Heavenly God Realm, Southern Jambu Continent.
Wudang Mountain, blessed grotto-heaven: the True Warrior Great Emperor's Black Tortoise Firstborn Manor, the Thirty-Six Golden Palaces.
Xiang Yuan wore a black robe. Bolstered by the True Warrior Great Emperor's divine power, he was composed and solemn, stern without malice. Every movement he made carried an air of dignified authority.
Across from him stood Baize, the female secretary reporting on her work and also the chief steward of Black Tortoise Firstborn Manor. Dressed like an urban office worker, she was utterly out of place amid the manor's ancient aesthetic.
Especially those long legs clad in black stockings—they were rather an eyesore. It felt like tearing them off would make them much easier on the eyes.
None of that was the point. Xiang Yuan had fallen silent because he had discovered an anomaly in the flow of time in the Heavenly God Realm. It differed from both the Dragon-Subduing Realm and the Unborn Realm.
The Dragon-Subduing Realm and the Dry Abyss Realm shared the same flow of time. If Xiang Yuan stayed in the Dragon-Subduing Realm for three days, three days would pass in the Dry Abyss Realm as well. The Unborn Realm and the Dry Abyss Realm were not on the same river of time. Xiang Yuan could spend three to five months in the Unborn Realm, while only the time of a finger snap passed in the Dry Abyss Realm—and even that finger-snap's worth of time was spent opening and closing the gate.
Last time, he had confirmed that the Heavenly God Realm and the Unborn Realm drifted along the same river. No matter how long he remained there, only the time of a finger snap would pass in the Dry Abyss Realm.
But upon entering the Heavenly God Realm a second time,