Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 837: Reverse the Sky, Restore the Sun

Grand Prince and the other humans were reeling mentally, and their eyes shone with utter disbelief. Xu Qing’s fighting methods really surpassed anything they could have predicted.

To see the natural laws of time reversing death was shocking enough, let alone the fact that Xu Qing returned and immediately took control of four taboo weapons. Three of them were obviously the same weapons Crown Prince Brightsouth had used. Hardly any time had passed, yet now Xu Qing was using them. Every single observer was basically thinking the same thing.

Freakish hellion!

Only a freakish hellion could have terrifying powers of understanding like that! After all, according to common belief, not even daybreak light could reach such a terrifying level. It was all thanks to Xu Qing’s personal godly qualities, plus his deep level of enlightenment regarding himself. All of that led to his current unbelievable level of mastery. Back in Moonrite, even the Heir Apparent and his sister had been shocked by what he accomplished, let alone other people.

As of this moment, Crown Prince Brightsouth felt like he was being struck by countless lightning bolts. Struggling to control his breathing and remain calm, he staggered backward, looking incredulously at the taboo weapons surrounding Xu Qing.

“You—” He didn’t have a chance to finish speaking.

And that was because Xu Qing did something that was thoroughly and completely astonishing to everyone present. He pointed up into the sky, resulting in a heaven-rending, earth-crushing sound ringing out. It was like the howl of a god, echoing through the world, reaching out into the starry sky, and causing everything to dim.

The only exception were nine stars. Starlight spilled down as four majestic fingers formed in the sky, surrounding Crown Prince Brightsouth from every direction.

It was... Crown Prince Brightsouth’s very own star displacement combat technique from Thirty-Six Immortal Constellations. It was the Dao of the Nine Stars Killing Suppression!

“Impossible!” Crown Prince Brightsouth blurted, his face falling. “Without having a dao seed, there’s no way you can master an imperial-class technique!”

Xu Qing’s expression was the same as ever as he took a deep breath.

Rumbling sounds filled heaven and earth as boundless power swept into Xu Qing’s mouth. In fact, a massive vortex sprang into being around him, which exerted a powerful gravitational force. Power flowed from all directions into Xu Qing, boosting his fleshly body dramatically.

It happened seventeen times in a row! Boost after boost occurred, until finally, he pulsed with such might that anyone who saw him would tremble inwardly.

Crown Prince Brightsouth’s expression turned grim as he looked at Xu Qing.

“That’s not the real imperial-class technique. It’s an imitation. It’s just the shape of it, not the quintessence! In any case, this fight is meaningless now.”

Without any hesitation, Crown Prince Brightsouth turned and fled. He wasn’t interested in combat now. Although he had other techniques to employ, including trump cards, he already had the feeling that nothing he could use would result in killing his opponent. He even had methods of turning death into life, but he didn’t want to use them in a fight with Xu Qing. It was a disgusting feeling. And thus, he sped toward the horizon as fast as he could.

Xu Qing looked at him, lifted his right hand, and waved it through the air. “In a life-or-death battle, you think you can just fight or flee whenever you wish?”

The four majestic fingers fell toward Crown Prince Brightsouth. East, west, south and north. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They all descended.

“Be sealed!”

His soul had been targeted, so fleeing or even teleporting away wasn’t a possibility! Next, four beams of light that represented death itself screamed forth from Xu Qing, piercing through the air as they headed right toward the crown prince.

There was more to Xu Qing’s counter attack, though. The sky blurred as a massive, 500-kilometer cell block appeared overhead. It immediately dropped downward.

Within the cell block were numerous jail cells, many of which were filled with inmates. Some looked around blankly, some laughed foolishly, some howled in grief, and some wailed in sorrow. The head and the others from the original group of inmates let loose bizarre cries, all while the god’s finger thrashed.

The sealing power of D-132 erupted. Were it not for the sealing power of the four fingers of the east, south, west, and north, Crown Prince Brightsouth probably would have been able to escape. After all, D-132 needed time to use, which was a weakness.

But Crown Prince Brightsouth couldn’t escape. The sealing of the four fingers wasn’t impossible for him to overcome, but it provided enough of a delay.

D-132 had fully entered the mortal world.

RUMBLE!

It covered a 500-kilometer area. It covered all directions. And it covered Crown Prince Brightsouth!

Next, misfortune expanded and amnesia proliferated. The four taboo weapons closed in, and Crown Prince Brightsouth gasped for breath. As he felt the terror of the cell block, his hands flashed in an incantation gesture, giving him a boost of speed. But then the four weapons closed in with destructive force. Rumbling booms echoed out everywhere.

Next, the sound of voices could be heard from the cell block, and they included the piercing sound of the head.

“It’s a prison break! A fugitive is trying to destroy the unity of the cell block!”

The cell doors opened, and a host of figures blurred toward Crown Prince Brightsouth, pulsing with malice and greed. Most shocking of all was that D-132 began to shrink down, adding even more pressure to Crown Prince Brightsouth and making it even more difficult for him to move. The misfortune was fully unleashed. The amnesia was intense.

At the same time, Xu Qing appeared in D-132, right in front of Crown Prince Brightsouth. Extremely disturbing fleshly body power surged as he launched a palm strike.

A boom rang out, and the crown prince coughed up a mouthful of blood. But that didn’t stop him from unleashing a divine ability counter attack against the four incoming taboo weapons.

Then the unexpected occurred. Though he successfully released the divine ability, it suddenly stopped in place briefly. Though it continued almost immediately, in such a critical moment, that made it too slow. The black spear moved faster than lightning to stab right into his back with explosive power.

Crown Prince Brightsouth grunted, and a vicious expression appeared on his face. Then black light erupted from him, forming a formation with an inner circle and an outer triangle that rotated in a prescribed fashion to block the other three taboo weapons.

However, it couldn’t do anything about Xu Qing’s incoming fist.

The black light shattered, and blood sprayed out of Crown Prince Brightsouth’s mouth again. He wanted to perform an incantation gesture, except that blankness had filled his eyes. It was amnesia.

The trident screamed through the air and stabbed right into the crown prince’s abdomen. The black saber slashed through the air, blade light flickering as it slashed into his waist. Even as he was sliced in half, the blood-red battle-ax chopped down viciously.

Intense pain filled him, along with a sensation of deadly crisis, that suddenly brought Crown Prince Brightsouth back to his senses. As a result, he managed to dodge to the side, preventing the battle-ax from hitting him in the face. Instead, it chopped into his shoulder.

A rumbling boom rang out as the top half of his body separated from the bottom half. Blood erupted everywhere, accompanied by a howl of grief from the crown prince’s mouth. He again tried to perform an incantation gesture, only to have Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior swoop in and stab into his forehead. The force of the blow sent him spinning backward.

Next, Xu Qing appeared behind him, eyes flashing with killing intent. A dagger appeared in Xu Qing’s hand, which he viciously slashed through the crown prince’s throat.

A head flew through the air!

The attack had been carried out as smoothly as flowing water, without even the slightest delay. Xu Qing struck as fast as lightning, with ruthless cruelty. He directly beheaded him!

As was Xu Qing’s custom, he then waved his hand and sent out the power of taboo poison to cover the crown prince’s corpse and start corroding it. D-132 stopped shrinking down. At the same time, the inmates began to cackle madly.

And yet, that was when Xu Qing’s expression darkened. Crown Prince Brightsouth’s soul hadn’t appeared in any of the cells in D-132! That meant... he hadn’t actually died!

As coldness rose in Xu Qing’s eyes, wisps of green smoke suddenly appeared in the spot where the crown prince had been killed. As it converged, Crown Prince Brightsouth appeared again, accompanied by a loud voice.

“Reverse the Sky, Restore the Sun!”

Majestic power rose up from Crown Prince Brightsouth. It had nothing to do with time itself, but rather, seemed like some sort of blessing.

Xu Qing’s gaze hardened as he studied the situation closely. The blessing power of D-132 trembled, and Crown Prince Brightsouth opened his eyes. At the same time, his expression turned grim, and he looked at Xu Qing with pure killing intent.

“I’ve also mastered the dao of reversing life and death. I just didn’t want to keep fighting you, but as it turns out, you have a death wish.... Did you really think I had no way of dealing with you?”

Crown Prince Brightsouth lifted his right hand to reveal a black coin. Stooping over, he shoved the coin downward. The ground in D-132 trembled as a green spell formation appeared around the crown prince. It spread outward, a circle on the inside, and a triangle on the outside. As it rotated, it looked like some type of geomantic compass. It had countless magical symbols in it, all of which glittered with golden light, causing six magical symbols to rise up into the air and grow larger and larger.

They all looked different, and with close examination, it was clear they represented the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth of the heavenly stems, specifically, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui. As they appeared in formation, the air behind them rippled as black stone gates appeared. Each gate emanated something profoundly ancient, as well as a sinister wind filled with death.[1]

There were six magical symbols representing the heavenly stems, and there were seven gates. The last gate appeared behind Crown Prince Brightsouth. And unlike the other gates, it didn’t emit death, but rather, life.

“Since you’re looking to get killed, human, let’s see if your natural laws of time can prevent you from being killed by my forbidden magic, the Six-Stems Seven-Gates Hex!”

His voice merged with the sinister wind as the six heavenly stems started moving. The gates behind them opened, and voices drifted out as if from the netherworld. They were calling out. To Xu Qing!

At the same time, images of Xu Qing appeared in front of the six gates, blurry, as if the gates were devouring them. The faster the six heavenly stems moved, the more quickly the devouring played out. A tremor passed through Xu Qing. Cracking sounds rang out. Six marks appeared on him, piercing all the way into his soul.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. Sitting down cross-legged, he placed his index finger three inches in front of his forehead. Black marks spread out from there, like blood vessels that soon formed a vicious ghost face. The moment the ghost face appeared, it lit up like a lamp in the sinister wind.

This was none other than the Seven Lamps Underworld Fire Curse! It was a curse magic that could suppress forbidden magic! It was now time to see who would die first! Or perhaps it was a test of who could hold out the longest!

1. The heavenly stems is a system of ordinal numbers that first appeared during the Shang dynasty in 1250 BCE. As for what they mean, it’s complicated. Here’s the link to the Wikipedia article on the subject. I don’t think their meaning has any special significance in this passage, nor the fact that they are the 5th through 10th in the system. That said, maybe there’s something about that specific set that didn’t occur to me. If so, it’s not immediately obvious. I think it’s just supposed to sound cool. ☜