Prologue: The Phenomenon of Time's Self-Judgment

In the Limit of the Southern Region, Time's End Sand Plain. That desolate plain flows at the edge of time, the sky like a shattered clock face, the river of time broken into countless floating fragments, each reflecting the remnants of a different era—some shimmering with the light of ancient divine wars, others reduced to nothingness and ashes after Annihilation. The entire land resembles the corpse of a dying universe, the dust filled with golden particles of time's decay. These are not sand, but fragments of cause and effect, worn away by time itself. The air has long since ceased to flow; the wind is frozen in its state billions of years ago, even sound is torn into cracks of time as it travels.

The moment Qin Yu stepped into this place, the sand beneath his feet seemed to be collapsing as if memories were crumbling, and the slightest touch of his boots evoked the afterimages of billions of years of time flowing by. The light from the sky no longer shone in straight lines, but twisted into arc-shaped rivers of light, sometimes slow, sometimes too fast to capture. The entire Time's End Sand Plain seemed to be time's last breath before its end, everything on the verge of collapse and Threshold.

Suddenly, an invisible pulse emanated from the depths of the earth. It wasn't Spiritual Qi, but the heartbeat of the "end of time." A light pattern appeared between Qin Yu's brows, and the Nine-Wheel True Evolution Dharma Wheel in his sea of consciousness began to rotate on their own. The * Limitless Yuan Absorption Art * resonated within him, seemingly echoing the rhythm of that heartbeat. The sands of heaven and earth began to flow backward, and grains of stardust swirled and coalesced into a spiraling storm of gold and black. This storm wasn't energy, but a distorted torrent formed by countless "past selves" and "future possibilities" overlapping at the same point in time.

Immediately afterwards, the sky emitted a low, shattering sound—like the hands of an ancient clock being forcibly snapped. The entire celestial canopy began to collapse into layers of time membranes, and golden light poured down from the cracks, flowing into the ground like a waterfall. These streams of light were not simply energy, but the source of the formation of "Time Endpoint Dust"—the remnants of existence after billions of epochs had been compressed, collapsed, and annihilated, shimmering with indescribable brilliance, much like the universe in its final breath before death.

Qin Yu raised his hand, and the dust of time gathered in his palm, layer upon layer, gradually turning into fine silver-black powder, shimmering with a starlight-like glow as it flowed. It was as light as a dream, yet as heavy as the core of an era, each grain carrying the logic of end and rebirth. Qin Yu could sense that if he absorbed it any longer, his physical body and Spiritual Sense would be deconstructed by time itself. So he slowly closed his eyes, and the Limitless True Evolution Core within his body circulated with radiance, resonating with the dust at a low frequency, recognizing and merging with it—like two universes embracing each other.

The sky suddenly darkened. The next moment, the flow of time in the entire Time's End Sand Plain stopped. Even light froze in mid-air, and the world was left with only Qin Yu and the "Time Endpoint Dust" floating on his fingertips. It rotated slightly, emitting a faint light that flowed like stars, like the heart of a memory, shining in the last moments of time's collapse.

In that silent instant, billions of years of timeline were compressed into a single point, which exploded in Qin Yu's palm into a silent galaxy. Countless scenes of time and space were rewound, as if he were witnessing the Source of Epochless —the moment when chaos first opened, light and darkness were not yet separated, and existence and Non-Existence were entangled with each other.

He stood at the Time's End, surrounded by layers of reversed light, his long hair and robes dragged against the flow of time, like a solitary figure standing at the edge of eternity. Qin Yu whispered:

"This is the end of time... and also a new beginning."

As soon as he finished speaking, the light and shadow of the entire Time's End Sand Plain collapsed into a single point, and the world restarted once again. Those "Time Endpoint Dust" were drawn into the Clear Evolution Core by him, transforming into eternally rotating microstars, quietly sleeping in the depths of annihilation.

At this moment—the world loses its color, starlight rewinds, the corpse of time dissolves in the wind, only Qin Yu stands at the end of all time, surrounded by slowly flowing gray light, the breath of time, the Eternal Stillness before the restart of an era.

At the edge of the Time's End Sand Plain, time itself ceased to flow, becoming like a dead sea—still, heavy, and silent. With each step, Qin Yu could hear the "crackling of time bones" beneath his feet, the sound of countless years being trampled into ashes. Nine dark golden sunsets hung in the sky, not as sources of light, but as reflections of shattered time, slowly burning and radiating an indescribable, ancient oppression. The wind had long since lost its direction, and grains of sand floated against the flow of time, like a group of stars flowing backward.

The moment Qin Yu stepped into the heart of the sand plain, the air suddenly shattered. The rift wasn't a tear in space, but rather a disruption of the "sequence of time." The surrounding scenery began to shift erratically—one moment he stood atop the heavens, the next he plummeted into the abyss of the earth. Distant mountains collapsed, reformed, and collapsed again at a reversible pace; starlight flowed upwards in reverse, like ten thousand rivers rushing to the sky.

In this illusory world where time is disordered, Qin Yu saw another version of himself.

The figure wore the same robes, wielded the Silent Origin Stainless Sword, and had the same Wuji True Evolution Light flashing between his brows, yet his aura was completely different—it was a "cold and lonely Qin Yu" whose emotions had been worn away by countless wars, choices, and destructions. His eyes were empty, yet they reflected the torrent of memories from countless epochs. He slowly raised his head and met the gaze of the real Qin Yu.

"Who... are you?" Qin Yu asked in a deep voice.

That cold, lonely figure chuckled softly, yet silently. "I am the future you have banished. The embodiment of all 'regret'."

As those words were spoken, the surrounding space instantly collapsed. Countless clones of Qin Yu appeared simultaneously—some were swallowed up by the flow of time and turned to ashes, some lay in the illusion of the Annihilation Abyss City, and some were even slaughtering gods and destroying worlds. Each one was a possible "fragment of Qin Yu's destiny," and each pair of eyes carried an unavoidable question.

They asked in unison, "If you could do it all over again, would you choose not to walk this path of annihilation?"

The air vibrated, and countless echoes reverberated through the Time's End Sand Plain, as if time itself were judging him. Each question was like a knock from billions of epochs, stirring up long-buried pain from the depths of his memory.

Qin Yu's chest tightened, and the Limitless True Evolution Core within his body began to tremble slightly. The emotions of those phantoms flowed into his sea of consciousness—the ecstasy of slaughter, the sorrow of loss, the hesitation of redemption... All the contradictions swept over him like a tidal wave, and his consciousness began to waver.

A familiar voice echoed deep within her consciousness; it was Azure Ring's faint soul voice. "Little Qinzi, don't let them devour you... These are just 'possibilities of the past,' not you."

However, Qin Yu's figure began to blur. He saw himself from picking up the broken sword in the ruins of the Annihilation Realm as a child to standing at the peak of Wuji. All the scenes of his destiny spun rapidly within his body, eventually condensing into a band of light that pierced straight into his brow.

A cold, solitary figure raises a sword, its blade bearing the marks of time, as if severing the flow of years. "If you cannot even deny your own past, what right do you have to control the future?"

This sword strike did not sever an external object, but rather Qin Yu's own "form of belief."

Before the sword light even arrived, the space-time around Qin Yu began to shatter into fine sand, and even his own consciousness was torn into billions of pieces by time. He saw countless versions of himself dying in different ways—betrayed, annihilated, swallowed by nothingness, each scene like a real death.

"Is this... the judgment of time?" he murmured, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

He slowly raised his head, his radiance dimmed, yet he did not retreat.

"If all destinies are cycles of reincarnation, then I am the one who has broken free from the cycle."

The next moment, the Limitless True Evolution Core within Qin Yu's body erupted with extremely terrifying energy ripples. The Nine-Wheel True Evolution Dharma Wheel simultaneously unfolded, forming a reverse flow of time around him, reversing the flow of the entire Sand Plain. The billions of illusory "Qin Yu" instantly solidified, turning into ashes and dust, and converging into his body.

The heavens and earth began to tremble. The power of judgment began to dissipate, turning into stardust and falling to the ground. Qin Yu's figure stood upright in the collapsing spacetime rift, his gaze as firm as ever.

In that instant of collapse, a deep, ancient voice echoed from the depths of heaven and earth, as if time itself were whispering:

"First Judgment—Shatter Illusion, Unite. You may now face the Second Judgment: Eternal Decline."

Qin Yu said softly, "Come on."

The sky split open, and an ancient sun of time slowly rose.

The next test is about to begin.

At the edge of the sky, the ancient sun of time slowly rose, but its color was not gold; instead, it was a wheel of death light interwoven with gray, silver, and black. Its light was not warm, but coldly shone on Qin Yu, stretching his shadow into countless different curves of destiny. Each shadow was a future version of him—either decaying, annihilated, or utterly Emptiness.

As the "Death Sun" rose into the sky, the entire Time's End Sand Plain fell still once more. The wind stopped blowing, the sand stopped falling, and even the light was frozen in the air. Qin Yu's body trembled slightly, because he clearly felt that time was stripping away his existence.

His hands began to age, his skin faded, his flesh dried up, and his bones cracked, as if life was being slowly erased. Then, this aging did not proceed along a timeline, but happened "simultaneously": half of his body transformed into the form of a child, while the other half became a twilight figure with white hair reaching the ground, as if time had been torn in two directions within him.

This is the second trial— the Trial of Constant Decay.

The voice of heaven and earth resounded once more, deep and resonant like an ancient bell that has not been struck for ten thousand years:

All things decay, nothing lasts forever. If you wish to control the end of time, you must first accept 'eternal annihilation'.

Countless streams of light descended from the sky; these were the shadows of gods, emperors, saints, and Realm Master swallowed by time. They transformed into sands of time, swirling around Qin Yu, each ray containing traces of decay accumulated over billions of years. Qin Yu watched as his body gradually shattered under their radiance, even his soul was aging rapidly. He felt his memories, beliefs, and even his "reason for existence" being worn down by time.

Azure Ring's voice echoed deep within his consciousness, "Little Qinzi, stop now—that's the very essence of time erasing you! If you continue to resist, not only your physical body, but even the 'observed you' will disappear!"

Qin Yu lowered his eyes slightly, his voice low and deep. "If time denies me, then I cease to exist within time."

He slowly raised his hands, and the Limitless True Evolution Core between his brows began to circulate. Nine-Wheel True Evolution Dharma Wheel appeared in the void, and what flowed between the wheels was no longer energy, but—stillness. Each wheel reflected a still universe, where light ceased to propagate, thought ceased to continue, and sound never arrived.

"Limitless Yuan Absorption Art - Reversal Stage - Sever Time and Return to Constancy!"

As Qin Yu uttered a low shout, the flowing dust of time suddenly reversed, its descent trajectory began to rise, the aging ground was reborn, and the broken mountains returned to wholeness. Qin Yu's body reformed; he was no longer defined by time, but became an existence "outside of time."

Silent ripples spread from his body, and the "Sun of Death" in the sky began to crack. The endless flow of time within it poured down like overflowing molten gold, transforming into countless fragments of time. Each fragment reflected a scene of a world collapsing: an era burned out, stars extinguished, emperors turned to ashes...

Standing amidst the fragments, Qin Yu murmured softly, "Eternal decay... is merely another form of constancy."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Limitless True Evolution Core within his body suddenly erupted with a silent white light. The light had no brightness, yet it swallowed all colors. Time lost its meaning—the past was no longer in front, the future was no longer behind, and everything returned to the infinite extension of the "present."

In the sky, the dead sun exploded into countless streams of light, which fell to the earth and transformed into countless silver-black dust particles—the true primordial form of Time Endpoint Dust.

However, just as Qin Yu reached out to remove a speck of dust, the entire Time's End Sand Plain suddenly trembled. An ancient consciousness awakened from the depths of time—a colossal phantom formed from the afterglow of countless eras, shaped like a three-eyed serpent with an eight-armed human body, its body entwined with streams of light that reversed time. Its eyes flickered with the birth and death cycles of billions of worlds, and with each blink, an era collapsed.

That is -- the remnant of time's mastery, the Soul of Time Evolution.

It stared at Qin Yu, its voice devoid of emotion:

"Your constancy is a blasphemy against time. All who touch the end of time will be reduced to ashes."

Qin Yu's fingers tightened slightly, and the dust in his palm spun, emitting starlight.

"If time rejects me—" He raised his head, his eyes as deep as the Star Abyss, "Then I will use 'Non-Observation Extinction Aspect' to make time itself—unobservable."

The world suddenly darkened, and billions of dust particles were swept into a violent vortex of light.