Splash!
The quiet universe suddenly rang with the sound of flowing water. An illusory river appeared, its source and end both beyond sight.
The entire world rose and sank within it.
For ninety-nine percent of the people in the Shrouding the Heavens World, this was their first glimpse of the River of Time.
Meng Chuan watched it. Its mere appearance brought a faint force of rejection.
"First step," Meng Chuan murmured. The power of reincarnation surged, and unobservable threads emerged from every phantom at the Origin of Heaven and Earth, reaching into the River of Time.
The River of Time seemed to shudder, trying to repel the threads, but it failed.
The threads had changed nothing, nor were they trying to. What had already happened remained unchanged.
The River of Time allowed living beings to set foot upon it and travel upstream, so long as they did not speak with people of the past or dream of changing established events.
Meng Chuan watched closely, exerting everything he had comprehended of the Temporal Dao to calm the river.
The Other Shore Secret Art of the Heavenly Emperor of the Lifetime had an exceedingly high essence, and it helped him now.
Some threads reached far into the River of Time, while others stopped nearer. Each glowed with a distinct signal, as though calling to something.
Before long, points of light seemed to appear above the River of Time. They were not real, but illusory things akin to fragments of will, shards of memory, or Imprints of the Dao.
The instant they appeared, the River of Time reacted violently. An immense force of rejection rose to drive out the threads.
Meng Chuan moved. He drew the backlash onto himself and the Six Paths of Reincarnation behind him.
When the backlash struck, the slowly