When the Holy Monk Xumi was alive, he mastered vast amounts of time and space mysteries. Apart from the portion of time mysteries absorbed by the Time Source Pearl, all the mysteries within the Xumi Temple are now burning.
Along with the mysteries, the Xumi Temple itself is burning.
As the time and space mysteries burn, they return to the heavens and earth.
The wasteland outside the temple, in the blaze, turns into invisible particles, dissipating. The flames spread toward the great hall.
The Xumi Temple, the resting place of a Buddhist Ancestor, is priceless, even a handful of its soil or a single brick could aid enlightenment.
Yet now, it cannot withstand the crushing pressure of space, burning as if thousands of divine stones are consumed each moment.
Zhang Ruochen has no time to heed the encroaching flames, for the process of integrating the Fire Path holy intent into the Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent is far from smooth. The two are highly incompatible, unable to merge.
Even when Zhang Ruochen forces their fusion, the result is highly unstable, lasting only a moment before exploding apart.
The instant the Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent repels the Fire Path holy intent, the resulting shockwave tears Zhang Ruochen’s body, leaving shocking gashes.
“My mental strength has reached the sixty-ninth tier. My holy soul’s strength and the number of holy path rules are likely unmatched by any Great Sage of the Hundred Shackles Realm, past or present. I have the aid of a Buddhist Ancestor’s power, plus time and space mysteries. Yet, uniting the seven holy intents of Yin-Yang Five Elements into one remains impossible.”
Zhang Ruochen opens his eyes. Flames burn on the hall’s walls.
A scorching heatwave hits his face, the burning sensation overwhelming.
The very space seems to be ablaze.
He is unprecedentedly calm, realising that in future timelines, no matter how hard he tries or how exceptional his conditions, he could never forge a perfect Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent.
At this moment, Zhang Ruochen finally believes that, throughout history, no cultivator has ever achieved an absolutely perfect first-grade holy intent.
The silent flames consume all other areas of the Xumi Temple. Even the four walls of this final hall burn away. The six Buddha statues also burn, turning into void particles.
When embarking on the journey along the river of time, the Holy Monk Xumi had said that when the Xumi Temple perishes, one must return immediately, using his remains as a vessel.
He did not specify the consequences of not returning at once, but Zhang Ruochen can roughly guess.
The flames are now only a step away from him.
Must he flee in such disgrace?
The Holy Monk paid with his life, burning vast time and space mysteries to bring him here, enduring countless hardships along the way. To end in failure?
Zhang Ruochen’s face is stern, his heart filled with utmost reluctance.
He stares fixedly at the black hole at the end of the river of time, clenching his teeth with unprecedented resolve, saying, “What is death? To return in such cowardice, how could I face the Holy Monk’s expectations or my own heart? I’ll fight to the death!”
“Fight to the death!”
“Fight!”
Zhang Ruochen abruptly stands, clasping his hands together.
Whoosh!
The incomplete Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent, formed from the Fist Path, Palm Path, Gold Path, Water Path, Wood Path, and Earth Path holy intents, manifests as a Tai Chi Yin-Yang pattern.
The incomplete Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent collides with the Fire Path holy intent.
The seven holy intents unite as one.
Instantly, an unbalanced oscillatory force erupts, tearing Zhang Ruochen’s body even more severely, as if ripped apart by seven horses.
Zhang Ruochen stands in a bow stance, eyes locked on the black hole at the river’s end. Carrying the Tai Chi Yin-Yang pattern, he transforms into a streak of light, charging forward.
With his Saint Realm cultivation, he cannot suppress the repulsive forces of the seven holy intents.
He needs a fulcrum, or a powerful external force, to achieve this balance.
That fulcrum is the singularity before the birth of space and time.
The singularity is the strongest fulcrum in existence, containing the mightiest power.
For example:
A cultivator is like a balance scale, with two different holy intents on either end. If the scale is not precisely controlled, balance can be achieved, merging the two intents into one.
But Zhang Ruochen’s scale has seven ends.
He stands at the centre, with seven holy intents in different directions, each of varying weight, repelling and attracting one another. Achieving balance in such conditions is utterly impossible.
Thus, Zhang Ruochen needs an external force.
This force must encompass the seven powers of Yin, Yang, and the Five Elements, and it must be immensely powerful.
“With my current cultivation, I can only hold the seven holy intents together for an instant. After that, they will separate again. That instant is critical.”
The moment Zhang Ruochen leaps from the Holy Monk Xumi’s palm, the Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent, formed by the seven intents, manifests, unleashing unparalleled power, absorbing the burning time and space mysteries.
The first instant holds.
Boom!
In the second instant, Zhang Ruochen loses all protection. His body, holy soul, mental thoughts, and qi sea are exposed to the singularity’s impact, bursting like a balloon into particles invisible to the eye.
Zhang Ruochen endures excruciating pain, as if his body and soul are sliced by a million blades.
His body is gone, yet his consciousness persists, enduring hellish torment.
“Wonderful, it actually works. My judgement was correct. It must be the origin and truth mysteries protecting my consciousness.” Zhang Ruochen is ecstatic.
With his consciousness intact, the Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent has not collapsed. He has endured into the second instant, already a success.
At the birth of time, the power erupting from the singularity is the strongest in existence.
The closer to the singularity, the stronger that power.
Zhang Ruochen had considered using the singularity’s energy to forcibly merge the holy intents. But the singularity’s energy is too immense; even from millions of miles away, it could easily kill a divine being.
How could a Great Sage like Zhang Ruochen withstand it?
Even his Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent could not endure.
Yet, in the second instant, under Zhang Ruochen’s conscious control, the Yin-Yang Five Elements holy intent spins rapidly in the form of a Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram, continuously absorbing the Yin, Yang, and Five Elements forces of the cosmos.
The energy within the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram grows stronger, surpassing Zhang Ruochen’s own cultivation by ten thousand times, and it continues to intensify.
A hundred thousand times, a million times.
Zhang Ruochen’s own power is but a tiny fraction, yet he must use this fraction to maintain the balance of Yin, Yang, Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth.
When Yin’s power strengthens, he immediately bolsters Yang.
When Wood’s power weakens, he reduces Gold’s power.
Only by maintaining this balance can the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram avoid collapse, giving him a chance to survive.
By the tenth instant, the energy within the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram can fully withstand the spatial compression and high-temperature refining.
But the balance begins to falter, and relying solely on the interplay of Yin-Yang and Five Elements is no longer sufficient.
Zhang Ruochen must use the dwindling time and space mysteries within the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram to absorb time and space forces to maintain this balance.
As soon as he begins absorbing time forces, the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram moves, gliding along the river of time toward the singularity.
This is truly reaching the dawn of the universe!
The closer to the singularity, the greater the pressure on the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram, but it also grows stronger, just enough to endure.
Thus, the singularity and the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram form a balance: one emits Yin-Yang, Five Elements, and space-time; the other absorbs them.
Maintaining this balance is immensely challenging for Zhang Ruochen.
Initially, he thought the chance of success was one in ten million. Now, it seems closer to one in a billion, as he begins to falter.
His consciousness grows increasingly faint.
“Hold on, I must hold on.”
Zhang Ruochen knows he is halfway to success. As long as he persists, keeping his consciousness alive and maintaining the balance of Yin-Yang, Five Elements, and space-time, he has a chance.
If he fails now, all will be lost.
After an unknown time, the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram converges into a single point, merging with the singularity.
In that instant, billions of images flood Zhang Ruochen’s consciousness: past, future, and origins unknown.
Boom.
The Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram flies out from the singularity, reappearing on the river of time.
When space is born with a diameter of one zhang, the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram is one zhang. As space expands to a light-year, the diagram grows to a light-year.
The Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram integrates with the universe’s space and time, growing with space, extending with time.
Initially, the diagram is visible.
But beyond a light-year, it fades, merging with the universe, permeating the chaotic space-time, becoming part of the cosmic order, heading toward the future.
Zhang Ruochen’s consciousness persists, controlling the ever-expanding Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram, pursuing the Holy Monk Xumi’s remains.
When he leapt from the monk’s palm, the unleashed force propelled the remains into the future, still drifting on the river of time.
In the Primordial Ancient times, the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram catches up with the Holy Monk Xumi’s remains.
The river of time in the Primordial Ancient times is immensely long, dozens of times longer than the Wild Ancient, Far Ancient, Nether Ancient, Upper Ancient, and Middle Ancient times combined.
Zhang Ruochen speculates that so-called prehistoric civilisations likely existed in the Primordial Ancient times.
This period likely birthed multiple civilisational eras, all of which perished, with the universe reverting to chaos before the next civilisation began.
The Primordial Ancient times recorded in the Heavenly Court and Hell span only a brief segment.
Though Zhang Ruochen has traversed the river of time, he knows little of the Primordial Ancient times or any era, glimpsing only fragments.
On the river of time, he sees only the river itself.
“The aura of the Heart of Truth.”
Zhang Ruochen’s consciousness lingers within the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram, or rather, within the entire universe.
For the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram is as vast as the universe, permeating every corner.
Zhang Ruochen had placed the Heart of Truth on the Holy Monk Xumi’s remains, hoping to use it to absorb his consciousness, holy soul, and mental particles to reform his body.
“The universe is boundless.”
Zhang Ruochen’s consciousness connects with the Heart of Truth, activating its form, absorbing various particles.
The Primordial Ancient times are filled with chaotic energy.
After an unknown duration, the Heart of Truth gathers all of Zhang Ruochen’s particles, nurturing them within.
Now, Zhang Ruochen’s body is fully reformed, a true innate Yin-Yang Five Elements chaotic body, as if sealed within the Heart of Truth.
After countless more years, the Heart of Truth merges with his body.
By the end of the Wild Ancient times, Zhang Ruochen’s body transitions from a stone-like rigidity, radiating chaotic brilliance, like an innate spirit.
Standing in the Holy Monk Xumi’s palm, gazing at the river of time, Zhang Ruochen feels unprecedented elation, laughing boldly, “I, Zhang Ruochen, have finally reformed my body, returning from the dawn of space-time. Master, I have not failed you. I have forged a first-grade holy intent.”
His first-grade holy intent is indeed successful, growing stronger as he moves toward the future.
As the universe’s space expands and the river of time lengthens, the Tai Chi Yin-Yang diagram continuously absorbs space and time forces, maintaining the balance of Yin-Yang and Five Elements.
In other words, Zhang Ruochen’s time holy intent is called “Eternal.”
His space holy intent is called “Infinite.”
As long as space expands and the river of time endures, the balance of his holy intent remains unbroken, growing ever stronger.
His holy intent grows with the universe.
Zhang Ruochen’s holy intent is indeed formidable, rivaling the cosmic order itself. Yet, he soon discovers, to his dismay, that his control over it weakens.
His mental strength and holy soul can only reach so far.
Unless they grow to encompass the entire universe, he cannot fully control his holy intent.
Moreover, Zhang Ruochen finds that the Space-Time Divine Martial Mark on his brow has vanished, neither returning with his body nor known to have shattered or been lost in the Wild Ancient times.
