What Was, What Is, and What Will Always Be

Within the Heavenly Court Ruins, the laws lay silent and dead, as though time itself had ceased to flow.

But Li Shun's incarnation of thought was, after all, a tree without roots. It could not escape the merciless erosion of the river of time.

After enduring who knew how many more years, Li Shun keenly sensed that this body was slipping irreversibly toward weakness and decay.

The first sign of decline appeared in his once incomparably keen spiritual awareness.

Let alone comprehend the mysteries of divine abilities and spells—even stirring a thought brought a deep weariness surging from the depths of his soul. Later, merely reaching back into old memories left his mind mired in thick mud, sluggish and unable to move.

As though stricken with dementia, Li Shun spent most of his time slumped where he sat, as blank as a clay statue or wooden carving.

No thought. No reflection.

I'm going to die soon.

Yet Li Shun's heart was strangely calm.

This was the fate he had decided for this incarnation of thought long ago. When its final day truly arrived, not a ripple stirred in his heart, nor did he feel the slightest fear of death.

Amid those vast ruins, he simply waited in silence for death to come.

And throughout all those long years, he had never once thought of fleeing the Heavenly Court Ruins.

That resolve came entirely from the web-like pattern that had slipped into his body, then abruptly vanished without a trace.

It was precisely because Li Shun had experienced the terror and nameless horror of an Outer God firsthand that his will had hardened to this almost cruel degree.

He would sooner sacrifice this fragment of thought than allow that strange pattern of unknown origin to cling like maggots to bone and