Between Time and Space, Opening-Heaven Axe Intent

Above the long river of time, Shi Chen received no answer.

He stopped upon the river and looked at the abrupt gap ahead.

A wisp of nascent chaos primordial qi had been before him, slowly evolving along the flow of time and on the verge of forming a new Dao trace.

But when the river reached that point, the primordial qi vanished into thin air, as though someone had taken it from the world before the next moment could arrive.

Shi Chen followed the gap with his gaze.

Chaos had neither heaven nor earth, and there should have been no distinction between near and far.

Yet wherever his gaze fell, countless spaces that had yet to take shape unfolded one after another.

As each space was born, it encompassed another, layer upon endless layer, infinitely far apart yet contained within the same small area.

At the deepest point, the true form of a hollow willow suddenly appeared.

The willow's shadow flickered and vanished from sight, leaving only a Daoist in azure robes standing in the void.

He had not come there.

That space had been born because of him, so he had always been there.

Gu An's consciousness was focused on chaos, and at the sight, his mind went still.

Yang Mei!

The share of creation origin he had bought for sixty-eight thousand had truly allowed the great Dao of space to cross the threshold of gestation.

After Shi Chen, the second innate chaos devil god had manifested.

Yet as the two divine beings met for the first time, they hardly seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

Shi Chen said, "I have observed that all Daos arise and perish within the passage of time. Fellow Daoist, you have only just taken form. Why do you sever my long river?"

Yang Mei replied, "I did not sever time. That portion of primordial qi was already within the place where I reside."

"Where there is birth and extinction, there must be a before and after."

"Where there is a before and after, there need not be a place for them to occur."

The two Daos had only just met, and though there was no enmity between them, there was already a point on which neither could yield.

What Shi Chen held to was the order in which all things proceeded from beginning to end.

What Yang Mei stood upon was the place in which all things could exist.

If either allowed the other's Dao to rule over his own, this newly born chaos would struggle to accommodate the complete principles of the other Dao.

The long river of time was the first to cross the gap.

As the river stirred, countless scenes that had yet to occur appeared along its banks in the depths of chaos.

Crimson fire kindled for the first time, dark water gathered, and dormant innate Dao traces gradually unfurled through different stretches of time.

Those were not scenes Shi Chen had conjured from nothing, but futures toward which the various Daos might yet unfold.

Yang Mei raised a hand.

In the inch of space before the long river, infinite layers suddenly appeared.

The river clearly had not stopped, and time flowed on for hundreds of millions of years, yet it still failed to cross that inch.

The next moment, the layers of space began to recede.

Shi Chen did not force his way through. Instead, he sent them backward along the flow of time.

The newly born spaces were sent back to before they had existed, and even that endless road lost its starting point along with them.

The azure-robed Daoist curled his fingers together. The river's source and mouth, originally separated by endless ages, suddenly fell into the same place.

The long river joined head to tail, and all possible futures converged in one place. No matter which era Shi Chen stepped toward, he could only return to this moment in the end.

But Shi Chen, trapped within it, also existed beyond this one moment.

On the long river, a gray-robed figure remained motionless; beyond the time Yang Mei had gathered together, however, another figure came walking out of the past.

"Fellow Daoist, you can contain the space of this moment, but can you contain the time before this place was born?"

The voice still echoed within the long river, but time had already crossed the blockade ahead of it.

Countless different eras were reflected upon the same space, making it show signs of decay before it had even formed.

The spaces behind Yang Mei collapsed one after another, only to be reestablished with a thought.

He did not retreat either.

Layers of space overlapped, forcibly drawing past and future into one place.

Time, in turn, stretched outward from that place, making it pass through birth and extinction in the span of a thought.

As the two intertwined, the various Daos of chaos, which had yet to stabilize, finally could not withstand the strain.

Gu An saw a wisp of crimson fire in the distance. Its newly formed innate Dao mark suddenly cracked apart.

Before the spark could catch, it was pushed back to the moment before its birth.

Yet the space it occupied was also divided layer by layer, leaving that wisp of life force, which should have continued unbroken, unable to gather again.

The other newly born Dao domains trembled in turn, and even the initial order maintained by the Chaos Pearl rippled with rings of darkness.

Gu An's heart tightened.

Shi Chen and Yang Mei were each relying on their own great Dao, and neither could do anything to the other.

But this chaos had only just been nourished by origin. How could it withstand such upheaval?

He tried to focus his consciousness and stabilize that first foundation of fire, but he could sense only the two great Daos tangled together.

The innate devil gods had wills of their own. Gu An could create the conditions for their gestation, but he could not decide how they would follow their Daos.

Another section of the crimson Dao mark broke off.

Just then, a heartbeat sounded from deep within the Chaos Green Lotus.

Thump.

The sound was not loud, yet the intertwined time and space seemed to pause together for an instant.

Within the Thirty-Six-Rank Chaos Green Lotus, that majestic figure still slept.

Beside the lotus heart, no one had taken up the Sky-Opening Axe, which was still gestating, yet a sliver of clear light appeared along its blade.

Where the clear light passed, there was no earth-shaking display. The stretches of time that had been layered together regained their proper sequence.

The spaces that had lost their boundaries also returned to their respective places.

The crimson spark no longer existed in countless isolated places at once. At last, it reignited along the first stretch of time that belonged to it.

Shi Chen's long river remained, and Yang Mei's boundless spaces had not vanished either.

There was simply a boundary between them now.

The intent of creation separated the clear from the turbid, distinguished existence from nonexistence, and gave each of the myriad Daos its proper place.

The two innate chaos devil gods turned their gazes toward the Chaos Green Lotus, one after the other.

Yang Mei looked at the clear light, which lingered on the verge of fading, and only after a long while did he say, "Before coming into the world, he has already set the boundaries of the various Daos."

Shi Chen did not reply.

The long river of time slowly returned to calm.

He looked at the sleeping being within the green lotus and committed the opportunity for creation he had witnessed in the battle to his own Dao path.

Yang Mei likewise withdrew his boundless spaces, his figure disappearing into the newly born space Dao domain.

Neither had submitted in defeat to the other. After this contest of Daos, there was simply another great Dao in chaos that each considered worth studying deeply.

The Fortune Jade Disc revolved silently in the distance, gathering the traces of the meeting between the three Daos of time, space, and creation into its jade light.

Only then did Gu An slowly breathe a sigh of relief. That first foundation of fire, which had nearly scattered, had ultimately survived.

As for Pangu, he had not even opened his eyes, yet a sliver of axe intent had already divided time and space.

Looking at the green lotus, he finally felt somewhat reassured.

The path he had chosen was indeed worth continuing.

At the same time, a cool sensation followed his connection to his bonded world and entered his sea of consciousness.

[The space devil god Yang Mei has manifested.]

[The Daos of time and space have interacted. The Time Dao Mark has stabilized further.]

[Brief Future Perception: Can be used at will.]

In the bedroom, the desk lamp glowed quietly.

Gu An opened his eyes and first glanced at the electronic terminal on his desk.

The window was not fully closed, and the night breeze made a few sheets of paper at the edge of the desk rustle softly.

He focused his gaze, and the light and shadows before his eyes suddenly shifted out of alignment. A few breaths later, a sheet of paper slipped off the corner of the desk and landed squarely over the pen beneath it.

The vision dispersed, and the paper was still in its original place.

A moment later, the wind swept in through the window, and the sheet did indeed flutter down, landing exactly where he had just seen it.

Gu An sat in his chair and waited for the paper to settle before reaching out to pick it up.

At school, he had only caught a brief glimpse of the future by chance. When he had tried to do it again, nothing had happened.

Now things were different. As long as he wished, he could actively look a few breaths into the future.

He tried again, but this time he saw only a blur of lamplight, followed by a slight sting between his brows.

Gu An stopped at once and did not push himself further. The divine ability was indeed useful, but it was not without a cost.

He withdrew his attention and opened his resource account.

The one unit of creation origin he had just taken out a loan to buy had been completely consumed.

Sixty-eight thousand, gone in the blink of an eye.

Looking at his balance, Gu An could not help recalling Shen Tang's beaming smile over that loan contract.

The Primordial World had only just begun to show some promise, and it would need even more origin in the future. Surely he could not go to his senior for a loan every time he wanted to advance its evolution?

Gu An stared at the string of zeroes, but the wager he had made with Lorina earlier that day came to mind.

Naturally, he could not see the outcome ten days from now.

But what about a gamble whose result would be revealed within a few breaths?

Big or small.

Once the dice cup settled, there were still a few short breaths before betting closed.

Others could only trust to luck, but he could see the dice values before the cup was lifted.

Gu An sat up straighter and searched for licensed gaming houses in the Linjiang Licensed Entertainment District. He soon found a public recording of a gambling table.

After the dice cup settled, the betting countdown on the screen did indeed continue.

He replayed the video, then looked at his five thousand yuan in savings.

He would try with a small amount first, and stop immediately if he could not see the future clearly. He still knew enough to exercise that much restraint.

Gu An noted down the gaming house's address and set the terminal beside him.

He would go there tomorrow afternoon.

If it really worked, then until Pangu opened the heavens, the Primordial World would at least no longer have to rely on loans to stay alive.