Luo Yan sighed. “I stalled too much while trying to help you. Don’t be fooled by the fact that there’s still a year left before the evacuation. The fact is that everyone on the list has already left for the Spirit Nidus. What takes up the most time isn’t even moving people around—that can be done very quickly. What takes time is covering up all of their tracks so that nothing blows up.”
“What about you?” Mo Bai asked.
Luo Yan shook his head. “As you can see, I didn’t make it either.”
The last of Mo Bai’s doubts about Luo Yan then vanished. If humanity was plotting against her and the Nest civilization, why wait? She had already agreed to evacuate.
Clearly, Luo Yan was not the one setting her up.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I can still leave with the second group. This time, make up your mind. Are you going or not?”
“I’m going, absolutely. It doesn’t matter when they leave.”
Luo Yan nodded. “Wait to hear from me. It shouldn’t be anytime soon, as we need the first group to get settled first.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
After that, Mo Bai could only investigate whether or not some people had disappeared. She did find that a few had. There were perfectly valid reasons for their absences, whether that be seclusion, training, or something else, but the bottom line was that some people had stopped appearing in public.
In this way, more than two years passed, and Lu Yin arrived at the Mindscape Megaverse.
The last time he visited the Mindscape Megaverse, he had comprehended the Heartrift power. By combining that with the Wayfinder Sutra, he had gained the ability to merge with the will of any megaverse; he was no longer limited to merging with just the Tianyuan. After that, Lu Yin had come up with another idea that he wanted to try. He wanted to use the pressure of the entire Mindscape Megaverse to push himself to the limit and see if Extremes Must Be Reversed could evolve.
However, while he had come up with the idea, he had lacked the time to try it out. His current visit was specifically to make that attempt.
Extremes Must Be Reversed was not a battle technique that was restricted to a single cultivation realm. Instead, it was more of a philosophy, a method of using one’s body and energy.
Lu Yin greatly admired Progenitor Ku for creating such a technique, and Lu Yin knew that he had been the technique’s greatest beneficiary.
Even when he faced off against Immortals, Extremes Must Be Reversed had played an enormous role in battle.
While he hoped to evolve it, Lu Yin did not know what the ultimate result would be, and he could not even deduce the possibilities. Once the technique evolved, it would become a technique for Immortals, which was a realm that he had not reached yet.
Let me feel what it’s like to push myself with the limit of an entire megaverse.
Lu Yin had Ku Zhan withdraw from the Mindscape Megaverse while he sat down cross-legged and merged with the will of the megaverse. From the Aevum Inch, Ku Zhan stared in shock at the enormous phantom of Lu Yin. Did he just swallow the entire Mindscape Megaverse?
Ku Zhan had witnessed this same scene once before, and the shock of that sight had never faded. Seeing it play out again was just as shocking as the first time.
He had no clue how Lu Yin had pulled it off. This felt even more awe-inspiring than his master’s breakthrough to the Immortal realm.
Lu Yin’s body kept withering. As he merged with the megaverse’s will, the rift within the Mindscape Megaverse spread and expanded, as though it was truly going to swallow the entire megaverse. A pressure built, the kind produced when a megaverse reached its limit, and it pressed down on Lu Yin.
For living creatures, the Aevum Inch was regarded as “outside” while a megaverse was considered “inside.” The scope of a single universe was the natural limit of what creatures could comprehend.
This was the same process that had allowed Lu Yin to comprehend Extremes Must Be Reversed, and through a piece of Withered Bark, also the power of time.
Anything pushed to its limit produced a counterforce. In that moment, Lu Yin felt the counterforce of a megaverse pushed to its limit.
Extremes Must Be Reversed did not need to apply only to his body. It was an attempt, a realm, a possibility of breaking past fixed understanding.
Lu Yin was searching for that possibility in order to transform how he used the technique.
Day by day, the rift continued to expand and fill the entire megaverse, creating temporal vortices. It became more and more difficult for time to find a balance inside and outside of the Mindscape Megaverse. This was most clearly observed from the Mirari Realm, on the banks of the River of Aeons in the Tianyuan.
Zhao Ran was observing a stretch of the river, but she did not interfere with its flow.
The River of Aeons flowed throughout the entire human civilization. At the moment, only Immortals and Lu Yin were capable of throwing the river into such chaos.
Regardless of who was interfering with the River of Aeons, she would not intervene.
The time outside flowed completely differently compared to within the Mindscape Megaverse.
Lu Yin continued to endure the full pressure of the megaverse, continually feeling the limits of the megaverse while searching for a counterforce. His body repeatedly recovered and dried up until it reached its own limit. This was another kind of limit, but attempting to push past this meant exceeding the amount of damage that his body could handle. A single misstep could kill him.
Uncertain that he could grasp the counterforce, Lu Yin released an attack outward.
Ku Zhan stared in stunned stupefaction as a force blasted away from the Mindscape Megaverse, cleaving the Aevum Inch in two for as far as his eyes could see. The destructive might of this attack completely horrified him. It felt as though he had just run into an Immortal.
Could a mere Dukkhan really produce such power?
It was clear to Ku Zhan that he and Lu Yin were both Dukkhans, and yet the man knew that he could not survive even one blow from Lu Yin.
He was not confident that Ku Deng could take such a blow, even after becoming an Immortal. The shock produced by that blow rivaled the awe that had come from witnessing Lu Yin merge with the Mindscape Megaverse.
After that, Ku Zhan saw more similar blasts rocket out, and he silently moved farther away from the megaverse. He did not want to end up as collateral damage. How could he guess when Lu Yin’s strikes might suddenly go in a different direction? If Ku Zhan died, no one would ever know about it.
Time flowed on. Three years passed outside the Mindscape Megaverse, though Lu Yin no longer knew how long he had spent inside it. He had lost count of how many attacks he had released after Extremes Must Be Reverses had reached its limit. He felt numb, and yet his sense of the Mindscape Megaverse’s pressure being pushed to the limit kept growing deeper. There were times when he could not even tell if he was himself or the megaverse.
One moment, he was himself, enduring the pressure of the entire Mindscape Megaverse, but the next, he was the megaverse, trying to crush himself.
The situation was reminiscent of when he had comprehended the mural in the Sea of Karma.
At that time, one of his selves had been Greater Sancte Green Lotus, while the other had been the observing mind. Lu Yin had successfully deceived himself, which had ultimately helped him comprehend the karmic wall.
What about this time?
There was no self-deception. His mind was clear, his body acted on instinct, and the megaverse remained passive.
He focused more on the idea of being the Mindscape Megaverse, being a colossal entity that sprawled out large enough to contain universes. He could see Ku Zhan, as tiny as an ant, and he could also peer far into the distance. At that moment, Lu Yin’s perspective of the Aevum Inch’s vastness changed.
He kept feeling that the Mindscape Megaverse could move.
Yes, a megaverse could move. It could act, it could want to act, yet it could not.
It was as if the megaverse was missing a pair of legs.