Beyond the Timescape [Wuxiaworld]

The moment the Captain heard Xu Qing’s hoarse response, he got excited.

“Don’t worry, little Junior Brother. This time, your Eldest Brother is one hundred percent certain that nothing will go wrong!”

Xu Qing’s eyes had gone bloodshot with the decision to join the Captain. But after what the Captain just said, his heart started to pound.

The Captain, however, only seemed to be getting more excited. “Little Junior Brother, from the year I figured out what these three gods were trying to do, I started planning this thing out. I put everything on the line to get a chance to join this ride!

“Before we ran into that living teleportation portal, I wasn’t completely confident. I have plenty of escape items, and was planning to ensorcell them as well. I just lacked some of the materials. But then we ran into the living portal, and it was like heaven was helping me!”

The Captain laughed heartily.

“Even the original plot to deal with Crimson Mother relates to this moment. Crimson Mother’s flesh is an amazing thing. Shē was the first person to reach godly ascension in Revered Ancient, and is the one who called out to the face to begin with. That just goes to show that shē has some major karma with the broken face.

“That karma, plus the blessing of one of those hairs, is theoretically speaking enough to carry out a special teleportation! Unfortunately, the power required to perform the teleportation is beyond terrifying. And that’s what led to our trip to the god domain.

“Now, you know how hard it is to tap into the power of a god domain upgrade. It’s a very, very rare opportunity! What’s more, because the god domain is high in the sky, it’s close to the broken face for a short time.... But not even that would be enough without a heavenly dao to guide the way! And that’s where our son is going to come into play!

“Little Junior Brother, you and I are on the same page, and therefore, nothing could go wrong!”

The Captain’s words got crazier and crazier until he burst out into maniacal laughter.

Xu Qing wasn’t interested in listening any further. The more the Captain talked, the more dangerous the situation seemed. However... given how far they had come along, he wasn’t ready to just give up.

Forcefully suppressing the hunger within him, he asked, “When do we get started?”

“In just a moment! When the god domain collapses, that’s when we start the teleportation. We just— hold on, wait. We start now!”

Xu Qing’s gaze hardened.

In Revered Ancient’s dome of heaven, the broken face’s eyes finally shut. When that happened, the god domain quietly started crumbling into ash, beginning from the outside edges. As that happened, it got closer to the broken face.

From down below, the god domain was getting smaller and smaller.

The three gods sitting there cross-legged all opened thēir eyes. Thēy then vanished from the crumbling god domain, taking with them the unconscious Sir Firedark as well as all the other cultivators.

When they materialized, thēy were outside of the god domain, in midair above Revered Ancient. At the same time, thēir aura shot past the level of the tribulation fire and stepped into the Flawless level.

That massive upgrade came without any tribulation. Now thēy had hope of reaching the level of Altar God. In Revered Ancient, that was the hope of all gods, but sadly, it was an incredibly difficult task. Taking in all of the Revered Ancient mainland, the number of gods who had become Flawless Gods was extremely limited. For example, even Crimson Mother had only reached the halfway point.

Now, godfire burned with great intensity in the three Flawless Gods, making their aura far more terrifying than that of Crimson Mother. It was easy to imagine how three Flawless Gods might completely change things in Revered Ancient. Thēir gazes were bright and full of life as thēy looked up at the crumbling god domain, which was the final aspect of their sacrificial offering.

The dramatic event was ending.

Except then, Sunfire’s expression flickered, and hēr pupils constricted. Starfire frowned. Thēir gazes were focused on the god domain as it flew toward the broken face. Only the very middle of the god domain remained, and even that part was starting to crumble into ash.

But then a burst of teleportation power appeared. It was dazzling and magnificent, and its aura surpassed even a hundred ancient teleportation portals all being activated at the same time. That made it completely eye-catching. In fact, it filled the sky!

The three gods weren't the only ones who were watching. All the gazes and streams of divine will that had been watching the three gods now shifted focus.

As they looked on... a figure appeared within the terrifying teleportation light. It was the emperor’s corpse, within which were Xu Qing and the Captain!

Shock spread among the countless onlookers.

What are they doing? That was what everyone was thinking.

A complicated look flashed through Sunfire’s eyes, though it lacked surprise. “Guess they’re feeling suicidal.”

Starfire’s heart was pounding, and shē had a very unusual expression on hēr face.

To the shock of all, as the teleportation light flared, the emperor’s corpse lifted its right hand. Held between the fingers was an extraordinary golden hair! The light of teleportation was actually coming from that hair. The Captain had ensorcelled it several times, which filled it with godly might. As it appeared, the light of teleportation rose high into the sky.

“Son!!” the emperor’s corpse said in a booming voice.

The dome of heaven trembled as the cry of an infant echoed out over Revered Ancient. As a result, some minute changes occurred as the light of teleportation shifted to a specific point.

“Crimson Mother karma!” the emperor’s corpse said.

A mass of Crimson Mother’s flesh flew out, joining the teleportation light and filling it with red streaks. The teleportation received further fine tuning. Karma was being used to lock down on a specific location.

At that point, the god domain around the emperor’s corpse collapsed. A deafening rumbling sound filled heaven and earth. It grew louder and louder until it was the only sound, as the god domain... vanished from the dome of heaven.

The sacrificial offering of a god domain was over. Perhaps it did turn into a god world. Just because it disappeared didn’t mean it didn’t exist. But there was another possibility, that being that the god domain couldn’t survive the process.

It didn’t matter either way. What was important... was that it had been sacrificed to the broken face. The three gods’ plan of tens of thousands of years had been carried out to completion.

This was the shedding of karma! The power of the broken face was used for the upgrade, and then the sacrifice was given to the broken face, closing the loop. It was the closing curtain for the three gods.

However... it was simply the opening curtain for Xu Qing and the Captain!

The moment the god domain crumbled into ash, the last bit of the upgrade power... fully activated the teleportation. The hair turned into countless golden motes of light. The emperor’s corpse had already vanished within them.

Inside the corpse, Xu Qing could hear the Captain laughing madly.

“Little Junior Brother… let’s goooo!”

***

Beyond the Revered Ancient mainland was a sprawling starry sky. If you could stand in that starry sky and look down at Revered Ancient, you would be able to see how vast it was.

Shockingly, there was also a golden spine outside of Revered Ancient. It was extremely long, such that it completely wrapped around the land mass like a golden centipede. There were no arms, no torso, and no legs. Just that golden spine, and the half of a broken face that hung down from it. The broken face’s hair swayed down, brushing the cloud cover of the continent below.

The broken face had wounds covering it, which were surrounded by torn flesh, blood, fine hair, and bits of head hair....

Hē was astonishingly large. From the perspective of Revered Ancient, that size surpassed that of the sun and moon. What was more, looking from the perspective of the starry sky, hē seemed even bigger.

Cultivators were like nothing in comparison to even one of the fine hairs. It was the same with the head hair. They were so thick as to stand as their own heaven and earth, and exuded indescribable pressure.

The torn flesh was equally terrifying. Even the smallest drop of blood was like a sea, stretching forever and for all eternity.

Countless years had passed since hē floated from the depths of the starry sky and wrapped around Revered Ancient. There didn’t seem much change to the broken face during that time. However, if you could pass through the River of Time and go into the past, you would find... that the golden spine was slowly wrapping tighter and tighter around Revered Ancient.

What was more, though the Revered Ancient mainland seemed vast, the reality was that it was smaller than before. It was in the process of being devoured. This was the broken face of the god that everyone saw when they looked up.

The face had a name: Desolation.

The face was paramount above all. From the moment hē had arrived in ancient times until now, there hadn’t been a single living being in Revered Ancient who had come into hīs presence. It was as if, to hīm, all living things, and, in fact, all things, were just passing by in time.

Until... today. A tiny mote of light appeared in the void just next to one of the wounds and next to one of the drops of blood. If someone in the starry sky could zoom in on that mote of light, they would see a figure inside, clad in an imperial robe.

The moment the figure appeared, it blurred. A force too terrifying to describe slammed into it, something that surpassed what anyone could possibly imagine.

It took only a moment for the corpse to start falling into pieces. Yet in that moment, the corpse had a completely crazy facial expression. It was as if nothing in existence could surpass what was in front of it, leading to the ultimate levels of craziness and greed.

Naturally, that expression came from the Captain.

The eyes of the emperor’s corpse shone brilliantly, like the ghost of someone who had starved to death and then been hungry for tens of thousands of years, and would do anything just to get a bite of food.

That gaze came from Xu Qing.

As of this moment, the two of them were completely in sync, both in thought and action. Looking completely crazy, and disregarding their crumbling bodies and fading souls, they rushed toward the nearest sea-sized drop of blood.