Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 710: A Nursery Rhyme from the Ancient Past

Li Zihua’s voice echoed through the Moonrite Region, shaking everything like thunder.

The broken face remained still and unmoving. Though facing in the direction of the Moonrite Region, the eyes were not opening.

The cultivators of the Red Moon Cathedral in the seven locations were all wailing in grief. To them, Li Zihua’s words signified absolute destruction. In the shortest of moments, the cathedral cultivators and all of their allies were trembling in fear. Their skin started to split apart, causing blood to gush everywhere as their bones collapsed onto the ground into piles. The final thing to fall were their fleshless skulls. From a distance, all seven locations had innumerable piles of flesh and bone. Collectively, there were seven small mountains of flesh, with the stench of gore rising up like signal smoke.

The broken face in the canopy of heaven remained unmoving.

Until… Li Zihua’s body also started ripping apart. As of now, hē was a god. For hīm to be ripped apart caused wild colors to flash in heaven and earth. As hīs flesh and blood fell to the ground, it created an eighth mountain.

It rose taller and taller. Seemingly endless amounts of flesh and blood combined to create a towering mountain. It rose until it was on the same level as the red moon. And in the end… the flesh and blood of Li Zihua’s head collapsed, creating the summit of the mountain. Hīs expression was cold and apathetic, bereft of any emotional fluctuations. When hīs skull finally stopped moving, īts vacant eye sockets were looking up into the canopy of heaven.

At that exact moment, the eyes of the broken face… opened!

It was very different from the version inside Xu Qing’s violet crystal. This time, the broken face’s eyes really did open, revealing golden pupils that were calm and placid.

As the gaze fell, the Moonrite Region rippled and distorted. A blood rain fell on Li Zihua’s mountain of flesh. Doomsday came to the Penitence Steppes as… the place changed.

It was an irreversible change. A mutagen that surpassed all other gods rose up, changing the lands, changing the living beings. Changing everything.

The Penitence Steppes was turning into a new forbidden region, and gruish life forms were already starting to spread there. The mountain of flesh was rapidly becoming the foundation of the forbidden region, complete with a new life force and a new intelligence.

All living beings in the Revered Ancient mainland trembled. It didn’t matter where they were. All of them could see the broken face of the god, and knew what was happening.

Terror. Confusion. Astonishment. Countless negative emotions flitted through the minds of everyone.

The vague, shadowy images of heavenly daos appeared in the sky over the mainland, looking down as if they desired to stop what was happening. But there was nothing they could do other than wail silently in sorrow. Some of them were even perishing. These were the 100,000 heavenly daos of Revered Ancient, and they were different from the 100 ancient heavenly daos. Whenever the broken face’s eyes opened, they were affected, and some of them were destroyed.

The red moon was also affected. It was within the field of view of the broken face, located as it was directly above the Penitence Steppes. The moon trembled violently as events played out that were similar to when the broken face appeared from Xu Qing’s violet crystal.

The first time the god’s gaze landed on a location, it became a forbidden region. The second time, it became a forbidden ground. The third time, it turned into a god domain. The fourth time… it would be called a god world!

The red moon started pulsing to an irregular rhythm on its timeline. Then, in countless instances of space-time, innumerable additional red moons appeared.

They intersected and overlapped, over and over again, as something occurred the likes of which Xu Qing had never witnessed before! In the middle of all of the countless red moons was a rapidly expanding haze that was slowly covering all of the moons.

As it did, it transformed into a majestic face! It was none other than Crimson Mother’s face, made up of endless red moons from different instances of space-time. As they interacted and intersected, they created the facial features of the face. The movement of the face made it seem extremely lifelike. It was as if each expression represented a change in thought, and that each thought could be made a reality in a different instance of space-time.

That was why so many red moons would appear in so many instances of space-time. Different thoughts provoked more and more instances of space-time. They were like choices. And every time the face made a choice, a different instance of space-time would appear, and a new world would be created in accordance with that choice.

This was a god world.

As of now, the Penitence Steppes had become a forbidden region, and the red moon had become a god world.

The broken face’s eyes closed.

In the red moon, Crimson Mother trembled. Li Zihua, whom shē was devouring, still seemed calm and tranquil. Looking at the pain-wracked Crimson Mother, he waved his hand.

Instantly, Xu Qing and the Captain, as well as the Heir Apparent and his siblings, all vanished. An instant later, they materialized in the Moonrite Region outside of the Penitence Steppes. The moment they left, Crimson Mother’s cries of anguish became a tempest that swept out, destroying every part of the Moon Palace it touched.

Crimson Mother’s body was collapsing! The god world face was changing. No longer did it look like Crimson Mother. The facial features melted away until it was blank.

The broken face of the god had transformed the red moon into a god world. But Crimson Mother didn’t survive the transformation. It was like how a powerful tonic could become a poison if administered in too high a dosage.

Too far is as bad as not enough!

Therefore, shē collapsed, falling into pieces. Destroyed. And then the red moon started disappearing!

Inside the Moon Palace, Emperor Ancient Spirit’s eyes glittered with greed as hē raced out into the open, transforming into a host of eyes. Each eye had a mouth, and they all raced to devour Crimson Mother.

An agonized shriek rang out as countless eyes collapsed. However, some of them managed to rip off chunks of Crimson Mother’s flesh, whereupon they disappeared back into the Moon Palace.

All told, Emperor Ancient Spirit managed to devour flesh equivalent to about ten percent of Crimson Mother’s entire body.

It wasn’t that hē didn’t want to devour more. Rather, hē couldn’t.

Next, Moonfire and Starfire threw all caution to the wind as thēy closed in and started ripping off flesh to consume. Each of thēm got more than ten percent. Similarly, thēy wanted to continue, but knew that staying on the vanishing red moon would be extremely dangerous.

But what sealed thēir decision was Li Zihua’s weak voice.

“Don’t get greedy.” 𝔣𝔯𝔴𝖇𝖓𝔬𝖛𝔩.𝖈𝔬𝖒

The gazes of Moonfire and Starfire glittered, and then thēy unhesitatingly vanished. The moment thēy disappeared, the red moon dimmed as though it were being erased from the sky.

Meanwhile, down in the Moonrite Region just outside the Penitence Steppes, the Captain, whose body had formed anew after being sent away by Li Zihua, suddenly exploded. A moment later, it formed back together. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he looked at Xu Qing standing there looking very serious. The Captain quickly blinked three times in a row.

Xu Qing understood the meaning. The Captain was imparting three numbers to him. However, now wasn’t the time to discuss details about the message. The red moon faded away, not just from above the Moonrite Region, but from above the Revered Ancient mainland. After it was gone, Revered Ancient was permanently missing another moon.

Except, it’s actually still there… Xu Qing thought, looking up into the sky. Because he had a portion of red moon authority, he could sense, albeit vaguely… that the god world version of the red moon was now very, very far away from Revered Ancient. It was somewhere in the starry sky outside of Revered Ancient, far away in the void….

***

In that location, there were a host of innumerable vortexes. Some were small, and some were large. All were different colors, and they all glittered in different ways as they orbited around each other. No one knew exactly what that location was. Apparently, no cultivator had ever been there.

At the moment, a new vortex was popping into being among all the other innumerable vortexes.

It was very small compared to the other vortexes. And it was red. Inside that vortex were a host of red moons that made up a very pale face. In that face’s forehead was a section of space-time that had a red moon in it, burning with golden flames.

It was godfire, not from Crimson Mother, nor from Li Zihua. Close examination would reveal that the energy conformed to that of the Red Moon Cathedral’s godchild, who was also Li Zihua’s fourth son. There was something inside of the godfire that formed its core.

An eyeball.

It was the very same eyeball that Xu Qing had previously spotted inside the godchild’s secret trove. [1]

It was… Crimson Mother’s left eye. Within the pupil of that eyeball, it was possible to see Crimson Mother, growing larger and larger to occupy every part of the eyeball. Then flesh started to grow outside the eyeball.

The flesh piled up rapidly, forming a new body for Crimson Mother.

Crimson Mother’s eyes opened. Previously, both of hēr eye sockets were empty, but now there was an eyeball in the left socket. A boundless majesty pulsed off hēr, spreading out into the local space-time. Then it attempted to expand into other instances of space-time to change them.

But then, a miserable shriek erupted from hēr mouth, interrupting the process.

“Li Zihua….”

As the bitter words left Crimson Mother’s mouth, the image of Li Zihua appeared in hēr left eye. Hē quickly overtook that eye, and then spread out to the rest of Crimson Mother.

Crimson Mother trembled as shē fought back, except it didn’t do any good. Hēr facial features changed. Hēr body changed from female to male. In the end, shē became Li Zihua.

As the process went on, hēr bitter voice filled the Moon Palace.

“So this was your plan. You knew all along how I’d set things up. So you sacrificed your fourth son in your final plot to bury me.

“It’s not that you didn’t want to become a god, Li Zihua. You just didn’t want to bear the karma of godly ascension. That’s why you beheaded my mortal husk, but didn’t actually kill me. You wanted me to reach godly ascension, that way I would be forced to sustain the karma, only for you to be resurrected within me.”

Crimson Mother’s voice grew weaker and weaker. As Li Zihua’s features took over, shē closed hēr eyes, hēr voice trembling with defiance, rancor, and confusion. In the very end, shē sighed.

“I’m giving you what you want, big brother….”

Crimson Mother perished. Eventually, hēr eyes opened.

And Li Zihua was back.

“Fourth Sister,” hē murmured, “the path of Brilliant Heaven is incorrect…. But so is the path of Deep Earth. Immortals and gods, in reality… can be one. That’s why I said the mission still stands.”

Hē looked off in the direction of Revered Ancient for a moment. Then hē closed hīs hand into a fist. The red moon god world shrank down, turning into an eyeball that hē grabbed and shoved into hīs right eye socket.

Turning, hē made his way quietly out into the void. Further and further away. Hē began to sing in a voice that thrummed in a strange pitch.

“There was once a big dolly; with a bunch of little dollys; ten little dollys one two three; bloodshot eyes with hair gray and dusty; one day they didn’t say a word to me; the big kids looked around and yelled for mommy; the little kids shouldn’t think it’s that scary….

“Then suddenly something happened when; big dolly got sick and second dolly tended him; third dolly bought meds and fifth dolly prepped them; sixth dolly died and seventh dolly grinned; eighth dolly dug a pit and ninth dolly jumped in; tenth dolly asked why they were cryin’…

“Fourth dolly’s lost and won’t come back again!”

Perhaps it was the case that the ‘fourth dolly’ in the song wasn’t actually the Imperial Sovereign’s fourth son. Maybe it was hīs fourth sister…. [2]

1. Xu Qing saw the eyeball in the secret trove in chapter 689. ☜

2. Given this line, plus the part of the nursery rhyme that says “big dolly got sick,” some people might want to review the final lines of chapter 640…. ☜