchanged a glance. Su Chen signaled with his eyes for Sun Wukong to put away the Ruyi Jingu Bang; this person likely had no ill intent.

Su Chen forcibly suppressed the waves in his heart.

He took a deep breath, cupped his hands, and bowed deeply to the old man.

"Junior Su Chen, greetings, Senior."

The old man nodded slightly, his gaze falling on Su Chen's dantian.

"You have my aura within you," the old man said, his tone tinged with a hint of confusion. "It is extremely pure, yet carries the vicissitudes of time. From where did you obtain it?"

Su Chen straightened up, his expression composed. "It is not that I will not say, but that I cannot."

The old man's movement of stroking his beard paused slightly.

He did not press the matter, but instead raised the green willow branch in his hand and waved it gently forward.

A transparent spatial ripple spread out.

This was not an attack, but a pure probing of the Dao.

The spatial ripple appeared slow, but in reality, it ignored distance and instantly cut into Su Chen's body.

Su Chen did not dodge; facing this Chaos Demon God who controlled the spatial Dao, dodging was meaningless.

He channeled the *Hunyuan Jin Dan Zhen Jie* with all his might.

Within his dantian, the Hunyuan Jin Dan radiated light, with the Five Elements and Yin/Yang working in coordination.

Using the principle of the Five Elements generating each other, Su Chen guided the spatial power to circulate within his body, then borrowed the crushing momentum of Yin and Yang to forcibly neutralize and absorb this external spatial law.

"Good Dao technique," a hint of appreciation flashed in the old man's eyes. "Using the Five Elements as the base and Yin/Yang as the pivot, you have incorporated space into your own body. You have walked a dead-end path that ordinary people would not dare to tread."

"Senior is too kind," Su Chen cupped his hands.

The old man put away the willow branch, and the solidified space around them instantly returned to normal.

The suspended withered leaf fell to the ground, and the wind blew once more.

"The wonders of time and space cannot be explained in words." The old man turned, his back to the two. "Since you do not belong here, you should not stay long. The Heavenly Dao has its norms; variables will eventually be erased."

Su Chen stepped forward, asking urgently: "May I ask, Senior, what is the way home?"

The old man's figure began to turn illusory, dissipating into specks of silver light.

An ethereal voice echoed through the mountain forest.

"Time and space are like a ring; karma is like a thread. The place of origin is the way home."

The lingering sound faded, and the old man had completely disappeared.

Su Chen stood in place, repeating these eight words over and over.

Time and space are like a ring, which means that the past and future are not absolute straight lines, but are connected end to end.

Their arrival in this era must have involved some kind of karma; as long as they grasp this karmic thread, they can find the space-time node to return.

Perhaps they would only have a chance to return when the Great Tribulation erupts and Mount Buzhou collapses.

Time flowed on, and the Primordial did not record the years.

Several hundred years of time passed in the blink of an eye.

The friction between the Sorcerer and Demon clans had reached an irreconcilable point.

The Demon Court army frequently descended to the lower realm, and countless Sorcerer tribes suffered casualties.

The tribulation energy on the Primordial land had affected almost all living beings.

On this day.

Su Chen and Sun Wukong sat cross-legged on the peak of a nameless mountain.

Su Chen's eyes were tightly closed; he was deducing the mysteries of the spatial Dao, attempting to integrate the true meaning left by Yang Mei Daxian into his Hunyuan Jin Dan.

Suddenly, all sound in the world disappeared.

The sound of wind, water, and the distant roars of beasts all returned to deathly silence.

Immediately following, a sigh resounded throughout the Primordial.

This sigh lacked earth-shaking power, yet it carried a feeling of compassion to the extreme.

It pierced through the cloud seas of the Thirty-Three Heavens, pierced through the rock strata of Mount Buzhou, and sounded directly in the depths of the souls of every living being in the Primordial.

Su Chen opened his eyes abruptly.

He stood up, his gaze piercing through the endless void, looking straight down toward the Nine Netherworlds.

That was the place of extreme Yin in the Primordial, the boundless Blood Sea that had been silent for eternity.

At this moment, the Blood Sea was boiling, raising ten-thousand-zhang waves.

The earth was trembling, and the Law of Earth was cheering.

A brilliant light flashed in Su Chen's eyes.

Houtu had finally taken that step. ===== CHAPTER 385 =====