A fragment of the future

The Tianxuan Saintess admitted, "I've heard a little."

"I heard that when you first joined the holy land, Fellow Daoist Luo, your reason was that you admired a peerless woman. Now it seems you weren't quite so enamored-or perhaps you never admired her at all!" she said softly in her lilting voice.

She truly deserved her reputation as the greatest beauty of six thousand years ago. Faced with that tone, even a cultivator at Luo Yan's level could not help being entranced.

"The ancestor asked me to inquire, Senior: did you see a glimpse of the future? Did the Tianxuan Holy Land ultimately succeed?" This time, the Tianxuan Saintess no longer addressed him as "Fellow Daoist," but as "Senior." In the end, she could not resist turning to serious matters.

The Tianxuan Saintess stared at him. He clearly looked about her age, yet he was a legendary cultivator above the Saint realm, on par with her own ancestor. It was truly difficult to comprehend.

After a moment of silence, Luo Yan said, "Throughout history, how many outstanding heroes, how many mighty overlords, how many ancient emperors failed to succeed? If a Road to Immortality exists in this world, why has it buried countless supreme beings and gods, leaving only a misty, elusive legend?"

Without mentioning a single detail, he had already made the outcome clear.

Still unwilling to accept it, the Tianxuan Saintess continued, "Then will the holy land decline because of this?"

Luo Yan did not answer directly. Instead, he said, "I captured a fragment of the future from the River of Time. Once you see it, Saintess, you'll understand."

He took out a damaged mirror and placed it before him. The Time Mirror slowly changed, revealing a silent world without people or the smoke of hearths. Only Divine Meridians lay dormant there, and the terrain promised a grand flourishing rarely seen throughout the ages. This place clearly resembled a land destined for greatness, sacred soil upon which to found a nation or establish a faith, yet there was not a trace of life. It was deeply unsettling.

Luo Yan needed no explanation. With a single glance, the Tianxuan Saintess recognized the place. Disbelief covered her once breathtaking face, and she turned deathly pale, stumbling backward again and again as she muttered, "Impossible! Absolutely impossible! How could it turn out like that?"

A transcendent holy land at the height of its glory, blazing like the midday sun, would actually be utterly destroyed in the future simply because it attacked a forbidden zone.

No one could have accepted such a reality!

Even the Tianxuan Saintess could not help suspecting that everything within the Time Mirror was false! An entire holy land annihilated merely because it attacked a forbidden zone-who would believe that? Were forbidden zones truly so terrifying? Horror filled her heart.

"Senior, is this image truly a fragment of the future captured from the River of Time?" the Tianxuan Saintess asked solemnly. Her flawless face seemed unable to accept such an ending.

It was indeed an image of the future, only it had not been captured from the river. It was a projection.

The Time Mirror contained a recorded image of the Tianxuan Holy Land's former site in the future, something Luo Yan had discovered by chance.

Traveling through the River of Time was far too extraordinary. Even an Immortal King might not be able to accomplish it. Luo Yan himself was an exception.

Strictly speaking, he was a stowaway who had exploited a loophole in the Time Law to smuggle himself into the history of the past.

Facing her hopeful gaze, Luo Yan merely put away the Time Mirror without saying anything more. He had already indirectly told this Saintess the Tianxuan Holy Land's ultimate fate. Whether she believed him was none of his concern. Surely he could not tell everyone in the holy land that he came from six thousand years in the future?

They would most likely consider him a madman.

Even revealing this much had burdened him with tremendous karma, for which he might well face a reckoning in the future. It counted as repayment for the Tianxuan Holy Land's gift of the Nine Secrets: Xing.

Before long, the Tianxuan Saintess departed with a heavy heart. Having received such an answer, she did not know whether to feel joy or sorrow.

Luo Yan had no way of knowing whether the Tianxuan Holy Land would still ultimately mobilize its entire order to attack the Desolate Forbidden Zone. Now, he only needed to wait for the deity within the Time Mirror to awaken, and that day... was not far off!

Luo Yan could sense that the Origin of Time within the Time Mirror had almost been fully refined. The once-shattered little mirror fragments had now coalesced into a large, flawless section, one-tenth the size of the entire mirror's surface.

Outside Brilliant Peak.

The battle between Wei Yi and Yun Yue had also drawn to a close. As expected, Wei Yi had lost.

Yet the holy land's disciples were unexpectedly silent.

Wei Yi, who was only in the Dao Palace Secret Realm, had actually managed to trade blows evenly with Yun Yue of the Four Extremes Secret Realm!

At last, everyone understood the true worth of the Three Heroes of Tianxuan!

Their talent alone left everyone else far behind!

"Father..."

"Let it go. From now on, whenever you encounter that man, show him due respect." Yun Shan naturally heard the resentment in his son's voice. They had intended to suppress Wei Yi and the others, only to become his whetstone instead.

Yun Yue felt utterly humiliated. That man had never once looked him squarely in the eye from beginning to end. He had merely sent a child not even ten years old to deal with him!

He had won this battle, yet he had also lost!

Time flowed on as always.

Three days later.

Ancestor Nanyang returned to the holy land wounded, carrying the Emperor Weapon. There was indeed a road beneath the Desolate Forbidden Zone. At its entrance stood a stone tablet, upon which the three great characters for "Road to Immortality" had been carved, enduring unchanged through the ages!

The moment this news spread, the entire holy land erupted.

Becoming an Immortal!

How many people throughout the ages had pursued that dream? How many mighty overlords had fallen upon this road to immortality strewn with bones?

And now, a shortcut to becoming an Immortal lay before their eyes, nearly driving people mad and stripping them of reason. Even the Living Fossils sealed within Divine Source broke their seals at this moment and appeared outside the Desolate Forbidden Zone once more.

The prospect of becoming an Immortal held far too great an allure for them-so great it defied imagination, so great it was enough to drive these old monsters with little lifespan remaining into madness.

Yet compared with the excitement throughout the Eastern Wasteland, the Tianxuan Holy Land's senior figures who could truly decide whether to attack the forbidden zone were unusually quiet.

They had already learned this unbelievable news from the Tianxuan Saintess.

Before long, the entire Tianxuan Holy Land would turn to ash because of their decision to attack the Desolate Forbidden Zone. A colossal, transcendent power would collapse overnight and vanish from the world.

Had anyone else said it, they might have laughed it off. But the one who had spoken was an expert suspected of being in the Quasi-Emperor realm, an existence whose title bore the word "Emperor." Throughout the ages, such figures had all possessed the hope of attaining the Dao and becoming Great Emperors, if only they had not been born in the wrong era.

Such an outcome unquestionably exceeded both their expectations and what they could bear.

If the Tianxuan Holy Land perished because of this, they would become Tianxuan's sinners, too ashamed to face the deceased Great Emperor or the masters who had taught them.

The Tianxuan lineage absolutely could not end in their hands!

No matter what!

But they also had to attack the forbidden zone. The Road to Immortality lay right before their eyes!

That day, an old man past sixty, his vital energy and blood in decline, appeared at the foot of Brilliant Peak.

The visitor was a Great Saint-level expert with little lifespan remaining, one of the Tianxuan Holy Land's only three Great Saints: Great Saint Nanyang, a peerless expert who had ventured deep into the Desolate Forbidden Zone twice and returned intact.

Such a feat was rarely seen in this world.

One person followed behind him: the greatest beauty of the Eastern Wasteland, the Tianxuan Saintess, whose talent was peerless.

"So, this is your decision?" Luo Yan was not surprised by it. Once a holy land truly made up its mind, how could a few words from him possibly frighten it into retreat?