Chapter 1146: One of the Mastermind’s Abilities
“Where's Devotee Bone?” The two plundering cultivators had activated their life-bound treasures, only to find that their target had vanished.
Worried that Devotee Bone would detect their presence, they hadn’t dared to use their spiritual consciousness to probe the area. Now, after all that trouble, they had no idea where the man had gone.
“Big Brother, is your intelligence reliable?”
“Of course, it’s reliable! Devotee Bone was definitely here!” the elder brother declared with conviction. My sources are absolutely trustworthy. “Looks like he has relocated!”
“If he’s not here, then so be it. Let’s go, Big Brother.” The younger brother felt a chill run down his spine. Regardless of whether Devotee Bone had been here, this place gave him the creeps.
Although we are Divine Transfiguration cultivators, we’re far from being invincible. There are many unknowns in this world, and the more one knows, the quicker one dies.
The elder brother refused to accept it. He searched the cave inside and out, but couldn’t even find a single strand of hair, cursing, “Damn it. Everything’s cleaned up too well. Nothing’s left. Forget it, let’s go.”
On the way back, the younger brother saw that his big brother was crestfallen and tried to console him. “Big Brother, look on the bright side. It’s a good thing that Devotee Bone wasn’t there. If he had been, with all his heretical methods like curse arts, wouldn’t we have been done for right there?”
Although they were both at the Divine Transfiguration Stage and had an advantage in numbers, that didn’t guarantee victory. There were cultivators like Lu Yang, whose exceptional talent allowed them to challenge beyond their level, or those who grasped rare spells and techniques related to time and karma.
The elder brother waved his hand impatiently. “Get lost. You’re just spouting platitudes, brat. Curse arts aren’t something you encounter that easily.”
~~~
Inside the mental space, Lu Yang looked up after a moment of contemplation and asked, “Senior Epoch, between you and Senior Heaven Mandate, who is stronger?”
The Epoch Immortal was taken aback, but quickly understood what Lu Yang was trying to get at. With a peculiar expression, he replied, “Although I’ve always claimed to be stronger than the three of them, when it comes to comprehension of Dao Fruits, Heaven Mandate and I are actually evenly matched.
“Are you suggesting that the Everlasting Immortal and Fellow Daoist Yun Zhi sensed something because they’re strong enough, while I sensed it because this matter involves ‘time?’”
Lu Yang nodded. “That’s what I mean.”
To get to the root of the matter, the first step is to identify the differences between Big Senior Sister, the Immortal Fairy, and the Epoch Immortal.
And the biggest difference is that the Epoch Immortal isn’t strong enough.
Since the Epoch Immortal can still sense the change while the Heaven Mandate Immortal and the others cannot, this indicates that the problem lies with “time.”
The Epoch Immortal was just about to nod when he realized something was off. “Wait, didn’t you also vaguely sense something?”
Brat, you may have an immortal body, but you’re not stronger than me.
Lu Yang admitted frankly, “I have the blessings of the Everlasting Immortal Fairy.”
The Epoch Immortal. “...”
Lu Yang thought of another matter. “And Senior Epoch, when you were ambushed at the end of the Ember Legacy Dynasty, you also suspected that the mastermind’s abilities were related to time, right?”
“Yes, that’s what I believe. I’ve already examined it with the Epoch Dao Fruit. There were no signs of time reversal. This means that it’s not a matter of time flowing backward.”
The Epoch Immortal was confident in his Dao Fruit. No matter how powerful the mastermind is, they couldn’t have tampered with time in a way that would elude my detection.
He rose and paced around the three of them with his hands behind his back, his line of thought hitting a snag.
Related to time, yet not time reversal, and feeling like something has been forgotten—what exactly is the mastermind’s ability?
“Perhaps the past that the Left Historian Immortal saw was also the result of the same ability the mastermind is using now,” Lu Yang murmured to himself.
Hearing Lu Yang’s muttering, the Epoch Immortal halted in his tracks, his eyes lighting up. “Wait, could it be...”
“What?”
“Timelines! The mastermind can manipulate timelines!”
“Timelines?” Yun Zhi repeated. It was a term she had never heard of.
This was precisely Lu Yang’s theory, but he wasn’t sure whether the Epoch Immortal would call this phenomenon “timeline,” which was why he had hinted at it through murmuring.
The Epoch Immortal crouched down and used a twig to draw a straight line on the ground.
“This line represents time.”
He could have demonstrated with spells, but his original form was the Jianmu World Tree. He was naturally inclined to use twigs to draw and explain principles.
He then selected a point on the line. “This is the present.”
With this as a starting point, he drew a semicircle backward. “Going from the present back to the past—that’s called time reversal.
“The point where the other end of the semicircle intersects with the timeline is the ‘past.’ This was the case for that kid, Tang Chuanwu. After he went back to the past and did certain things, the future changed.”
The Epoch Immortal erased the line extending from “past” to “future.” With the “past” as a starting point, he drew a new line that slightly deviated from the original future.
“Once the future is altered, the original future will disappear. That’s the fundamental principle of time reversal.”
The Epoch Immortal then pointed at the temporal node representing the “past” and spoke with unprecedented gravity. “I suspect the mastermind’s ability is to alter events in the past without going through time reversal, thereby changing the future!
“That’s why the Everlasting Immortal and Fellow Daoist Yun Zhi felt that they had forgotten something.
“Young Friend Lu’s words reminded me of something. Do you remember the past that the Left Historian Immortal saw? The four of us had completely different personalities, and the Everlasting Immortal single-handedly deduced the path to immortality through Dao Fruits.
“Perhaps that was a false timeline fabricated by the mastermind, deliberately shown to the Left Historian Immortal!
“That’s right! Everything falls into place now!”
The Epoch Immortal grew increasingly excited as he spoke. After four hundred thousand years, I can finally confirm the mastermind’s ability, or at least one of them.
“No, I can’t jump to conclusions so hastily. There may be other possibilities I haven’t considered.”
He quickly regained his composure. The assassination attempt three hundred thousand years ago had made him prudent. Many mysteries surrounding the mastermind have yet to be unraveled. Rushing to conclusions may lead us further down the wrong path.
We still lack a way to prove it.
But the Epoch Dao Fruit is incapable of providing that verification.
Lu Yang noticed that the atmosphere was growing tense. The Epoch Immortal had fallen silent, while Yun Zhi and the Everlasting Immortal Fairy were also lost in thought. He gingerly raised his hand to make his presence known.
“I may have an idea.”
“What idea do you have?” The Epoch Immortal was astonished. I can’t think of a way, yet you can?
Yun Zhi and the Everlasting Immortal Fairy turned to Lu Yang, curious to hear his idea.
Under the gazes of all three of them, especially Yun Zhi and the Everlasting Immortal Fairy, whose eyes seemed to flicker with inexplicable trust and expectation, Lu Yang felt immense pressure.
“Maybe—I’m just saying maybe. After all, I’ve never tried it before.
“I can foresee the future.”
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