Chapter 1292: The Seat of Destiny

Nature has its own laws of development.

Since you’ve become water, you must fall from the sky and turn into rain.

Since you’ve become fire, you must burn to light up others.

Since you’ve become time, you must flow.

The moment you become nature itself, you can all the more feel the laws of nature.

And the alternation of old and new, the mingling of Sun Moon, is also one of nature’s laws of development.

Thus came that line from the Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate: born atop the Great Trend, die beneath the Great Trend.

The next era…

The future is an era without the Celestial Phenomenon Immortal Venerate!

All Celestial Phenomenon Immortal Venerates are to be forcibly Harmonized.

So, the [Past] is exhausted and defeated, while the [Future] is being born.

“So I want to see: if I hand the realm over to you people of the future, can you break free of the shackles I forged for myself, or will you be just like me, endlessly repeating a dead loop with no end?”

“After you rule an era, you’ll be overthrown just like my [Past] was, replaced by the young, just like Dynasties in history.”

Ning Zheng was speechless inside: “You’re the one secretly screwing us over right now. It’s only been two thousand years—how could there already be a bunch of people trying to overthrow us? Our Dynasty has only just been founded.”

According to historical patterns, a newborn Dynasty is at its most youthful and hot-blooded, with strong soldiers and powerful horses; there absolutely wouldn’t be so many messy rebels.

“I’m just speeding up the process.”

The Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate felt there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. “I can’t very well let you take tens of millions of years just to reach your Dynasty’s end, can I?”

It sounded extremely reasonable.

Ning Zheng actually found himself at a loss for words.

In the Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate’s words, the [Past] has been overthrown, and the [Future] will rise.

And we of the [Future] will also be overthrown sooner or later, and the [???] will rise.

He was merely accelerating the decline of their era; he even wanted to see what kind of era lay beyond the future’s [???].

Ning Zheng’s face darkened. “So you’ve gotten addicted to extrapolating eras again? You want to see what era comes after the [Future]?”

“Aren’t you curious?” A trace of gentle, kindly warmth flickered at the corners of the Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate’s eyes.

“Curious.”

Ning Zheng answered without thinking: “But I don’t think this will lead anywhere. To know what era the [???] is, we probably need every Immortal Venerate to have attained the Dao, only then will we reach that threshold.”

“So I’m forcing the two of you to attain the Dao.” The Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate spoke as if it were only natural: “This is my ideal. I just want to hold the key to freedom in my hand.”

Ning Zheng fell silent.

“Trust me, let’s attain the Dao together. When all Venerable Positions are assembled, the ultimate universe will open, and a Venerable Position that transcends Heaven and Earth will be born.” he said softly.

Their conversation trailed off with no conclusion.

In the days that followed, the painter was still getting beaten up.

Ning Zheng chatted with the Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate every day and had afternoon tea with him.

After all, honestly speaking, he wasn’t some grimly righteous protagonist full of bitter hatred who absolutely had to defeat evil.

“Justice and evil cannot coexist”?

Storybooks aren’t reality.

His capacity for empathy was actually quite strong.

He could understand, and even felt that if he were in the Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate’s place, he might have gone even further.

Time continued to pass.

In the blink of an eye, a month had gone by; over these three thousand years, the painter had suffered countless attacks, yet he still handled them with ease.

Another half a year passed.

Over these more than ten thousand years, the painter still commanded a powerful army of painters, slaughtering wave after wave of future heroes.

“In the future, fate simply can’t be found.”

Amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, the painter stomped hard on a hero’s head, blood splattering everywhere, and said coldly:

“So many times and still can’t find it… then there’s only one impossible possibility left. Which is to say, fate existed from the very start?”

“Then continuing to extrapolate the future is meaningless.”

“It’s time to begin.”

He met Ning Zheng’s gaze from afar, then took a step forward, being the first to attain the Dao, stepping into the present.

With no hesitation, with no words.

Boom!

“Come then.” As gales raged across Heaven and Earth, an invisible storm tugged at endless scrolls. A Scholar holding a scroll and a brush took a single step into the distant present.

“You’ve been waiting for me a long time, haven’t you?”

The ultimate Celestial Phenomenon existence was born again in the future.

On the other side.

“Here he comes?”

In the distant past, upon the supreme throne, endless Great Path Laws turned into radiance that poured down. At the center of countless vortices of the Great Path, a snow-white figure slowly opened his eyes.

That figure seemed to dominate all Heaven and Earth; it was as if the entire universe stood right there, with every casual movement accompanied by the flow of various Laws.

The Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate showed a faintly amused smile:

“Even the painter couldn’t find fate? It actually isn’t in the infinite future? Then perhaps fate was already born long ago, or at least partly born…”

“This inconstant fate—did He already come into being in the past? Things are getting interesting.”

On the other side.

At Xirong Manor, Ning Zheng watched as the painter and the Holy Spirit Immortal Venerate began their final battle, and fell into deep thought.

The battle between those two would determine the life and death of the universe, the ownership of all things, and was even the continuation of that one second after Xian and the three Immortal Venerates—the battle of the [Present].

A second that had been paused for fifteen million years—the [Present] was about to begin.

Fate, huh?

Ning Zheng suddenly grew contemplative. He paced back and forth in the courtyard of Xirong Manor, thinking, a conflicted look even showing between his brows.

The painter was a quiet man who liked to act rather than talk. He’d just gone ahead and stepped into the present in one breath; things were already beyond saving.

In fact, despite how Ning Zheng always seemed to be slacking off, he did have some guesses about fate.

When you boiled it down…

The three lives, the three great Venerable Positions together—Auspicious, Calamity, and [???]—add up to fate.

Where was the remaining Venerable Position?

On the Qi Fortune Gambling Table.

He had a vague premonition that if he brought the Qi Fortune Gambling Table into the distant [Present], that Immortal Venerate who died in the [Future] would revive in the [Present].

So how was he supposed to face another prehistoric version of himself?

Or rather, was he perhaps also part of another version of himself’s scheme?

Was he going to jump right into the trap, walk into the net and get screwed over by the other party?

Harboring such worries, Ning Zheng had no intention of taking the risk.

“But when in life do you not take risks?” Ning Zheng murmured. “Forget it, forget it, I’ll go meet you once.”

There was a clatter.

This time, Ning Zheng brought the Qi Fortune Gambling Table and stepped into the prehistoric spacetime.

The instant he stepped into the [Present], some existence on the Qi Fortune Gambling Table that had died in the [Future] seemed to be fully awakened.

At that moment, the skin all over Ning Zheng’s body tightened instantly, his brain’s nerves went taut, and an incomparably intense sense of threat slowly rose from his Qi Fortune Gambling Table.

Endless white fate-streams surged out, converging into a Semi-Transparent figure.

“You finally came.”

That voice spoke thus.