The spiritual energy storm in the Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley lasted all night.
As the first rays of dawn pierced through the valley, Hoshino remained standing quietly in the center of the valley, her eyes closed, the mark between her brows shimmering faintly.
His consciousness seemed to be pulled into a strange space.
There was no distinction between up, down, left, or right, no concept of the passage of time, only countless interwoven lines and nodes, unfolding before his eyes like the veins of the universe.
Countless fragments of memory erupted.
Hoshino reached out and touched a floating fragment. Suddenly, one of the fragments magnified, revealing a disheveled man.
The person's body flickered between reality and illusion, and star-like patterns appeared beneath the panel. His unfocused gaze pierced through time and space to meet his eyes.
"Save... me..." The hoarse voice exploded in Hoshino's mind.
Hoshino immediately realized that this was a fragment of Gu Jiting's consciousness.
After comprehending the Grand Luo Insight, the creator of the Eight Extraordinary Skills was able to freely observe higher-dimensional spacetime, but he also lost the anchor point of 'now' and became a prisoner of spacetime.
"Interesting." Hoshino simply sat down cross-legged, his long gray hair moving without any wind.
He attempted to set up the Qimen Formation, only to discover that the spacetime rules of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley were interfering with the execution of the spell, causing the formation that appeared on the ground to twist and deform as soon as it took shape.
It seems the dimensions here are more complex than we imagined.
The rubble was suspended in the air, and a fragment with the word "Valley" engraved on it suddenly shot towards Hoshino's eyebrows.
The surrounding scenery changed once again.
Snow suddenly fell in the scorching summer solstice region, and wildflowers at the beginning of spring withered and bloomed again in an instant.
At the center of the distorted spacetime, a semi-transparent humanoid figure slowly coalesced, its body constantly switching between the forms of a youth and an old man.
" Gu Jiting?" Hoshino did not get up, but secretly circulated his Nascent Soul power.
Through the crystal-clear spiritual vision, he saw countless fine threads wrapped around the other person's body; these were the torn timelines that had fragmented Gu Jiting's existence into countless pieces.
Ordinary superhumans can only see a certain segment of time, but with the blessing of the Seven Extraordinary Techniques and his experience in contact with higher dimensions, he is able to observe his entire temporal state simultaneously.
"You can see me?" The figure's voice was distorted, like electronic noise. "Five years... no, maybe fifty years... this is the first time someone has been able to see me in my entirety!"
Hoshino's heart stirred. The Grand Luo Insight had made him an observer of time and space, but also a prisoner.
Gu Jiting's illusory figure flickered violently, and when he raised his hand to touch Hoshino, it passed right through his shoulder.
"When I was fleeing back then, I returned to the valley to contemplate, and I saw too many branches of time, parallel worlds... In the end, I forgot how to return to the anchor point of 'the present'."
Hoshino understood.
This is like one's relationship with Jashin; while gaining extraordinary power, one also bears a corresponding price.
"So you want me to pull you out of the spacetime rift, what's the price?"
"The complete lineage of the Grand Luo Insight." Gu Jiting's illusory figure pointed to the Jingzhe region, "My physical body is hidden there... If you can..."
Before he could finish speaking, his image was suddenly stretched and distorted.
Hoshino swiftly unleashed a modified version of the Spirit Restraint and General Dispatch, the gray-white energy chains binding the vanishing phantom.
Intricate purification runes appeared on the chain of locks, a new application incorporating the Priestess Power.
Tell me the exact location!
The chains trembled violently, Gu Jiting's face was contorted in pain. "The stone tablet... below... look carefully..."
With a bang, the phantom exploded into specks of light.
The chains in Hoshino's hands tightened suddenly, grasping only a wisp of remaining Qi.
Hoshino gazed thoughtfully at the sky.
The light network of the twenty-four mountain ridges had somehow woven into a structure resembling an armillary sphere, with a clock made of spiritual energy suspended in the center.
The clock hand rotates clockwise and counterclockwise.
This wasn't a reversal of time, but a memory rewind. He suddenly realized that the Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley itself was a huge memory vessel.
Hoshino's steps toward the Awakening of Insects area suddenly changed, and he headed instead toward the Frostfall area, which was opposite to it.
This seemingly unusual action actually reflects his profound understanding of the rules of space and time.
Since the Awakening of Insects represents the beginning of the revival of all things, then the Frost's Descent, which corresponds to it, should be the end point of the return of all things to their dormancy.
Moreover, he didn't trust Gu Jiting; the other party was clearly trying to cover something up.
A person trapped in a time warp... longs to find a 'substitute'.
When Hoshino stood at the boundary between Frost's Descent and the Beginning of Winter, thirty-six marks of varying depths suddenly appeared on the ground beneath his feet.
These marks left by the Thirty-Six Thieves back then now take on a completely new meaning in the Nascent Soul's vision.
The three deeper indentations form an equilateral triangle, with each vertex pointing to a different spacetime coordinate.
"I see." A look of understanding flashed in Hoshino's eyes.
The area around the Awakening of Insects (Jingzhe) is the bait; the true 'anchor point' must meet three conditions: the opposition of location, the closure of time, and... the necessity of cause and effect!
"Open!"
The ground silently sank, and the hidden cellar, sealed for many years, finally saw the light of day again.
A putrid smell wafted over, mixed with the bitter aftertaste of some kind of burning herb.
Hoshino ignited a flame at his fingertips, illuminating the mummified corpse sitting cross-legged in the center of the cellar.
The corpse's panel was covered with star patterns, a broken dagger was stuck in its chest, the kerosene lamp hanging on the wall had long since dried up, and yellowed notebooks were scattered in the corner.
"Suicide?" Hoshino frowned and approached.
"Finally... it's here...!"
The mummified corpse suddenly raised its head, and a ghostly blue Kakkō shone from its empty eye sockets, its jaw opening and closing mechanically.
Hoshino noticed that there were complex arrays drawn around the corpse, exactly the same as those on the stone tablet, except that they were painted with some kind of mineral pigment, which had not faded over the years.
It seems that Gu Jiting had made preparations long ago and had guessed that a clever person would be able to find the real location.
"Your physical body is long dead," Hoshino said calmly.
The mummified corpse let out a laugh like sandpaper scraping, "Clever... The Grand Luo Insight allowed me to foresee all possibilities... except for my own end!"
"Thank goodness you're here!"
Hoshino sneered, "You want to possess me, to let my soul take your place? To become the next prisoner of time and space? How naive!"
He suddenly reached out and pressed his hand on the top of the mummified corpse's head, and the red and blue Qi light from Twin Hands erupted simultaneously.
"Forget it, I'll just look at it myself!"
A torrent of memories swept in.
In his youth, Gu Jiting meditated in the Solar Terms Valley, accidentally triggering a dimensional ascension that allowed him to see countless branches of parallel worlds.
On the eve of the Jiashen Incident, he foresaw the tragic end of the Thirty-Six Thieves and tried to change it, but this only led to an even worse outcome.
Ultimately, in despair, he returned to the Solar Terms Valley and laid the groundwork for this scheme that transcends time and space...
"You deliberately let your physical body die, scattering your consciousness across the spatial rifts. All this was to wait for someone who could withstand the side effects of the Grand Luo Insight."
The eerie blue Kakkō of the mummified corpse flickered slightly, as if silently acknowledging this fact.
The long wait has finally turned around.
Fifty years, a hundred years, or perhaps even longer—the rivers of time converge at this moment.
The dagger in his chest was melting, the molten metal seeping into the meticulously arranged patterns on the ground.
Each rune that lights up signifies taking another step closer to freedom.
Accepting the legacy is just the beginning; observing spacetime is the real trap.
The best time for consciousness transfer is when that young man begins to explore the mysteries of higher dimensions.
If successful.
He will no longer be a ghost torn apart by time and space, but a being reborn in a completely new form.
At this moment, the dagger in the mummy's chest had completely dissolved, turning into a silver liquid that flowed within the ground array.
The runes drawn with mineral pigments now pulsated like veins, and the dark red light illuminated the entire cellar as if it were a purgatory.
Hoshino is being eroded by a strange force.
This is not a brutal invasion, but a kind of assimilation in a higher dimension, like dropping a drop of ink into clear water, allowing the two to gradually blend together.
To his dismay, Hoshino had already experienced this feeling, and the opponent he faced was even more bizarre and powerful.
The eerie blue Kakkō emanating from the mummified corpse suddenly began to flicker violently.
The silver liquid that had seeped into the ground began to flow backward, and the runes that had been lit up went out one by one.
Gu Jiting's consciousness traversed time and space frantically, trying to find an 'anchor point' connecting him to Hoshino.
Those crucial moments that should exist in everyone's life trajectory.
wrong!
The mummified corpse's finger bones twitched unconsciously; his timeline... how could it be so thin?
In Gu Jiting's spatial-temporal perspective, Hoshino's existence is like an abrupt straight line, only appearing suddenly in the last five months, before which it was nothingness.
There is no trace of childhood, no path of growth, and even the most basic causal connections are extremely rare.
But the other party is clearly from this world; that much is certain.
What terrified him even more was that when he tried to peer into the future of the Hoshino through the Grand Luo Insight, what he saw was not a branching timeline, but a distorted vortex.
This also triggered some ancient and terrifying being, which used this as a medium to greedily devour his fragments of consciousness.
"You only realize it now? You chose the wrong person from the very beginning!" Hoshino's cold laughter echoed in the cellar.
The mummified corpse's resistance grew weaker and weaker.
The carefully arranged runes began to crumble, Gu Jiting finally realized his fatal mistake.
The power of the Grand Luo Insight is based on 'observability', while the existence of the Hoshino itself is a spacetime paradox.
There is no past, no future, like a crack in spacetime!
As the last vestige of his consciousness was devoured by the Jashin's contract, Gu Jiting's body was completely reduced to ashes.
Hoshino slowly withdrew his palm, and a ball of flowing starlight appeared in his palm. It was Gu Jiting's lifelong understanding of the Grand Luo Insight, which he had now fully obtained.
The cellar began to shake violently, and the ancient runes on the walls began to peel off.
With the complete demise of Gu Jiting, this time-space node that has been maintained for decades is about to collapse.
Hoshino turned and walked toward the exit, and with each step he took, the space behind him collapsed a little more.
The moment he stepped out of the cellar, the spiritual energy of the entire Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley suddenly calmed down, as if a storm that had lasted for half a century had finally subsided.
One month later.
Hoshino sat alone in the center of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley, her long gray hair swaying gently in the vortex of spiritual energy.
With the passing of Gu Jiting, this ancient valley finally regained its original appearance.
It is no longer a prison of time and space, but a natural sacred place for spiritual practice.
As the sun rises and sets, the mysteries of the Grand Luo Insight take root and sprout within him, intertwining with the seven extraordinary skills, where the flowing starlight and the spiritual energy of the Solar Terms Valley reflect each other.
On the agreed-upon last day, the purple pillar of light from the Dragon Vein arrived as promised.
Hoshino calmly stood up, took one last look around the valley that had given him strength, and then stepped into the pillar of light without hesitation.
The surrounding air seemed to freeze.
Fallen leaves hovered in mid-air, and the flowing stream remained still as a mirror.
The entire Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley fell into absolute silence at this moment, as if time itself had stopped flowing.
Hoshino, inside the pillar of light, felt a strange pulling sensation. His body became light and transparent, and he could see his palms appearing and disappearing in the light.
Countless tiny points of light converged from all directions, forming a dazzling galaxy around him.
Suddenly, the beam of light trembled violently.
Hoshino looked up and saw that the sky above was distorting and deforming.
A huge crack was torn open in the clouds, revealing the deep starry sky behind it. It was clearly no ordinary night sky; the stars were arranged in strange patterns, like an ancient star map slowly unfolding.
at the same time.
In the vast depths of the universe, a silent but momentous transformation is unfolding.
At the edge of the solar system where Blue Star is located, space ripples like water.
Subtle ripples appeared on the planet's trajectory, and the comet's trailing flame twisted eerily.
The distant stars flickered, as if observing the world through an invisible membrane.
In another dimension of the Shinobi World universe, the energy of the Dragon Vein transformed into countless purple ribbons of light, winding and stretching through the void, searching for something like living beings.
Ultimately, they all point in the same direction: the cosmic coordinates of Blue Star.
The two universes are like two mirrors gradually approaching each other, and the Blue Star is located at the point where they are about to touch.
The moment Hoshino completely disappeared into the pillar of light from the Dragon Vein, the two 'mirrors' finally touched gently.
In an instant, the entire solar system was enveloped in a pale purple halo.
This light, gentle yet unstoppable, pierces through the atmosphere, sweeps across mountains and rivers, and coats everything with a dreamlike hue.
The ocean rippled with unusual waves, the trees in the forest swayed without wind, and even the tiniest dust motes trembled gently in the halo of light.
In the Shinobi World, the same strange phenomenon is unfolding.
Purple aurora filled the entire sky, the flow of Chakra became more active than ever before, and the Tailed Beast roared to the sky, as if welcoming the arrival of a new era.
Hoshino knew nothing about this.
When he stepped out of the Dragon Vein Passage and his feet Jonin World, the two universes had already established a permanent connection through this journey.
Blue Star became the gateway to this connection, a special node existing between the two worlds.
A brand new star quietly appeared in the night sky.
It emits a soft purple light, shining simultaneously in the skies of both the Shinobi World and Blue Star, like a lighthouse, forever marking the connection between the two worlds.
Under its light, the fates of the two universes became inextricably intertwined.