Chapter 577: The So-Called Mother River (1/3)

Hou You frowned.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand."

Li Heng shook his head, "No, you do understand. It's just that you still don't want to admit it, immersed in your own dream. But a dream is a dream after all, not Reality, and it is time to wake up."

He extended a finger and tapped lightly. Invisible ripples spread out, just like a water droplet on a stalactite suddenly falling onto the surface of a calm pool, completely shattering the situation.

In an instant, the surrounding scenery changed, becoming vastly different.

The Reincarnation Zhanchang, which had been filled with endless sounds of killing and weeping, instantly became calm—eerie in its silence. Then, endless corpses and white bones were scattered across the Void. The entire Ten Thousand Worlds Great Reincarnation had turned into a giant graveyard, cold and silent.

And the Shennü before Li Heng was no longer a Shennü; her phoenix coronet and rosy cape weathered away and vanished, evolving into a corpse that was entirely cyan-black, with sunken eye sockets, exuding Inauspicious black Qi.

"This is the truth, isn't it?"

Li Heng looked at the corpse before him and said calmly.

This was the original history.

Although the living beings of the Ten Thousand Worlds Great Reincarnation fought to the death, it was all meaningless; they fell quickly, just as helpless as when the Sun next to Earth explodes and nothing humans do makes a difference, and the entire Reincarnation turned into a giant graveyard.

Even this strongest Shennü before him died quickly.

Otherwise, even the Heavenly Court would not have been unable to react.

"I! How can this be! Impossible!"

Hou You fell into confusion, somewhat manic and incredulous.

"This is impossible! Why would such a situation occur? Didn't you come? Didn't the Heavenly Court reinforcements arrive? Why was the Great Reincarnation still destroyed, and everyone dead!"

She roared, full of unwillingness and anger. The sound of her fury spread to the surroundings, attempting to break the silence of this giant graveyard and make the entire Great Reincarnation come alive.

But in the end, the sound traveled further and further, gradually disappearing.

Everything was swallowed by this graveyard...

Li Heng watched calmly, without making a sound.

Until the end, Hou You finally calmed down, her face showing bitterness. "I knew it, I knew it. How could there be Heavenly Court reinforcements? Early on, when the mutation descended, everyone died. How could there still be reinforcements coming..."

"Everything is fake."

She murmured, filled with endless loss and despair.

"Fellow Daoist, you are attached to appearances. Whether it is true or false has no great meaning for those at our level. If you dwell on truth and falsehood, I fear you will fall into an even more desperate mire and Abyss."

Li Heng stood with his hands behind his back and said calmly.

"Who exactly are you?"

Hou You stared fixedly at Li Heng.

"I can now perceive that this is already history, and everything has passed. I understand; you are indeed from the Heavenly Court, but you absolutely do not belong to this ancient history, but come from the future!"

"You are attempting to trace the past when the Reincarnation collapsed!"

She quickly reacted and concluded as such. But soon, she appeared somewhat puzzled again. "But how is that possible? How can people or things destroyed by Calamity and monsters still possess history? It is fundamentally impossible for you to trace back to here!"

"Fellow Daoist is worthy of being the Lord of Reincarnation, good comprehension."

Li Heng smiled and clapped his hands.

"I am not the Lord of Reincarnation, merely one who inherited the Eternal duty, just a guardian of Reincarnation. As for you, Fellow Daoist, you seem not to have answered my question just now."

"Could it be that the Heavenly Emperor of the future truly has a teacher?"

"Then what do you think?" Li Heng asked back with a smile.

"I think not. That Heavenly Emperor is an innate Sacred, whose strength is the number one in the Great Void; how could a so-called teacher appear? Unless the position of Heavenly Emperor has changed hands."

"As for why you can trace back to this history, although I am puzzled, I can guess at some possibilities. However, I dare conclude that you must have met me in the future."

Hou You said calmly.

"Fellow Daoist Hou You is indeed intelligent, but only partially correct. The Heavenly Emperor you speak of may soon have one more teacher. As for the other point, you are right; I did indeed meet you in the future. And that you was very fierce, having reached above the Supreme, and launched an attack on me."

Li Heng narrowed his eyes slightly and smiled.

"So, Fellow Daoist, you want to trace back to this past to find my weakness, in order to deal with that Great Fierce me?"

Hou You asked.

"That Great Fierce you has already been trapped by me, so there is no need to find any weakness to deal with her. I was just curious about what happened here in the past and tried to trace it."

"And as you have seen, there is a surprise."

"Fellow Daoist Hou You, who was originally a historical phantom, is actually able to perceive my existence and can rationally converse with me. For someone destroyed by Calamity and monsters, this is truly a rare thing."

Li Heng responded with a smile.

Unless one specifically intercepts a fragment of time in advance, just like those Immortal Gods over in the True Realm. Otherwise, once destroyed by Calamity monsters, that is complete death, with no traces left behind.

If one walks the Eternal Dao, it is better; perhaps one can return after countless eons by relying on an Eternal status that only ghosts know if it can resurrect, at least there is some comfort in one's heart.

But if one does not walk the Eternal Dao, or does not possess a status corresponding to the Eternal Dao that can be used for resurrection, then that is truly finished.

Especially a catastrophe of the level of the Ten Thousand Worlds Great Reincarnation, which directly destroyed a piece of ancient history, was a massive change that truly acted upon the Shikong Changhe Muhe, affecting an entire era.

Although he used Source Power to trace time and space, ignoring the destruction of the ancient history, he did not completely reproduce the ancient history, so Hou You should have been a true phantom, unable to converse with him.

Hou You's heart stirred, somewhat surprised.

Combining it with her current state, she could roughly calculate how fierce her future self would be, reaching the level of that Heavenly Emperor, worthy of being called a supreme Great Terror.

Yet she was actually trapped by this mysterious Imperial Teacher?

"Many thanks to Fellow Daoist for taking action to trap the fierce body and prevent her from causing chaos. For this, Hou You is deeply grateful." Taking a deep breath and clearing the chaotic thoughts in her mind, she bowed to Li Heng.

"No need for thanks, it was just a necessary action. I am just curious about your current state, Fellow Daoist; what is the reason that allowed you to Transcend from a fake historical phantom?"

"Could it be that you have left behind some contingency?" Li Heng asked.

He found that this group of Sacreds was truly first-class at surviving. Even those Sacreds of the Three Immortals Sect he had casually wiped out earlier might not have truly died completely, never to return.

After all, there is still that Eternal status that only ghosts know if it works. In any case, he had yet to see any Sacred return after being completely annihilated by relying on an Eternal status.

Hou You was silent for a moment, then spoke again.

"I can tell you, fellow Daoist, but I wish to make a trade with you. I wonder what you think of that?"

"What is the content of this trade?" Li Heng said.

"I do not know by what means you traced, or even repaired and reconstructed, this ancient history that should have been completely destroyed, recreating the past events of the collapse of the Ten Thousand Worlds Great Reincarnation, allowing me to perceive it and glimpse a chance of survival."

"But I implore you, fellow Daoist, to fully reconstruct this ancient history!"

Hou You bowed to Li Heng, her words sincere.

Li Heng frowned.

"Fully reconstruct? Then you should know what this means. Once this ancient history can be fully reconstructed, you, and even everyone within the Reincarnation, might possibly be resurrected and return. But that also means those Calamities and monsters that destroyed the Reincarnation will also reappear!"

"That is not even the most critical part. The most critical part is that this ancient history of the collapse of the Ten Thousand Worlds Great Reincarnation has had a vast impact, becoming an established fact. Many epoch worlds and even eras may have evolved and developed based on this foundation. Therefore, once the ancient history is brought to the surface and changed, the scale of the repercussions will be the scope of the Time-Space Mother River, inviting immense Causality."

"By what right do you think I can do this? Even if I could, why should I help you do so? What do you take me for? A saint who fears harming an ant while sweeping the floor?"

Li Heng's tone was very cold, but this was the fact.

Sometimes it is not that one cannot reverse time and space, change history, and forge the future. It is that doing so is highly likely to invite great Causality. And this great Causality is not some empty thing; it is the various effects triggered by changing time and space.

For example, if you change a past era and affect a key Node of a time-space, then it will certainly lead to changes in the future, affecting countless eras of the future.

If there is no one or nothing stronger than you in these countless eras, then it is fine; you can just modify it as you please. You are the Omniscient and Omnipotent God, and no one would dare to disagree.

But if a powerhouse of the same level as you, or even stronger, pops up in these countless eras, then you will need to bear the resulting Causality.

For example, if a powerhouse sees you changing a key Node of time-space, affecting the era that powerhouse is in, and feels displeased, wanting to teach you a lesson or even directly suppress you, then you cannot escape either.

Perhaps some say one could pull out a branched world line or time line to become self-contained, so as not to affect the countless eras of the future.

Of course, one can indeed do that.

But on these countless time lines, eight or nine times out of ten, a main time line will be determined to compete for the position of orthodoxy and status. But if you, without everyone's consent, split off a vast time line and world line upstream that can carry this ancient history of the Ten Thousand Worlds Great Reincarnation, diluting the orthodox status, how do you think others will feel?

Never mind that the Great Reincarnation clearly hides secrets, and even without its destruction, great Causality still existed; now that it is reviving and being reconstructed from destruction, the great Causality will likely double directly.

Otherwise, those Calamity monsters would not have been the first to annihilate the Great Reincarnation, while the Heavenly Court, which was the true supreme of the Great Void at the time, was only ranked second.

Perhaps you think no one will make things difficult for you over such a trivial matter. But under the entanglement of Causality, who can say for sure? Most people do not want to risk such a thing.

As for occupying the entire future, there is no need to even bring that up.

The Sacred can occupy the future of the entire Time-Space River, but they cannot occupy the future of the Time-Space Mother River; otherwise, even the Heavenly Emperor would not be unable to glimpse the end of the Time-Space Mother River.

Li Heng speculated.

The Time-Space Mother River should be of the same scale as the Great Void; as large as the Great Void is, that is how long the Time-Space Mother River is. And the Great Void symbolizes a certain objective reality of limited meaning; starting from this theory, no one can ever occupy the entire Time-Space Mother River.

However, occupying the entire Time-Space Mother River does not have much meaning for the Sacred; it can only be said to be a manifestation of ability. To say there is some immense power after occupying it is certainly not the case.

After all, although the Sacred cannot completely achieve Transcendence from the Time-Space Mother River, they are also independent of it. So even if a supreme existence could occupy all possibilities of the Time-Space Mother River, they would not be able to cause much influence on the Sacred, let alone control all possibilities of the Sacred.

However, thinking about it this way, Li Heng increasingly feels that the Time-Space Mother River is not like a natural product. It is more like something created by a stronger existence to make things difficult for them, the group of Sacred, and to inform them that there is still a path Above the Divine. It is just unknown if the Wuqiong Weizhi outside the Great Void is also like this?

"Hou You knows this request is very excessive, but this is the only hope for the Great Reincarnation. Moreover, so that you do not suffer a loss, fellow Daoist, I am willing to tell you the most core secret of the Great Reincarnation."

Hou You made up her mind and said firmly.