Against the Gods - Chapter 2057: Dark Tidings

A space… that’s completely still!?

This was a concept that did not exist in Yun Che’s awareness at all.

According to Hua Caili, she was born over ten thousand years ago, but time had flowed for her for nineteen years only. Was she saying that she was sealed or frozen for the rest of the time?

No! Sealing and “absolute stillness” might sound similar at first glance, but they were really two completely different concepts. The latter was… beyond the concept of time and everything about the world. It was a world of “nothingness” that was beyond everything.

It was rare to find such an expression on Yun Che’s face, and Hua Caili found it cuter than anything else. “This is one of the biggest secrets of the Pure Land. In the Heaven Breaker Kingdom of God, only Father, aunt and I know about it. Officially, we claim that Grandma Ling Xian froze my body in her divine hall using her special divine ice. We never breathed a word about the ‘Cradle’ anywhere.”

Hua Qingying touched her fingers against her forehead. If you’re aware it’s such an important secret, then why did you tell it to an outsider?!

Yun Che stared at Hua Caili for a very, very long time. At first, Hua Caili thought that he was simply stunned by the concept of a “space of absolute stillness”. However, the words that came out of his mouth was, “You’re… nineteen?”

She’s even younger than Yun Wuxin…

“Yep.”

The young woman cupped her own cheeks and smiled teasingly at him. “You’re the one who insisted on calling me big sis. I never forced you! Hehehe.”

Nineteen years old…

Half-Step Divine Extinction Realm…

Seriously…

Yun Che was the owner of a sacred body, one that surpassed it all, and even he could not help but be shocked by this revelation.

Who could have imagined that someone of this appearance and temperament would be an extinction level monster that defied imagination? He himself could not imagine the words “nineteen years old” and “Half-Step Divine Extinction Realm” side by side until a while ago[1].

Even considering what he knew about the power level of the Abyss, he doubted that there was anyone in the entire Abyss who could compare to her.

Her future achievements were unimaginable.

He wasn’t just “kidnapping” any Divine Daughter. This was a woman who was destined to go down in history as one of, if not the greatest woman in the history of the Abyss.

What he felt after the shock had passed was understanding.

He finally understood why Hua Caili was so innocent, pure, and inexperienced. She was… only nineteen years old.

Paying no attention to her teasing, Yun Che asked concernedly, “Why did you need to ‘slumber’ for so long? Is it because of… the lethal crisis that you encountered since birth?”

“Yes.” Hua Caili nodded. She was delighted that his first question wasn’t about the astounding Cradle, but her safety. The fact that his concern was practically leaking out of his eyes made her very happy. “My mother passed away on the day I was born. The surname ‘Qu’ is in fact my mother’s surname.”

“Why did she pass away?” Yun Che asked.

Hua Caili’s eyes dimmed a little as she answered softly, “Father said it was because she was gravely ill… but I know that’s not true. Neither Father nor my aunt would tell me the truth no matter how much I pressed them though.”

Hua Qingying: “…”

“Father told me that my mother’s ‘illness’ caused me to be born with damaged meridians from head to toe, broken innate profound veins, and even a broken soul… if Father and my aunt hadn’t happened to be carrying the Heaven Prayer Jade that day, then I would have died on the spot.”

“Even so, the Heaven Prayer Jade could only keep me alive for a time. There is only one way I might survive and recover from my severe injuries… the rejuvenation of a True God’s power and soul.”

“Moreover, this power and soul must come from my closest blood relative, meaning my parents or a sibling of the same parents.”

Hua Qingying slowly closed her eyes in an attempt to suppress that old memory.

“…” Yun Che’s eyebrows also twitched imperceptibly.

“However, my mother has passed away, and I don’t have a sibling of the same parents. Therefore, father was the only one who could save me… and that was only if he became a True God.”

“This ‘rejuvenation’ isn’t a one-time thing that could be done immediately either. In essence, it is the sacrifice of one’s origin energy and soul to heal another. Even a True God’s body and soul may suffer irreparable damage if too many attempts are made, not to mention that the target will be hard pressed to endure it.”

At this point, Yun Che more or less figured out what happened.

“So, Father took me to Pure Land and requested that I be placed in the ‘Cradle’… after obtaining permission from Uncle Abyssal Monarch, Father returned to the Heaven Breaker Kingdom of God, inherited the divine origin, and became the new Divine Regent.”

“After he merged with the Heaven Breaker Divine Origin and became a True God, Father took me out of the Cradle and rejuvenated me. Every time he performs a rejuvenation, I am stable for a year, and my meridians, profound veins, and soul return to their former whole state. However, he needed to rest five hundred years to recover from his sacrifice.”

“And so Father rejuvenated me every five hundred or so years and took me back to the Heaven Breaker Kingdom of God. Once a year is up, he sends me back to the Cradle.”

“Just like that, ten thousand years have passed, even though I feel like it has only been nineteen years.”

“I see.” Yun Che hugged her slender, frail waist with a doting look on his face. “To think that you would suffer such a tragedy from the moment you were born, and I wasn’t there to protect you.”

He exhaled slightly and added a little forlornly, “So… you’ll be gone in a few months, then? You will return to the Cradle, and we won’t meet each other again until five hundred years later?”

“No.” Hua Caili returned the hug and kissed his cheek when she saw how hard he was trying to hold back his disappointment and sorrow. “Nine months ago, Father completed the final rejuvenation and restored my meridians, profound veins, and soul completely back to normal. He no longer has to sacrifice himself for me any longer.”

“The last time I left the Pure Land, Grandma Ling Xian had even given me a sea of Rainbow Cloud Flowers as congratulations. That is why I met you at the best possible time… big brother Yun.”

She had addressed him while her lips were mere inches away from his ear, and it made him feel like his very bones were melting.

She had had many “big brothers” throughout her life. After all, she was extremely young despite being born over ten thousand years ago. Despite this, she felt her heart racing, and her face warming at the words even though she had addressed many others as “big brother” in her life. She became so embarrassed that she buried her face deep in the crook of his neck, unwilling to meet his eyes for the moment.

Hua Caili felt the tension leaving Yun Che’s body in an instant. When his reply came, it was devoid of the disappointment and sorrow from before, “You scared me… I guess I really did meet you at the best possible time.”

“I may be alone, without power or influence, and of weak cultivation, but…” he hugged the young woman tightly, arched his head slightly, and declared with conviction, “I swear I will give all I have to protect you for the rest of your life.”

“Mm.” Hua Caili closed her eyes and swore a similar oath inside her heart: And I will do everything in my power to protect you… no matter what I must face to do so.

“Hmm? You believe me just like that?” Yun Che smirked. “You are the noblest Divine Daughter of a Kingdom of God, and I am just a nobody with not even a backwater to call to. Aren’t you afraid that I’m really a swindler who has been harboring malicious designs against you this whole time?”

“A swindler? Hmm…” She pretended to think seriously. “And what could I possibly give you that would make you risk your life again and again, oh dear swindler?”

“You already have my body, my heart, and my life.” She said both innocently yet seriously, “What else do you want from me? Speak! And I shall give you everything.”

“…” Yun Che blanked out for a very brief moment, and he asked again quietly, “If one day, I did something that hurt you… what would you do?”

The young woman’s breathing paused for a second, and she abruptly lifted her head and stared at him fixedly. Her arms tightened around his neck as her lips curled into an unhappy pout. “You… You’re not planning to sneak off again, are you? You promised me so many times!”

“No, no.” Yun Che denied the accusation immediately. “I’m just worried… what if I did something really bad one day… something that hurts you to the core…”

Hua Caili relaxed and regained her bright smile. “As long as you don’t leave me, I will never truly blame you no matter what you do… besides, I don’t believe for a second that you will ever hurt me.”

“If there must be something…” Her voice suddenly grew meek and quiet as a mosquito. “Well, you already did the worst, you pervert.”

She then bent down and bit him lightly on the neck, leaving behind a hickey.

Yun Che stopped talking. His chest heaved heavier a couple of times, and his arms around Hua Caili tightened a little more. Then, he soundlessly and imperceptibly relaxed his grip.

Despite being fully awake, Hua Caili still refused to get up. Yun Che was fine with her acting like a lazy koala though.

The intimate moment lasted a while longer before Yun Che asked, “So, what did the Cradle look like? It must be unbelievably incredible, isn’t it?”

The Cradle was obviously a taboo of sorts, but it was hardly unusual for a human to be curious, especially considering how big this secret was.

Hua Caili’s answer came as a surprise, however. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea what it looks like.”

Yun Che: “…?”

“Every time before I enter the ‘Cradle’, I’m faced with a sealed barrier. Uncle Abyssal Monarch would tell me to close my eyes and… in at most a breath, he would tell me to open my eyes again.”

“To me, I’ve closed my eyes for at most a breath. But when I open them again, five hundred years have already passed.”

It was because the Cradle was “completely still” that she could not feel the passage of time at all.

“You really felt… nothing?” Yun Che murmured. Hua Caili’s description seemed to confirm that the Cradle’s space really was “completely still”.

But… could “timestop” truly exist in this world?

“Yep. I felt nothing.” Hua Caili explained without reservation, “Once, I secretly hid a petal in my palm and blinked once just like usual. When I turned around, Father was another five hundred years older, but the Rainbow Cloud Flower petal in my palm hadn’t changed at all. Even the location and size of the water dew on the petal was the exact same.”

Yun Che sighed in admiration. “To think that such an incredible place actually exists in this world.”

He followed the line of thought and asked the next natural question, “But how on earth is a ‘space of absolute stillness’ forged? Not even my master ever mentioned such an astounding thing to me.”

Hua Caili thought for a moment before replying, “I don’t know, but I think Father once said—”

“Caili. You should not speak of the Pure Land’s secrets.”

Hua Qingying finally could not stand it any longer and drilled a cold command into Hua Caili’s ears.

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

Hua Caili stuck out her tongue and whispered, “Aunt doesn’t want me to tell you. So mean.”

Hua Qingying: “…”

Yun Che swiftly adjusted his sitting posture and said seriously, “Aunt… I mean, senior is right. None of the rumors and records of the Abyss mentioned the ‘Cradle’ at all. It could only be a top secret of the Pure Land. I was wrong for asking.”

“Yes, yes, I’m aunt’s most obedient girl.” Hua Caili nodded in agreement before pressing her lips against Yun Che’s ear and whispered in a voice she thought her aunt couldn’t hear, “I’ll tell you in secret when aunt isn’t around.”

Hua Qingying: “~！@#￥%……”

“Er…” Yun Che wisely stayed silent and did not ask any further questions. However, that also meant that the waves in his heart refused to calm.

A long, long time later, he finally broke out of his thoughts and asked Li Suo, “How much do you remember about the Eternal Heaven Pearl, Li Suo?”

Li Suo knew what he wanted to ask. She answered directly, “Broken and incomplete. However, I can tell you with certainty that it is beyond the Eternal Heaven Pearl’s power to stop time.”

Yun Che frowned a little, “Are you sure?”

Li Suo answered, “The Eternal Heaven Pearl’s interference with time only exists within its unique space, the ‘Eternal Heaven Divine Realm’. Inside this realm, one may perform compression or expansion to the laws of time so that time will pass faster or slower than the outside world.”

“However, even if time is compressed to the absolute limit, and the passage of time slows down to a crawl, it is still slowly but surely flowing forward. It can never be stopped, much less reversed.”

“This is because ‘time stopping’ or ‘time reversing’ are reverse order phenomena that completely defy the laws of time. It should not and could not exist.”

Yun Che thought for a moment. “But the passage of time has been reversed once…”

“I know.” Li Suo did not look surprised. “I’d heard your conversation with the Ancestral God from beginning to end. I am aware that she once created the ‘Artifact of Fate’ and reversed time for your sake. However… This is the Ancestral God we’re talking about, the maker of all the laws of the Primal Chaos, and even she cannot disobey many existing laws. She paid a huge price to reverse the passage of time, no?”

Yun Che was well aware of what that price was.

“In conclusion, timestop cannot exist beneath the Ancestral God,” Li Suo declared firmly using her knowledge regarding the laws of time as evidence.

“But the fact is that there exists a ‘Cradle’ in the Pure Land where ‘space is completely still’,” Yun Che hummed thoughtfully, “Do you think that Hua Caili is lying or exaggerating?”

Li Suo could not answer that, so she didn’t.

Yun Che could not help but be shaken even further. It was because the Cradle Hua Caili spoke of had transcended even the knowledge of a Creation God.

If even the most powerful artifact of time, the Eternal Heaven Pearl, could not perform this feat, how on earth could the Pure Land…

Wait… artifact of time?

“What are you thinking?” Li Suo noticed the tremors of his soul.

Yun Che was still thinking as he replied, “Do you remember what the Devil Queen said about the Nether Mirror and the Devil Pearl before I jumped into the Abyss? The memories she obtained from the Nirvana Devil Soul?”

“Vaguely,” Li Suo replied, “but I cannot remember their names. They are devil artifacts belonging to the Devil Race.”

“Their names aren’t important.” Yun Che’s voice slowly grew heavier. “The Devil Queen caught a glimpse of a mirror’s light from Mo Beichen’s memories. That was why she suspected that the Abyssal Monarch used the lost ‘Nether Mirror’ of the ancient Devil Race to create the passage that connects to our side of the universe. Since the ‘Devil Pearl’ fell into the Abyss together with the ‘Nether Mirror’, it is highly likely that it is in the Abyss as well.”

“There must be balance between the artifacts of the God Race and the Devil Race. That was why the Devil Queen believed the ‘Devil Pearl’ to be a devil artifact of time.”

Li Suo understood his meaning, “So, you believe that the ‘Devil Pearl’ fell into the Abyssal Monarch’s hands, and he used it to create the ‘Cradle’?”

A long silence later, Yun Che answered slowly, “That is the possibility I arrived at with the information at hand.”

However…

The Eternal Heaven Pearl was ranked fourth among the Heavenly Profound Treasures.

Even if the “Devil Pearl” was a time artifact on the same level as the Eternal Heaven Pearl, the fact that it did not enter the ranks of the Heavenly Profound Treasures meant that its overall time powers must be weaker than the Eternal Heaven Pearl’s.

If even the Eternal Heaven Pearl could not achieve time stop, how on earth could the “Devil Pearl” do it?

It was at this moment Li Suo spoke up, “However they achieve this ‘time stop’, they cannot have done it while still operating within the laws of time and the heavenly law.”

“To go against the heavens and rip open the taboo… it must come at an extraordinarily huge price.”

“Price?” Yun Che scoffed lightly. “The Abyssal Monarch has existed since the creation of the Abyss itself, and he is still alive to this day. No one has rivaled his power, status and reputation either. As for the Pure Land, it is the ‘celestial realm’ of this world. What price could he possib—”

His voice came to an abrupt stop.

Realization struck his soul sea like gigantic lightning bolts.

Now that he thought about it, a price was paid, wasn’t it? It was something that had appeared long, long ago, and it was only growing worse by the millennium. It was something that portended the collapse of the wheel of time of the Abyss and even the Abyss itself…

The Black Tide of Time!

1. TL note:And here I thought Yun Che was feeling guilty about sleeping with someone thirty years younger than him. I should’ve known better! ☜