novelraw Chapter 1358 - 1357 - History and Time are not the Same
Chapter 1358 - 1357 - History and Time are not the Same
A massive headache greeted Lind as well as a dry mouth and stiff joints. He felt like he had not slept at all. In fact, he felt like Shoti had dragged him to every bar she could find until neither of them could walk straight!
Qing and Annabelle had always torn into them the next day but Cyntilla had revealed a dark joy in tormenting the 2 hung over people.
Ethry never understood the problem entirely. She enjoyed drinking when she got older but it was like alcohol never affected her! He was a dragon too so why was he affected?!
It had been a very long time since such an outing was possible. The memory was so intense that he felt like he was back in that moment. His eyes shot open as he felt a breeze carry scents from his old home in the Moebius Sect in the Floating Isles!
He looked around and a foggy expanse surrounded him but quickly collapsed as his headache nearly split his skull open.
He quickly summoned elixirs and downed them to repair his body. His Qi, Laws, and spirit recovered swiftly until the faint streams in darkness came back to him. He noticed the strands that had been disrupted in the battle had vanished.
How?! Was history changed? He quickly checked his memory but everything seemed fine with no discrepancy that he could tell.
Why hadn't the Great One attacked again? Negating those Fiends had taken everything on top of protecting the versions of his wife he called for. They had accepted the situation strangely easily.
What was that about? Why had no one asked him a question? Annabelle had seemed wrong now that he thought about it. He looked up and down the stream as his frown deepened.
Many of the threads he had seen before were gone now too. Had they been destroyed?
He walked back to the first major branch and found it had withered but still existed. It was maybe half its size.
He looked into the flow of events and grief made him stumble. Teylin died from a wasting disease he recognized all too well! His children and grandchildren were suddenly without talent but before they had at least been decent or better by the mortal realm standards.
The backwater powers had limited resources.
He examined the threads of the branch until he found a handful where Teylin lived but they did not separate from the branch. That contradicted what he had thought he had understood he was looking at.
Yet, Time Laws had no effect at all on any of it. The Great One had done something but if it was the Dao of Time there was little he could even attempt let alone test.
"Just what are these damn streams made of?" He was reaching the end of his patience. He recalled what the Fiends did and nothing unusual stood out. Their vile Qi violated so much but the basic tenant of the Qi was to consume life.
It was to consume and convert it.
Why did that work when Celestial Qi did not? Was it something unique to Fiends? He knew them better than most yet nothing made sense in relation to his current issue.
What was he overlooking? The major choice loomed but he had no inkling which choice he should take. It was an aptly named trial as his entire future would be defined by his choice.
"Is it just about choice? Yet why am I able to see all these alternatives? Why could that bastard affect it when nothing I do works?" Lind hated not knowing. Especially when it came to his own life!
He had seen what pulling figures from his past could do. Even now, despite not being at his peak, he could save people! He could save Lanbao!
Yet, that would reverberate forward and drastically change what he knew as his history.
How many could die or knowledge be lost because he changed such a drastic event for him? He could prevent himself from distancing his loved ones too but he suspected that too would have negative consequences.
The only choice he could safely make was the current major branch. The 2 diverging paths were hidden from him for obvious reasons but he did not even know the choice he was making!
What was there to do here?!
He knew trials were not spoon fed to cultivators but he just had his greatest enemy nearly unravel his own history! Why was no accommodation made?!
The Divine Soul and Inheritance spirits were too stingy!
Lind was about to try and force a tribulation at that point when his previous thought brought him up short.
History? Was history the same as time?
The instinctive answer was yes, but Lind knew the world was not so easy. Very few individuals had touched on True Time. The complete compendium of Time Laws and Dao.
He was in a place where he could see all his own days but no one else. The history of all the lives he touched was not there! If time was the true motivator or foundation of the trial, he would see it all, not just his own!
"My life is all important to me but it is only a footnote in Time!" The moment he spoke the words, he felt a shift in his mind and dantian. Pressure from above appeared and he realized he had touched on something fundamental.
Cultivators were not infallible as he well knew. He was not immune to making assumptions that were wrong.
His past, present, and future were not dictated by Time alone! The Laws of Self!
His previous frustration gave way as he felt enlightenment fall over him. He assumed a lotus position and his dantian shook with power. A new Law was fusing with him.
Law of Personal History felt right. It was the Law of existence tied to an individual. He existed and had an impact on Time. Time was all encompassing. It was the entirety of existence but his own life was separate from it as well.
Events that would elevate or destroy his own existence would not even cause a ripple in Time. Lind realized what he was seeing at long last!
He was not viewing the past as a whole but only his personal existence! History was not the same as time!
No wonder Time Laws did not work! He was trying to change all of existence when all he had in front of him was his own personal history!
He opened his reptilian eyes and they glowed with emerald light. He understood!
Looking at the streams with his new understanding, he realized he could change the course of an entire life of a version of himself with a thought! Yet, his own personal history was not exempt!
If he did the wrong thing, he could literally undo his own existence!
The sweat that covered his back had nothing to do with his own actions but the fact that if he was not a 6 elemental, the Great One could have simply erased him long ago!
He had always thought his own harmony was an antithesis to Fiends but he found that was shallow. He realized all 6 elementals were resilient against Fiends!
Why? He had thought he understood but in the current trial, he felt close to something no other cultivator could reach.
He moved his senses inward and studied his harmony not as his own personal Dao of Defiance but the fusion of elements he knew made up all harmonies.
Why did 6 elementals have such a unique path compared to others? Even 5 elementals had no such complication, so what caused a harmony in the first place?
It was a question his sect and empire tried to answer but none ever reached a satisfactory one. Ethry was a good example of why there was frustration.
Divine beasts existed with all 6 natural or demonic elements but had no harmony at all. Why?
Why did beasts have no harmony?
He had become a dragon but that was due to overcoming a trial of life and death. He retained his human cultivation as a 6 elemental. It felt critical to him right now.
The choice he had to make was related to that hidden secret! He had to know!
All the knowledge the Moebius Sect and Sanctuary Empire had gathered was open to him but none of it revealed what he wanted. All the millennia of study and no one was any closer to the secret.
Things slowly took shape as he looked outside the normal cultivation box. He had done so far earlier in his journey but he had realized that he had begun to ignore it as an Immortal.
While some adjustments were needed for a 6 elemental, they were nothing compared to the lower realms.
Lind focused all his efforts on his own harmony not as a Dao, but as a fusion of the elements.
He lost himself in introspection but kept a wary eye out for his enemies. He would succeed now or never!