Beyond the Timescape

Chapter 1063: Chronoflitter

On the barren wasteland planet, Erniu sighed regretfully. He had not found little Ah Qing in any of the maggots....

Next, his attention turned to the corpses, and he begrudgingly continued his search.

***

A full-scale war had broken out in another of Netherflame’s memory worlds, a world that consisted of a starry sky.

Leading a massive army was Netherflame himself, clad in a pitch-black suit of armor that made it look like he had climbed out of death itself. He was waging war against a host of nonhumans, unleashing mad and brutal slaughter. The sound of magical techniques mixed with terrifying screams to echo out nonstop.

Eventually, a figure appeared off in the distance, pulsing with astonishing godly might. Seemingly unconcerned with either side of the conflict, that figure shot directly toward Netherflame. A moment later, that individual's finger stabbed into Netherflame’s forehead, shattering his body, shattering the starry sky, and shattering the memory world.

As the fragments scattered, the figure became clear. It was the empress. Unlike Xu Qing and Erniu, who had appeared in the memory worlds in Netherflame’s place, the empress had come in true form.

Did you really perish, causing your memories to scatter and become worlds? Or did you use scattered memories to create an outer layer of defense? Which is it, Netherflame? Are you actually dead, or are you really alive?

The empress continued onward.

***

The others who had entered the secluded meditation facilities were in various locations. Some were searching their surroundings, some were ignoring them, some were immersing themselves in the worlds they had entered. Each were doing different things based on their own different goals.

For example, on a sprawling pitch-black plain was the old man from the western Devilbirds. The ground seemed to contract beneath him with each step he took. Though he looked like he was strolling along casually, his every step took him a shocking distance. As he walked, he was accompanied by a clanking sound, as if there were iron chains wrapped around him beneath his black cloak.

Eventually, he reached a section of broken land that turned out to be a massive ravine. Upon reaching the edge of the ravine, he looked down into its depths. He chuckled hoarsely.

So this is where it is.

***

As I recall, Grand Emperor Devilbird said that if we encounter memory worlds, it indicates that Grand Emperor Netherflame perished.

Xu Qing looked around at all the women in the grand hall. He definitely wasn’t going to take action before analyzing the situation fully.

That said, I can’t just blindly trust what Grand Emperor Devilbird says. Regardless, this seems to be one of Grand Emperor Netherflame’s memory worlds. In that case... what’s the significance of this particular memory? Is it a legacy? Or are the worlds like some sort of maze that I need to navigate?

As Xu Qing pondered these things, his gaze suddenly shifted to the right and turned cold.

On that side of him was a bewitchingly charming young woman, clad in a sheer garment that hardly covered half her body. Her cheeks were flush, and her eyes flashed seductively as she crawled toward him on all fours. Her manner of crawling only accentuated her alluring curves.

Xu Qing said nothing. His eyes grew colder.

The coldness of his gaze caused the crawling woman to shiver. Her expression became one of terror, and she slowly backed away from him.

He looked away, only to frown a moment later. A ripping sensation appeared, filling the world, the hall, and him. It was as if this world was rejecting him. Along with it came a sense of great danger, as if his action just now had attracted the attention of the world he occupied.

What was even more noteworthy to Xu Qing was that he felt an immense pressure, as if an entire mountain was weighing down on him. The upside was that the ripping sensation wasn’t very strong, as if it was only a warning.

“How interesting...” he murmured. Eyes narrowing, he stood, walked off the dais, across the hall, and toward the doors.

Along the way, the women in the hall noticed him, and looks of terror and confusion appeared on their faces.

Xu Qing ignored them. He wanted to find out what was causing the ripping sensation. As he neared the doors, the women in the hall seemed to become more agitated, all while their voices faded, becoming softer and softer. By the time Xu Qing was only one step away from the doors... the hall was completely silent.

The music stopped. The lascivious sounds ceased. There wasn’t even the sound of breathing. And every single woman present was looking directly at Xu Qing, their gazes cold and full of death. The ripping sensation appeared again.

Xu Qing stopped in place and looked back at the women. Now he understood where the ripping sensation was coming from.

This world is indeed one of Grand Emperor Netherflame’s memory fragments. And I’m standing in for him in this memory. Therefore, I’m supposed to do the same things he did back when this event actually played out.

If I don’t, then I’ll be viewed as an enemy invader, and the ripping sensation will appear. The entire world will view me with hostility, and terrifying pressure will build up. In other words, if I want things to go smoothly, I need to do what Grand Emperor Netherflame did.

After some thought, he walked back across the hall and back to the throne.

As he did, the music came back. The women’s expressions returned to normal. The licentious sounds started up again. Many of the women neared Xu Qing, bowing their heads flirtatiously, undulating their bodies, their expressions those of desire.

And yet, Xu Qing continued to frown. It was because he could still sense the ripping sensation. Returning to the throne hadn’t caused it to go away.

Leaving isn’t the right thing to do. But neither is staying. So what did Netherflame do back then?

Xu Qing’s eyes glittered as he made a decision. Turning to one of the approaching women, he clenched his hand into a fist and punched her. There was a boom, and the ripping sensation vanished. Xu Qing realized at that moment that when this event occurred in the past, Netherflame had also chosen to launch an attack.

A moment later, the doors of the hall opened, and Xu Qing walked out. The wind carried the aroma of flowers, and as it lifted Xu Qing’s hair, it caused the doors to swing open. As it blew into the hall, it became clear... that though there were no corpses inside, there also weren’t any living women. There were only a host of withered flower pistils.

Everything was an illusion.

As soon as Xu Qing walked out of the hall, the nation of women transformed dramatically.

The earth quaked. The sky went dark. The wind and clouds seethed. Buildings crumbled as huge vines spread out, covering everything. And at the ends of the vine were hosts of branches, with flowers and flower pistils. Each flower pistil was a woman.

The nation of women was crumbling as the massive vines spread, each of which split dozens of times to create dozens of pistils. Licentious sounds built up, growing louder and louder as it surrounded Xu Qing.

And then, as the ground in the middle of the nation of women collapsed, a 30,000-meter flower rose up. This was the main flower, and in the middle of all the petals was a single flower pistil, which was the queen.

It’s a euphoria iris!

Xu Qing’s eyes glittered. He recognized this flower. He had seen one back in Daybreak Prefecture, and had rescued Ningyan from it.... The main difference was that the version he had seen all those years ago was very small compared to this one, which was gargantuan.[1]

The moment Xu Qing looked at it, all of the countless pistil-women looked at him, laughed, then raced toward him.

Face completely expressionless, Xu Qing shot up into the air to avoid the vines. Then he thrust his right hand out and pushed down. The power of taboo poison created a black miasma that shot toward the vines. Wherever it passed, the laughter of the pistil-women turned into shrieks of agony as they melted.

The ripping sensation came back, stronger than ever, filling him with a ripple of fear. It was as if some terrifying entity was coming, something that he couldn’t possibly fight. The more he attacked, the stronger the sensation got.

“Hold on,” he murmured. He retracted the taboo poison and backed up, all while analyzing the situation. As the vines whistled toward him, the queen pointed at him.

Instantly, a host of innumerable flowers popped into being around Xu Qing, and their pistils exploded toward him. Xu Qing evaded all but one of the pistils, which hit him and left behind a deep wound. Put precisely, it slashed through Netherflame’s body within this memory world. But Xu Qing could feel the pain it inflicted.

The memory itself is attacking me!

As he experienced the pain, he realized that the ripping sensation was ebbing again. Apparently, the combination of being wounded, and the arrival of that terrifying entity, was causing the ripping to go away.

This all seems to indicate one thing. I can’t fight back! This flower is going to kill me! Does that mean that Netherflame was killed by this flower?

Xu Qing refused to believe it. Unfortunately, the ripping sensation seemed to indicate that something even more terrifying was about to happen.

There’s still something else I can try!

Eyes flashing, he summoned the carving knife made of the godly authority of fate. But then, even as his sea of consciousness surged, cracking sounds suddenly rang out from his bag of holding.

Xu Qing backed up, a puzzled expression appearing on his face.

The golden rat egg in his bag of holding was starting to hatch. It seemed like it could be because of the carving knife, although he couldn’t be sure. A stream of golden light shot out, swirled around the egg, devoured the egg, then emerged from the bag of holding without him doing a thing.

A small golden rat landed on his palm. With some struggle, it opened its eyes, looked at Xu Qing, and squeaked. Then it nuzzled his palm and pulsed with emotional fluctuations of familiarity.

All of a sudden, the memory world began to change. The sound vanished. The flower pistils stopped moving. The queen froze in place, as did her facial expression.

Everything seemed to go still.

Xu Qing was stunned. This definitely was not something he had predicted would happen.

He had been aware that these golden rats were extraordinary. After all, the old man from the Fifth Star Ring had one, and it was intelligent enough to flee through time from him. Because of that, Xu Qing had been looking forward to seeing what his rat would be like. But regardless of that, he could never have predicted that the moment the rat emerged, it would do something like this.

***

Meanwhile, in a much deeper memory world in Grand Emperor Netherflame’s secluded meditation facilities, there was a very strange heaven and earth.

In this place, heaven was made of flesh, and it was covered with countless downy hairs. Every single strand of that hair was a memory world. As for the earth, it was made up of a transparent sea. On top of the sea was a conglomeration of flesh that looked like a huge tumor.

Inside of the tumor was a middle-aged cultivator, seated cross-legged. He looked threatening without being angry, and pulsed with an extremely ancient and terrifying aura. His eyes were currently closed. All of a sudden, they snapped open, and he looked out into the memory world.

“So, a chronoflitter? Who would have guessed that an animal like that would appear now?”[2]

1. Xu Qing rescued Ningyan from the euphoria iris in chapter 491. There are some slight differences in the description of the flowers between that chapter and this one. What’s more, the author actually didn’t use the same name in this chapter, although it’s very close (he just changed one character). My guess is that he didn’t take time to go back and double-check what he called it before. I’m going with the original version of the name to maintain continuity. Another confusing element is pistil/stamen. In Chinese, there is one word that can mean both things. Essentially, that word means “floral reproductive organ.” You can get more specific in Chinese by adding the word male or female to clarify if it’s a stamen or pistil. I feel like it would be weird to use “floral reproductive organs,” and would rather use pistil or stamen depending on how it’s described. In chapter 491, the way it described those flower parts corresponds to what we would call the stamen in English. In this chapter, the way it describes a single thing in the middle of the flowers seems to correspond to a pistil. I don’t think the author is concerned with the difference between pistils and stamens. In Chinese, the term is much less scientific-sounding. ☜

2. I’ve coined the term ‘chronoflitter’ after consulting with the author. In Chinese, the name of the animal is made up of two characters. One is the character for “leave/depart” and the other is “the present.” It’s a fairly obvious meaning when you read it in Chinese. It means “to leave the present.” That said, it’s also not necessarily so clear what it means, because each character can have multiple meanings. After struggling for a while without much context, I finally reached out to the author for clarification. For the English version, I’m combining the prefix “chrono” which relates to time, and “flit” as in “to flit away.” ☜