The sun shone with a chilling brightness, its piercing rays cutting deep into Chen Xia's heart.
He stared blankly at the sky, unsure of what to say or to whom he could speak after all these days.
The Blue Sky Sword Sea was gone, and everyone in his world had suddenly vanished. It was the natural cycle of life and death, and he couldn’t blame anyone.
It felt as though the world had cast him aside, only to pick him up again, leaving him utterly alone.
In the end, even an immortal is but a plaything of time. How ironic.
Chen Xia’s gaze shifted away from the heavens, and he leaned slightly against the doorframe. Zhang Yue came to see him again, calling out from beyond the entrance.
“Senior Chen!”
“What is it?” Chen Xia asked.
“Well… um…” Zhang Yue hesitated, her clear eyes lowering as she fumbled with a pouch of spirit stones from her robe. She spoke in a pleading tone.
“The clan competition is coming up soon. I’m only at the Foundation Establishment stage, and if I don’t do well, I’ll be demoted and sent away from the family. I won’t even have a chance to advance. So, I’ve gathered all my savings to ask for your guidance, just a little would be enough. I don’t ask for more.”
Chen Xia looked at her, studying her features, and suddenly asked, “Was it the one-horned dragon on your shoulder who came up with this idea?”
“Sort of,” Zhang Yue nodded nervously. The one-horned dragon poked its head out from her shoulder guard, rolling its eyes as if scolding her for betraying its trust.
Chen Xia waved his hand lightly and said, “You can keep the spirit stones. Just play a game of chess with me.”
“Of course, of course!” Zhang Yue quickly agreed, following Chen Xia into the house.
It was a quiet game of chess, without any dramatic moves or underhanded tactics. Everything was straightforward. Chen Xia played calmly, while the young girl didn’t dare to win.
In the end, Chen Xia narrowly won.
Zhang Yue wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, feeling relieved that she had lost.
It was a strange game.
Chen Xia put away the chessboard and asked the girl, “What do you want? Supreme divine abilities, unparalleled insights, or a direct boost to your cultivation?”
“Gulp.” Zhang Yue swallowed hard, her heart racing at the options Chen Xia presented. She wanted to choose all of them but didn’t dare to be greedy. After weighing her options, she said,
“I… I’ll take the insights, if that’s okay, Senior… Senior Chen?”
With insights, she wouldn’t lack combat power. Divine abilities required training, and boosting her cultivation might have side effects. Insights felt the most practical.
“Alright,” Chen Xia nodded.
Zhang Yue’s consciousness instantly expanded, as if she were traversing the cosmos, accompanied by the stars. In a single breath, she became the most immense sun, then transformed into the tiniest grain of sand.
She could be a mountain, a river, a flower, or a tree—everything and nothing at all.
It was an insight so profound it defied comprehension.
Chen Xia stood up, his footsteps light, leaving Zhang Yue to her epiphany as he walked slowly toward the door.
The one-horned dragon perched on Zhang Yue’s shoulder timidly watched him leave.
Chen Xia stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.
And then, he was no longer outside either.
He walked a new path, a path of time, not toward the future but back into the past.
He was heading to 500,000 years ago, to witness the glory of the Blue Sky Sword Sea in its prime.
By the time he reached 300,000 years, his steps grew heavy, burdened by the immense pressure of the passing millennia. Yet, he pressed on.
Time bent his spine, making him appear aged.
But his steps never faltered.
When he reached 500,000 years, he strained to look out, hoping to see the Blue Sky Sword Sea in its most glorious era.
There were many people in the Blue Sky Sword Sea, a sea of faces, but none of them were the old friends Chen Xia longed to see. Perhaps they had already passed away long before. Who could say?
After all, he had been asleep for a very, very long time.
A wry smile crept onto Chen Xia’s lips as time began to drag him back, trying to pull this ghost of a bygone era back to where he belonged.
He offered no resistance, letting time take him.
At 400,000 years, Chen Xia suddenly paused, his feet firmly planted. He sensed a familiar aura flickering within the flow of time.
What was it?
Chen Xia hurried to investigate, unraveling the spiritual energy enveloping this moment. It was a message left by several emperors, their voices overlapping as they spoke the same words.
“Brother Chen!” “Chen Xia.” “Brother Chen.”
Hearing these voices, Chen Xia froze, his hands trembling with emotion.
“Brother Chen, we discussed it and didn’t know when you’d wake up, so we left this letter in the future for you to find. When you wake up, you should be able to see it. Haha.”
It was Huang Qingyue’s voice.
“Chen Xia, you’ve been quite the absentee leader, leaving the Blue Sky Sword Sea for me to manage. And you still owe me 10,000 spirit stones. Can you hurry up and pay me back?” Li Yang’s words were tinged with urgency but also sorrow.
“Chen Xia, Chen Xia, have you gotten addicted to sleeping? Back in the Dead Star Region, you slept in that coffin, and now you’re still sleeping. We can’t even wake you up. Sigh.” Li Yue lamented.
“The Blue Sky Sword Sea is in good hands with me. Don’t worry about it when you wake up. Oh, and Chi Yu left a message for you. He said he misses you… and so do I.” Big Yellow Dog’s voice was soft.
“Brother Chen, what am I supposed to do if you don’t wake up? I’ve reached the third level of the Emperor Realm. You have to see me. We haven’t even started dominating the myriad realms yet.” Emperor Capital called out.
“We met in the realms, went through the trials of the Great Death Realm, and our bond grew stronger. Then came the realms beyond, and finally the Immortal Realm. I never thought our parting would be like this. Life is unpredictable, but let’s not make farewells too sorrowful.” Wang Yangzi chuckled lightly.
“Brother Chen, do you remember the snow in the imperial city that year? It feels like it was just yesterday. I wonder if we’ll ever get to see snow together again.”
Huang Qingyue’s voice was tinged with melancholy but carried a note of hope.
“Brother Chen, wake up. It’s me, Little Xu. The one who wandered the markets with you, fought alongside you in the Great Death Realm, and spent time with you in the Immortal Realm. Don’t you want to see me again?”
Xu Zhen’s voice trembled with quiet sobs as she pleaded.
The letter ended with a collective message from them all.
“Hey, if you’re reading this, don’t forget to think of us. But don’t think too much. We hope you can embrace this new era and become the new Chen Xia… Well, that’s all…”
“Farewell.”
“Brother Chen.”
The voices faded, and the flow of time fell into a hollow silence.
Chen Xia stood still.
Tears streamed down his face.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
