Chapter 409: The Little Girl of the Past Has Grown Up; The Spirit Race's Invitation

"Did it fail?"

He murmured.

In the end, Baichuan arrived before the tombstone, and what appeared before him was a coffin made entirely of a mysterious cyan-purple material.

It was an opened coffin, inside of which lay a thin layer of ash, permeated with a dense aura of time. The succubus blood Morgana had obtained, along with the box and the ancient scroll, had all come from here.

It was also the source of that familiar aura Baichuan had sensed.

After staring for a while, he reached out to touch it, sliding his fingers along the grain of the ancient coffin that reeked of time.

As he slid his hand along, his sharp clawtips began to exude an obscure, unfathomable aura, causing the surrounding space to warp, as if time itself were rapidly passing at this moment, or perhaps rewinding. That was the most bug-like power he now wielded—Time.

In an instant, this power seemed to trigger something, slowly coalescing into a scene that appeared before his eyes:

The sky was falling, the earth was shaking, and one after another Abyss-like fissures—monstrous gaping maws—appeared, madly devouring everything.

Amidst this, chunks of inexplicable matter began collapsing without end. Countless lives wailed, feared, and died. Streak after streak of flowing light radiating powerful auras shot into the sky, attempting to intervene.

Looking closely, Baichuan discovered that the figures shrouded in that flowing light were all humanoid creatures with flapping bat wings and crimson eyes, looking exactly like the demons in his memory.

Some of the powerful ones among them had already reached the peak of Banzhu, and there was even one who had reached the True Immortal realm, along with two whose strength matched the Half-step True Immortal power he had once possessed in his planetary body form.

Yet all these living beings, beneath the grey wind that filled every corner of the world with its strange aura, were still no match—or rather, were simply not opponents on the same level at all.

Even demons as powerful as those who had just stepped into True Immortal, once swept by that omnipresent grey wind, instantly lost all their power, no matter how many tricks they still had.

Because the wind was everywhere—it could not be driven away, could not be evaded.

Once swept by it, there was only one possible outcome!

Losing the power to resist, their light dimming as they fell along with the collapsing heavens into the Abyss, devoured clean!

That was not a power ordinary beings could resist, a crushing force above mere mass—the power of an enemy to worlds, to the universe itself!

"Erosion? Corrosion? Or destruction?"

"This power… have I seen something like it somewhere before?"

The strange wind that could rob worlds and all living beings of their power to resist seemed to remind Baichuan of something. With a flip of his claw, he produced a sphere of light embodying the concept of "Circle."

That's right—Concept!

That was a power far beyond ordinary True Immortals, one that even ancient immortals might not necessarily possess.

Just like the sphere of light he now held, the wind contained a certain concept. In the face of such concept-bearing power, ordinary power could hardly resist it.

To counter it, one would either need to use vast quantities of energy to overwhelm it by sheer volume, not allowing it to approach; or possess a similar concept to contend with it on equal footing; or possess a divine body like those powerful beings he had once seen above the Time Changhe, bodies that myriad powers could not touch.

As he pondered, the scene shifted again:

Above the collapsing heavens, endless black thunderstorms abruptly rose.

As thunder roared, a being who commanded myriad bolts of lightning, as if the incarnation of thunder itself, descended.

It was a petite figure shrouded in lightning, her specific appearance unclear, protected by a ferocious beast claw wreathed in terrifying thunder. The moment she appeared, she gave a soft cry.

In an instant, the wind that had been wantonly destroying the world stalled for a moment, then bolt after bolt of lightning transformed into spears and rained down. As the lightning shattered, it leapt and wove into a fine mesh that enveloped everything, slicing the seemingly formless wind and turning it into tangible "blocks of wind."

That was lightning on the same level as the concept-bearing wind. Under the lightning that blanketed the entire world, the grey wind finally ceased its rampage and began to gather with apparent intent.

In the end, the endless grey wind coalesced into a Grey Shadow, its body slightly illusory and translucent—horse-bodied, eight-legged, with a single horn and six wings—exuding an aura utterly out of place with this world, completely unlike any creature that could have been born naturally.

Facing this Grey Shadow formed from the world-destroying wind, the petite figure who commanded thunder finally grew serious. With a light leap on her tiptoes, the ferocious beast claw that had been protecting her feet vanished in an instant.

The next moment it appeared, it had transformed into a giant claw large enough to hold the world in its palm. The terrifying thunderstorm that could shroud the collapsing heavens was now merely an arc of electricity leaping from a single claw. The giant claw, which had become a terrifying Cage, easily bound the Grey Shadow, then clenched.

The world fell still.

Just as the wind the Grey Shadow embodied was not something the creatures of this world could handle, the Grey Shadow itself was likewise no match for that petite figure, who crushed it with effortless ease.

At this point, gazing at the world that had been nearly destroyed, the petite figure returned to the ground and finally revealed her true face.

"This is?" For an instant, although he had already sensed a somewhat familiar aura earlier, Baichuan's pupils still contracted, uncertain and astonished—after all, the familiar auras he knew were by no means few.

"Chi~tong~?"

Beautiful white hair fell past her waist and hips. On her delicate little face, a pair of eyes shone like resplendent rubies. Yet her face no longer bore the pitiful, fragile expression from Baichuan's memory, but was instead filled with confidence and composure.

If he had to describe it, Baichuan could only offer one word: "Queen!"

Yes, like a queen high above, wielding thunder to lash all things.

After a daze, Baichuan finally came back to his senses, rubbed his brow, causing the scales near his brow to scrape out a string of sparks.

It seemed the casual piece he had left behind in the past had grown far beyond his imagination.

That little girl who used to cry at the drop of a hat had grown up~

With a long sigh, Baichuan was momentarily unsure what to feel. He had a strange sense of a successful "raising," one that even exceeded his imagination—a feeling that was both a hint of pride and a hint of something indescribable.

He had only just begun to come into contact with conceptual power, yet that girl had already mastered it, and clearly with extreme proficiency. Was this really that teary little girl?

If it were his current self back in the past, dealing with that Grey Shadow, Baichuan wouldn't dare claim he could do better than that girl. The only option would be to borrow the Time Domain derived from 【Embrace Yin, Carry Yang】 to freeze the entire world, then attempt to lock down the entire space and, with overwhelming energy, destroy the space along with that world in one breath.

Beyond that, he had no other method at present—nothing like her effortless ability to suppress the Grey Shadow without destroying the world.

But what was that Grey Shadow? And why had Morgana obtained information about Chenlong from that coffin? Did the two girls even know each other?

After thinking for a moment, Baichuan once again turned his gaze to the scene:

After the world fell still, the ferocious giant claw that had held the world in its palm dissipated once more, returning to Chitong's feet, along with a clump of ash—the last remains of all the lives in the world that had been taken by the grey wind, collected by the giant claw.

In other words, this world that had died and become a graveyard—the ancient coffin buried all the lives of this world!

This was a graveyard for the lives of an entire world!

And that drop of blood was the only thing remaining after the death of the succubus who had reached the True Immortal realm.

Gazing at the world on the brink of destruction, Chitong swept a glance over it. Her delicate little face was expressionless, as if she had long grown accustomed to such scenes. Silently, she once again called down endless thunder with her vast, majestic power, cleansing everything tainted by the grey wind throughout the entire world, and sealing the gaping Abyss.

Using the remaining matter, she condensed a tombstone that pierced the sky, refined a coffin, placed all the ash formed from the world's lives within it, and added the single remaining drop of blood from the True Immortal-realm succubus, along with an ancient scroll.

In the silent, lonely world, the sun rose and set. Only that petite figure, day after day, silently did everything—buried the entire world—and finally departed…

The scene gradually faded. Baichuan withdrew his gaze and gently closed the opened lid of the coffin.

Glancing at this world built bit by bit by that young girl, he carefully restored his dragon form and slipped back into the folds of space, returning in the direction he had come from.

Clearly, after he left, those two girls had indeed bumped into each other and gotten acquainted; otherwise, they would never have placed that scroll inside.

Spreading the legend that belonged to her across the entire universe — that offhand remark he had once made — she had truly done it.

Thinking back to when he had first encountered beings carrying that bloodline back on Tianyuan Star, Baichuan understood clearly just how far the other had gone for that one sentence — and that was in a remote, out-of-the-way corner of the negative space.

Was Chenlong truly dead?

Earlier, when he had seen that dragon corpse on the Time Changhe, he hadn't felt much about it. Although he had encountered traces of the other's legend fairly often, beyond that there wasn't much connection between them — it was like an ordinary person watching news about some great figure; their life or death naturally carried no real sense of impact. But someone one actually knew was different.

He wanted to know now exactly why Chenlong had died. Based on what he currently knew of the legends about him, Chenlong must have truly dominated a stage of the universe, seized something called the "Universe Heart," and reached a mysterious realm beyond Ancient Immortal, stepping onto the Time Changhe itself.

How could such an existence have died?

And where was Chitong now, and what was her condition? When the World Graveyard was being constructed, had Chenlong already died or not?

What was that Grey Shadow that destroyed the world? Judging by its expression, it wasn't surprised at all — had it appeared after he left? Was it related to Chenlong's death?

That strange aura — Baichuan, who had come into contact with countless biological abilities and structures, and could say without exaggeration that he understood living beings better than anyone, was certain that it was absolutely not a creature that could have been born naturally.

There was too little useful information; Baichuan was now desperately eager to understand everything.

If before he had only been thinking of casually finding a faction as a platform, neither arrogant nor impatient, slowly building a place where all his Juanzhu could take root.

But now he only wanted to rely on his own strength — having reached Ancient Immortal, a power that could be called Progenitor within the universe — to develop a faction as fast as possible to a level comparable to the Lingneng Clan back then, using vast manpower to search the universe for information on Chenlong and Chitong, preferably something bearing coordinates from that era or the place where Chenlong had fallen.

That way, he could understand exactly what had happened in that era, find out why Chenlong had died, or directly use Time regression to personally return to the past and learn everything.

He wanted to see just who dared to kill his people.

As for whether he could match the culprit once found, Baichuan hadn't considered that at all.

With mastery over regression to the past and the power of the Ancient Immortal realm, the choices available to him were far from ordinary.

Even if he couldn't obtain some powerful ability to break through in one stroke, he could still simply pick any coordinate in the past, use the Time there to cultivate rapidly, push his current realm to its absolute peak, and then return to deal with everything.

After breaking through to Ancient Immortal, he had a premonition: when the three abilities representing the Ancient Immortal realm — LV6 (Immortal) — reached three in number, he could begin breaking through to the next realm, condensing his own legend to forge a divine body above Time.

And he happened to still possess several (Immortal · Remnant) powers at the Half-step Ancient Immortal level. The normal path of breakthrough was to reach True Immortal peak, then after Half-step Ancient Immortal, begin nurturing one's own world.

Using the power "Essence Stone" born from the world's operation to gradually perfect the incomplete abilities, thereby breaking through — or relying on external worlds, performing some act beneficial to a world to obtain Essence Stones.

This was the normal way for living beings to break through. But for someone like him who had reached Ancient Immortal, he could instead directly use the power of the Ancient Immortal realm to draw in the world's Essence Stones, allowing his abilities on the verge of breakthrough to successfully break through.

Or he could directly rely on the power of the Blood Worm — just as when breaking through to True Immortal — swallowing an entire world in one gulp, slowly digesting it, until he had devoured enough worlds to successfully break through.

Thinking of this, Baichuan realized that with just the power of a single Blood Worm, under normal circumstances, as long as one proceeded steadily, one could break through to the Ancient Immortal realm.

Among all the abilities he currently possessed, this was the only one that formed a complete system capable of reaching Ancient Immortal in one stroke — which in a way further attested to the Blood Worm's extraordinary nature.

Perhaps the Blood Worm's true power was precisely Ancient Immortal?

The journey was silent; Time slipped away amid Baichuan's turning thoughts as he traversed through space.

……

He didn't know how long had passed. When Baichuan once again tore open space and emerged, what appeared before him was no longer the weak Daxuan Empire of old that had only possessed five planets, but a vast empire that attracted countless beings — especially alien races — to dwell within: the Dragon Empire!

Dragons soaring through the Xingkong, magnificent structures crisscrossing like spider webs and entwining every planet of the entire Star System, starships coming and going in countless numbers, merchants and foreign factions of all kinds ceaselessly traveling back and forth.

During the time he had been heading to the World Graveyard, relying on his prestige, his decrees, and the already considerable strength of his Juanzhu, as well as Xiao Hong's Bixuan body that barely possessed True Immortal destructive power, this once weak empire had already grown into a colossal presence that could not be underestimated even within the Star Sea Federation.

It was also at this moment that a super-civilization Baichuan had never expected sent a message of invitation to the Dragon Empire his Juanzhu had built.

"A letter from the Lingneng Clan?"

……

(End of this chapter)