Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1196: I’ll Use This Place For 300 Years

The meaning of the term ‘acting lord’ was self-evident. This person was temporarily in charge. He was a human with a Quasi-Immortal cultivation base, which was befitting of such a position.

“Your Majesty, the likes of us can only speculate about your identity. Presumably, the Nineshores Immortal Palace decreed that this universe was to be your personal property….” A nonhuman cultivator stepped forward who looked like an old human man, except that he had a third eye. Bowing respectfully, he continued, “From ancient times until now, the only people rewarded with this glory are pureblooded ascendees from the Immortal Capital. This seems to indicate that Your Majesty is an ascendee from the Immortal Capital.

“As for the exalted Kun Wu… well, he’s similar to yourself, Your Majesty. Supposedly, he was an ascendee from the Immortal Capital who had his own universe. But this place was apparently more suitable for his style of cultivation. So he came over here about a thousand years ago and never left…. He’s human, and the Nineshores Heaven is just so huge….”

At this point, the old man looked up hesitantly at Xu Qing in the immortal hall. “In the Nineshores Heaven, any universe with no lord in its immortal hall is considered unoccupied. And thus, human cultivators will often go into them to practice cultivation. Before the exalted Kun Wu came to the Inksun Universe, there were other humans who had settled down here. But they were all driven away when the exalted Kun Wu showed up.”

The old man was being very careful with his words. He clearly didn’t want to offend either Kun Wu or the new lord in the immortal hall.

Xu Qing thought about that for a moment. “In other words, you call him the acting lord, but that’s just a form of address, and not an official position?”

The old man hesitated but ultimately nodded. “Yes. The Inksun Universe’s immortal hall has been without a lord for many years until now. Because of that, a lot of humans have come and gone…. And so, for the past thousand years, we’ve just gone along with whatever the exalted Kun Wu told us to do.” He smiled wryly. “Truth be told… there are so many universes in the Nineshores Heaven that the likelihood of an ascendee being given the Inksun Universe was always remote. In fact, we were surprised when we found out Your Majesty was coming here. Presumably, the exalted Kun Wu is also surprised.”

Xu Qing’s gaze turned even colder. Now he understood some of the unstated rules in the Nineshores Heaven. The Nineshores Heaven was a huge place and had many, many universes. It wasn’t possible for all of them to have official lords ruling over them. As a result, many were unoccupied. The unoccupied universes would naturally be attractive to cultivators. And any human who entered one of them could basically do anything they wanted with them.

Perhaps the Nineshores Immortal Palace tacitly approves. After all, the Fifth Star Ring seems to foster intense competition to identify who’s strongest! It’s natural selection.

Xu Qing looked at the strange area known as the Inkland. If these nonhumans know about my arrival, there’s no way this human doesn’t know. Given that he hasn’t left, and even went so far as to destroy my divine will, I guess I have to treat him as a squatter. And the only thing to do with squatters is drive them away.

Paying no further attention to the nonhumans, he strode out of the immortal hall, left the asteroid, and made his way into the starry sky. Space-time flowed beneath his feet, and the void rippled. To the astonishment of the nonhuman leaders, he used his divine will as a guide to step onto the thread of the timescape in the Inksun Universe as if it were a string on an instrument…. There was a twang. He vanished.

The bowing nonhuman cultivators were all astonished to the core. That was especially true of the peak Imperial Sovereigns. These were extraordinary individuals. In fact, if they weren’t being restrained by the Fifth Star Ring, they would already have reached immortal ascension. It was only natural that they were extremely knowledgeable. And the more knowledgeable one was, the more astonished they would be by what they had just seen.

“Space-time?”

“His Majesty’s canon… is that of space-time??”

“He’s only an Imperial Sovereign, and his immortal embryo is still only in illusory reality. But just now, he didn’t give off the sensation of being a mere Imperial Sovereign!”

“I wonder… how did he rank among the other ascendees?”

***

In the depths of the Inksun Universe, where the fish head was, in the location that could not be penetrated by divine will, just on the border of the area that seemed to contain a black hole like a sun… a middle-aged cultivator sat cross-legged.

He wore an embroidered robe, had flowing, blue hair, and though his eyes were closed, his facial expression was cold. Astonishingly, he had a fishing pole in his hand! And the fishing line went right down into the black hole!

Frowning, he opened his eyes and looked at the starry sky in front of him. To him, it looked like the starry sky in front of him was being folded. It was like a piece of paper being folded over many times. It soon looked like a door, out of which Xu Qing emerged.

Xu Qing looked expressionlessly at the fishing cultivator, then looked at the fishing line going down into the Inkland black hole. Behind him, the starry sky went back to normal.

Ringsource? Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. Previously, he had only sent a bit of divine will here, and it had been shattered very quickly. And since he had been focused on the squatter, he hadn’t had a chance to study the mysterious black hole. Now that he was here in person, he could sense that it contained the power of ringsource.

Perhaps because of the unique nature of the Inkland, or maybe the gravitational force from the black hole itself, the ringsource couldn’t get out. The only way to get it out was to fish it out.

Even still, Xu Qing couldn’t help but be a bit excited. Although the ringsource was trapped and not easy to get out, that didn’t change the fact that ringsource was the foundation of the higher star rings, and was considered the most elemental type of power.

It was also absolutely critical to forming the immortal embryo! This type of power was extremely precious!

Is this why the Inksun Universe is said to be of strategic importance?

Xu Qing decided that he would look further into the situation. Looking away from the black hole, he turned to the middle-aged cultivator.

“Leave this place,” he growled.

The middle-aged cultivator was, of course, Kun Wu. Looking up at Xu Qing with a grim expression, he coolly said, “So you’re a new ascendee?”

Xu Qing didn’t answer the question. He just looked calmly at Kun Wu.

Kun Wu’s eyes narrowed as he sized up Xu Qing. Although he couldn’t see every detail, he was able to determine that Xu Qing wasn’t a Quasi-Immortal, but did have Quasi-Immortal battle prowess. And he could sense the space-time fluctuations around him. His guard went up.

After a moment of thought, he said, “Did you know that I’m originally from Grand Immortal Mountain. This universe of yours used to be special, but it’s degraded into something ordinary…. I’ll be making use of it for a short time longer. No more than three hundred years. In terms of compensation—”

Before he could finish speaking, Xu Qing extended his right hand and unleashed his space-time canon. He seized control of the time of all living beings and things in the Inksun Universe! In any other universe, Xu Qing would not have been able to do such a thing with his current cultivation base. After all, even just a single universe was immeasurably large.

But the Inksun Universe was different. From the moment he arrived and became the lord of the immortal hall in this universe, the karma of the Inksun Universe became like a servant to him. This place… was his personal property. It was similar to the god cultivation system in which gods had god kingdoms of their own.[1]

Earlier, his divine will could make use of karma to spread throughout the universe. Now, he was doing the same thing with his space-time canon. All of the time in the entire Inksun Universe surged, and under the direction of Xu Qing’s canon, it swept toward him.

A sound echoed out like the water of a river. Crashing waves could be heard. A majestic, flowing body of water appeared, growing larger and larger. Eventually… this universe’s River of Time appeared in Xu Qing’s right hand!

The astonishing river contained projected images of all the living beings here. It was like an ancient cradle of civilization that contained everything and everyone from throughout the starry sky.

It was all under the control of Xu Qing’s canon. Xu Qing dropped his right hand. The starry sky shook, and everything distorted.

All of the nonhuman cultivators who could sense what was happening were astonished.

Kun Wu with his fishing pole was also visibly taken aback. An intense sensation of danger filled him. There was no time to offer explanations, so he unleashed his Quasi-Immortal cultivation base. Instantly, he was surrounded by flowers, plants, and trees. Infinite vegetation sprang up, surrounding him and growing out into the void. It was as if a primeval jungle had suddenly come to exist in the starry sky.

And the vegetation rushed toward the River of Time. When it reached the river, it grew in and around the water, until the River of Time seemed like it was just part of the jungle! The jungle wanted to completely cover it.

This was Kun Wu’s canon, mastery of vegetation!

Xu Qing’s face remained completely expressionless as he performed an incantation gesture with the right hand that he had just lowered. Instantly, innumerable planets in the Inksun Universe trembled, and the time that belonged to them was extracted and turned into… sand in the River of Time!

Every single grain of sand was a planet. With planets as sand, the river had a “foundation” as well as “weight.”

It crushed downward. The vegetation in the river collapsed. The jungle outside of the river began to wither up.

However, Kun Wu was an extraordinary Quasi-Immortal. The collapsed vegetation began to grow again, and the withering reversed. Kun Wu himself was on his feet and backing up, his eyes glittering coldly. He could tell that Xu Qing was no simpleton.

“You have an Imperial Sovereign cultivation base but Quasi-Immortal battle prowess. No wonder you don’t want to let me borrow this place. But… in the end you’re just not a Quasi-Immortal!”

Kun Wu’s eyes shone with an aggressive light as he threw both of his hands out in front of him.

“Cosmic Reversal!”

Instantly, all of the vegetation collapsed, and this time it didn’t return. The withering did not reverse. Instead, everything destroyed itself. In the blink of an eye, the endless vegetation died. As a result of the vegetation dying, a powerful aura of death built up within Kun Wu’s words.

“Borrow the canon of death to slay the living!”

The aura of death converged, becoming a gray image that contained an outline of Xu Qing. The image was like a death seal, and the person within it would have their life severed. This was Kun Wu’s trump card, and was an expansion on his vegetation canon that he himself had created.

Xu Qing’s eyes shone coldly as a sensation of danger exploded within him. The River of Time rumbled as it changed shape. It turned into a vortex, and as it spun, a wind kicked up. It had turned into… a space-time tempest! Infinite Timelessness had appeared.

Thanks to Infinite Timelessness, Kun Wu’s image trembled and collapsed into chaos. The image of Xu Qing flew out, and then there was no outline.

The tempest formed by Infinite Timelessness swept toward Kun Wu. Seeing that his killing move had been negated, his face fell and he shot backward with shock in his eyes.

“You can control your canon to that level? What was your ranking among the ascendees?”

Xu Qing didn’t respond. Although he hadn’t fought very many Quasi-Immortals, he knew that each Quasi-Immortal had areas of strength. What was more, the one he was facing had come from an earlier batch of ascendees, and could very well be a chosen. A Quasi-Immortal like this had to be very powerful.

The canon of parallelism stirred within him. Different layers of space-time descended. It was like a kaleidoscope!

Heaven’s Principle also appeared!

Kun Wu’s pupils constricted as the sensation of danger within him grew explosive. Without a moment of hesitation, he pulled out the immortal slip for his own universe and began a teleportation. He was done fighting!

He had managed to stick around the Inksun Universe as a squatter thanks to the level of his cultivation base. What was more, he knew that the majority of the ascendees would be mere Imperial Sovereigns. Back when he had been an ascendee, he had ranked in the 60s. But now he was a Quasi-Immortal, and for people like that to pick on newbies wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it had happened to him back then. He had intended to just rely on force to get what he wanted.

All in all, the Inksun Universe had been special in the past, but was now considered ordinary. Yet little did he know that the person who had been given this universe actually had stupefying battle prowess. What was more, that kaleidoscope imparted a sensation of imminent and intense peril to him. If he moved even an instant too slowly, he would die.

In his astonishment, he began to blur as the teleportation began. Then he vanished! Unfortunately, Heaven’s Principle went with him.

Xu Qing looked on coldly. Eventually, he waved his hand, and Heaven’s Principle returned, stained with blood.

All of the nonhumans who had been watching were shaken to the core, and prostrated even lower to Xu Qing. What was more, all of them had been wondering the same thing that Kun Wu had wondered just before he left. But now… they were starting to get an idea of just what ranking Xu Qing had among the ascendees.

***

Not far away in the starry sky, about seven or eight universes away from the Inksun Universe, was the Aetherpouch Universe. In the immortal hall there, Kun Wu was just materializing from the teleportation.

The moment he appeared, he coughed up a massive mouthful of blood, and his eyes glittered with horror. His face was pale, and his blue hair had turned gray. He looked gaunt. His aura was so unstable that even after he dropped into a cross-legged position and deeply drained his immortal embryo, his cultivation base was still teetering. Ultimately, he was unable to stay in the Quasi-Immortal level. He seemed to be visibly deteriorating. Thankfully, it stopped when he was still at the peak of Imperial Sovereign.

Sometime later, he opened his eyes and laughed bitterly. A mote of dust had appeared in the middle of his teleportation, and even now, fear of it lingered in his heart.

That guy is no ordinary person. He must have ranked very high among the ascendees!

Kun Wu took a deep breath as he thought back regretfully to everything he had done in the Inksun Universe. Sighing, he sent a voice message to a friend asking for information about the top 10 ascendees. When he got a response, he shivered from head to toe, and his eyes went wide.

1st place….

Stunned, he could only moan inwardly at his bad luck….

No wonder he was so strong!

But then he frowned.

Wait, hold on. Normally speaking, someone like that should have been given a special universe. But Inksun was only special in the past. It’s degraded now, and is considered normal. Don’t tell me… there’s something about the Inksun Universe that I’m unaware of!

In the end, Kun Wu shook his head and dispelled any notions of trying to dig for more information. If Xu Qing was an ordinary ascendee, it wouldn’t matter. In fact, even if he were in the top 10, then Kun Wu could consider asking some friends to help him. After all, he was a member of the Grand Immortal Mountain, and he had a lot of connections in the Nineshores Heaven. But this was the 1st place ascendee. He knew full well that he wasn’t in the position to provoke someone like that.

Immortal Lord Nineshores always pays close attention to the 1st place attendees…. People like that should never be messed with.

1. This is the first time ‘god kingdoms’ have been mentioned in the context of the god cultivation system. It caught me off guard because the way it’s mentioned here makes it seem like it’s something we’ve heard about before, except we haven’t. ☜