Chapter 317: The River of Time!

Tokyo, Japan, Extraordinary Response Department.

Minister Saito was holding a meeting regarding the anomalies occurring in Japan, with Director Takahashi, far away in the Pacific, participating via video call—indicating the immense pressure caused by anomalies spreading across Japan's four islands and surrounding seas.

Not long after the meeting began.

Boom—!

The ground shook, the mountains trembled, the entire conference room swayed.

"Earthquake?!"

The shaking was violent; everyone was thrown off-balance, lights overhead flickering erratically.

No! This isn't an earthquake!

Minister Saito saw that the location where Director Takahashi appeared in the video call was also shaking—yet Takahashi was in the Pacific, thousands of kilometers from Japan, and even the ocean there was churning, tossing warships violently; that meant…

He thought of the most terrifying possibility—and others, including Takahashi, realized it too; their faces turned ashen.

The next moment.

Ignoring standard earthquake protocol to seek shelter under desks or in triangular zones, everyone rushed out of the Extraordinary Response Department building, because they suspected…

This might not be an earthquake.

Far out in the Pacific, Director Takahashi abandoned all else, sprinting onto the deck of the warship.

Japan and the Pacific are separated by vast distances; an earthquake could not possibly affect such a wide area—there was only one possibility: this "earthquake" was spreading across the entire Earth.

An "earthquake" capable of affecting the entire planet was unimaginable—it could not be ordinary; nine times out of ten, it was caused by the Extraordinary or divine/demonic forces, and recalling the last major Extraordinary/demonic disturbance… wasn't it the incident in Russia?!

That time, the initial battlefield erupted into massive warfare, so vast that Russia's sky collapsed and gods emerged.

That time, all humanity knew the horror of the initial battlefield's war—even across billions of voids, its clash still reached here.

Now the entire Earth is trembling—could it be that something massive has happened on the initial battlefield? Are the enemies coming?!

This thought surfaced in countless hearts across the globe; all were filled with terror.

Minister Saito and the others burst out of the building, looked up instinctively—and Professor Beishan, the oldest among them, immediately went weak at the knees, nearly collapsing in fear.

At this moment.

The truth behind the earthquake was revealed.

Indeed, it was not an earthquake—it was caused by the Extraordinary and divine/demonic.

Across the world.

In every nation.

In every place.

Countless people dropped everything they were doing, staring upward in utter horror.

The familiar blue sky was gone.

Twisted, wrinkled, trembling, swaying—the entire sky of Earth underwent massive upheaval, as if space itself had warped, like a rubber band stretched to its absolute limit, on the verge of snapping, of shattering.

It was not the sky falling—it was the sky changing.

Something seemed to be causing the sky's turmoil, its quivering.

Even mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, and the stars beyond Earth were trembling, shaking, swaying uncontrollably.

The space station.

Astronauts turned as pale as corpses, utterly bloodless; they were not on Earth, so they had not noticed the sky or land's changes—but they saw the stars surrounding Earth trembling, undergoing changes never witnessed before.

It was not only Earth undergoing drastic change.

At the same moment.

The Void Demon Realm, the Abyssal Erosion Realm, the Myriad Wastelands Realm, and other alternate worlds also experienced massive upheavals.

Countless beings were horrified; many ancient entities were startled awake, and one by one, slumbering great terrors stirred.

At this moment.

Heaven and earth plunged into darkness.

Mountains, rivers, sun, moon, stars—all seemed no longer real, existing between illusion and substance, spirit and matter, as if their very essence was being rewritten.

A single slightest change, any casual action, and heaven would no longer be heaven, earth would no longer be earth; sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, seas—all would transform.

The Void Demon Realm.

"What on earth is happening?" the Lord of Void and Lord of Demon gasped, staring at the cataclysmic shift in heaven and earth, utterly lost.

The Myriad Wastelands Realm.

The Sage of Human City looked up—even when countless races besieged the city, threatening its annihilation, he had never flinched; now, his face was filled with shock.

In many alternate realms, ancient beings and great terrors were all shaken.

At this moment.

A phantom river, origin unknown, destination unknown, rolled forward relentlessly, piercing through each alternate realm.

It was immeasurably vast.

This phantom river, whose source was unknowable, surged with crashing waves, each splashed droplet resembling a world—one wave, one world—glittering brilliantly, dazzling beyond measure.

It existed within heaven and earth, yet encompassed all heavens and earths.

All words—mysterious, boundless, grand, magnificent, turbulent—failed to describe this river, whose origin was unknown yet intuitively felt to arise from the very beginning of all things.

Suddenly.

Everyone stared, frozen, at this river.

They saw countless fragments flash past: ancient ancestors tilling with fire and stone; immortal gods striking against the Nine Heavens; countless worlds; heroic figures roaring across heaven and earth, crushing the Nine Heavens and Ten Directions—yet ultimately defeated by time.

They saw countless humans, gods, demons, monsters, and Buddhas striking against the Eight Directions and Six Realms, forging their own glory in each age, defending the past.

They saw those who sought to prove the Dao of immortality, only to fade into obscurity, their glory buried forever in the past.

Even more—they saw those attempting to transcend all: life and death, laws, truths—and even… time itself.

This scene.

The world breathed heavily, eyes wide open.

There truly exists a being capable of transcending time!

When Master Konghai spoke with the Dark Emperor, people's understanding of what they said about past and future was correct.

It was not metaphorical, but literal.

The past meant the past, the future meant the future—"that side" indeed came from the future.

It further confirmed the hypothesis.

Extremely powerful beings can transcend time, move freely through the ages, remain unbound by time, and even sever time, cut off the flow of years!

At this very moment.

People finally knew what this great river was.

The River of Time!

The River of Years!

This was the embodiment of time—all past and present time condensed into one River of Time, a River of Years stretching through past, present, and future!

This was no fantasy.

Nor was it speculation.

People could now be certain: this great river was the River of Years, because in the next second, countless beings on Earth, the Void Demon Realm, the Abyssal Erosion Realm, and elsewhere nearly screamed.

They saw themselves upon the River of Years!

On certain stretches of the river, they saw their younger selves or their future forms.

People were both exhilarated and shaken.

Time was no longer ethereal, no longer intangible or invisible—they had clearly seen time itself.

No matter which world, no matter who, none were exempt.

Many powerful beings from other worlds now truly understood: this River of Time and Space was the macrocosmic river of all worlds and all heavens, condensing the time of every realm, their own world's time merely a tributary.

And Earth.

This world was the main current of the River of Time; the shadows of Earth could also be seen in other tributaries.