Chapter 1213: The Time and Country in the Palm, Destiny Is Mine to Seize

Scarlet was the color of the heavens and earth, while Blood Trees formed the backdrop of this world.

Amidst a vast sea of corpses and blood, deep enough to reach one's waist, seven ethereal Blood Tree shadows stretched towards the sky at its far end. From their branches hung withered corpses, one after another, presenting a horrifying and bizarre spectacle.

This was the Blood Realm, one of the Nine Perilous Lands of Void Island.

Now, within the Blood Realm, the thunderous roar of the Nine Heavens Saint Tribulation resounded, having reached its final critical stage.

Rao Yaoyao, clutching the Profound Azure Divine Sword, gazed at the golden-masked figure beneath the Saint Tribulation from afar. She no longer dared to approach. While she could pursue and attack him in the earlier stages of the tribulation, Huang Quan's Triple Saint Tribulation had now reached its climax.

Entering now would yield little benefit.

Moreover, the Blood Realm was a perilous land capable of influencing one's spiritual will. Although Rao Yaoyao, who primarily practiced the Love Sword Art, seemed unafraid, any mistake made here could result in maximized damage.

She could potentially fall into a mundane predicament, becoming a withered skeleton hanging from those Blood Trees. This, however, was not the crucial factor preventing Rao Yaoyao from her attack.

The most important factor was the two sounds that had just echoed: "First, the sword cry of a Saint's Anointment, then the cry for help from Number Two. Now, it's Elder Yan's sacred response."

Rao Yaoyao, holding the sword in her right hand and clutching an arm in her left, her eyes flickering, cast a glance back. She saw through the Blood Realm's illusion, perceiving the true situation unfolding on Void Island.

In the distance, a half-disk of scorching white sunlight rose. This was the manifested power of a peak light-elemental Half-Saint. Undoubtedly, Yan Wuse, one of the Three Emperors, had taken action in that location.

Who was he fighting?

Who was worthy of this senior Elder Yan, who rarely made a move in a century and perhaps already possessed battle strength comparable to a Saint Emperor, taking action? Rao Yaoyao didn't ponder it further.

Who he was fighting wasn't important. What mattered was that Number Two was calling for help, and Elder Yan was likely going to provide support now.

"It's Mr. Si Ren who has achieved sainthood; he's fighting Number Two."

"But Number Two can't defeat him?"

Based on what she had seen earlier in the True Glory Hall, Rao Yaoyao deduced the situation on the other battlefield, but this was a point she couldn't comprehend. Mr. Si Ren had only just achieved sainthood!

Even if Number Two couldn't defeat him, surely he could escape? Why would he need to call for help?

Unable to figure it out, Rao Yaoyao didn't continue pondering. It held little significance and was irrelevant to her newly established Saint Path. She simply needed to make a choice:

Should she continue waiting for Huang Quan to achieve sainthood and then slay him, regardless of his success, or turn back to provide support? She raised her hand and twirled the arm she held; the golden sleeve had already come off.

Rao Yaoyao pressed the sword hilt against her temple, her brows furrowed, forcing herself to make a decision within three breaths. This was no time for hesitation.

"Having severed one of his arms, the vendetta can be considered temporarily settled."

"Huang Quan is extremely difficult to kill. In fact, he's also unlikely to achieve sainthood, as he lacks a crucial item..."

"He's deliberately dragging this out now, relying on the peak threat of the Triple Saint Tribulation to keep me pinned here."

"Hmm, a ploy to lure the tiger out of its mountain lair?"

Rao Yaoyao seemed to grasp something, her gaze turning cold as she glanced at the half-crippled figure beneath the Saint Tribulation:

"As a Sword Saint, I have many avenues of action in the current situation, yet I'm being held back by a mere Grand Void expert. This is unacceptable."

"Even if he fails to achieve sainthood, with his spatiotemporal attributes, he'll be hard to kill. He also has two more Saint Tribulations later that he could use to continue holding me back."

"I see! The True Glory Hall is the key. Does Huang Quan have another trick up his sleeve there? Then my choice..."

After such deliberation, Rao Yaoyao found her answer.

She casually put away Huang Quan's arm, grasped the Profound Azure Divine Sword, cast one last glance at the Saint Tribulation, and decisively left. *Buzz!*

Suddenly, a strange sound emanated from behind her.

Rao Yaoyao tensed, gripping her sword tighter, suddenly realizing that time and space seemed to be displaced.

She had clearly taken a step, intending to go far away, yet she was back in the position where she had been contemplating. "Not letting me go? Heh!"

Rao Yaoyao sneered, turning to gaze at the Saint Tribulation in the center of the Blood Realm.

She suddenly realized that the half-crippled, undying Huang Quan had, at some unknown point, manifested a noble and sacred Half-Saint Empyrean Aura above his head! He had a Half-Saint Empyrean Aura?

Rao Yaoyao's pupils constricted.

The powers of time and space suddenly permeated the entire area.

For a moment, Rao Yaoyao couldn't move. That was the Half-Saint Empyrean Aura, having absorbed energy to near saturation, unleashing its inherent power.

The Saint Tribulation entered its frenzied phase, lightning bolts descending directly, attempting to blast the tribulation-taker into oblivion. Yet, Huang Quan's ravaged body defied it, surging upwards and pulling the Half-Saint Empyrean Aura into himself.

At this moment, the final barrier to transcendence and sainthood was broken. Void Island trembled with a resonant hum. *Swoosh...*

At the zenith of the Nine Heavens, the ethereal image of the River of Time flowed slowly. Beyond the void, the light and shadow of three thousand planes intertwined and overlapped.

Huang Quan raised his head high, bathed in the surging Saint Tribulation, his shattered body rapidly recovering. Even the fortune-suppressing power of the Profound Azure Divine Sword couldn't inhibit it.

"Saint!"

With a resounding boom, the last bolt of the Saint Tribulation fell.

The River of Time returned into his palm, the three thousand planes transformed into a miniature cosmos within a mustard seed. Huang Quan wielded the two great attributes of time and space, and sacred light bloomed from his body.

Sainthood, achieved successfully!

The sky-filling thunder tribulation disintegrated in a snap. Huang Quan gripped the mask on his face; his divine body was now unharmed, restored to its peak condition. He fixed his gaze upon her, speaking with a chilling voice:

"Rao Yaoyao, you have pursued me for so long. Now, it is your turn to face death."

"Utterly arrogant!" Rao Yaoyao's cold, beautiful face was etched with disdain. With a point of her Profound Azure Divine Sword in the air, she asked, "Do you truly believe that by entering the Half-Saint realm, you can contend with me?"

"Hahahahahaha..."

Huang Quan, with time in one hand and space in the other, threw his head back and laughed maniacally, "Time and realms are in my grasp; destiny is mine to seize! Now, with what will you fight me?"

"Spouting nonsense!"

Rao Yaoyao's face was covered in frost, and she moved, raising her sword, unwilling to waste any more words on this arrogant fool.

Such idiots, who had been suppressed for too long, made breakthroughs at the last moment, their ambition soaring to the heavens, and then believed they could defy their suppressed fate...

She had seen too many!

Just then, Huang Quan's golden figure suddenly vanished in the distance. Instead, a playful chuckle echoed in her ear: "Little girl, the era of ancient sword cultivators has passed."

"As sword cultivators, you enjoyed power in the early and middle stages, but once you enter the Saint realm, what more can you boast about?" Rao Yaoyao's pupils trembled.

So fast! Spatial power? When was it unleashed?

Before she could even fully react with her thoughts, Huang Quan, who had appeared right before Rao Yaoyao, had already raised his hand with a sinister grin.

He slammed his hand down on Rao Yaoyao's head. With a stomp of his foot, space shattered.

Rao Yaoyao let out a muffled groan as her delicate body lost control, pinned against space and dragged forward. *Bang!*

The void was the first to explode with a loud bang.

Rao Yaoyao's head struck space, slamming heavily against the void as if hitting an indestructible hard board. Space didn't shatter, but her head exploded, splattering bloody white brain matter.

*Thump, thump, thump, thump...*

Huang Quan's momentum remained unchecked, madness glinting in his eyes.

He kept Rao Yaoyao's head pinned, dragging her a long distance through the void, before finally lifting his hand and flinging the limp ancient Sword Saint from his grasp.

*Boom!*

Rao Yaoyao's body slammed into the spatial panel that had formed behind her, exploding into fragments with a *snap*.

"Huang Quan, where are your eyes?"

"After achieving sainthood, have you become so arrogant that you can't see beyond the heavens?"

Within the Blood Realm, spanning tens of thousands of miles, mundane phenomena suddenly appeared, and Rao Yaoyao's voice gracefully drifted from all directions. Huang Quan, who had just crushed Rao Yaoyao, turned around in astonishment, surprised to see another Rao Yaoyao in the distance.

The one he had just crushed... Illusion Sword Art?

Was the ethereal, transparent Rao Yaoyao opposite him the true body?

The true body had perfectly merged with the myriad mundane forms generated within the Blood Realm; it was within sight but unreachable, beyond attack.

"This is..." Huang Quan's eyes flickered.

"Mundane Sword, All-Encompassing Forms!"

The semi-transparent Rao Yaoyao raised her Profound Azure Divine Sword.

The countless ethereal figures of mundane beings dispersed throughout the Blood Realm chanted and sang, raising their hands and offering the power of the mundane world.

Rao Yaoyao's aura became noble, like a queen seated upon an emperor's throne within a mundane kingdom.

She leisurely tilted her sword, and the surrounding beings chanted word by word: "Enter the mundane world, comprehend all beings... taste imperial luxury, experience the people's ailments... souls in distress, desiring fulfillment... firm will, winning the Dao heart..."

A myriad of emotions flickered in Rao Yaoyao's eyes. Ultimately, she gathered the power of all forms and unleashed a horizontal sword strike. "Mundane Sword, Sword of Exhausted Desires!"

This sword strike was formless and imageless, without sword light.

As soon as the power of the mundane forms detached from the Profound Azure Divine Sword, it instantly struck Huang Quan. Huang Quan's eyes grew hazy, as various emotions flickered across them.

There was pain, satisfaction, hatred, profound enlightenment... He was completely immobilized.

A single mundane sword strike, refining the heart and exhausting the depths of desire, caused one to completely sink into the seven emotions and six desires, unable to extricate oneself.

"Time and realms in your grasp, destiny yours to seize?"

Rao Yaoyao sneered and walked with her sword to stand before the defenseless Huang Quan. One sword strike.

The Profound Azure pierced Huang Quan's skull, splattering blood blossoms.

A fierce glint flashed in Rao Yaoyao's eyes. With a twist of her sword intent, she blasted apart the hateful golden mask.

"Those hidden in darkness will eventually be exposed to the light."

"A petty wretch, afraid to show your face?"

As she spoke, her gaze fixed, Rao Yaoyao's pupils constricted.

She saw the human face beneath the golden mask... it had no features!

It was as if someone had used a sword to flatten the contours of his face, leaving only a blank, terrifyingly pale expanse of skin.

No!

This wasn't human! *Clap, clap, clap...*

From afar, crisp applause resounded, accompanied by Huang Quan's laughter. "Excellent sword technique, truly excellent!"

"Was this Sword of Exhausted Desires satisfying and swift to execute? If not, there's more! You want to see my face? Then I'll show it to you!"

Within the Blood Realm, thousands of Huang Quan figures suddenly materialized. They all reached out simultaneously, removing the masks from their faces.

Face after face, smooth and stark white, without any features, overlapped and intertwined, dazzling the eyes.

It was as if countless invisible and intangible mirrors had risen within the Blood Realm. Reflected in their surfaces were countless Huang Quan figures, all moving in unison and speaking with the same voice.

"Kill me... Kill me..."

Rao Yaoyao's face was filled with horror.

Just as she was about to move, she discovered that beneath these folded spatial mirrors, countless figures identical to herself were also reflected. "Kill him..."

"Kill him..."

Countless versions of herself, countless Huang Quans, shouting in unison, like inner demons urging action, almost driving one to madness!

"What is this?"

Rao Yaoyao suddenly realized she was being influenced by the Blood Realm's environment?

But in the next instant, she realized it wasn't solely the Blood Realm's influence. The world she was in seemed to have been isolated.

Turning around, she saw that Huang Quan had not moved from the beginning. He still stood in the same spot where he had achieved sainthood. Yet the world he stood in was distinctly separate from her own!

"Does this look familiar?"

Huang Quan, outside the realm, wore his mask. In his palm, he held the profound spatial-temporal power, forming a spherical orb. His voice was full of mockery:

"Isn't your ancient sword cultivators' Illusion Sword Art about using space as shadows, time as sequence, to overturn the universe and create mental illusions? To you ancient sword cultivators, what level of mastery would you say this move of mine represents?"

"Level one? Two? Or... three?"

An unknown rage suddenly flared in Rao Yaoyao's heart. She furiously unleashed a sword strike, tearing through countless Huang Quans and countless versions of herself. But for every Huang Quan and every self that fell,

thousands upon thousands of Huang Quans and selves rose again.

At this moment, Rao Yaoyao's hand, gripping the Profound Azure Divine Sword, finally trembled slightly. She saw it clearly!

The spherical orb of spatial-temporal power in Huang Quan's hand reflected the very world she was in—a world filled with thousands upon thousands of endless illusions!

"A second world?"

Rao Yaoyao's scalp tingled.

This second world was fundamentally different from the Illusion Sword Art's second world, yet it achieved similar effects. One targeted the spirit, the other the physical body, but both could completely trap and control someone in another world.

Huang Quan smiled and shook his head, then tossed the ethereal orb in his hand into the sky.

Rao Yaoyao felt a force within the world lift her upwards. "Realm of Time."

As this sacred sound, laden with the vicissitudes of time, settled, Rao Yaoyao looked up above the Blood Realm she was in. A colossal wooden time wheel appeared in the sky, obscuring the entire Void Island, with only its upper half visible. It was an ancient clock, and its hands moved backward with a *click*.

*Click!*

Rao Yaoyao felt the world moving backward.

She experienced another bizarre, reverse journey of drawing her sword, retracting it, and chasing Huang Quan.

As for Huang Quan, he retreated from after achieving sainthood to before achieving sainthood, and then to the point where his arm was severed at the spatial rift in the First Sin Hall. *Click!*

The hands of time moved forward again.

Rao Yaoyao felt all processes in the world rapidly accelerating. She again attacked Huang Quan, tearing apart his mask. But countless versions of herself, countless Huang Quans, leaped out again!

"Kill me... kill him... Kill him... kill me..."

The hands of the ancient clock in the sky rapidly spun back and forth.

Entrancing, decadent sounds echoed in her mind, interweaving into a chaotic chorus of unknown origin, making it impossible to distinguish self from other.

Rao Yaoyao felt as if her head was exploding, her soul being pushed back and forth, repeatedly tormented by fear and agitation. "Ah!"

She finally snapped, letting out a piercing scream.

Simultaneously, the seven colossal Blood Tree shadows in the Blood Realm's backdrop emitted a scarlet light.

A red gleam flashed in Rao Yaoyao's eyes. Her Profound Azure Divine Sword fell to the ground. She clutched her head with both hands, her expression utterly shattered.

"Aaaahhh!"

"Huang... Quan..."

"Kill me, kill me... Aaaahhh!"

She suddenly covered her face, trembling, and crouched down, as helpless as an orphan in thin clothes during winter. Tears streamed from between her fingers.

"It's wrong."

"Wrong."

"This world shouldn't be like this..."

Huang Quan, standing outside the Realm of Time, gazed indifferently at Rao Yaoyao, who was utterly broken within it.

He seemed to empathize with the suffering of one caught in temporal distortion, uncharacteristically refraining from further mockery. Instead, he watched indifferently as all the chaos unfolded dynamically yet orderly.

Fate is fickle, time is like a river.

Natural cultivators cultivate the power of nature, yet they can never withstand nature's erosion.

If the purpose of cultivation is eternal life, then without transcending the dimension of time and escaping its control, one cannot achieve true eternal life.

If the purpose of cultivation is power, defined beyond power itself, measured and granted as finite power for each growth stage from the perspective of the world's singular unit—how could power obtained under such temporal witness, in turn, transcend time?

"The era of ancient sword cultivators has passed."

"How can the power of creation be resisted by the products of creation?"

Like a deity, Huang Quan indifferently watched Rao Yaoyao's life unfold as she began to retrace the path of ancient sword cultivators within the Realm of Time. He spoke softly and calmly:

"Time is pressing; I won't play with you anymore... You can slowly continue to taste imperial luxury and experience the people's ailments here! Of course, the Realm of Time is not entirely impenetrable. After all, I haven't fully comprehended the profound mysteries of time and space."

"When you cultivate the time power of the Illusion Sword Art, or are able to stabilize your own time with the 'Mountains and Seas Proof' aspect of the Oblivion Sword in the Love Sword Art..."

"At that time, you'll probably be able to escape this temporal predicament..."

Huang Quan no longer paid attention to Rao Yaoyao. He couldn't directly kill her after all, so he could only trap her here.

He raised his gaze, looking into the distance.

In the direction of the Abyssal Fall, sacred light shone.

The sun disc's fluctuations, which had shaken the entire Void Island, were now in their final stages, about to disappear. "Light..."

"Yan Wuse..."

The corner of Huang Quan's mouth curved upwards beneath his mask. He stretched out his hand towards the sky. Playing with Rao Yaoyao was merely a minor matter.

Compared to him, Rao Yaoyao was truly too naive.

His true battlefield was always the entire game of Void Island, not just any single piece on the board.

The River of Time suddenly flowed from Huang Quan's palm, surged past him, transforming into a mighty river, carrying everything that had previously occurred on Void Island, and finally roared as it slapped against the sky above the Abyssal Fall.

"All Dao, retreat." *Click!* Light and shadow shifted.

The hands of the ancient clock within the Realm of Time happened to move backward.

Rao Yaoyao regressed to her childhood state, simultaneously beginning to comprehend the sword in a school.

In the real world, the sun disk on Void Island flourished and then receded, shrinking back to before its eruption.

A black figure, hidden within the light and difficult to discern, also retreated from the direction of the True Glory Hall back to the Abyssal Fall.

All the spirit refiners on the island who had been observing the sun disk's power withdrew their gazes and focused on their current tasks.

That chilling and desolate sacred sound also returned, word by word, to before the Abyssal Fall, entering a certain Emperor's throat: "Since it's like this, you've all become Emperors..."

Light was fast. But no matter how fast, it couldn't outpace time.

Huang Quan walked into the River of Time. From within, he grabbed a version of himself from the True Glory Hall period, replacing the void he had left in the Blood Realm.

The River of Time receded.

With a flash of light and shadow, Huang Quan appeared within the True Glory Hall.

The Saint power on his body vanished. He returned to his Grand Void cultivation realm, appearing out of place in the current True Glory Hall.

Like a traveler from another world, he could only observe the changes in another dimension, unable to interfere.

But everything that had occurred in the True Glory Hall had truly existed.

The battle had progressed to the point where Sword Saint Mei Si Ren appeared, and the Three Crimson Plum Streams obliterated Number Two's conscious rule-form body.

At this moment, the Grand Void Huang Quan who filled the void during the Blood Realm period coincidentally manifested Saint power. Before he completely stepped into the River of Time for slumber, his Saint power surged, and he murmured softly:

"Spatiotemporal disorder."

The Huang Quan from the Blood Realm period had become Grand Void.

Within the True Glory Hall, the true Huang Quan's Saint power was restored, elevating him to the Half-Saint level! As if he had seen through his "traveler" identity, he fully integrated into the True Glory Hall's battle.

And at this moment, within the Falling Blossom Realm, Number Two's "Void" character barely managed to let out a slightly panicked cry: "Yan Wuse, save me!"