Old Master, Times Have Changed - Chapter 700 (Patreon)

Chapter 700: The Beginning of the Epilogue

Putting aside all the reasons above—

For a Soul Transformation cultivator, seeking a chance at “Dao Extremity” was already an immensely important matter.

You had to understand: there were many Soul Transformation cultivators in the Tai Xuan Realm, but only a very small portion truly comprehended “Dao Extremity” and gained even the faintest possibility of knocking on the Immortal Threshold.

Aside from that Dao brother’s disciple, the last person to comprehend “Dao Extremity” was from more than two thousand seven hundred years ago…

His thoughts turning, Huo’s puzzled gaze withdrew from the distance and fell instead upon the Taiyi Realm.

At this moment, the Dongming Sacred Lord was still searching everywhere across the Taiyi Realm for Yuan, as well as for Ning Wanzhu and Mingyu’s traces.

But he found nothing.

Soul Transformation was inherently a level higher. Now that Yuan was also deliberately hiding, and the Taiyi Realm had already refined a portion of Yuan’s true body—

Within the realm, the dao resonance of Yuan existed in all directions. For the Dongming Sacred Lord, who was merely at the Integration realm, trying to find him was like an ordinary person trying to pick out a particular drop of water from an entire ocean.

The difficulty went without saying.

The same was true for Ning Wanzhu and Mingyu.

A wisp of Soul Transformation power—used through Yuan, a Soul Transformation cultivator who had grasped the Tai Void and comprehended the Dao of Space—had a concealment effect that already exceeded the limit of what the Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will could lock onto.

According to the “script” Huo had revised,

He only needed to watch and wait. He didn’t need to act again.

After all, the remaining Soul Transformation power those two juniors had could, at most, maintain their concealed state for two months.

And with one wisp already spent, that left only three months.

That amount of time was nowhere near enough for Yuan to gather enough “false bodies” to establish a connection with his true body that had been sealed and suppressed by the Taiyi Realm.

In other words, Ning Wanzhu and Mingyu were guaranteed to be discovered by the Dongming Sacred Lord.

When that happened, Yuan naturally wouldn’t be able to stand by and do nothing.

But with only a sliver of clear consciousness left, he absolutely couldn’t defeat a Dongming Sacred Lord who possessed “divine favor.”

No matter how Yuan struggled, in the end he could only watch helplessly as the people he treasured most died before his eyes.

That was the “script” Huo designed for him.

The delight of reunion—

Then three months to let him relive how precious it was to have those he cherished at his side.

And finally, when the unexpected arrived, he would be forced to watch everything he cared about turn to ash.

At that time…

When he fell into despair from sheer powerlessness, he would finally reflect on everything he had done.

After all, you can teach a person with words all you want, and they still won’t learn.

But let events teach them…

Once is enough!

No one understood that truth better than he did.

With his decision made, Huo stopped hesitating. Overlooking the entire Taiyi Realm, he slowly raised his right hand.

His fingertip lightly tapped the space before him.

Glug—

A long, ethereal sound, like a droplet falling into water. A ripple spread outward from his fingertip.

It accelerated unceasingly, and in only a few seconds it radiated outward and swept across the entire Taiyi Realm.

In the unseen depths, an unknown change seemed to be forming—yet no one observed it.

The sacred kings within the Taiyi Realm, even existences at the sacred lord level, and even that sliver of consciousness Yuan had regained, all failed to notice the subtle shift taking place.

Only the Dongming Sacred Lord.

He, too, didn’t sense the fine change within the Taiyi Realm—but under the ripple’s influence, it was as if he realized something…

After finishing, Huo lowered his hand. Watching the Dongming Sacred Lord begin to move within the Tai Yi Continent, he felt a bit helpless.

Who would’ve thought that, in the end, he’d still have to “buff” the villain in the script.

“Yuan, you can’t blame me for this.”

Plans never kept up with changes.

Then Huo turned his head.

The Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will, to stay alive, was still doing its utmost to keep Yin Ling happy.

And at first, Yin Ling really had been reassured by what the Heaven’s Will said.

But because Huo had blocked her perception of what was happening inside the Taiyi Realm, and she hadn’t seen Yuan during this time, she inevitably started to worry again.

Now the Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will was frantic.

It truly didn’t want to be erased by this supreme existence!

Just as the Heaven’s Will was racking its brain and scraping its thoughts dry, trying every possible way to cheer this young mistress up…

A massive hand quietly reached out. Five fingers spread as if grasping the ten directions of the universe, and it clenched the Heaven’s Will in its grip.

“Great supreme existence! I will definitely—!”

The panicked voice hadn’t even finished before the pale silver sphere was already seized and dragged out.

Yin Ling froze on the opposite side, not understanding what had happened.

Before she could react, a calm voice reached her ears:

“It’ll be over soon…”

Over soon?

What would be over soon?

As Yin Ling grew even more confused—

In front of her, Huo held that pale silver sphere that represented the Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will.

“Your task is finished.”

“Great supreme existence! Please calm your anger, I’ll immediately—!”

But just like before, the Heaven’s Will didn’t get to finish. Huo casually tossed it away.

It flew straight out of the space Huo had severed and sealed off.

Once it left that space, it no longer maintained the pale silver sphere form. Almost the instant it broke away, it collapsed, turning into wisps of intangible, formless consciousness that reintegrated into every corner of the Taiyi Realm as “Heaven’s Will.”

Huh?

This sudden turn left the Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will deeply confused.

Originally, it had thought the great existence was dissatisfied with its performance and planned to erase it outright.

But now…

That didn’t seem to be the case at all!

After thinking briefly, the Heaven’s Will used its authority within the Taiyi Realm to observe the Dongming Sacred Lord rushing toward a certain direction.

Clearly, the being under its divine favor had already locked onto the two outsiders’ location.

But weren’t those two outsiders, as well as the outsider true god sealed by the Taiyi Realm, on the same side as that great existence?

What was the purpose of doing this?

While it pondered, the Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will failed to notice its own state.

As Heaven’s Will, it was actually experiencing many emotions it shouldn’t have—like ordinary living beings.

…

…

At the highest place of the Taiyi Realm, inside the severed space.

Huo observed the Heaven’s Will’s performance, but had no intention of intervening further.

Heaven’s Will—an unusual existence that only formed in great worlds above the Dao-reaching level—

It guided a world toward something better and possessed boundless might.

Yet at the same time, this special existence was constrained by the world’s own rules—by the “Heavenly Dao.”

Under normal circumstances, Heaven’s Will couldn’t break free of those constraints. After all, it existed precisely because of the Heavenly Dao.

But there were extreme cases—such as when a world suffered a major upheaval and its rules developed loopholes.

In such cases, because of those loopholes, Heaven’s Will could gain a sliver of possibility to slip free of the Heavenly Dao’s restrictions.

Back then, the Taiyi Realm had secretly taken a trace of Xu’s power and stabbed Yuan in the back.

But Xu, as a true god of the “Gui Xu” lineage, possessed extraordinarily special transcendent characteristics. How could her true-god power be something so easily taken?

The world’s rules developed a loophole at that very moment.

It was also because the Taiyi Realm itself was extremely special.

If “Gu” represented the beginning of all things, and “Xuan” represented the origin of the transcendent—

Then “Tai”!

It was the symbol of rules and order enduring forever, of the Dao Realm having no end.

Though it had completely perished, its body had become the boundless starry sky of the Tai Xuan Realm, and thus its dao resonance still radiated through the Chaos Sea.

It simply would not undergo any further change.

The Taiyi Realm illuminated immeasurable worlds with the world’s light, turning “chaos” into order—this aligned perfectly with the Dao of “Tai.”

As the symbol of endless Dao and eternal order and rules, how could it allow Heaven’s Will to break away from rules?

However…

“If this continues long enough, one day it will still develop thoughts of breaking away from the Heavenly Dao.”

After all, “Tai” was already gone.

A Heaven’s Will that had gained a “self” would not be willing to remain constrained by the Heavenly Dao.

After that, Huo looked beyond the realm.

More precisely, he looked toward that martial dao celestial radiance that was already approaching the edge of the Taiyi realm-domain.

The reason he had released the Taiyi Heaven’s Will back into the world—

Was because he guessed that Daoist Meizu’s disciple’s objective this time likely also included the Taiyi Realm’s Heaven’s Will.

After all, he was one of the Tai Xuan Thirteen True Immortals.

Naturally, he hoped to see more Soul Transformation cultivators who comprehended “Dao Extremity.”

It was just that…

“Hopefully, everything is still in time.” Huo sighed softly.

He had already skipped the “script’s” process and jumped straight to the ending.

It couldn’t be that even this still wouldn’t be in time, right?

…

…

The Taiyi Realm.

Within the Tai Yi Continent, inside Efeng Sacred City.

Yuan walked into a teahouse and went straight to its deepest part, to a hidden room sealed by multiple layers of restrictions and ritual wards.

Intricate secret patterns were carved into the door, flickering with a chilling,幽dark glow.

People came and went in the teahouse. Among them were transcendent beings who had reached extremely high levels of the Saint tier—yet not a single person noticed anything strange about this door.

That alone showed how special it was.

Yuan didn’t care. He pushed the door open and walked in.

The space inside was spacious—white and endless, with no boundary in sight.

Even up, down, left, and right were hard to distinguish.

A somewhat old square table stood not far ahead. Beside it sat an elderly man in a gray robe, with white beard and hair, his figure slightly hunched.

From the moment Yuan entered, the man’s gaze had already turned over.

He adjusted his glasses and poured tea into another cup.

“Hello, traveler from another world.”

That he could tell Yuan wasn’t a native being didn’t surprise Yuan at all. He walked to the opposite side and sat down.

“Hello, Saint of Efeng.” He lifted the cup. “Sorry to intrude—please forgive the disturbance.”

At Yuan’s politeness, the Saint of Efeng sighed.

“And what if I don’t forgive you?”

“I understand.”

“…”

So you “understand,” but you’re not leaving, huh?

The Saint of Efeng felt helpless.

As a member of the order-aligned transcendent camp, during the era when the Kongji Sacred Lord ruled the heavens, he had once been fortunate enough to visit the knowledge vault of Kongji Sacred City.

So he understood certain things about outsiders.

Most of the time, outsiders from “other worlds” meant “trouble.”

He was only at the Saint level. Being able to protect one region’s stability in these chaotic times was already difficult enough.

So he didn’t have the extra energy—and he didn’t want to invite more trouble onto himself.

“Can you leave Efeng Sacred City?” the Saint of Efeng said bluntly. “Those little ones who’ve touched the transcendent—I’ll pretend I didn’t see them.”

He wasn’t the Kongji Sacred Lord. He didn’t have that kind of magnanimity. He really couldn’t bear the trouble that came with this outsider.

“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve brought you.” Yuan set the teacup down. “But no.”

After thinking a moment, he added,

“But honestly, you’re the most normal high-tier transcendent I’ve met in the Taiyi Realm.”

Truth be told, dealing with the order-aligned transcendent beings of the Taiyi Realm really was easy.

The Saint of Efeng: “…”

Fine.

He’d take it as a compliment.

“Thanks. Many people say I reached this step purely by luck. I agree with them.”

“Heh.” Yuan shook his head slightly. “I don’t see it that way.”

A Saint stood at the peak of the Saint tier—an existence comparable to the Dao-reaching realm.

Every Dao-reaching being’s rise could never be summed up as mere “luck.”

Suddenly, Yuan changed the subject.

“You saw that light that broke into the Taiyi Realm that day, didn’t you?”

The Saint of Efeng stiffened.

“No! I didn’t see it! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

His denial was utterly useless.

“A long time ago… no, by our lifespan’s scale, it should be not long ago.” Yuan ignored him and continued calmly.

“The Taiyi Realm once encountered a Soul Transformation cultivator from another world—what your system calls a ‘true god.’”

“That true god took a fancy to the Taiyi Realm and wanted to claim it as their own…”

Yuan slowly recounted everything that had happened back then.

At first, the Saint of Efeng resisted strongly.

He feared learning what he shouldn’t, and bringing trouble to himself—and to everything he protected.

But after hearing some of it, he couldn’t hold back the curiosity rising within him.

He was like an ordinary good person—kind, but not a saintly savior; anxious about things beyond his control; and curious about the unknown.

In a sense, in a Taiyi Realm filled with fanatics and madmen, for someone who had reached the Saint tier and attained the seat of Saint—yet still retained an ordinary person’s way of thinking—was that not its own kind of “extreme”?

Yuan’s voice was steady within this empty, vast space.

Though one was a Soul Transformation consciousness and the other a Saint comparable to the Dao-reaching realm, they spoke like ordinary people.

“Just as you guessed.” Yuan lifted the teacup again. The tea inside was no longer as scalding as before.

“I am the Soul Transformation cultivator who was betrayed by your world and by that outsider true god.”

The Saint of Efeng was a bit dazed.

Even as a Saint, this was his first time touching such an enormous secret.

“Then you, sir, now…?”

Once he understood the existence before him was a “true god” beyond his comprehension, he unconsciously used a respectful form of address.

“I was betrayed. Now that I’ve broken free, of course I’m taking back everything that’s mine. Your world wanted to refine me into the world’s foundation—yet it doesn’t realize that in that very process, I’m also replacing your world.”

“…”

To be betrayed, and to seek revenge on those who betrayed you—there was nothing strange about that.

But…

“Of course, the one who did wrong was the world itself. I won’t drag others into it—”

He was about to continue, but as if he sensed something, he abruptly raised his head and looked beyond this space!

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