Chapter 469: A Moment in Time

Time passed, and several more years went by in the blink of an eye.

Han Li, dressed in a blue robe, held a purple-black incense burner in his hands as he walked slowly along a deep corridor into an underground palace hall.

Golden light flickered on the floor of the hall, giving off waves of warmth.

“While I break through the core, I’ll have to trouble you to stay here for a while, Senior,” Han Li said, standing in the center of the hall and addressing the incense burner.

Whether the old Daoist’s remnant soul was impatient at the prospect of seeing the light of day again or had grown accustomed to Han Li’s various disrespects, he did not retort this time, merely sitting cross-legged quietly inside the burner.

Seeing this, Han Li smiled, flicked his wrist, and produced two golden sealing talismans. He pasted them on the burner in a crisscross pattern, completely isolating the remnant soul from the outside world.

After doing this, he lifted his left hand and placed the incense burner into his sleeve pouch.

Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly to the stone platform in the center of the hall and bent down to look at the Lunar Shadow Sundial embedded within it.

Unlike his previous visit, this time he could clearly sense the power of time law emanating from it, though it was slightly different from what he had felt before.

The power of time on the sundial remained as still as an ancient well, not even stirring a ripple, unless one actively touched it with divine sense. But now that Han Li could perceive it, it surged toward him like a mighty river tide.

A hint of surprise crossed Han Li’s mind. He formed a hand seal, and golden light burst from behind him as the True Word Wheel materialized.

His expression turned solemn, and he slowly closed his eyes. With another hand seal, the golden eye at the center of the wheel rotated, emitting a golden beam that shot straight toward the Lunar Shadow Sundial.

Before the golden beam even landed, a strange scene unfolded.

The previously motionless Lunar Shadow Sundial trembled slightly and floated up into the air.

The black iron needle at its center flashed and began spinning rapidly, emitting a black electric thread that collided head-on with the golden beam.

A crackling sound of electricity rang out.

The golden beam shattered with a bang, scattering into a shower of golden powder that enveloped the entire stone platform.

Watching this through his True Eye, Han Li heard a thunderous roar in his ears, causing his divine sense to suddenly empty, and he once again entered that state of empty consciousness.

But this time, instead of transcending the five senses, he saw illusions before his eyes.

The falling golden powder suddenly rolled upward, like an endless golden river, swallowing him whole.

He felt as if he were flying, traveling through a river of time. Golden crystal threads streamed past him continuously. He desperately tried to grab them, but each time he reached out, he grasped nothing.

A trace of anxiety crept into Han Li’s heart. Unconsciously, he began to circulate the True Word Wheel Sutra again. The True Word Wheel behind him spun rapidly, and the over four hundred time patterns on it all lit up with dazzling light.

In the river of time, a golden glow appeared on his palm. He reached out again and this time caught a golden crystal thread—a thread of time law.

Overjoyed at catching one, Han Li reached for another.

As soon as he grasped two crystal threads, the entire river of time trembled violently, becoming turbulent and fierce, like a flash flood.

Han Li felt as if he were drowning, struggling to breathe.

He began to writhe and struggle but could not break free from the river.

Just then, another massive golden wave surged toward him, crashing down on his head.

In his struggle, Han Li steeled himself and charged straight into the wave, reaching out with both hands to grab two more golden crystal threads rolling within the surge.

With two more threads in hand, a thunderous roar echoed through the river of time, and it completely collapsed.

At almost the same moment, Han Li’s eyes snapped open, and he gasped heavily.

He looked down at his hands, finding them empty, and felt a sense of loss.

Then, sensing something, he suddenly turned his head to look at the True Word Wheel.

There, wrapped around it, were no fewer than ten golden crystal threads!

The strange phenomena he had just experienced were not illusions. In this brief moment of enlightenment, he had gained four time crystal threads.

Overjoyed, Han Li looked back at the stone platform.

The Lunar Shadow Sundial had fallen back into the recess on the platform. The iron needle on it was still spinning rapidly, but the twelve-hour markings engraved on it had become very blurry, almost illegible.

His mind stirred, and he formed another hand seal. The True Eye behind him blazed with dazzling golden light, and a powerful surge of time law energy poured out, directly flooding into the recess of the stone platform.

This time, the Lunar Shadow Sundial showed no reaction. Instead, golden patterns lit up on the stone platform, spreading like a dense spiderweb, instantly covering the entire hall floor, then extending into the corridor and reaching every corner of the underground palace.

Before long, golden patterns began to spread through the ruined city outside the underground palace, and the entire secret realm was bathed in a golden glow.

Golden light flared in Han Li's eyes. He gripped the edges of the stone platform with both hands and furiously poured his own time law power into it. The time patterns on the True Word Wheel began to extinguish one after another.

With a faint crack, fine fissures appeared on the surface of the stone platform, spreading outward in all directions along with the golden patterns.

Han Li felt fine black lines emerge in the void around him, interweaving like a spider web. As the time patterns on the wheel extinguished, these black lines grew thicker and denser.

His heart sank. He held his breath, and a layer of solid, pale silver light flowed over his body, making him shine brilliantly.

At that moment, the sixtieth pattern on the True Word Wheel flickered and went out. A thunderous roar finally erupted, and the entire small secret realm shook violently!

Han Li narrowed his eyes. In the void ahead, a golden sun about ten feet in diameter materialized, rose abruptly, and radiated a dazzling golden light that shook the soul. Then it exploded with a bang, releasing a blinding golden radiance.

The black lines all around twisted and deformed in the golden light, surging toward the center to form a huge black vortex. An immense suction force emanated from it, drawing in all the bricks, stones, trees, and vegetation within the secret realm, swallowing them whole.

Before Han Li could react, his body, like a small boat in a storm, was instantly pulled in.

…

After a dizzying spin, Han Li stumbled, and then everything before his eyes became crystal clear.

He quickly swept his gaze and was stunned.

He found himself standing before a golden hall, with a golden gate dozens of feet high behind him. Not far away stood a girl with delicate features, her face tense and her mouth slightly open.

Who else could it be but Lu Yuqing?

Further from the gate, a golden-haired girl of about eight or nine years old was confronting a barefoot woman wearing a silver crown and silver robe.

Around the woman swirled a gray light dozens of feet in diameter. Above her in midair, the phantom of a huge gray dragon head opened its bloody maw and spewed a three-colored light pillar. The golden-haired girl's hands burst apart, transforming into two crystal threads that shot out to clash with the three-colored pillar.

They were none other than Gold Devouring Beetle and Qu Ling!

Everything was exactly as it had been when Han Li entered the golden gate over two thousand years ago!

The only difference was that the golden light membrane that once enveloped the hundred-foot-tall golden hall was now dim and had lost its former luster.

"What's going on..." Han Li was dumbfounded.

He had spent so long in the world inside the palace gate, yet the outside world seemed frozen at the moment before he entered.

The other three also noticed Han Li, who had "disappeared for an instant," and looked surprised.

Lu Yuqing paused, about to say something.

Boom!

The three-colored pillar and the crystal threads finally collided in the distance, producing a deafening, earth-shattering roar.

Blinding light burst from the pillar and threads, splitting the sky in two.

On one side rolled three-colored flames; on the other, dazzling crystal light. They clashed violently, causing the entire void to tremble. At the point of contact, the void twisted and shook as if it might shatter at any moment.

The ruins on the ground—stones and other debris—melted like ice and vanished completely when struck by the light from above. The ground itself dissolved rapidly.

Seeing this, Lu Yuqing's face changed. She turned into a streak of green light and shot far away, landing outside the affected area.

Han Li, however, did not move. He let out a soft shout.

Thirty-six bright star points suddenly appeared on his body, forming a solid True Extreme Membrane.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

Rays of light struck his True Extreme Membrane, producing a harsh grating sound. The membrane flickered and trembled slightly but showed no signs of cracking or weakening.

Han Li stared intently into the sky. The three-colored pillar grew denser and rapidly overwhelmed the crystal threads.

Behind the crystal threads, Gold Devouring Beetle's expression suddenly turned grim.

She let out a sharp cry. Golden light flashed at her severed arms, and two new arms coalesced, though they were translucent. She pushed her hands forward into the void.

Two streams of crystalline golden light shot from her palms and merged into one. With a flash, they formed another golden crystal thread.

The two crystal threads crossed in front of the three-colored pillar.

But the law power within the three-colored pillar surged, still pushing the two threads back rapidly.

The situation was becoming precarious!