novelapdf Chapter 1809 Entering the River of Time
Chapter 1809 Entering the River of Time
The Sea of Oblivion remains as desolate and lifeless as ever.
The gray seawater stretched endlessly, without a ripple.
Zhang Xuan stood suspended above the sea, his divine sense spreading out like mercury, carefully searching the dried-up lakebed area where he had met the red-robed old man, as well as other places where his presence might still linger.
The old man in the red robe was elusive. Last time, he showed up on his own initiative, but now, despite our efforts to find him, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Simply scanning this sea area with divine sense, one could not detect any unique aura belonging to the old man. He seemed to have completely merged into this forgotten land and disappeared.
“Drifting outside the long river of time…” Zhang Xuan murmured to himself, recalling the old man in red robes’ own obscure metaphor of “a snail crawling along the edge of the thread of time.”
"Ordinary methods of spatial and temporal location are probably ineffective for this person. To find him, we may have to delve into the realm he inhabits—the River of Time."
This idea is quite bold, even dangerous.
The River of Time is a manifestation of the Great Dao, carrying an endless torrent of information from the past, present, and future. It is difficult for anyone other than those in the Great Luo Realm to truly enter it, let alone search for people within it.
But Zhang Xuan is different. He carries the path to immortality and contains the true meaning of all things. In particular, his perception of spacetime and the laws of cause and effect far surpasses that of his peers.
"The Great Tree that I have condensed resonates with a certain rhythm of the Great Dao that transcends time in its origin and evolution. Perhaps it can serve as an anchor point to briefly connect with that vast power of time."
Taking a deep breath, Zhang Xuan no longer hesitated.
He sat cross-legged in the void, his hands forming a profound mudra, his mind completely immersed in the inner world.
The chaotic divine sea surged with waves, and light flowed along the immortal path.
The Great Dao Tree, which had already solidified two side branches and was covered with tens of thousands of solidified true spirit leaves, slowly manifested behind him.
This time, he did not unleash the power of the myriad paths to attack, but instead focused on gathering and refining his understanding of time and cause and effect, especially the vast and ancient Daoist charm carried by the Immortal Path, and poured it all into the core of the Great Dao Tree.
"Use my path as a bridge to inspire time and trace its origins!"
With a low shout from Zhang Xuan imbued with the essence of the Dao, the main trunk and some side branches of the Great Dao Tree suddenly lit up with a brilliant yet gentle light.
The light did not spread outward, but collapsed and twisted inward, eventually weaving a portal phantom that was constantly flowing with fragments of light and shadow in the void in front of Zhang Xuan!
Behind the portal lie countless transparent threads of cause and effect, converging into a long river of time, flowing ceaselessly yet remaining silent.
"This is the projection entrance to the River of Time..."
Just by opening this door, Zhang Xuan felt his immortal energy pouring out like a flood, and his divine sense was also stinging with needle-like pain.
Maintaining this fragile connection with the river of time took far more effort than he had anticipated.
Without hesitation, he took out the refined eighth-order golden pills and swallowed three in succession.
The powerful and pure medicinal energy dissipated, like sweet spring water flowing into a nearly dried-up riverbed, barely stabilizing the gate and its own condition.
Without a moment's hesitation, Zhang Xuan's figure blurred, transforming into a streak of light, and resolutely plunged into the projection portal of the River of Time.
The moment I stepped in, the world seemed to collapse, and I sensed a dramatic change.
All around are endless, ever-flowing threads of cause and effect.
These threads of cause and effect are compressed fragments of time and lingering traces of fate.
They are colorful, yet pale and transparent.
twine.
Separation.
Annihilation.
This constitutes the endless river of time.
Zhang Xuan looked down and found that he had already turned into a pale golden phantom.
He could clearly perceive his own existence, think, and observe, but his body seemed to have lost most of its substance, feeling as light as nothing and drifting with the current.
He tried to activate a wisp of immortal energy, and a faint golden light flashed at his fingertips. However, when he put it into the surrounding torrent of time, it failed to even stir a ripple and was instantly assimilated and swallowed up.
He then tried to use his divine sense to access and analyze the fragments of light and shadow that flowed by. What he saw might be a glimpse of the rise and fall of a mortal dynasty, or the insightful light of a low-level cultivator's breakthrough moment.
Complex and chaotic, constantly changing.
Even with his late-stage True Immortal level spiritual strength, he felt dizzy and had difficulty capturing clear and coherent information, let alone locating a specific being within it.
"This is the true river of time... the destination of all traces, the place where all causes and effects are annihilated," Zhang Xuan thought to himself.
Here, unless one possesses the supreme power to manipulate time and alter cause and effect, any outsider is merely an insignificant bystander, a phantom, unable to exert any substantial influence on the river itself.
His Great Tree projection also appeared dim here, barely able to protect his illusory figure from being completely assimilated and dissipated.
Time becomes blurred and distorted here.
Zhang Xuan felt his immortal essence and divine sense being consumed continuously and rapidly, and even with the support of an eighth-order golden core, he could not stay for long.
"We must find the target as soon as possible."
He suppressed his discomfort and amplified the extremely faint causal connection between his mind and the red-robed elder within the Tree of Great Dao, sensing its unique rhythm of existence.
At the same time, following some kind of intuition, he slowly swam against the flow of some of the fragments of light and shadow.
The process was extremely agonizing.
Countless fragments of light and shadow washed over his phantom, bringing with them a chaotic array of images, sounds, and emotional fragments, attempting to disturb his mind and erode his existence.
He had no choice but to continue taking eighth-grade golden pills. In a short period of time, he swallowed two more, which made his heart bleed, but he dared not stop for a moment.
Just as he felt his own phantom becoming unstable, its light growing dimmer, and the pills about to run out.
Ahead, in a relatively calm body of water, an anomaly appeared.
Unlike other places where the waters flow ceaselessly and illusory shadows rise and fall.
There, a person sat quietly.
He wore his signature red robe, his body hunched over, his back to Zhang Xuan, as if he were sitting on the riverbed of the river of time.
Fishing, or contemplation.
What shocked Zhang Xuan was that in this long river where all outsiders appeared as phantoms or fragments of light and shadow, this red-robed old man was actually a solid entity!
His robe swayed slightly with some non-existent water flow, his hair was clearly visible, and one could even feel the aura emanating from him that was a mixture of vicissitudes, loneliness, and detachment.
He exists so tangibly in the long river of time, like a stubborn rock at the bottom of the river that has endured the erosion of time, forming an extremely striking contrast with everything around him that is illusory and flowing!
"He... he can actually exist in the river of time in a physical form?!" A huge wave of shock surged in Zhang Xuan's heart.
This completely overturned his understanding of the long river of time!
This means that the old man in the red robe not only exists outside the river of time, but also anchors his existence within the river in some incredible way, unaffected by its fading and dissolving!