Star Odyssey

Lu Yin saw only a single ripple and nothing else. There was only that one ripple, and he stared at it for a long, long time. He silently counted the time: one day, two days, three days… one year, two years, three years… a hundred years, a thousand years…

How was this possible? A thousand years had passed, but the ripple still had not finished moving. What had happened to him? Was this an innate gift? But Bai Xian'er's innate gift was undoubtedly her Fay Blossom.

A single ripple took a thousand years to pass by, and Lu Yin watched it for the entire time. He had not been able to move, or rather he was able to move, but even the smallest movement was so slow that it needed a thousand years to complete, just like the ripple.

However, Lu Yin’s thoughts moved normally. He had managed to count the time, and there was no question that a thousand years had passed.

Had his own senses been amplified somehow? It was possible that his perception of time had been amplified indefinitely, while his regular awareness had remained unchanged.

This was an innate gift. There was no other option.

Suddenly, there was a spike of pain in his abdomen, and Lu Yin snapped back to reality. A black line flashed in front of him. Bai Xian’er was again attacking with a Void Rip. He quickly dodged the attack, but when he looked down, he saw that his once withered body had somehow recovered, and his abdomen had even been sliced open by the Void Rip.

Lu Yin looked back at Bai Xian'er. "You have two innate gifts."

Bai Xian'er smiled faintly. "Brother Xiaoxuan, so far, you haven't managed to hurt me at all."

Lu Yin's expression turned serious. Both Inverse Step and his physical strength had failed against Bai Xian’er, while her ability to extend his sense of time was terrifying. There was no way for him to avoid it, or rather, he did not know of any way to do so.

Once his senses were amplified, Bai Xian’er was essentially able to freely strike however she wanted.

If the last Void Rip had sliced through his neck instead of his abdomen… He did not even want to imagine what the results would have been.

Lu Yin released the universe from his chest, and the landmass appeared overhead. It merged with his visualization method and pressed down to crush Bai Xian'er.

She looked up and admired the landmass. "Is this the Origin Progenitor’s power? Brother Xiaoxuan, your cultivation is so complicated, and yet I can sense that your future will be extraordinarily brilliant. In that case, please die here. I like you a great deal, but fate has already been written, and it cannot change."

At this moment, Lu Yin’s Wordless Heavenly Book appeared, and it granted vitality to the landmass.

It pressed down even harder. This was the attack that had caused even Feng Bo to cough up blood, and it had killed both Corpse God and Ji Luo. Lu Yin refused to believe that Bai Xian'er was truly invincible.

The landmass pressed down upon Bai Xian'er, who did not move as Lu Yin tried to crush her. Her body collapsed beneath the pressure.

However, once the landmass fell down the whole way, Bai Xian'er reappeared where she had been standing, completely unharmed.

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed. Was she skipping time? No, erasing time? He had encountered similar abilities several times in the past. The one that stood out the most to him was Undying God’s ability to skip time.

By skipping the moments when he was injured, Undying God had been able to instantly recover. However, those moments had still existed.

When Lu Yin had been fishing in the River of Time, he had caught several such moments.

On the other hand, Bai Xian'er did not seem to be skipping time. It was as if a segment of space, or a segment of time, had been locked down and briefly made unchangeable.

Could a battle technique accomplish such a thing?

The power of time could be truly miraculous.

Everything around Lu Yin suddenly slowed down again. It was happening again; his sense of time had been extended indefinitely.

He watched as his landmass disappeared, but the process would take an incredible amount of time.

Hundreds of years? Thousands? Maybe even tens of thousands?

Lu Yin had no idea what it would be like to stare at the same sight for what his senses would perceive as tens of thousands of years. It would drive him mad.

Was there any way to escape this phenomenon? The only possibility he could come up with was Lightstream or his inner universe’s gray star that had formed from the Withered Bark.

But no, time itself had not been altered at all. All that had truly changed were his own senses, which had nothing to do with the power of time.

How could he restore his senses?

Lu Yin watched the landmass slowly disappear as he recited the Origin Progenitor’s Sutra.

Unfortunately, it was useless. The Lu family used the Origin Sutra to strengthen their spiritual force, but Lu Yin had yet to explore the other aspects of the sutra.

Time flowed by, or, more accurately, Lu Yin’s perception of time kept extending.

He had no idea how much time had passed. He kept trying to restore his senses to normal, but all his efforts were useless. He could not recover.

Suddenly, he felt intense pain from his heart.

The moment the pain erupted, his senses returned to normal. Lu Yin instantly used Lightstream to reverse time by one second.

In front of him, Bai Xian’er smiled. "Brother Xiaoxuan, you reacted so quickly, and you even knew to reverse time in order to heal your injury."

Lu Yin clutched at his chest above his heart, feeling relieved. He had suffered a terrible wound once again, but fortunately, he had managed to reverse time.

Things were getting very tricky. Bai Xian’er refused to move, and she allowed every one of Lu Yin’s attacks to land. Each of his attacks should be capable of killing the woman, and yet she repeatedly recovered perfectly. This was very difficult to overcome. In addition to that, her innate gift forced Lu Yin to suffer what felt like endless amounts of time passed in an instant.

Once or twice was still bearable. He could endure hundreds or even thousands of years, but if his sense of time was extended to the point where he had to endure 10,000 years or more, Lu Yin had no confidence that he could endure.

This was not like meditation; he was simply staring at a single scene for what felt like hundreds or thousands of years. It was a form of sensory imprisonment taken to the extreme.

Lu Yin waved his hand, and his Champions’ Stage appeared. He summoned multiple peak powerhouse champions. He did not expect them to be able to do much to Bai Xian’er, and he simply wanted to use them as distractions.

Bai Xian’er might be able to extend her own senses as she did Lu Yin’s, but she would not be able to affect Lu Yin’s summoned champions. As long as he had some form of external stimulation, he would be able to instantly recover.

Up above, the Investiture of the Gods also appeared. Lu Yin was still bleeding from his abdomen, but he started using Triumphant Brawl, which caused him to radiate a terrifying aura. Cold murder blossomed in his eyes as he pulled out the God of Death's scythe from his cosmic ring and lashed out.

He took a step forward, but he did not use Inverse Step. He charged straight at Bai Xian’er, while slashing the scythe at her. When he had tried to crush her with his landmass and shatter her with a punch, the attacks had apparently left Bai Xian’er horribly wounded, but she had instantly and fully recovered from both attacks. Because of that, Lu Yin decided to not use either of those abilities and instead attack with the most basic of methods. He refused to believe that Bai Xian’er could recover from every attack, and he was determined to break her battle technique.

There was no battle technique that could not be broken.

Confronted with the slashing scythe, Bai Xian’er moved for the first time. She dodged every slash of the weapon. However, Lu Yin had mastered the ability to defeat any weapon technique from the Sword Monument, and his mastery of the scythe was flawless. Not even Bai Xian’er could completely avoid his attacks, and she was occasionally cut. Blood stained her white clothes.

As the battle continued, Lu Yin’s movements gradually slowed. This time, the slowing was real, and not just due to his perception being altered. He was growing fatigued from wielding his own power. Fay Blossoms danced around him, and there was no doubt that they were somehow related to his fatigue.

The scythe in his hand suddenly slowed down mid-slash. It had happened again. His sense of time was being extended indefinitely.

Lu Yin stared at his scythe. He knew that he would be staring at this same scene for at least a hundred, and possibly even a thousand years. The more times he experienced this phenomenon, the worse it became. If he failed to find a way to overcome this phenomenon, he knew that he would eventually lose to Bai Xian’er.

She was a Progenitor, having had broken through. There was no shame in a Semi-Progenitor like Lu Yin losing to her, but Lu Yin was a Realmbreaker who was capable of fighting against even opponents like the Seven Skygods. Out of all the various peak powerhouses, the Seven Skygods stood near the peak, second only to the Three Realms and Six Daos. In fact, there was even some overlap between them.

It was impossible to measure Lu Yin’s strength by conventional realms, and yet Bai Xian'er was still overpowering him.

She was like cotton; no matter how hard Lu Yin struck her, while there was certainly an effect, she always recovered completely in almost an instant. This was far more frustrating than fighting against Feng Bo or Corpse God.

In contrast, Bai Xian'er's attacks were not decisive, lethal strikes. Instead, she extended Lu Yin’s perception of time, which forced him to feel unbearable despair. This fight was like nothing that Lu Yin had ever experienced before.

From the moment he had broken through and become a Semi-Progenitor, this was the first time that he lacked confidence in fighting a Progenitor.

Lu Yin realized at this moment that his summoned champions were useless. He had no way to send any commands to them.

He felt a sharp burst of pain again, and he immediately used Lightstream to reverse time by one second.

Lu Yin stepped forward, swinging the scythe to attack in every direction.

Bai Xian'er was not surprised to see Lu Yin recover. Her goal was to continue extending his sense of time until he was completely numb to it. Once he became accustomed to the extended sense of time, he would either be completely desensitized, which would leave him unable to correctly react to outside stimuli, or he would go mad. There were only two possible outcomes.

However, one thing surprised her.

"Brother Xiaoxuan, you're currently in a lake of divine energy, and yet you've held on for this long without any problems. Have you been cultivating divine energy?" Bai Xian'er asked.

Around them, the summoned champions continued to attack Bai Xian'er. The Seven-Star Mantis was the fastest, as it moved at the speed of time while it attacked. Bai Xian'er gave a small smile as she casually pointed a finger and used the Celestial Being Shows the Way to obliterate the summoned champion.

Next, the Purple Emperor stared at Bai Xian'er with his solitary white eye and attempted to control her. At the same time, Mo Shang and Kong Ji attacked from two other directions. While none of the champions could use sequence particles, Old Mo’s sword finger and Kong Ji’s Vacuum Palm were both extremely powerful attacks.

Bai Xian'er raised a hand and drew a line that connected two points to release a Void Rip.

This time, the Void Rip spread further, and it sliced through the nearby void, cutting through Old Mo, Kong Ji, the Purple Emperor, and the seventeen other summoned champions which were further away.

In just a moment, all of Lu Yin’s summoned champions were cut in two.

He felt a massive amount of his stellular energy instantly disappear.

While the summoned champions had all been peak powerhouses and were able to use all their abilities from life, aside from their sequence particles and innate gifts, they were still easily destroyed by Bai Xian'er. This meant that, even if they had been alive, they would not have fared much better against the woman.

There was too large a gap. It was so large that it was almost ridiculous.

Lu Yin stared at Bai Xian'er. "Just who are you?"

Bai Xian'er looked puzzled. "Brother Xiaoxuan, why don't you recognize me all of a sudden?"

Lu Yin’s eyes narrowed. "You aren’t Bai Xian'er, so who are you?"

Bai Xian'er chuckled. "Is Bai Xian'er unable to defeat you, Brother Xiaoxuan?"

Lu Yin let out a breath. "Are you Wei Nu?"

Bai Xian'er's expression changed drastically, and she stared at Lu Yin with utter disbelief.

Lu Yin had the impression that Bai Xian’er always remained composed and acted as though everything that transpired was in her control and that nothing could ever surprise her.

However, at this moment, her expression changed completely. Lu Yin became certain, because of this change, that what he said had caught her completely off guard.

Bai Xian'er stared intently at Lu Yin, her smile long gone. "Brother Xiaoxuan, what are you talking about?"

Lu Yin answered in a low voice, "Are you really Bai Xian'er, or are you Wei Nu?

"Didn’t you leave that paper cutout in Virtue Archives? You clearly knew as soon as we touched it, so why are you surprised now?"

Bai Xian'er stared at Lu Yin and answered in a soft, calm voice, "Because you think that I am Prof. Wei."

OMA's Thoughts

Translated By: OMA

Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox

TLC'ed By: OMA