Seeking Truth with a Sword

Chapter 376 - 327 Cycle

The Grand Hall returned to its solemn silence. Li Ang sighed deeply and sheathed his Mo Si Longsword, turning to look at the Sumeru Hourglass on the long table of the Buddha altar.

Upon closer inspection, the Sumeru Hourglass appeared even more... bizarre. The Time Sand from the upper part of the hourglass fell through the narrow middle tube to the lower part, rapidly vaporizing into strands of golden mist that wound ethereally within the glaze glass container.

Li Ang picked up the Sumeru Hourglass and laid it flat. Immediately, the time fluctuations enclosing the area came to a halt, and the previously stagnant and oppressive air began to flow again.

He raised his palm, where Mo Si surged, giving rise to sand grains white as salt.

Now I can confirm that these granules from the Crystal Rosary, a gift from the Sword Immortal to his friend, are indeed Time Sand. It’s only by reliance on the Time Sand, stemming from the same source, that I managed to enter the Grand Hall unaffected by the Sumeru Hourglass.

Li Ang murmured to himself, In fact, this hourglass was the true source of me, Sui Yi, and the others being pulled into this anomaly.

The memory was still vivid in his mind: while exploring the Jialan Sect with Sui Yi and the others, they first encountered three remaining Buddha statues awakening into demons, then saw the illusion of the Sumeru Hourglass on the table, and finally, a white light flashed, transporting everyone three hundred years prior.

We did not travel through time and change the past. Rather, our presence was always a part of that history. Our appearance caused that segment of history to occur.

After pondering for a while, Li Ang muttered this somewhat convoluted phrase, holding the Sumeru Hourglass as he stepped out of the Grand Hall. With a beat of his wings, he soared high into the sky.

The deaths of Liao Wu and Lian Nan did not cause the collapse of the Mountain Guarding Array. On the contrary, since Liao Wu was no longer siphoning energy from the Mountain Guarding Array, the array returned to tranquility and seemed able to maintain itself for a very long time.

Within the array, most of the transformed demons had already been slain by the aftermath of the battle between Li Ang and the Demon Buddha. The few remaining demons, trapped within a limited area, were unable to escape Li Ang’s hunt and were quickly exterminated.

After eradicating all the demons, Li Ang returned to the front of the hall and unearthed five Mo Si Insect Cocoons. Sui Yi and the others lay still within them.

Li Ang did not wake them immediately but made more preparations. He used Mo Si to pile all the corpses together in the plaza before the hall, then set the hourglass upright again.

The effect of the Sumeru Hourglass manifested immediately. The demon-transformed corpses on the plaza returned to normal, and the buildings that had collapsed and been destroyed in the battle between Li Ang and the Demon Buddha were also restored to their original state.

However, Mutated Objects deeply penetrated by Demonic Qi—such as the Zen instruments on Liao Wu and Lian Nan, the relics in the Floating Tower, and the Sea Shell Bell Beads everyone carried—turned grey-white. These could not be reversed by the Sumeru Hourglass.

Perhaps Mutated Objects cannot change other Mutated Objects, or possibly Li Ang lacked the matching methods to operate the Sumeru Hourglass, or it was due to the Demonic Qi.

In any case, once all this was done, Li Ang returned inside the Grand Hall. He arranged the Twelve Perfect Enlightenment Bodhisattva Statues on both sides of the hall, placing them in the positions they would occupy three hundred years later. Inside the Universal Eye Bodhisattva statue’s cleaning bottle, he placed the Sea Shell Bell Bead, now grey-white from Demonic Qi corrosion.

After all, the ’culprit’ of the time travel is myself. Three hundred years later, it was I who stepped into the Grand Hall with Time Sand, triggering the reversal of time.

Li Ang sighed heavily and started the final wrap-up. He put his palms together, retracting the wings of his demon body and sensing all the Mo Si around him.

HUM—

A vast amount of Mo Si strands pulled away from the Nameless demon’s body, falling to the ground and solidifying into the shape of a square iron box.

Li Ang’s form shrank continuously, the demonic characteristics rapidly diminishing, until he finally knelt on one knee, his body completely free of any trace of demon transformation.

It really hurts... like having too much blood drawn,

Li Ang rubbed his groggy forehead to wake himself up and took a deep breath. He stepped forward, placed his hand on the surface of the large iron box, and focused his mind to control its compression.

CREAK—

The iron box, made entirely of pure Mo Si, strained as it compressed until it was the size of a palm, its surface marked with lines. It weighed exactly the same as the iron box Li Ang had initially acquired.

That still wasn’t enough. Li Ang then added a line of small characters to it:

["Since you have seen Tathagata, why not worship?"]

He then placed the iron box into the Universal Eye Bodhisattva’s cleaning bottle as well.

When Li Ang was back in the square before the hall and heard the old scholar’s description of the Sumeru Hourglass and the Time Sand, he had figured it all out. He himself was the one who had placed the Sea Shell Bell Bead and the iron box into the Bodhisattva’s Purifying Bottle.

If it hadn’t been for the Fine Gold Iron Box, Li Ang wouldn’t have been able to significantly evolve his Mo Si, defeat the Demon Buddha, and subsequently obtain the Sumeru Hourglass.

This was a cycle.

Although I am tempted to ’embezzle’ this large amount of Mo Si, considering the potential consequences, I’d better not. Messing with time would inevitably lead to time biting back, and it wouldn’t be good to trap myself.

Li Ang muttered as he retrieved the Mo Si parasitizing Sui Yi and the others. While they were still unconscious, he arranged them all back into the positions they would be standing in three hundred years later. Then, he picked up the Sumeru Hourglass and poured all the Time Sand he had brought into it.

He stood the hourglass upright and turned it toward the Twelve Perfect Enlightenment Bodhisattvas. The Sea Shell Bell Bead and iron box placed inside the Perfect Enlightenment Bodhisattva’s cleaning bottle instantly vanished.

After that, Li Ang turned the hourglass again and quietly waited. The Time Sand flowed silently, the temporal fluctuations around him becoming ever more apparent.

HUM!

With a flash of white light, everyone was transported back three hundred years later to the now much-dilapidated Grand Hall.

At this moment, the other three Buddha statues still maintained their awakened postures, and Sui Yi and the others had yet to regain consciousness.

Li Ang, standing alone facing the three Buddha statues, had no trace of fear on his face as he raised the hourglass in his hand.

Time for everything else but him began to reverse and flow backward. The Buddha statues returned to their stone bases, transforming back into stone sculptures. The injuries on Sui Yi and the others’ bodies quickly healed as they transitioned from unconsciousness to wakefulness.

They shifted from lying down into their standing postures prior to the time travel.

That’s about right.

Li Ang abruptly laid the Sumeru Hourglass horizontally. At that moment, only a little Time Sand remained inside.

The temporal fluctuations suddenly dissipated. The bodies of everyone else jerked slightly. Xiao Da was still frowning, holding his sword scabbard deep in thought. Jiu Fenghai was still examining the remaining traces in the hall. Sui Yi was still chatting idly, "...or else the right hand tends to fall in love with the left."

She paused, as if she sensed something, scratched her cheek, and asked Li Ang with a puzzled expression, "Did something just happen?"

"Hm?"

Li Ang quietly put away the Sumeru Hourglass and asked in confusion, "What?"