Reborn with infinite panels

Chapter 279 Cultivation World 68
After leaving the labyrinth made of huge animal bones, Si Lingle did not choose to leave the ruins immediately.

The powerful force brought by the breakthrough and her deeper understanding of the laws of the void gave her a precious "confidence" in this dangerous place.

Driven by curiosity and a thirst for opportunity, she ventured deeper into the ruins, into an area that was also more ancient and dangerous—a place later known to explorers as the "Abyss of Sinking Soldiers."

The environment changed drastically as soon as one entered the "Sinking Abyss".

The broken remains of ancient divine weapons have replaced the massive animal bones, becoming the main feature of this region.

Broken giant axes, rusted spears, twisted armor, and tarpaulins that had lost their luster... were scattered haphazardly across the earth like thorns, forming an endless metal graveyard.

Though these weapons have fallen silent, they still linger with an intensely strong aura of malevolence and resentment. It is no longer merely physical pressure, but a mental storm capable of eroding the mind and twisting the will. Even an ordinary Golden Immortal, if not careful, could be corrupted by this weapon's malevolent energy and driven mad.

Unlike the chaotic space outside, the "Sinking Abyss" is permeated with a more terrifying law power—the shattered law of weapons! Countless invisible blade trails seem to remain in the space.

These trajectories are incredibly sharp, ignoring most defenses, and can easily sever the immortal body and primordial spirit, like knife marks that even billions of years cannot erase.

Here, the passage of time seems even more chaotic and dangerous.

In some areas, the remains of weapons are weathering at a visible rate, turning into ashes in an instant;
In other areas, time seems to stand still, and the rusted blades gleam as if new.

Fine dust particles of time float in the air; accumulating too much of this dust can accelerate the passing of one's lifespan or cause unpredictable time distortions.

Faced with the surging resentment of the soldiers, Si Lingle's primordial spirit in her sea of ​​consciousness shone brightly with silver light. Her newly comprehended Law of Emptiness protected her mind and spirit, constructing an invisible barrier that kept out distracting thoughts and frantic roars. Her heart was as still as water, focused on the environment before her.

The pervasive traces of the "Swords of Sharpness" throughout the space posed her greatest threat. A vortex of starlight slowly swirled within her silver-gray pupils as she fully activated her spatial perception. Utilizing the ultimate insight into the spatial structure through the Laws of Emptiness:

Si Lingle can "see" those invisible lines of death, which spread across her field of vision like a spider web.

Si Lingle moved as nimbly as a feather, nimbly weaving through the gaps in those sharp tracks.

Her steps were no longer in a straight line, but flashed continuously across countless incomprehensible "folds" in the void (an advanced application of 'spatial leap,' with shorter distances but higher frequencies and significantly reduced energy consumption). Her figure almost completely blended into the background ripples of space, like a shadow that could disappear at any moment.

When there was no way to avoid it, she would point her fingertip, no longer directly confronting it, but using the pure power of the Void Law to instantly create an extremely tiny "spatial collapse point" (an advanced version of "spatial anchor") in front of her, causing the invisible and sharp trajectory to deflect slightly, narrowly missing her.

She was even more cautious about that deadly dust of time.

Si Lingle's spatial perception can detect subtle and unusual spatiotemporal fluctuations in these areas in advance.

Once she anticipates the presence of a dense belt of time dust ahead, she will spare no effort to expend more immortal power to perform a spatial jump to bypass it, or directly tear a spatial rift (thanks to the advancement of the Law of Emptiness, the tearing is more stable and controllable), and briefly escape into the spatial interlayer to avoid it.

Si Lingle was not aimless. Her divine sense was drawn to several extremely subtle spatial fluctuations in the core area of ​​the "Sinking Abyss"—those spatial fluctuations were extremely unstable, sometimes as weak as a candle flame, and sometimes as fierce as a storm, as if they contained some key object sealed by the power of spacetime.

After a stealthy maneuver that felt like dancing on a knife's edge and a time trap, Si Lingle finally approached one of her targets. The sight before her made her pupils shrink slightly:
A longsword, now only half its blade and with a decayed hilt, was impaled diagonally in the chest of a massive, petrified skeleton. The skeleton was contorted in pain, clearly having endured immense agony in the instant of death.

Above the skeletons, a long, narrow, pitch-black spatial rift, its edges shimmering with fragments of time, floated silently like an unhealed scar. The strange spatial fluctuations emanated from this rift!
What shocked her even more was that, scattered beside the finger bones of the petrified skeleton were several irregular, faintly glowing fragments. These fragments were as thin as cicada wings, translucent, yet they subtly contained a power similar to the Law of Emptiness, but more complex and of a higher order—fragments of the Law of Time!

They seem to be the power that this skeleton possessed in life, or that was dissipated due to the impact of that special spatial rift, and became ownerless.

Acquiring these fragments of the laws of time carries enormous risks:
1. That spatial rift was extremely dangerous, emanating a chilling aura of annihilation.

2. The fragment was located near the petrified giant skeleton, where the surrounding aura of war and temporal disorder had reached its peak.

3. The fragments themselves also contain terrifying power of time; touching them rashly may instantly accelerate aging or cause one to regress to a weaker state.

But the opportunity is equally tempting: although she has mastered the power of spacetime, she has not yet comprehended the power of the laws of time. If she could master and comprehend them, her power of spacetime would increase dramatically.

This brings about an unimaginable qualitative change to her "Law of Illusion"! How wondrous will the transformation between reality and illusion become if empowered by the power of time?

Si Lingyue took a deep breath, her eyes shimmering with a silvery-gray light, her gaze calm yet sharp. She didn't act immediately, but instead sat down cross-legged at a relatively safe distance.

What she had to do was to use her mastery of spacetime power and her exquisite control of spatial laws to carefully "listen" to the "breathing" of that spatial rift and to analyze the "veins" of the chaotic time power permeating the fragments.

Illusion and reality, space and time... This area at the core of "Sinking Abyss" will become a larger stage for her next stage of advancement, or perhaps an even more deadly abyss.

Si Lingyue focused her mind and held her breath, her sea of ​​consciousness swirling with silver light like an inverted galaxy. She pushed her spatial perception to its limit, her silver-gray pupils reflecting the intertwined patterns of three deadly threats:

The fragments of time at the edge of the dark crack were like the spitting tongues of a venomous snake, and each spatial tremor would spread out ripples powerful enough to tear apart the body of a Golden Immortal.
The hollow eye sockets of the skeleton are filled with the lingering aura of war that has lasted for millions of years; getting within three feet will trigger a mental tsunami.
The surface of the translucent fragments was filled with a chaotic flow of time; in some areas, the flow accelerated to the point of visible particle vibration, while in others it remained frozen like ancient ice.

Her fingertips silently formed a hand seal, and the laws of emptiness transformed into a three-fold intricate arrangement:

With a light touch of his right palm on the ground, the space within a ten-foot radius instantly twisted and folded into a honeycomb-like structure. Countless prism-like spatial faults refracted and dispersed the energy fluctuations emitted by the fragments of time, and the raging temporal turbulence was temporarily trapped in the labyrinth, echoing repeatedly.

The cost: His immortal power was depleted at a visible rate, and his fingertips bled from the spatial overload.

A phantom of a silver lotus bloomed between his brows, and the pure spatial primordial power transformed into delicate threads of light, wrapping around the fragments like a spiderweb. Each time the silver threads touched a fragment of time, they sparked dazzling sparks of spacetime, but the flow of time on the surface of the fragments began to slowly converge.

With his left palm, he channeled the malevolent energy of the surrounding weapon remnants, condensing it into a dark red barrier above the petrified skeleton. When the spatial rift suddenly unleashed a beam of annihilation, the barrier was instantly vaporized, but it bought him a crucial half-breath—enough for Si Lingle to make a fatal displacement!
The moment the largest fragment of time rose into the air, pulled by the silver thread, a sudden change occurred:

The spatial rift suddenly expanded, and three twisted bolts of time-annihilation lightning burst forth from the dark center;

The petrified bone knuckles suddenly exploded, and the ejected bone spikes, carrying a tangible baleful aura, pierced straight into her back.
The core of the Time Fragment exploded, creating a time reversal vortex, and Si Lingle's right arm instantly degenerated into the frail state of her teenage years!
"Reverse the cycle of illusion and reality!" she hissed, and the space around her collapsed violently.

The Time-Shattering Lightning was drawn into the pre-arranged spatial folds, colliding and annihilating with the energy spilling from the fragments of time. Bone spikes pierced through the spatial afterimage she left behind, and her true form flashed into the hollow of the skeletal shoulder blade.

The moment the power of retrospection touched her heart, the primordial spirit silver lotus suddenly bloomed—the law of the void forcibly transferred the time paradox to the earth beneath her feet, and the rock strata within a radius of three zhang instantly weathered into ash!
When the smoke and dust cleared, Si Lingle knelt on one knee amidst the swirling dust of time in the ruins.

His left hand tightly gripped three translucent, warm, jade-like fragments. Silver-gray blood dripped from his tiger's mouth but flowed back into the wound upon contact with the fragments.

Beneath the tattered robes, faint traces of new silver time were visible on the back, flickering like star trails.

The petrified skeleton collapsed behind her with a crash, and the spatial rift returned to silence after a violent spasm.

The fragments of time in the palm of one's hand resonate with an ancient pulse—not a gift of power, but a whisper from the river of time to the conqueror.

Holding the three fragments that contained the power of time, Si Lingyue could clearly feel the warm yet heavy pulse coming from her palm.

This is not a gift of power, but more like a direct whisper from the source of time, heavy and ancient.

She could feel her own immortal power being uncontrollably drawn and consumed by the fragment, as evidenced by the silver-gray blood flowing backward from the wound on her tiger's mouth—the fragment was testing her qualifications to control it.

This is no place to linger.

The deafening crash of collapsing skeletons and the violent turbulence before the deathly silence of the spatial rift were like drops of water falling into a frying pan, threatening to ignite even more unpredictable dangers deep within the "Abyss of Sinking Soldiers."

The silver time marks on her back still flickered, a mark left by her initial contact with the laws of time, and also a potential burden. Suppressing her surging blood and intense desire to explore the fragments further, Si Lingyue's gaze swept around, her spatial perception spreading rapidly like invisible tentacles.

Soon, she spotted a crevice where she had briefly lingered to escape the dust of time—it was inside a mountain rock that had been cleaved open by some enormous weapon, naturally concealed by chaotic spatial folds, and its location was extremely cunning and secretive.

"There it is!"

The thought had barely formed when Si Lingle's figure vanished as if erased by an eraser, leaving behind a faint, slowly dissipating ripple in space. The next instant, she had traversed space and appeared deep within the crevice of the rocks.

The place was narrow and dark, with a thick layer of dust mixed with metallic particles covering the ground. The violent malevolent energy and spatial turbulence of the "Sinking Abyss" outside had been filtered by layers of spatial folds and appeared relatively calm by the time they reached this place.

Although it is not a blessed land, it is the safest place to retreat to at present.

Without the slightest hesitation, Si Lingle immediately sat down cross-legged and began the most meticulous arrangements.

Si Lingle first bit her tongue, spitting out a mouthful of pure life essence blood. The blood droplet transformed into complex silver-gray runes in the air, merging with the immortal power of the Void Law, layering dozens of [Spatial Barriers] and [Time-Space Locks].

These barriers not only isolate all external prying and energy disturbances, but also form a small barrier inside that distorts the flow of time—in an instant outside, the flow of time here has been subtly altered.

Si Lingle integrated her own immortal power and the wisp of time power she had just acquired into the core of the barrier, creating a preliminary [Time Acceleration Field].

Then, she carefully placed the three translucent fragments of time in front of her.

As soon as the fragments landed, they floated in mid-air, emitting a soft and mysterious halo that illuminated the dim cave with a bizarre and fantastical light.

Si Lingle took a deep breath, and the silvery-gray starry river in her pupils receded, transforming into a pure, profound depth that seemed to pierce through eternity. Her primordial spirit sank completely into her sea of ​​consciousness, opening her mind and soul to the three fragments that carried the profound mysteries of the laws of time.

A hundred years is but a fleeting moment for a cultivator. But for Si Lingle, who was in seclusion, it was a series of breathtaking battles of the soul against the very laws of time.

Initially, the illusory image of the river of time surged and raged within her consciousness. She was like a small boat in a raging storm, constantly facing the danger of being swept away and torn apart. The immense information and fragments of will contained within these fragments transformed into countless chaotic and disordered illusions:

She witnessed the birth and death of stars, and the gathering and dispersing of cosmic dust.

She felt the plants and trees undergoing a cycle of withering and flourishing in an instant, and the mountains turning into flat land before her eyes;
*Once transformed into a humble floating creature, living only a day; and then seemed to become a cold rock, feeling the loneliness etched by millions of years of wind and frost.

The chaotic flow of time made her feel disoriented, with childhood memories and possible future visions intertwined and confused before her eyes;

The power of [Time Reversal] was inadvertently triggered, causing a strand of her hair to lose its thousand-year luster in an instant, becoming dry, white, and brittle;
The power of [Time Acceleration] also went out of control, attempting to compress the spatial immortal power in her palm to the brink of destruction in an instant;
The sea of ​​consciousness became the most dangerous battlefield.

Every moment of enlightenment may be accompanied by unbearable pain of the soul being torn apart.

Every attempt to "touch" the "strings" of time feels like touching an invisible poison.

Her primordial spirit's silver light dimmed repeatedly, and even developed fine cracks, but through the ultimate application of the "Law of Emptiness," she used space as a buffer to gradually repair and adapt.

She constantly "anchors" her own existence: using the "point" of space to resist the "flow" of time; using her own unwavering will (real) to dispel the erosion of the illusion of time (illusion).

The concepts of virtuality, reality, time, space... have been deconstructed and recombined through countless clashes, verifications, and fusions.

She no longer tries to forcibly control the flowing river of time, but instead, like the most patient listener, analyzes its most fundamental "pulse"—the core rhythms that support the flow, rewind, and stillness of time.

She incorporated the subtleties of the Law of Emptiness into her understanding of time.

Space is a container, time is like flowing water.

She can create spatial "gaps" to temporarily slow down the erosion of time (decelerate), and she can also simulate the "stagnation" (pseudo-stillness) of time in spatial folds, and even use spatial jumps to trigger local, subtle ripples in time.

She no longer rejected the fragments of will within the fragments, but instead used her powerful primordial spirit to embrace and refine them.

Each fragment of will is a remnant of the predecessors' understanding of the laws of time. The process of absorbing them is like standing on the shoulders of countless giants and gazing at the secrets of a wider space-time.

Subtle time-traces began to appear around her, like flowing silver veins, resonating with the star trails behind her.

On this day, the space inside the cave quietly became incredibly viscous, and the distortion brought about by the accelerated time field reached its peak. While only a few decades might have passed outside, a century truly passed inside the cave.

Si Lingle sat cross-legged, covered in dust, like a solidified stone sculpture. But within her, a tremendous transformation was taking place.

"Crack——!"

The soft sound did not come from the cave, but from her foundation of Dao, from the boundaries of her understanding of time and space.

The three fragments of the laws of time surrounding her, as if burned out, reached a dazzling peak of light, and then suddenly collapsed inward, completely transforming into three invisible and intangible streams of light that contained ultimate laws, which entered her brow!

Si Lingle's eyes, which had been closed for a hundred years, suddenly opened!

It was no longer the silvery-gray galaxy vortex of the past, but a deep and boundless cosmic sea!

In that sea of ​​stars, time is no longer an elusive undercurrent, but a clearly visible, silver river that stretches out like an orbit!
In her eyes, space also becomes more three-dimensional, filled with countless "nodes" and "creases" that can be understood and utilized.

A powerful aura suddenly erupted!
The dozens of spatial illusions and temporal barriers that enveloped her shattered and dissipated silently, like fragile glass. Dust that had accumulated for centuries was blasted away by an invisible force and suspended in the air, as if time had stopped for her at that moment.

Her long hair moved without wind, each strand as clear as jade, shimmering with a flowing, cool silver light more ethereal than moonlight. Her skin was translucent, as if containing starlight. The intense fluctuations of immortal power that once emanated from her body had ceased; instead, her aura had become as profound, restrained, and boundless as the universe itself.

A mysterious and profound power of law flowed naturally around her. Under her gaze, a suspended speck of dust instantly weathered away and vanished, while another speck of dust seemed to have been forgotten by time, frozen in place and motionless.

This is an instinctive control over the power of time—acceleration! Freeze!

"The realm of celestial beings... so that's how it is."

Si Lingle slowly rose, her movements fluid and effortless, as if she were one with the surrounding space and time.

She could clearly feel the transformed, more powerful immortal power within her body—it had transformed from pure spatial power into a more fundamental and powerful [space-time immortal power]!
This power is as vast as the starry sky, and every strand contains a subtle control over space and a preliminary mastery of time.

The silver time marks on her back were no longer dim and flickering; they seemed to come alive, transforming into intricate star trails flowing with silver light, etched beneath her skin, becoming the outward symbol of her new power system.

With every gesture, it seems as if one can pluck the invisible strings of time and stir ripples in space.

A century of perilous seclusion exhausted three incomparably precious fragments of the Law of Time, but it opened the door to a higher level for her—[Early Stage Celestial Immortal]!
What's even more remarkable is that she successfully integrated the Law of Emptiness (space) with the newly comprehended Law of Time in a preliminary and unique way.

She stood beside the collapsed skeletons and the silent spatial rifts (a century later, this place was covered by new weapon wreckage and dust, but the core landscape remained), her mind clear and powerful like never before.

"'The Abyss of Sinking Soldiers'...this is just the beginning." Si Lingle's gaze drifted into the deeper, darker distance of the ruins, a faint yet confident smile curving her lips.