Chapter 393: Space-Time Barrier

Grey-white air currents darted disorderly all around. There was no distinction between up, down, left, or right; time had no scale here.

Above their heads, the Profound Yellow Chaos Bell rotated slowly. The bell body was covered in cracks, dim and lusterless, and the chaotic energy it dripped down turned into an invisible cage, shrouding Su Chen and Sun Wukong in the center.

Beneath the bell stood an illusory figure.

The Golden Crow imperial robes were tattered, and long hair was disheveled. Eastern Emperor Taiyi.

Su Chen gripped the Return to Ruins Divine Axe with one hand, the Seventh Turn chaotic blood energy of *Chaos Nine Turns* operating crazily, and the grey-white chaotic origin surged under his skin, ready to tear this cage apart at any time.

Sun Wukong held the Ruyi Jingu Bang with both hands, golden light swallowing and spitting in his eyes, his magic power at the peak of the Great Luo Jinxian Realm locking onto the phantom in front.

"You didn't die?" Sun Wukong bared his teeth, a low roar coming from his throat.

Taiyi's residual soul did not look at Sun Wukong, his golden eyes looking calmly at Su Chen.

Su Chen met Taiyi's gaze without retreating.

"Senior has been waiting here for a long time," Su Chen said in a deep voice. "In these few hundred years, everything we have seen and experienced has been under your gaze?"

Taiyi did not speak.

Su Chen stepped forward, the axe blade of the Return to Ruins Divine Axe cutting through the void, emitting a sharp ringing sound.

"Or rather, everything we experienced after coming here is just a game you set up with the Chaos Bell?" Su Chen pressed.

Taiyi heard this, and a curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.

He raised his right hand and waved it casually.

The chaotic pressure shrouding the two above their heads dissipated instantly, and the Chaos Bell let out a dull hum, shrinking back into Taiyi's palm.

"A game?" Taiyi's voice carried endless vicissitudes. "If this Emperor had the spare energy to set up a game, the Demon Clan would not have ended up in that state."

Su Chen did not put away the divine axe, maintaining his vigilance.

Taiyi opened his palm, and the broken Chaos Bell rotated slowly in his palm.

"You did not truly return to the ancient Primordial," Taiyi said something shocking.

Su Chen's brows furrowed abruptly.

"What do you mean?" Sun Wukong asked urgently.

Taiyi cast his gaze toward the depths of the endless void.

"This is the place where Mount Buzhou broke, and also the node where the order of time and space completely collapsed," Taiyi said in a calm voice. "Back then, when this Emperor merged with the Chaos Bell and self-destructed, the power exceeded the bearing limit of heaven and earth. That power collided with the great power contained in Mount Buzhou, which was formed by Pangu's spine, tearing the River of Time."

"The Chaos Bell suppresses the Primordial Chaos and contains the Great Dao of Time and Space. In the moment it broke Mount Buzhou, its power captured a segment of the ancient Primordial from the River of Time, forcibly imprinting it and forming a 'space-time barrier' in this void."

Hearing this explanation from Taiyi, countless clues connected at this moment, and Su Chen immediately understood many problems he had previously found strange.

When he first stepped into that era, he had marveled at the abnormal stability of the laws of heaven and earth.

The battles of Great Luo Golden Immortals could not even tear space.

He had thought it was the foundation of the ancient Primordial.

Now that he thought about it, it was because the entire world was constructed by the combined residual power of the Chaos Bell and Pangu.

The barrier of the boundary was far more indestructible than the real Three Realms space.

No wonder he had felt in the dark that the general trend could not be changed.

Because all of that had already happened.

What they experienced was just an infinitely realistic "space-time projection."

"So, the Twelve Ancestral Sorcerers we saw, the Demon Clan army we saw, Houtu transforming into reincarnation..." Su Chen's voice was somewhat dry. "Are they all fake?"

"Not exactly fake," Taiyi corrected. "The living beings within the barrier possess real memories, real emotions, and real cultivation. They operate according to the established trajectory of the River of Time, walking toward the destined ending."

Taiyi waved his sleeves.

In the void space, the Chaos Bell appeared again, and Profound Yellow light flourished on the bell body.

The light intertwined, projecting scenes one after another around the two.

Kuafu running wildly under the scorching sun, his parched physical body collapsing with a crash, turning into a ten-mile peach forest.

Houtu manifesting her Ancestral Sorcerer true body in the Netherworld Blood Sea, flesh and blood peeling away, turning into six deep reincarnation whirlpools.

The Pangu phantom swinging the black giant axe, slashing toward the brilliant sea of stars.

These scenes were born and died continuously in the void, carrying a vast and tragic aura.

Sun Wukong watched these scenes blankly.

The Ruyi Jingu Bang in his hand drooped down little by little.

"Fake..." Sun Wukong muttered to himself.

He remembered the strong wine Zhurong handed him outside Pangu Hall.

The spicy wine flowed down his throat into his stomach, turning into a ball of raging fire.

He remembered the fist-to-flesh battles he had with Zhurong time and time again over five years.

Zhurong's arrogant laughter seemed to still echo in his ears.

Sun Wukong lowered his head, his golden eyes filled with loneliness.

All that hot blood had been poured into a delusion.

This kind of gap made this unruly Great Sage Equal to Heaven feel unprecedented frustration.

Su Chen looked at Sun Wukong's appearance, and a sour feeling surged in his heart as well.

He had also invested his emotions.

He had risked the danger of being stained by karma to advise Di Jiang and guide Houtu.

In the end, he was just talking to a reflection in the water.

Su Chen collected his mind, looking straight at Taiyi's residual soul.

"Senior trapped us here and revealed the secrets of heaven; what are you seeking?" Su Chen cut straight to the point.

Taiyi looked at the two, the coldness in his eyes fading, replaced by a trace of gentleness.

"This Emperor is not trying to strike you down," Taiyi put away the phantoms all around. "Although you are in the reflection, you yourselves are real."

Taiyi pointed at Su Chen.

"The technique you practice absorbed the chaotic origin within the barrier. Your physical body's transformation is real. Your understanding of the Great Dao is also real."

Taiyi looked at Sun Wukong again.

"Your magic power's advancement and your battle experience are equally real."

Sun Wukong raised his head, the loneliness in his eyes fading slightly.

"So what?" Sun Wukong gritted his teeth. "Zhurong and the others, they don't exist after all."

"No, monkey," Taiyi's tone became solemn.

He stretched out his hand, drawing a phantom of a surging river in the void.

"The River of Time flows on, and any intervention from external forces will trigger variables," Taiyi pointed to a node on the river. "Your existence itself has already been cast into the River of Time."

Taiyi's gaze was deep.

"Although the reflection is a delusion, what you did within the barrier has already stirred up real ripples."

Su Chen's pupils shrank abruptly.

He stared fixedly at the ripples rising from Taiyi's fingertips, and an incredible guess took shape in his mind.

Yang Mei Daxian's words surfaced again.

Time and space are like a ring; karma is like a thread.

"Could it be..." Su Chen raised his head abruptly, his voice trembling slightly.

"Could it be that our intervention influenced the real past?!" ===== CHAPTER 394 =====