Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1035: Mysterious White Dust (part 2)

Unfortunately, Sir Blood Dust’s hand was about three inches away from the ground when he suddenly stopped moving. There, in his shadow, was an eye.

It was Little Shadow. Although it didn’t have complete control over Sir Blood Dust, it had enough control to stop his hand from moving.

Sir Blood Dust’s heart lurched in his chest, and he instinctively roared in rage, all while trying to send his left hand out to touch the teleportation symbol on the ground.

That was when a cold voice echoed out from within his roar of rage.

“Found you.”

To Sir Blood Dust’s astonishment, Xu Qing had used some incomparably gruish method to appear right out from within the sound of the roar. In the blink of an eye, Xu Qing materialized, reached out, and grabbed Sir Blood Dust by the throat. He slammed him into the wall.

RUMBLE!

The mansion grotto shook. The mountain trembled. Sir Blood Dust’s eyes went wide with astonishment. He wanted to fight back. But the hand latched onto his throat was causing a wild influx of mutagen to invade him. Scared witless, he instinctively tried to unleash some hidden trump cards. But then, to his terror, he realized… he couldn’t even move. Now, countless eyes were visible within his shadow.

When Xu Qing attacked, Little Shadow had taken advantage of Sir Blood Dust’s unstable mental state to possess him.

The terror in Sir Blood Dust’s eyes grew more intense. This person in front of him was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Those two sensations mixed together, until something occurred to him. In his effort to earn a lot of battle credit, he had killed a lot of humans. And of course, he had scanned through all of the missions, including those that listed bounties for famous humans. The person in front of him… was a person whose image he had seen before in that list! He was a human who ruled over two regions! He was Imperial Tutor Xu Qing! Xu Qing was not only in the holy land in person, he was right inside of Sir Blood Dust’s mansion grotto, attacking him….

This revelation struck Sir Blood Dust like a bolt of lightning. And as it did, he realized that this whole thing must be related to Yue Dong. There was no doubt about it: Sir Blood Dust was quick on his feet. Sadly for him, he still reacted too slowly.

Xu Qing’s face was completely expressionless as he turned and left the mansion grotto with Sir Blood Dust in tow. He stayed invisible as he traveled for several hours. Eventually, he found a vast wilderness, where he was able to dig a cave under the ground. Once inside, he released his grip on Sir Blood Dust and sat down cross-legged. He said nothing.

Sir Blood Dust’s eyes filled with despair and madness. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even move. He could only watch as he dropped to his knees in front of Xu Qing.

The cave was completely silent.

Shortly after, Xu Qing imprinted a blank shadeheaven demonmoon pill with Sir Blood Dust’s appearance. Then he used the authority of erasure to inspect Sir Blood Dust’s fate threads. As Sir Blood Dust trembled, Xu Qing reached out, grabbed one thread in particular, and studied it closely. Just as before, Xu Qing could see some white dust on the thread. The bits of dust were illusory, and were apparently an integral part of the threads.

When Xu Qing tried to extract the dust from the thread, it quickly disappeared. He frowned.

This white dust was very important to him. He needed to identify the origin so that he could collect that dust. With enough, he could tap into its karmaless qualities, and thus make it possible to go forward with his idea of using a clone to further his cultivation.

Sometime later, the dao lineament in his left eye flared. It was the authority of the Six Thieves Deceive Life immortal skill.

Sir Blood Dust trembled inwardly. One reason was that he was now convinced that Xu Qing and Yue Dong were working together. The other reason was that he was shaken to the core by Xu Qing’s authority. For someone to have two types of authority before even being an Imperial Sovereign was something that Sir Blood Dust couldn’t even remember having happened before. It was unprecedented! Before he could reel in astonishment for long, the dao lineament in Xu Qing’s eyes caused Sir Blood Dust to lose consciousness.

Of course, Xu Qing’s research was only just beginning. He wanted to know exactly what that dust was.

The dao lineaments in his eyes ensured that Sir Blood Dust’s fate threads weren’t just fully visible. They were covered with color. That color included karma, and it included the seven emotions and six sensory pleasures. Xu Qing reached out to grab the threads and study them one by one.

In that manner, five days passed.

Xu Qing didn’t rest that entire time. He was fully immersed in his study. Unfortunately, no matter what he tried, the white dust would always disappear after he extracted it. Nothing he did could prevent that.

Xu Qing’s frown grew deeper and deeper.

Don’t tell me I’m pursuing the wrong idea…?

As the dawn of the sixth day broke outside, Xu Qing suddenly reached out and snapped one of Sir Blood Dust’s fingers off to study his flesh and blood. Not wasting even a drop of blood, he started studying every aspect of Sir Blood Dust’s fleshly body. He started with a finger, then moved onto a hand. Then an arm. Ultimately, he even studied his five yin organs and six yang organs. He even looked into his major worlds.

Eventually, he found the white dust inside of Sir Blood Dust’s flesh, which caused his eyes to light up. And yet, even the white dust in Sir Blood Dust’s flesh and blood did the same thing. As soon as it was extracted, it vanished. It was as if Sir Blood Dust’s body itself was the origin.

A few more days went by. Once the work on the fleshly body was done, Xu Qing force-fed Sir Blood Dust some medicinal pills to keep him alive.

His fate threads have it. His flesh and blood has it. But his major worlds don’t have it. What about his soul…?

After that, he started studying his soul. One had to be very meticulous when studying the soul, as using slightly too much force could result in irreversible damage. As a result, Xu Qing had to slow down a bit.

About ten days later, he retracted his divine will. His frown was even deeper this time. He had thoroughly studied Sir Blood Dust’s soul and found no trace of white dust.

Very strange. In some ways, Sir Blood Dust seems like the origin. But in other ways, he doesn’t.

After some thought, Xu Qing waved his hand to release the godly authority of misfortune. As it covered Sir Blood Dust’s fate threads, he also used Six Thieves Deceive Life. He paid very close attention to what happened next. A few days later, he ended the session of research and closed his eyes to think.

After days of observation, he had come to understand why the white dust seemed karmaless. It was actually the white dust devouring karma. The invasions of the misfortune and the Six Thieves Deceive Life were both devoured.

I can’t extract it…. In that case, I guess I only have two options. If either works, I can accept it.

Xu Qing looked at Sir Blood Dust.

Sir Blood Dust was a mangled mess. He had flesh growing chaotically all over him, making him look horrifying. There were also chunks of gore scattered around. His expression was blank, and he was struggling to breathe!

However, Xu Qing was making sure that the flame of his life force kept burning.

When Xu Qing looked at him, Sir Blood Dust responded with numbness. After what he had gone through over the last month, he now just wanted to die.

Xu Qing reached out, grabbed Sir Blood Dust’s soul, pulled it out, and sealed it off to the side. He was going with the first option. He would assimilate Sir Blood Dust’s fleshly body, and use a secret magic from the Xeno-Immortal School to turn it into a clone for himself.

The difficulty lay in the fact that he and the clone would still be very similar. Dealing with the special qualities of the white dust was also going to be challenging. But if he succeeded, he would have a karmaless clone. And if that clone practiced cultivation, it could bypass the limitations that constrained his true form. With such thoughts in mind, Xu Qing performed a double-handed incantation gesture, causing soul threads to fly out, pierce into the fleshly body, and start refining it.

Three days later, the humanoid form in front of Xu Qing collapsed into a pile of blood. The refining had failed.

So it can’t have the same origin as me…. Not even sending soul threads into the flesh can result in forming my soul. And that white dust is just too unusual. That’s another reason for the failure.

Xu Qing took a deep breath and massaged the bridge of his nose. Then he looked over at Sir Blood Dust’s soul.

I guess I only have one option left.

Eyes flashing with determination, he started a soulsearch, despite knowing it could end up completely wiping Sir Blood Dust out of existence. He was hoping that would reveal the true origin of the white dust on the fate threads.

With Sir Blood Dust’s soul in hand, he sent his god perception out. Sir Blood Dust’s soul wailed as it was invaded. Bit by bit, memory fragments came and went as Xu Qing dug destructively through Sir Blood Dust’s past. He saw Sir Blood Dust as a child. He watched him grow up. He saw the grudge form between him and Yue Dong. He also saw how he had earned battle credit by slaughtering numerous humans. Countless memory fragments rippled like water in front of Xu Qing.

In the end, Xu Qing found what he was looking for in a memory from three months ago. At that time, Sir Blood Dust used battle credit to gain entrance into the World Origin Pocket Realm, which was a very special location among the eastern Devilbirds. The place had strong world auras, as well as large amounts of natural and magical laws. As a result, it was a very useful place for Smoldering Gods trying to form their worlds.

It used to belong to the Lan Clan. But when the Lan Clan fell from power, it became the property of Lu Lingzi.

In the past, the pocket realm wasn’t made available to the public. But after the war started, entrance could be purchased with battle credit. As a result, many Devilbird cultivators gained access.

In fact, that was how Sir Blood Dust managed to create his seventh major world. It was after emerging from the pocket realm that the white dust appeared in Sir Blood Dust’s fate!

After close inspection to confirm that, Xu Qing destroyed Sir Blood Dust’s soul. Then he opened his eyes.

Something happened to Sir Blood Dust in a valley in that pocket realm. Unfortunately, he has no memories of what happened inside. But that’s definitely where the white dust came from. The World Origin Pocket Realm…. It seems I need to take a trip there. If I can find that valley, then I can figure out exactly what happened to Sir Blood Dust….

After thinking the matter over, he took out Sir Blood Dust’s mission jade slip, which was how he was able to confirm that getting into the World Origin Pocket Realm required a large amount of battle credit.

The top mission on the list was the bounty on Feng Lintao. Xu Qing scanned the entire list with divine will. Eyes narrowing, he made a decision. With a blur, he vanished and reappeared outside the cave. Flying up into the sky, he transformed into Sir Blood Dust.

The Garmentfolks’ special medicinal pill ensured that he looked exactly like Sir Blood Dust down to his aura. Thanks to what happened over the past month, Xu Qing knew everything there was to know about Sir Blood Dust. By adding in the effects of the Grand Emperor’s needle, he was able to impersonate him with complete accuracy.

It was dawn, and the radiance of the morning light spread out as Xu Qing flicked his sleeve. Blood clouds formed around him as he shot over the horizon.