For ages, Years stood still; past and future hung suspended.
In the world behind the gate, time was the theme, and imprisonment was eternal.
The past appeared in the present, and so did the future.
Anything seen here could have come from any point in space-time, any stretch of time.
The Years here were hazy and disordered.
Meng Chuan and Willow God followed the river for a long way. They encountered no living beings before reaching its end.
There was only nothingness. The river appeared abruptly from that void, its source unknown.
But on closer inspection, a dazzling Great Realm lay before the endless void.
Within that dazzling Great Realm, laws had taken solid form and surged in every direction, while Profound Principles spanned heaven and earth.
Yet, like Years themselves, the Great Dao, laws, and Profound Principles—
Everything had been frozen, forming a motionless world.
And one of the culprits behind the stillness of Years here was the great bell in the sky.
It was also what had prompted Willow God to speak.
"You saw it wrong, Willow God," Meng Chuan reminded her from beside her.
"The Dao Script on that bell says Wushi, not Wuzhong."
First Willow God had failed to recognize the gate. Now she couldn't read, either.
Meng Chuan worried about Willow God's state of mind.
The reason behind it was heartwarming.
"Great" was the only word for that bell. Blood stained its body, and its ripples suppressed worlds in every direction.
An endless void separated two realms. One was where Meng Chuan and Willow God now stood; the other was the source of the river beyond that void.
It was also the realm suppressed by the colossal bell.
Dao Script evolved across the bell, and laws coiled around it.
Because their Great Daos were connected,