Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1293: Erniu’s Big Treasure

Erniu licked his lips as crazy light burned in his eyes. And then something completely ghastly happened. The body beneath his head had already started to recover a bit. But now, the flesh and blood squirmed and wriggled as the recovery sped up rapidly. Within the space of a few dozen breaths of time, Erniu was back to normal.

And now, he pulsed with an aura that vastly surpassed anything from before. He was no longer in early Imperial Sovereign. He had reached mid Imperial Sovereign!

Xu Qing hadn’t seen his Eldest Brother do this in a long time, so the sight of it brought back many memories.

Eldest Brother’s cultivation base doesn’t improve by practicing cultivation. He progresses by undoing seals! Unfortunately, releasing the seals requires him to pay a price. And the further along he goes, the bigger the price he has to pay….

As Xu Qing considered that, Erniu’s body became whole again, and frigid coldness pulsed out in all directions, along with flickering blue light.

Beneath the flesh and blood, Xu Qing could see that there was a bodily structure inside his Eldest Brother. It was pure blue, and looked like it was made from ice. It was vicious and ancient, and looked very similar to the sourcefiends Xu Qing had encountered on the primeval motherworld. Seeing it caused all of Xu Qing’s speculations about his Eldest Brother to resurface.

There are some differences between Eldest Brother and the sourcefiends I saw. He has lived many past lives, and whenever he dies, his next life takes a different form upon being reborn. That characteristic is actually reminiscent of the gods.

Now that his cultivation base had advanced, Xu Qing was able to pick up on many more clues. And yet, there was still plenty about Erniu that Xu Qing didn’t understand.

I imagine things will become a lot clearer after we get back to Revered Ancient.

Erniu, whose aura and cultivation base were skyrocketing, had eyes that looked even crazier than before.

“You listen to me, little Ah Qing. I can sense that there’s a treasure in that direction!! This is a foreordained invitation! It’s a destined opportunity set by fate! I have a very strong feeling that this treasure is waiting for me specifically! At the same time, it’s also a chance for me to remove several of my seals!

“After we accomplish this big job, little Ah Qing, then you won’t have to rely on strangers to give you goddesses to absorb. Your Eldest Brother will go catch several for you! In fact, I won’t stop at the daughters of gods. If you like the sons of gods, I’ll get them too!”

Erniu suddenly looked very proud. After all, he valued nothing more than his dignity as the Eldest Brother. That dignity had two aspects. The first was that he needed to surpass his Junior Brother, and the other… was that he couldn’t let anyone treat little Ah Qing better than he himself did! That was intolerable!

“Let’s go!” Erniu said, blurring into a streak of light that shot off into the distance.

Grinning, Xu Qing followed. He knew that the Immortal Paragon was the most paramount entity in the Fourth Star Ring, and that the Immortal Lords were all here. Other than the place the God Paragon had left to, there were no places that could harbor major secrets.

At the most, there were a few so-called forbidden regions.

Thanks to all of the things Xu Qing had experienced as he grew, he had come to his own understanding of what ‘forbidden regions’ were.

Normally speaking, forbidden regions are mysterious places with long histories. Because of being cut off from the outside world, they’ve eventually come to be known as forbidden regions. But the degree of danger associated with any given one of them is actually the product of two things: what’s inside, and what’s outside.

Nowadays, everyone knows that forbidden regions are dangerous. But from the perspective of what’s inside the forbidden region, the outside world is just as dangerous. Otherwise, there would be no need to maintain a barrier of isolation.

Of course, there are exceptions… such as the Revered Ancient mainland. But this is the Fourth Star Ring, and there shouldn’t be anything like that here. Since Eldest Brother wants to go explore this place, I might as well just see what happens.[1]

And thus, Xu Qing followed along.

Time passed. This time, it was several months. Although the destination wasn’t necessarily very far away, the star ring was massive, so it took time.

Along the way, they took advantage of teleportation portals on the supply depot planets. As a result, it was only about four months later that they spotted their destination.

From a distance, it was possible to see a majestic rift in the starry sky. It looked like a wound that spanned several universes. The rift was filled with endless mist, and was surrounded by drifting, crimson dust.

This was one of the Fourth Star Ring’s four major forbidden regions. From ancient times until now, hardly anyone had ever been there. Not one god who went inside ever came out.

Erniu eyed the rift, his crazy look getting more and more intense. During their months of travel, he had seen what position Xu Qing occupied among the cultivators here. He had seen countless powerful experts, as well as many fights between cultivators and gods. In terms of goddesses… he had seen two get captured.

The provocation he felt was like a whip slashing against him repeatedly, and it caused him to sink further into craziness. The urge to accomplish a big job was getting stronger and stronger.

Eying the distant rift, he licked his lips and shouted, “It’s there! I can sense that there’s treasure in there, little Ah Qing. A big treasure!!”

Xu Qing said nothing. His gaze pierced through the starry sky, passing through the crimson dust and entering the rift to examine the interior. He could just barely make out an altar. During the journey, he had made certain inquiries and learned a bit about the forbidden regions in the Fourth Star Ring.

This is where the very first God Paragon was sealed up! Hē was killed by the current living God Paragon, and sealed here, imprisoned for all eternity. Furthermore, hē is rejected by the new natural laws woven from the fate in the Fourth Star Ring, and thus can’t leave the place.

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed. That was the extent of the information he had received, and he knew nothing about what karma could be tied up in it all. There was a God Paragon sealed here, so normally speaking, Xu Qing wouldn’t go inside. But right now….

Xu Qing glanced at Erniu.

I did come to the Fourth Star Ring to look for my own destined opportunity, which is to walk the path of the pain god’s illusion. Although that path of pain didn’t involve coming into this place, I guess… anything is possible.

Xu Qing waved his hand out in front of him. That motion caused all of the terrifying pressure coming out of the rift to be suppressed. The starry sky around the rift became like a mirror that then shattered. Rubble rained down. The crimson dust around the rift was also affected. It was as if some powerful force just peeled it away.

Then Xu Qing lifted his right hand, causing the rubble in the starry sky to converge in a new form. At the same time, the crimson dust parted. Eventually, something like a series of tunnels appeared in front of the two of them.

“Let’s go in, Eldest Brother. Just keep in mind there are some dangerous things inside.”

“….” Erniu looked at the tunnels going through the mist. The sight of Xu Qing shattering the starry sky and making those tunnels left him feeling a bit defeated. That said, he was determined to get stronger. And thus, he… didn’t rush forward. Instead, he stuck close to Xu Qing and nodded. “You lead the way.”

Erniu was no fool. Given the level of Xu Qing’s cultivation base, whatever things he thought were dangerous would definitely be fatal to Erniu. He wasn’t the kind of person who feared death, but if he died, he wanted it to be after he stuffed himself to the gills, not when he was on the way to eat. Although dignity was important to him, his Junior Brother wasn’t a stranger. When he thought about it that way, he felt a bit less defeated.

Xu Qing’s expression was serious as he strode into one of the tunnels and headed toward the rift. Erniu followed. The two of them quickly sped through the tunnel. They ran into a few dangerous situations, but Xu Qing resolved them easily.

A few days later, they were through the crimson mist! The rift was right in front of them.

As Xu Qing looked around, his pupils constricted. In the misty interior of the rift it was possible to see an entire world.

In the middle of that world was a magnificent altar. Astonishingly, the altar was built from a massive pile of god bones. There were also a host of vicious-looking bugs crawling around on the bones. On top of the altar was a bronze coffin! Countless chains filled the interior of the rift, all of which served to secure the coffin tightly in place!

An ancient will and a profoundly wild aura pulsed from the coffin. There was something boundlessly mysterious and majestic about it, as well as something that seemed to tell all living beings… that this place was forbidden!

This forbidden region didn’t just have an altar, a coffin, and some chains. In another part of it was a hulking figure. It was not a cultivator, but rather, a god. Put precisely, it was a corpse. The corpse of a god. Only the top half of the corpse was there.

After looking closely at the corpse, Xu Qing’s mind started spinning. He knew who this was!

God Lord Death Departure!

Based on the war reports he was familiar with, God Lord Death Departure had been seriously injured, and then fled to parts unknown. But here hē was, and hē was… already dead!

While Xu Qing’s mind spun, Erniu pointed into the mist, a crazy, greedy expression on his face. “I can’t see clearly into there, little Ah Qing, but I can sense that the big treasure is there. Can you help me figure out which direction to go in?”

Xu Qing looked like he wanted to say something, but was holding back. Erniu was pointing right toward the corpse….

“What is it?” Erniu asked urgently.

Xu Qing looked at Erniu. “It’s the corpse of a god.”

Erniu seemed disappointed, but he asked, “A god corpse? You mean it’s not a big treasure? What level is the corpse?”

“God Lord…” Xu Qing said softly.

Even as the words left his mouth, Erniu became a string of afterimages that blurred toward the corpse. He was already going completely crazy.

1. To be honest, this entire passage about forbidden regions was very frustrating because I struggled to determine if he was using “forbidden region” in the same sense as the forbidden regions earlier in the story, or if he was using the term in the more generic sense. Considering that he mentions Revered Ancient, it seems to me he is correlating the location here to the forbidden regions from earlier. What makes it more confusing is that he throws in a slightly different term (the one I rendered as forbidden ground) as well. This problem pops up occasionally when he uses a sort of common term with real-life definitions, but assigns a unique fantasy definition to it as well, then feels the need to explain the similarities and/or differences between the different definitions. In any case, I’m going with “forbidden region” for this place because it does seem that he wants to compare the two. At the same time, the forbidden region in this chapter is clearly not something created the way the forbidden regions in the earlier part of the book were created (being looked at by the broken face). They bear the same name but are fundamentally different, although they do have similarities. ☜