A gray mist suddenly enveloped Ning Yu and Shen Yiyue.
Outside the mist, the attacks from Chen Xing's greatsword and the blood-red sun in the sky were blocked by the fog.
Chen Xing's face was expressionless, but she did not stop her assault. The blood-red sun continued to pour down spheres of destruction onto the ground.
But inside the gray mist...
Despite knowing that "one must not gaze directly at a divine being," Shen Yiyue inexplicably felt the urge to look into Ning Yu's eyes, those eyes filled with divinity.
Those eyes belonged to the person she loved, and now they were filled with profound tenderness.
That tenderness enveloped her like warm, clear water.
Just by glancing at Ning Yu's eyes, Shen Yiyue felt countless images flash through her mind.
The fleeting memories of Ning Yu's past, encompassing all senses—sight, touch, taste, and hearing—gave Shen Yiyue a strange, ethereal sensation.
At that moment, it felt as though she had sunk to the bottom of a lake, a place where the origin and essence of all life were nurtured. She could almost hear the joyful sounds of all living things coming into existence.
This wondrous feeling intoxicated Shen Yiyue, and for a brief moment, all her worries and sorrows seemed to vanish.
She felt as though she had returned to her infancy.
From Ning Yu's perspective, Shen Yiyue gently closed her eyes.
The key formed from gray mist in her hand was the result of activating the [Mysterious Feminine Gate].
"Something existed in chaos, born before heaven and earth. Silent and formless, it stands alone and unchanging, moving in cycles without end..."
Ning Yu softly recited the words from the skill description.
It described something that existed even before heaven and earth, before everything was born.
It had never been altered by any will and continued to operate endlessly.
Was it the origin?
Ning Yu had no answer in her heart. She vaguely understood that she could never fully comprehend such an existence through language alone—it was a limitation of language as a tool.
But precisely because she was a finite being, she could feel happiness.
So if it couldn't be understood, perhaps it was better not to try.
Suddenly, a lock appeared on Shen Yiyue's chest, composed of black and white colors, each occupying half of the lock.
The black and white were not evenly divided but intertwined in a harmonious blend.
Her hands cradled the lock in midair, as if protecting something of great importance.
The keyhole in the center of the lock matched the gray mist key in Ning Yu's hand.
It felt like fate. Ning Yu already knew what to do. She inserted the key into the keyhole near Shen Yiyue's chest.
*Click.*
With a gentle twist, the circular lock opened.
A burst of gray mist erupted from Shen Yiyue's chest, seemingly creating a brand-new space filled with dazzling, star-like points of light.
Through the mist, Ning Yu saw a silver orb spinning within, like a small planet orbiting in the universe that was Shen Yiyue.
Ning Yu understood that this represented Shen Yiyue's origin—[Time].
This power did not belong to Shen Yiyue but was channeled through her, combined with Ning Yu's own abilities, allowing Ning Yu to find it in this mystical way.
Ning Yu reached into the gray mist at Shen Yiyue's chest, her hand sinking in as if merging with her body. Within the mist, she grasped the silver orb representing [Time].
The moment Ning Yu took hold of the orb, Shen Yiyue's brow furrowed slightly, as if she felt a pang of pain.
This was the burden placed on her body by something that did not originally belong to this world, now directly and starkly manifesting in reality.
Perhaps this was the cost mentioned in the skill description—the significant degradation of the user's abilities.
When Ning Yu removed the orb from Shen Yiyue's body, the silver orb instantly transformed into an hourglass floating in Ning Yu's hand.
It seemed that a tangible concept was necessary to contain it, as it did not belong to any classification of things in this world.
Ning Yu, of course, could not use the hourglass to strike down Chen Xing, so under her conscious control, the hourglass began to change shape.
Shen Yiyue had already lost consciousness, lying limply in Ning Yu's arms, her black hair spilling over Ning Yu's arm.
Ning Yu cradled Shen Yiyue with one hand while the hourglass in her other hand transformed into a slender silver sword.
On the hilt of the sword was engraved an intricate clock, and the air around it rippled with waves, as if time itself was speeding up, slowing down, stopping, and resuming.
[Host has acquired: Chrono Blade - Kronos]
A system notification echoed in Ning Yu's mind, revealing the name of the weapon.
But this was not its original form; it was merely the shape it took to manifest in this world.
The gray mist around them began to thin, and Ning Yu's golden eyes slowly became visible. Shen Yiyue, still unconscious, remained in her arms.
The mist did not completely dissipate. Ning Yu gently laid Shen Yiyue within the mist, as if placing her on a bed of clouds.
Holding Kronos, Ning Yu stepped forward, once again facing the blood-red "sun."
The weapon came with no instructions or system-based skills.
Instead, it granted Ning Yu unprecedented knowledge—something indescribable in words, a profound understanding of time itself.
With this knowledge, Ning Yu now understood time better than all the wisdom in the world combined.
She needed no techniques or skills; she simply had to feel the changes this knowledge could bring.
The blood-red halo above Chen Xing's head had soaked her hooded robe completely crimson, and the blood dripping onto the ground steamed with intense heat.
The moment Chen Xing saw Ning Yu, her blood-red greatsword and the "sun" above seemed to find a more suitable target.
But Ning Yu stood still, her golden eyes fixed on Chen Xing, whose face remained hidden beneath her hood.
Chen Xing, unable to speak, seemed to feel a soul-deep fear. She trembled for a moment before suppressing it.
The attacks from her greatsword and the blood-red sun struck Ning Yu, but they passed through her like special effects, leaving her unharmed.
"I exist in the present, the past, and the future. They are all on the sand table, and I can draw them as I please," Ning Yu murmured words that Chen Xing could not understand.
But from Chen Xing's perspective, under the blood-red sky and on the desolate, decaying land, countless versions of Ning Yu suddenly appeared.
Each held a slender silver sword, silently watching Chen Xing.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
