Why Did I Travel Further Back in Time?

The dizziness of traveling through time and space quietly faded, and Gu Yue regained consciousness.

The scene around him was still the same as it had been before he used the Time-Reversal Trajectory.

When this space had first been created, it had been nothing but a vast, cold darkness. But over the two thousand years that had passed in ancient times, his meticulous work had transformed that former void into a place brimming with life.

Smooth, verdant grass spread beneath his feet. Several simple, orderly wooden houses stood quietly amid the greenery, and a clear, sweet stream wound through it all, its flowing water making a delicate, tinkling sound.

At the center of the land, the Ancient Tree of Life had sunk its roots deep into the earth, and its crystalline green branches and leaves shed streams of radiant light.

Gu Yue stretched his body, now at its peak, and felt terrifyingly strong.

In ancient times, even after he had recovered his God Level combat strength, the injuries within his body had followed him like a shadow.

He had even considered figuring out how to make the painkillers from his previous life and popping them like sugar beans every day.

In the end, though he possessed the Creation Godhead, he knew nothing about medicine and could not make them. He could only rely on divine power to block out his body's pain.

Otherwise, if he had to endure those injuries twenty-four hours a day, even he would have spent all day sleeping, just like Gu Yuena.

Now that he had arrived in a later age, his body was flawless, and he no longer had to endure that torment.

With the experience of his last journey through time, he did not disturb the Goddess of Life, who had likewise fallen asleep, or Gu Yuena, who was sleeping soundly in the Sea of Consciousness.

He quietly spread out his divine sense, and his whole body paused.

"Hm? Something's not right. Let me look again..."

Then a series of expressions played across Gu Yue's face.

The Clear Sky Sect was now at the height of its power. Tang Hao still looked young and inexperienced, a completely different person from the middle-aged Tang Hao he had seen last time... All right, on closer inspection, he still looked like a rough, burly man.

Meanwhile, a farce was playing out beyond the gates of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan in Thunder Canyon.

Several clan disciples disdainfully tossed a coarse cloth bundle to the foot of the steps and laughed uproariously at a man with a crew cut.

"Gangzi, what makes trash like you think you belong in the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan? You're a disgrace."

"You can't even break through to level thirty in Soul Power, yet you go around saying there are no trash Martial Souls, only trash Soul Masters. So you're talking about yourself, huh?"

"Exactly, exactly! You carry the grand title of the clan leader's precious son and live off the clan's resources for free, but I bet you have less Soul Power than you have hairs on that crew cut. Hahaha-"

"You've come of age today and are officially expelled from the clan. Get lost, and quit being an eyesore."

At the foot of the steps, a figure with a crew cut, dressed in a long black scholar's robe, stood rigid amid everyone's jeers.

He was gaunt and scrawny, his facial muscles stiff and rigid. His face turned from green to white, then from white to black.

Even after suffering such a monumental humiliation, Yu Xiao Gang... oh no, he was Yu Xiaogang now,

His shriveled maggot body still instinctively held itself ramrod straight, trying to recover a little confidence.

But faced with those mocking looks, he could only grit his teeth, pick up the bundle from the ground, and turn away without a word, walking off at a brisk pace.

Watching this scene, Gu Yue was baffled for a moment.

"Why has the timeline started flowing backward?"

The last time he had arrived in Douluo I, it had at least been the point when Tang Hao and Tang Xiao were traveling the continent and met Ah Yin.

Why, this time, had the timeline not only failed to flow downstream, but instead gone straight upstream to the time when Gangzi was expelled from his clan?

Yu Xiaogang had only just come of age, and he was less than ten years younger than Tang Hao. In other words, there were still years to go before the point at which Gu Yue had arrived last time.

He wanted to see how things would develop if his stay this time lasted until the point of his previous arrival.

Putting his tangled thoughts aside, Gu Yue woke Ah Yin, who had also been sleeping.

A gentle breeze swept across the meadow, stirring rings of soft blue-gold light, and Ah Yin slowly opened her eyes.

Gu Yue set up an invisible barrier to keep their movements from disturbing anyone else.

Ah Yin respectfully curtsied. "Ah Yin greets you, my lord."

Gu Yue nodded slightly and looked at her. "How have you carried out the task I gave you before I went to sleep all those years ago?"

When Gu Yue asked about it, a hint of embarrassment and helplessness appeared on Ah Yin's face.

"My lord... the Holy Spirit Hall as it is now is rather difficult to describe."

"After you went to sleep, they struggled to survive on the continent, worshipping the Holy Spirit from generation to generation. Later, the human Soul Master system gradually took shape, and various powers rose to prominence. The Holy Spirit Hall adhered to your old instructions and was unwilling to involve itself too deeply in worldly disputes. Once the Soul Master system had matured, a later high priest simply took the entire clan into seclusion and ceased concerning himself with the outside world."

"Now the whole clan barely numbers two or three hundred people, and the current high priest's cultivation has only reached the Soul Saint realm."

Seeing Gu Yue frown slightly, Ah Yin hurriedly added:

"Then, tens of thousands of years ago, powerful humans began to emerge one after another, and two even became gods in succession. I was afraid of exposing my identity, so I had no choice but to retreat here. Before that, I followed your orders faithfully and lent them a hand whenever they faced an overwhelming calamity. If not for that, they probably would have perished in the long passage of time."

Gu Yue extended his divine sense in the direction Ah Yin had given him and indeed found the Holy Spirit Hall in a remote little city within the Heaven Dou Empire.

The entire clan had settled quietly in a corner of the world, living in seclusion.

Gu Yue stood beneath the Ancient Tree of Life, watching its emerald branches and leaves sway gently in the wind, lost in thought.

Was this the mysterious tendency of events to converge?

He had planted a seed in ancient times, believing it could stir up towering waves in later ages. Yet after hundreds of thousands of years of great waves washing away the sand, the continent's overall balance of power had still been pulled back onto its original course by an invisible trajectory.

Gu Yue withdrew his divine sense and continued, "What about Soul Tools? Did you make copies and bring them back?"

At that, Ah Yin blinked, her eyes full of bewilderment. "What Soul Tools?"

Gu Yue's voice faltered slightly. "Before I went to sleep, didn't I tell you to secretly copy and bring back any Soul Tools that appeared in the outside world?"

Ah Yin shook her head in a panic and hurried to explain:

"My lord, please understand. Before you went to sleep, you clearly gave me only two instructions: first, to secretly lend the Holy Spirit Hall a hand if it faced destruction; second, to retreat here immediately if I risked exposing myself. As for collecting Soul Tools... you definitely never gave me that order."

Seeing Gu Yue fall into thought, Ah Yin feared she had displeased him and hurriedly told him everything she knew of the past.

"However, Soul Tools did briefly appear hundreds of thousands of years ago. Long ago, primitive humans found Martial Soul cultivation difficult and were still weak before Soul Beasts, so they took an unconventional path and came up with all sorts of Soul Tools. At first, they shot and killed quite a few low-level Soul Beasts."

"But the continent was full of Soul Beasts back then, and the humans' actions enraged the high-level Soul Beasts, triggering successive beast tides. In just a few decades, humanity's fledgling Soul Tools were utterly destroyed by the beast tides."

"After that, the path of Soul Tools was completely severed, and only then did humans turn their full attention to Martial Soul cultivation."

After hearing her report, Gu Yue said nothing. It was much as he had guessed.

But he had clearly given that instruction himself back then, so why was Ah Yin certain she had never heard it?

Gu Yue suppressed his doubts and studied Ah Yin once more.

Sensing the presence she gave off, Gu Yue asked curiously, "How many tens of thousands of years have passed over this long stretch of time? And what happened to your cultivation?"

At the question, Ah Yin's body stiffened slightly, and an enduring resentment welled up in her eyes.

She looked at Gu Yue with quiet reproach, her voice full of grievance. "It's been too long. I stopped keeping track ages ago... You slept so peacefully, but did you know I was forced to cultivate all over again?"

Gu Yue looked momentarily startled. "I left a lightning tower back then. How did you end up having to cultivate all over again? By all rights, as long as you hadn't reached God Level, you should have been able to get through the lightning tribulations."