Eternal Time and Space

Chapter 2: Spatial Folding Touches the Origin, Past and Future Condensed into Eternity

Zi Chen raised his hand, his five fingers blooming like lotus flowers, and a torrent of light surged out in front of him, spreading silently in all directions.

Where the light flowed, time froze. The disordered pages remained in their disordered state, the surging sea of ​​clouds remained in its surging posture, and even Yang Mei's figure, which was moving through the air, was frozen in mid-air, maintaining the posture of raising his hand, like a statue frozen in ice.

"You can't stop me." Yang Mei's voice came from the frozen space, unhurried.

Zi Chen did not answer. He closed his five fingers, the light flowed backward, time reversed, and the stripped, shifted, and disordered space returned along the trajectory it had come from. The mountain peak thousands of miles away reappeared at his feet, and the disordered pages were pieced together again to form a complete world.

Yang Mei broke free from the solidification, folded the space she was in, and sent herself into the interlayer of the space.

Ten feet behind Zi Chen, the space opened up to both sides like a curtain, and Yang Mei stepped out from it, put her five fingers together, and gently pressed them against Zi Chen's back.

This press was silent, yet the space around Zi Chen began to contract violently, as if an invisible giant hand was gripping the entire world tightly.

"A bit slow." Zi Chen didn't turn his head. The torrent of light surged out behind him again, and countless light threads burst out like a peacock spreading its tail, infinitely stretching the force of the press, turning it from a thunderous force into a snail's crawl, from an instant into a hundred years.

Zi Chen turned around, raised his hand and pointed, a beam of light of time, condensed to the extreme, shot out from his fingertip and pierced straight into Yang Mei's palm.

Yang Mei grunted and retreated rapidly. His right hand became transparent in the light of time, and time was passing by rapidly in his hand. In an instant, he experienced the vicissitudes of ten thousand years, one hundred thousand years, and one million years. His skin dried up, his flesh dissolved, his bones weathered, and finally turned into a handful of ashes that drifted away from his wrist.

"It seems that even after experiencing the great calamity of creation, you haven't made much progress." Zi Chen looked at Yang Mei.

Yang Mei remained expressionless. With a flick of her left hand across her right wrist, she used spatial power to peel away and discard the eroded wrist bone. From the severed area, a new hand slowly grew, bones extended, tendons intertwined, flesh covered, and skin formed. In the blink of an eye, a perfectly intact right hand reappeared.

"Then let me see where you've improved."

As Yang Mei retreated tens of thousands of miles away, the space between heaven and earth began to tremble violently. Countless layers of space, centered on Yang Mei, overlapped and interlocked like nesting dolls. Some flipped outward, some collapsed inward, some spiraled and coiled, and some crisscrossed, all intertwined to form a vast and incomparable interlocking world that crushed towards Zi Chen.

"Can you hold your ground this time?" Yang Mei's voice came from the depths of the chimera world.

Zi Chen watched the slowly approaching Chimera World with a calm expression. From between his brows, a straight beam of light shot out and pierced into the core of the Chimera World.

Where the beam of light passed, time began to rewind, the interlocking spaces unfolded layer by layer, the nested dimensions loosened one ring at a time, and the spiral coils unraveled section by section. Under the illumination of the beam of light, the vast interlocking world resembled a disassembled building block, with each piece returning to its original position.

Within a few breaths, the fused world completely vanished.

Yang Mei's expression finally changed.

"Your Great Dao of Time is indeed stronger than it was before the creation of the world." Yang Mei's voice carried a hint of solemnity.

Zi Chen ignored him, took a step forward, and the torrent of light behind him suddenly expanded, like a vast ocean, sweeping towards Yang Mei.

In the sea of ​​time, countless lights and shadows flicker, fragments of the past and the future, the convergence of countless time points.

"Your mastery of the Great Dao of Space is not weak either." Zi Chen's voice came from the sea of ​​light: "Unfortunately, you have neglected your cultivation. The power of the Great Dao of Space has made you lazy."

The sea of ​​light suddenly accelerated, spreading out in a vast and boundless expanse.

Yang Mei snorted coldly, then suddenly clasped his hands together. The space in which Yang Mei was located was folded hundreds of times, and hundreds of Yang Meis appeared in the void at the same time. Each one was real, and each one had the same aura, the same power, and the same supernatural abilities.

Hundreds of Yang Mei attacked simultaneously from different spatial levels. Some waved their sleeves to create spatial storms, shattering the world around Zi Chen; some raised their hands to condense spatial light and slashed at Zi Chen's brow; some held their hands together and used spatial power to condense an invisible cage to imprison Zi Chen.

"You think you're the only one who can be in two places at once?"

Zi Chen chuckled, and the torrent of light behind him suddenly exploded, with countless points of light flying out from it. Each point of light was a frozen moment in time, and each moment represented a Zi Chen from the past or the future. There were Zi Chens from the past and Zi Chens from the future, some young, some old, some spirited, and some as calm as an abyss. They gathered here from different points in time, attacking simultaneously from the past, the future, and the present, surrounding hundreds of Yang Mei. Sword light, palm prints, fist energy, and finger beams—countless attacks fell at the same time.

Hundreds of Yang Mei were instantly killed, their bodies shattered into countless spatial fragments that dissipated into the void.

Yang Mei's true form appeared further away, her face pale, looking at Zi Chen with shock and resentment in her eyes.

"The Great Avenue of Time..."

Yang Mei muttered to himself, then gritted his teeth, flipped his right hand, and a door appeared in his palm.

The gate was small, no more than three feet high, yet it exuded an indescribable majesty. Countless cloud-script jade characters were engraved on the door frame, each containing the essence of the Great Dao of Space. Inside the gate was an endless void, deep and vast, without end.

The Primordial Treasure, the Central Heavenly Gate.

Yang Mei threw the Zhongtian Gate into the void. The gate suddenly expanded, transforming into hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of feet, standing tall between heaven and earth. Within the gate, countless worlds, countless dimensions, and countless possibilities surged forth.

Within some portals, chaotic spacetime surges, with the past and future intertwined, their order indistinguishable; within others, brilliant starlight bursts forth, the light of distant galaxies traversing endless space to settle here; within still others, chaotic matter churns, the primordial essence before the creation of heaven and earth, heavy, violent, and indescribable; within yet another portal, the true fire of the sun is unleashed, reaching its utmost intensity, burning the clouds within a radius of ten thousand miles into nothingness.

Countless portals opened simultaneously, pouring towards Zi Chen.

Zi Chen looked at the overwhelming array of portals, his expression remaining calm. The Eternal Bell rose from above his head, hovering high in the sky. Countless light patterns flowed across its silvery-white body, dazzling to the extreme.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

A series of bells rang out, like a tidal wave, like the ceaseless echo of the river of time.

Wherever the bell tolls, the open portals begin to collapse and are erased by time. The bell tolls send these portals back to a state of "not yet existing." The disordered spacetime is calmed, the brilliant starlight is extinguished, the chaotic matter falls silent, and the true fire of the sun dissipates.

One gate after another vanished into nothingness amidst the tolling of the bells, as if they had never existed.

"A supreme innate treasure!"

Yang Mei's face turned ashen. With a sudden push of his hands, Zhongtian Gate expanded once more. Infinite space layered, compressed, and condensed within the gate, transforming into an extreme sharpness as thin as a cicada's wing, yet powerful enough to cleave through heaven and earth.

This sharp edge is space itself, the boundary between "here" and "there", the dividing line between "existence" and "nothingness".

Its sharpness was as thin as a cicada's wing, yet it carried the superposition and compression of infinite space. It did not sever Zi Chen's physical body, but rather struck at everything that Zi Chen existed in—the past, the present, and the future.

Using Zhongtianmen as a base, Yang Mei folded, compressed, and condensed endless space layer by layer, transforming it into an ultimate beam of light capable of piercing through time and space. Everything struck by this beam would not only disappear in the present, but also have its traces of the past and future erased.

Zi Chen looked at the sharp edge, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes. Yang Mei's spatial mastery was higher than he had expected. This strike had already touched the origin of spacetime.

"A fine knife," Zi Chen said.

Yang Mei stood beneath Zhongtian Gate, her face pale, but her gaze was as cold as frost: "You should know that you cannot block this strike."

Zi Chen raised his hand, and the Eternal Bell rose from above his head, hovering in front of him.

"That's not necessarily true."

The silvery-white bell slowly rotated in the void, with countless light patterns flowing across its surface, like the river of time rushing within it.

The Eternal Bell suddenly trembled.

Countless bell tones contracted, overlapped, and converged from all directions, transforming into a silver-white pillar of light that shot into the sky from within the bell, dazzling like an inverted Milky Way, directly meeting the descending sharp edge.

The past, future, and present converge at this moment. Within the pillar of light, countless figures flicker: there is the figure of Zi Chen wandering in chaos, the figure of Zi Chen falling under the axe light, the figure of Zi Chen awakening in the primordial world, and countless other figures that have not yet happened or may happen.

Past, present, and future are all contained within this beam of light.

As the sharp edge clashed with the beam of light, all sounds in the world vanished. The wind stopped, the thunder ceased, even the flow of magma stopped. Only the sharp edge and the beam of light remained in confrontation, and space and time fought silently.

The sharp edge pierced the pillar of light, one inch, two inches, three inches. Wherever it passed, the light and shadow within the pillar shattered. The past Zi Chen and the future Zi Chen were cut in two by the sharp edge and turned into nothingness.

The beam of light was also losing its edge; the edges of its sharpness began to dim, and the superimposed and compressed space began to loosen, peeling away layer by layer, turning into tiny fragments of space that dissipated into the void.

Zi Chen watched the still-piercing blade, his expression unchanged.

"Your sharpness can sever the past and the future, but it cannot sever eternity."

Yang Mei frowned slightly: "Eternity?"

Zi Chen offered no explanation. He loosely clenched his fist, and the Eternal Bell resounded once more. The sound of the bell spread outwards like ripples from the bell's body, causing time to shift wherever it passed.

Countless figures of the past, severed by the sharp edge, reassemble amidst the tolling of the bells; countless figures of the future, severed by the sharp edge, regrow anew amidst the tolling of the bells.

Past, present, and future are linked together by the sound of the bell at this moment, transforming into a long river of light without beginning or end, and into an eternal and indestructible circle.

The sharp edge slashed into the circle, severing one purple star, and another purple star emerged from the circle; after severing a hundred purple stars, a thousand purple stars surged out from the circle.

The sharpness of a blade grows slower and duller in the long river of time, as if it has been slashed into a boundless ocean, with no beginning or end in sight.