Darkness.
The darkness that obscured even one’s hand in front of one’s face slowly receded.
Cang Wu Zhang opened his eyes only to find that he was being wrapped tightly around numerous chains and hung in mid-air.
What’s happening to me?
He shivered, then slowly recalled what happened earlier.
——that Huang Quan Devil King clutched my neck and said:
“Your father seems to be quite impressive, but keep this in mind: if you keep messing with me, your father won’t be able to save you next time”
I didn’t care about it at the time, but then suddenly felt a chill at my neck after that Devil King had left and completely lost consciousness.
Then, am I dead?
Cang Wu Zhang was shocked and wanted to struggle.
All of a sudden, an old male voice resounded:
“Wu Zhang, do not move heedlessly”
Cang Wu Zhang immediately froze up from surprise.
This voice was too familiar to him, as this was the Wraith Lord with the greatest mastery of magical techniques, Hundred Grudges.
If this was the voice he heard, then he definitely did not die.
Cang Wu Zhang regained his calm and asked: “Wraith Lord, sir, may I ask what happened to this humble subordinate?”
Hundred Grudge’s voice resounded again: “You were killed. Fortunately, both your body and soul remained; since your father didn’t want you to reincarnate through a Wraith technique, so he asked me to use this resurrection Immortal Craft and save your life”
Cang Wu Zhang silently sighed.
Life and death is a serious matter, as well as the strictest of the Laws of Realities.
If I had revived through a Wraith technique, I would have had to become a jiangshi[1], a skeleton, or any of the many undead beasts we have, and not my current human body.
To surpass the cycle of life and death to directly resurrect someone, an Immortal Craft was the only way.
But for an Immortal Craft to break the Law of Life and Death to save someone, it would still require great effort that not even a Wraith Lord would be willing to arbitrarily perform.
Since father wasn’t an expert at this Immortal Craft, he had to request Hundred Grudges to perform it instead.
Who knows how great a price father had to pay to do that?
“Huang Quan Devil King…”
Cang Wu Zhang clenched his teeth.
Hundred Grudges continued: “Wu Zhang, no need to continue haggling over that grudge, your father had brought his army to surround that place”
“Which place?”
“The place you died, which was also where the Huang Quan Devil King had set off from to face his Tribulation——- once a cultivator completes their Tribulation, they would naturally return to where they left; and as soon as he appeared, death would be waiting for him”
Hearing that, Cang Wu Zhang finally relaxed.
Since father had taken it upon himself to act, there shouldn’t be any other issues.
Once the Huang Quan Devil King’s soul is extracted, I will have my revenge.
As for now…
“Thank you, sir Hundred Grudges for saving me”
Cang Wu Zhang said with a grateful attitude.
“Kekek, no need to thank me, after all, everything has its own prices… and your father has already paid an appropriate price” Hundred Grudges replied.
Heaven Pillar world.
Gu Qing Shan sat in a palace within Heaven Pillar city, took the grass twine cage out to release all of the pixies.
The countless pixies surrounded him and quickly gave their thanks.
From who-knows-where, they took out a bunch of broken wood pieces, flowers, leaves, mushrooms, grass, and other things of the sort, before their souls jumped inside.
These plant matters then quickly came to life and took the form of pixies.
However, the pixies who chose a piece of wood as their body now had a brown body; those who chose a leaf were now wearing a green dress; those who chose mushrooms now appeared as literal mushrooms with limbs and facial features.
The long-bearded old man reappeared and hurriedly asked: “Why didn’t you chop that guy up thoroughly? Not everyone is like us pixies who can revive in any random leaves on the sidewalk”
Gu Qing Shan smiled: “They have a Huang Quan fragment world on their side, which holds control over life and death, furthermore they’ve displayed their capability of using Immortal Crafts, so I assumed it wouldn’t have done much to spend more effort to kill him”
“And also…”
Gu Qing Shan carefully put a few pieces of hair into his Inventory Bag and said very sternly: “A person like him is actually a liability to the Wraith realm. So rather than helping the Wraith realm by killing him, I left him as a piece on the board, perhaps it might prove useful in the future”
The long-bearded old man shrugged: “Alright, if you didn’t simply ignore him and actually had other plans then I don’t need to care”
Gu Qing Shan asked: “Where’s the God of Life?”
The long-bearded old man sighed: “According to those wraiths, the power of [Chaos] is quite effective against the Abyss. They had that Deity of [Chaos] lead the remaining carriers of [Chaos] within the 900 million World Layers to the frontlines and fight against the Eternal Abyss”
The old man moved his body uncomfortably, then mumbled in complaints: “This body… seems like I’ll have to spend some time meticulously making another when I return…”
Gu Qing Shan immediately apologized: “I’m really sorry, the power of the coins can only travel backwards to a point in the past, but not the future, so I have no way to save you”
The three Space-Time Coins, the Embodiment of History’s Distortions, could only use their powers to travel in the past.
The coins could choose to return to any moment in history and bring them to the past, but it had no control over the present and future.
When a user of the coins returned from [The Present] to the [The Past], time would continue to move forward in [The Present], so when the user returned to [The Present], it would have already been [The Future] compared to before.
——-the user cannot return to the exact moment when they used the coin to leave, not even if they used the power of the coins again in the future.
Because that period of time had thoroughly been detached from the user of the coins, thus belonging to others.
For example, while he was inside the seal of Drifting Sand world, each time that Gu Qing Shan returned to the Age of Old and died half-way through, whenever he returned to the seal, he would find Lin, who was impersonating the dark figure of light, doing something else.
It was only when she sensed that Gu Qing Shan had died that she returned to the moment of Gu Qing Shan’s death and took him back.
Occasionally, Lin would also remain in the darkness and travel with Gu Qing Shan to immediately take him to the future whenever the situation became too much to handle.
All in all, the fact that they returned to the Age of Old didn’t stop time in [The Present] from moving towards [The Future].
During his return from the Age of Old, when he arrived at the Earth world, the War God UI told him that one year had passed.
At the time, the gold coin informed him that if he didn’t travel forward one year relative to before, Gu Qing Shan would die.
Gu Qing Shan had thought that the gold coin was referring to a trap from the Demon Dragon, Lin, or Soul Shrieker; but in hindsight, the gold coin couldn’t have known so much, it was just referring to the Law of Time.
And it was also the reason why Lin was waiting to ambush him at that moment, she knew that he had no other period of time to return to.
That was why these three coins were referred to as the [Key of The Past], their powers were focused on what had already happened.
The past…
Gu Qing Shan had a sudden thought.
Perhaps, there might be some sort of unique item that can take me to the future?
At this point, the long-bearded old man happily said: “No matter, you’ve already saved us. Although, what is this place? Should we hold a banquet to celebrate the aversion of our disaster here?”
Gu Qing Shan regained his senses and answered: “This is Heaven pillar world”
The long-bearded old man then saw the sky-high Pillar To Heaven at the center of the city.
“Whoa, how thick! How strong! How regretfully broken!” he exclaimed.
The pixie king appeared next to him and propped his hand on his hip: “It’s been a very long time since we got to be in an unfamiliar world like this, should we climb that pillar?”
The long-bearded old man’s eyes glowed as he heard that.
“That’s right! This is a symbol of cultivators! We should indeed go ahead and conquer it!” the long-bearded old man declared.
Gu Qing Shan facepalmed.
The pixies’ line of thought is jumpy and unpredictable, while I have to focus on my Tribulation without having time to mind them.
“Don’t climb that pillar” Gu Qing Shan cleared his throat and tried convincing them: “If you want to leave this place, you can only go up the mountain with me, to finish this as fast as possible, I think you’ll need to stay hidden. Most likely… next to me…”
Before he could finish his words, the long-bearded old man and pixie king were already enthusiastic.
“There’s a mountain as well?” the king asked.
“Yes, the Divine Mountain of Sumeru” Gu Qing Shan noticed that he might have said something that he shouldn’t have, but still answered them.
“Divine Mountain!!” the long-bearded old man and pixie king both exclaimed in shock.
The long-bearded old man paused for a brief moment before suddenly shouting: “Everyone, prepare yourselves! This year’s first mountain-climbing competition is about to begin! The last pixie that makes it to the summit will be turned into a table cloth!”
The king loudly added: “——And you’re going to stay a tablecloth for an entire year!”
Before he even finished his words, the long-bearded old man had already run ahead.
“Father’s father’s father’s father’s father, you’re cheating! You’re running ahead!” the pixie king exclaimed breathlessly.
He then immediately dashed after him.
The pixies exclaimed ‘tablecloth’ one after another in excitement as they followed the king and the kingdom’s ancestor towards the Pillar To Heaven.
Gu Qing Shan stood still, his mouth wide open, but was unable to say a single word.
Rule number 57 of the infinite worlds: When the pixies have gotten interested in a certain matter, anyone will be powerless to stop them.
So…
The Divine Mountain is still severely weakened, and things have only just gotten back in order, there shouldn’t be too much danger… right?
While Gu Qing Shan was hesitating, a group of many cultivators flew in from afar and landed in front of him.
Everyone clasped their fists: “Your excellency, you must be the one who came to face their Sumeru Lord realm Tribulation”
Gu Qing Shan nodded.
Sensing the overwhelming spirit energy fluctuations on his body, everyone exchanged gleeful looks.
This level of spirit energy is simply——
Almost unheard of.
Last time, after someone managed to pass the Sumeru Lord realm Tribulation, it caused a huge commotion all over the parallel cultivation worlds.
So this time, a lot more people had come to attempt it.
There were a total of over 30 people here, all of which had enthusiastic expressions.
One cultivator respectfully said: “Please give your orders, your excellency, how should we prepare? When will we set out? Please feel free to arrange our persons as you see fit”
Gu Qing Shan sighed, then suddenly laughed and loudly declared: “Come, we’re climbing the mountain. Whoever makes it to the summit last will turn into a tortoise in front of everyone”
His figure flashed and leapt forward before anyone else.
[1] a jiangshi is specifically a Chinese zombie, which have notable differences compared to a regular zombie, google for more information