Chapter 461: The Changes In A Single Moment
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
The Mount Shu sword Sect, the Great Zhou Empire, the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage and the Golden Roc Grand Sage.
Four different powers lashed out at the same time to decapitate Lin Feng to prevent him from taking the Cloud Forest Trees.
The Cloud Forest Trees were a mutant breed of the Ginseng Fruit Tree, one of the most mystical trees of the world and also one of the Four Great Strange Trees. Even though the Cloud Forest Magical Fruit was not as magical as the Ginseng Fruit, it was still an extremely exotic and powerful magical fruit, and cultivators could receive multiple benefits from consuming them. Even one fruit had incalculable value.
Furthermore, the Cloud Forest Trees in the Cloud Forest World were all alive for millennia and had accumulated vast volumes of spiritual energy. The entire essence and life of the middle world was stored inside them.
Long Ye, the Sirius Grand Sage and the Parasol Fairy had previously absorbed a single trunk’s worth of spiritual energy with the help of the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage. However, they were not yet able to digest and assimilate the spiritual energy, and simply stored them within their bodies for gradual digestion in the coming days.
The three Grand Sages of the demon tribes were prodigies in their own rights and were immensely powerful. However, to digest and assimilate a volume of power as great as the aforementioned was no easy task.
Long Ye and the Sirius Grand Sage were almost sacrificed on the spot. However, with the replenishment from the Cloud Forest Tree’s spiritual energy, they bounced back with more vitality than ever.
There were now fifteen Cloud Forest Trees left, and Lin Feng along with his mass of disciples uprooted seven in an instant. Faced with an entire throng of elders, Lin Feng still harbored the thought to steal one more trunk.
If eight were to be uprooted from the original fifteen that means half of the Cloud Forest Trees would wound up in the hands of the Celestial Sect of Wonders.
Lin Feng immediately became something of a public enemy. Devastating attacks were directed at him from all directions, and Lin Feng became like a floating dinghy in the middle of raging tides and maelstroms. It seemed as if one tide was enough to sink him.
The Golden Roc Grand Sage’s attack reached its target first. A streak of golden light crashed through space and approached Lin Feng with dazzling speed. Lin Feng did not even have time to escape into the void with Mount Yujing.
Lin Feng was extremely calm. In his consciousness, Mount Yujing trembled violently.
Clouds of purple energy enveloped Lin Feng within. Inside the sphere of purple energy, the top of Lin Feng’s head opened up and Mount Yujing shimmered into sight along with the release of thousands of rays of clear light.
The white jade-colored mountain changed color all of a sudden. It became as transparent and clean as glass, and countless scenes and pictures began to materialize within the colorless mountain. The scenes were bizarre, and were changing continuously with spectacular color and brilliance.
The boundlessness of space, the limitlessness of the world and the unending quality of life were exhibited. There were many identical lives, but with different experiences and completely different destinies.
"Life and destiny changes in an instant. In the blink of an eye a thousand years has past."
The profound concept of power permeated throughout and around Lin Feng’s body. Faced with the Golden Roc Grand Sage’s attack, as well as the ferocious assaults of the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage and the other powerful entities that were right behind the former, Lin Feng’s body retreated quickly, broke open a whole in space and retreated into the darkness of the void.
The feathers of the Golden Roc Grand Sage, the Heavenly Charm Grand Sage’s Disruptive Original Demonic Light of Silent Destruction, the earth-splitting sword Qi, the vigorous and intimidating golden light shadows followed closely behind.
The consciousness of all those powerful entities followed their mana and abhijnas into the void but quickly realized something was not right.
The scenes they witnessed was changing continuously and the stars were flickering in the sky. It seemed like the constellations were right in front of them, yet at the same time they were a million miles away. In an instant, they disappeared into nothingness, much like the unebbing and speedy flow of time.
Innumerable light illusions of flashed by in front of their eyes. Every illusion was Lin Feng, and they were immediately bedazzled and confused.
For powerful individuals like the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage, they could tell with one look that all these were not actually illusions or holograms of some sort. They were not avatars either – every silhouette was Lin Feng himself in his physical body.
But there was only one miniscule moment in time when it was real.
"The changes of time, in a single moment!" The cold eyes of the Golden Roc Grand Sage flickered. He realized that the million silhouettes in front of him actually represented the infinite possibilities of change that time could bring in a single moment.
Every single one was real. However, it was only in that instant – that tiny and minute instant – where the what was originally real became false in the next moment.
This was not a naturally occurring phenomena, but rather of Lin Feng’s making. He channeled the mystical power of Mount Yujing displayed all the changes. When he withdrew into the void, he not only opened a tunnel through space-time, he exploited the profound wisdom – of the infinite changes in a moment with the passing of time – and created a myriad of other tunnels.
Time was an infinitely gradual and prolonged eternity, yet at the same time it was also the shortest infinitesimal moment. Only when one had understood the extreme changes at both polar ends could one be considered to have understood this profound wisdom.
Yet, how many people truly understood the conundrum of an eternity versus the shortest moment?
When Lin Feng channeled Mount Yujing previously, he used the spatial power of the Black Heavenly Treasure Tree. However, the physical existence of Mount Yujing actually contained the profound wisdom of time in its concept of power.
With the ever-increasing level of Lin Feng’s mastery, the connection between Mount Yujing, the Heaven-Revolving Purple Clouds and the Black Heavenly Treasure Tree became much more intimate. He also managed to obtain a greater understanding of Mount Yujing, along with the ability to channel its power based on his newfound understanding.
When this abhijna was unleashed, sixty changes happened within the flick of a finger and continued to display unlimited possibilities.
As for powerful beings like the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage and the others, they had a varied understanding of the concept of time. The simplest was change in the shortest moment and this would not yet be a challenge for them as they would still be able to run it down.
However, Lin Feng was also channeling the spatial power of the Black Heavenly Treasure Tree. The combination of space and time, along with Lin Feng’s physical body and soul’s integration with the Heaven-Revolving Purple Clouds, exhibited a scene of a kind of new world where there were uncountable possibilities.
The mutability of this new world were all displayed in an instant, and ended up causing the attacks of the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage and the others to miss.
The several powerful beings’ hearts all skipped a beat. Every single one of them had immense power, and yet when they attacked Lin Feng at the same time he still ended up dodging their attacks. This display of abhijna raised their level of wariness.
"So this is the leader of the Celestial Sect of Wonders? He is indeed impressive."
When Lin Feng reappeared from within the void, he had already vanished from the center of the battlefield of the Cloud Forest World.
After their initial miss, the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage could not be bothered to chase Lin Feng anymore. The Hades; Dark Mantra, the Nine Luminaries Heaven-Crushing Formation and the Cloud Forest Trees were still there and they would not let themselves be distracted from these things.
Lin Feng watched the heart of the battlefield at the Cloud Forest Trees from far away. From what he could see, inexplicable volumes of violence erupted as forces clashed with each other and the sky itself seemed to split apart from the sheer pressure of everything, much like the end of the world.
He heaved a sigh of relief. "That was close. The exertion just now was far greater than clashing head-on with Mount Yujing. Heck, it was greater than clashing with Mount Yujing ten times in a row. It was equivalent to explosively unleashing my energy to the maximum – I almost lost control there."
Mount Yujing, the Heaven-Revolving Purple Clouds and the Black Heavenly Treasure Tree could handle the pressure but the exertion took its toll on Lin Feng’s soul.
Time, destiny, space and soul – four entities came together as one, and when one part of it faced too great a pressure then the entire equilibrium would be shattered.
Lin Feng watched the battlefield from far away as he smiled to himself. "Alright, time to find second point of entry."
Everybody knew that Lin Feng was simply waiting for the opportunity to re-enter the fray. However, the complexity of the current circumstance caused all such opportunities to flicker like the blinking of eyes and they could hesitate.
The whole throng of powerful beings in the sky revealed their true form. The clouds in the sky rolled along, the cosmic vitality all around consolidated into physical form as layers of the void became the clothing as all these conjured a figure of a middle-aged man with a robe etched with a single white cloud.
Everything about this middle-aged man looked normal except for his attractive eyes. His eyes seemed to contain boundless emotion, and it felt as if his eyes contained all possible expressions and passions under the world.
The Heavenly Charms Grand Sage glimpsed at the middle-aged man and smiled as she said, "The Xuan Lin Holy Man – It’s been a long time."
The Xuan Lin Holy Man was one of the members of the Supreme Elder Council of the Great Void Sect. His reputation was formidable and he was a third-level immortal soul stage powerhouse, and personally participated in the previous war of the two worlds.
He remained speechless even after showing himself, and immediately rushed towards the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage and the Golden Roc Grand Sage, who were engaged in battle with one another over the Hades’ Dark Mantra.
The Heavenly Charms Grand Sage chuckled. On one hand, she continued to wrest with the Golden Roc Grand Sage for control over the Hades’ Dark Mantra. On the other hand, she flipped her palm and a thick murky fog-like sphere appeared in the center, much like the kind from prehistoric times.
The Xuan Lin Holy Man abruptly stopped in his tracks as his passionate eyes sparkled. "The Tiny Chaos Curse of Possession?"
The fog-like sphere on the palm of the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage did not dissipate as it flew towards the Xuan Lin Holy Man. It seemed light and without a single hint of strength, but in reality it was as dense as an entire world.
Everything around the sphere was being sucked within non-stop. Under the ‘nourishment’ from all the new things inside the sphere, the universe within the sphere began to grow.
However, if its real target, the Xuan Lin Holy Man, was sucked into the universe then this ancient universe would immediately reverse its course of development and return to its original foggy state, and eventually back into nothingness.
Even though the Xuan Lin Holy Man was in the third-level immortal soul stage, he did wish to take the risk of being swallowed whole.
His left eye began to shimmer with colorful brilliance. A transparent magic treasure with edges like mirrors flew out from within. Uncountable streaks of light shot out and immediately masked the Xuan Lin Holy Man in the plane above.
The space and plans layered together and formed something of a mirror, and every mirror reflected the Xuan Lin Holy Man’s existence. Its mutability was endless, and real and unreal existed at the same time.
Lin Feng’s eyes lit up from afar. The magic item that the Xuan Lin Holy Man unleashed was not simply a display of a space-time abhijna. It also embodied the meaning of the intense shortness of time within, and achieved a similar effect to what Lin Feng did with Mount Yujing.
The Xuan Lin Holy Man used the Thousand-Edge Flowing Radiance Mirror and locked down the Tiny Chaos Curse of Possession used by the Heavenly Charms Grand Sage. As he did so, his body had already landed in front of the disc containing the Hades’ Dark Mantra.
The Golden Roc Grand Sage shot a cold look at the newcomer and flapped his wings in a show of force. Once again, golden light flickered and broke the natural laws of the world they surged forward with bedazzling speed.
A small dot of light appeared on the Xuan Lin Holy Man’s forward, much like a tiny round mirror.
This round mirror radiated and shimmered and it resembled the Sun’s brilliance upon the whole world.
The Great Void Treasure Mirror of the Heavens!
The light reflecting from the mirror was like a gaze that contained endless emotions of all kinds – grief, happiness, fury – as it perceived everything that was before it. It felt as if the entire world’s emotions, anything from elation to anger and bitterness to joy, congregated together and came crashing down.
From within this passion came a force that did not reflect any of the common emotions of the world. It was plain and tranquil, but felt like it had everything within its grasp and seemed to have the will of dictating the fate of the entire world.
The integration of emotion and emotionlessness into a single entity made it hard to distinguish between the two. It was like a divine figure with unconditional and endless love combined with a complete coldness that watched the world with indifference.
Once the light from the mirror shined upon him, the Golden Roc Grand Sage’s speed as he crashed through space-time began to slow down. The feeling was much like he was under the watchful eye of the sky, and he was intimated and restricted.
During the battle outside Shazhou City, Pang Jie onced used the same technique against Lin Feng. However, the power of this technique in Pang Jie’s hands was nothing compared to that of the Xuan Lin Holy Man.
Lin Feng was full of approval for what he saw. Suddenly, his heart skipped a beat as he realized a dash of sword Qi was closing in towards him. It was the same fearsome sword Qi with a ferocity that could split the Earth from before. His adversary gave up the Hades’ Dark Mantra and the Nine Luminaries Heaven-Crushing Formation and chased him all the way here!