Chapter 1130: One of the Mastermind's Methods

"Where is Bone Layman?" The two robbers activated their spiritual artifacts, but their target was gone.

Previously, they had been afraid of being detected by Bone Layman and dared not use their divine sense to investigate. Now, after all that trouble, they didn't even know where he had gone.

"Big Brother, is your information accurate?"

"Of course it is," the elder robber affirmed confidently. "Bone Layman was definitely here before! My intelligence source is absolutely reliable. It seems he just moved!"

"If he's not here, he's not here. Let's go, Big Brother." The younger robber felt a chill down his spine. Whether Bone Layman had been there or not, he found the place eerily strange. Although they were cultivators at the Soul Transformation stage, they were far from invincible. The world held many unknowns, and knowing too much could lead to an early demise.

The elder robber, disbelieving, searched the cave thoroughly, inside and out, finding absolutely nothing. Annoyed, he cursed, "Damn it, he cleaned up so thoroughly, didn't leave a single thing behind. Fine, let's go."

On the way back, the younger robber, seeing his elder brother's sullen mood, kindly tried to cheer him up: "Big Brother, let's look on the bright side. It's a good thing Bone Layman wasn't there. If he had been, and he possessed sinister methods like curse spells, wouldn't we both have been doomed?"

Even though they were both at the Soul Transformation stage and had a numerical advantage, this didn't entirely guarantee victory. For example, exceptional talents like Lu Yang, who could fight above their level, or cultivators who mastered rare spells like those involving time or causality.

The elder robber impatiently waved his hand. "Go, go, you're just spouting nonsense to comfort me. Curse spells aren't that easy to come by."

Inside the mental space.

Lu Yang pondered for a moment, then looked up and asked, "Senior Suiyue, who is stronger, you or Senior Ying Tian?"

Immortal Suiyue was taken aback, then immediately understood Lu Yang's intention. With a strange expression, she said, "Although I always say I'm stronger than the three of them, when it comes to understanding the Dao Fruit, Ying Tian and I are actually quite similar."

"Are you trying to say that Immortal Buxiu and Fellow Daoist Yunzhi had a sense because they are strong enough, and I had a sense because this matter involves 'time'?" Lu Yang nodded. "That's what I mean."

To understand the root of the issue, the first step was to find the differences between Senior Sister, the Immortal, and Immortal Suiyue. The biggest difference was that Immortal Suiyue wasn't strong enough. Since Immortal Suiyue, despite not being as strong, could sense changes, while Immortal Ying Tian and others could not, it indicated that the problem lay with "time."

Immortal Suiyue was about to nod but suddenly realized something was amiss. "Wait, didn't you also vaguely sense something? You might have an immortal body, but you're not stronger than me."

Lu Yang openly admitted, "I have Immortal Buxiu's protection."

Immortal Suiyue was speechless.

Lu Yang recalled another matter. "And Senior Suiyue, you were ambushed at the end of the Tinder Dynasty, and you suspected the mastermind's ability was related to time, right?"

"Yes, I believe so," she confirmed.

Immortal Suiyue continued, "I've already checked with my Dao Fruit of Time. There's no phenomenon of time reversal, which means it's not time reversal." Immortal Suiyue was very confident in her Dao Fruit; no matter how powerful the mastermind was, they couldn't have manipulated time in such a way without her knowing.

At this point, Immortal Suiyue stood up, clasped her hands behind her back, and circled the three, her thoughts somewhat stuck. It was related to time, but not time reversal, yet there was a feeling of forgetting something. What exactly was the mastermind's method?

"Perhaps what Immortal Zuo Shi saw in the past is the same method the mastermind is using now," Lu Yang murmured to himself.

Hearing Lu Yang's murmur, Immortal Suiyue suddenly stopped, her eyes lighting up. "Wait, could it be...?"

"What is it?"

"Timelines! The mastermind can manipulate timelines!"

"Timelines?" Yunzhi repeated, a term she had never heard before.

Lu Yang had originally intended to guess "timelines," but he wasn't sure if Immortal Suiyue referred to this phenomenon by that name, which was why he murmured it as a hint.

Immortal Suiyue squatted down and drew a straight line on the ground with a twig, with no beginning or end. "This line represents time." She could have demonstrated it with a spell, but her true form was Jianmu, and she preferred to use twigs to illustrate principles, which was her nature. Then she selected a point on the line. "This is the present."

Starting from that point, Immortal Suiyue drew a semicircle backward. "Going from the present back to the past, this is called time reversal."

"The point where the other end of the semicircle intersects with time is the 'past'."

"That's what happened with Tang Chuanwu. After he went back to the past and did certain things, the future changed." Immortal Suiyue erased the line from the "past" to the "future." Then, starting from the "past," she drew a new line that diverged slightly from the original future. "Once the future is altered, the original future ceases to exist. This is the basic principle of time reversal."

Immortal Suiyue then pointed to the point representing the "past" and said with unprecedented gravity, "I suspect the mastermind's method is to directly modify past events without using time reversal, thereby changing the future!"

"That's why Immortal Buxiu and Fellow Daoist Yunzhi appear to have forgotten something!"

"Young Friend Lu's words reminded me. Do you remember the past Immortal Zuo Shi saw? Our four personalities had changed greatly, and Immortal Buxiu alone deduced the path to immortality through the Dao Fruit. Perhaps this was a false timeline created by the mastermind, deliberately shown to Immortal Zuo Shi! Yes, that explains everything!"

Immortal Suiyue grew more excited as she spoke. After 400,000 years, she could finally identify the mastermind's method, or at least one of them.

"No, I can't jump to conclusions so rashly. There might be other possibilities I haven't considered." Immortal Suiyue quickly calmed down again. The assassination 300,000 years ago had made her cautious, and with many mysteries surrounding the mastermind still unsolved, drawing hasty conclusions could lead them further astray.

One piece of evidence was still missing. However, the ability of the Dao Fruit of Time could not verify this.

Seeing the atmosphere grow quiet, with Immortal Suiyue silent and Senior Sister and Immortal Buxiu also lost in thought, Lu Yang cautiously raised his hand to signal his presence. "Perhaps I have a way."

"What method do you have?" Immortal Suiyue was very surprised. She couldn't think of a way to prove it, but he could? Senior Sister and Immortal Buxiu also looked at Lu Yang, eager to know what good idea he had.

Being watched by the three, especially with the seemingly unreasonable trust and expectation in Senior Sister's and Immortal Buxiu's eyes, put a lot of pressure on Lu Yang. "Maybe, I'm just saying maybe, since I haven't tried it myself."

"I can foresee the future."