Universe after universe collapsed, like relief carvings piled upon a beach. When the enormous waves crashed down, they disintegrated almost simultaneously, and the entire Real Realm turned into a pot of chaos. From the moment of Open Heaven and Earth countless epochs ago, the River of Time began to curl inward.
States of contraction and diffusion overlapped. The utmost yin and the utmost yang overlapped. Past, future, and present overlapped. Thriving vitality and silent death overlapped. The Golden Mother, whose fall from the timeline was absolute and whose imprint had been wholly absorbed by Gu Xiaosang's Golden Emperor and Dao Fruit, overlapped with Wusheng Laomu, who was on the verge of transcendence. This was the wonder of the end: all contradictory things existed simultaneously, were all embraced, and would all return to a single point that was supreme yet minute, wondrous yet simple.
Amitabha Buddha's figure existed both at the moment of Open Heaven and Earth and in the present moment of the apocalypse's conclusion. Yet it suddenly turned illusory, as if it were about to break free from the restraints of the current node, logic, and imagination and attain true transcendence. However, it had been weakened by the Six Souls Banner earlier and lacked that final spark. After alternating between illusion and reality several times, it ultimately failed to break free completely.
Gu Xiaosang had become an Ancient One, and Amitabha Buddha's reducing and seeking emptiness had also reached perfection. Once it recovered, it would be able to prove the Dao Fruit. Yet this extremely brief recovery had caused it to fall one "step" behind. In its field of vision, the Moral Heavenly Venerable, who had been entangled with it, had completely vanished!
Because Meng Qi had also cut out Heavenly Venerable Su Meng, proving the embryonic form of