From Fanwu to Xinghai

Chapter 33 Urgent Report from Yanhuang Pass

The main peak of Qingyun Sect, the council hall.

Shen Qingluan sat in the main seat, her expression solemn. Below her, a dozen inner sect elders stood on either side, each with a serious expression.

"Latest battle report." A messenger disciple knelt in the center of the hall, his voice trembling slightly. "A large-scale abnormal energy reaction has been detected three hundred miles north of Yanhuang Pass. The third scout team sent to investigate... has been completely wiped out."

"How did he die?" Chu Li asked.

"N-no... I don't know." The disciple bowed his head. "When their bodies were found, there were no external injuries, but... they were all old."

"Getting old?"

"Yes." The messenger's voice was even softer. "Three teams, twelve people in total, all young men in their twenties, but the corpses look like those of eighty-year-old men. Their skin is withered, their hair is gray, their teeth are missing… as if all their life force has been drained away."

The main hall was deathly silent.

Shen Qingluan closed her eyes and gently tapped her fingers on the armrest of the chair.

"The erosion of time," she said softly, "a method employed by higher-dimensional civilizations."

"Elder," a white-haired elder stepped forward, "this matter has transcended the scope of ordinary warfare. We should appeal to the royal family for assistance and mobilize the entire empire's strength to deal with it."

"The royal family is already in dire straits," another elder shook his head. "The Thunder Legion has been completely annihilated, and His Majesty the Emperor, consumed by anger and grief, has fallen ill and is bedridden. The Crown Prince is acting as regent, but the Crown Prince…"

He didn't finish speaking, but everyone understood what he meant.

The Crown Prince is unreliable.

"Then we'll rely on ourselves." Shen Qingluan opened her eyes, her gaze sweeping over everyone. "The Qingyun Sect has existed for two thousand years, experiencing countless crises, and has never retreated. This time will be no exception."

She stood up, raising her voice: "Pass down the order: all disciples of the inner sect above the Foundation Establishment stage are to assemble at the main peak square tomorrow at Chenshi (7-9 AM)."

"We need to send people to Yanhuang Pass."

When the news reached Yun Shejiqi, Lin Chen was consolidating his Foundation Establishment cultivation.

"You're going?" Qin Mo frowned. "You've only just broken through to the Foundation Establishment stage; your cultivation level isn't stable yet."

"Precisely because I've just broken through, I need real combat to solidify my skills," Lin Chen said. "Besides, I want to see those things with my own eyes."

He was referring to "those things," not "enemies."

Because in his perception of time, those beings in the direction of Yanhuang Pass could not be described as "enemies" at all.

They are more like... embodiments of rules.

"I'll go with you," Qin Mo said.

"Your cultivation level..."

"Ninth level of Qi Refining, just one step away from Foundation Establishment," Qin Mo said. "But my movement technique is fast enough; if I can't win, I can run away."

Lin Chen looked at him and nodded.

"good."

Lin Yuan walked in from outside, holding a map in his hand.

"I've checked the information." He spread the map on the table. "North of Yanhuang Pass is an area known as the 'Wasteland.' There are no spiritual veins there, no life, and even demonic beasts don't want to approach."

"But according to ancient records, three thousand years ago, that place was a prosperous holy land for cultivating immortality," Lin Yuan pointed to a location on the map, "then overnight, the entire holy land vanished, leaving only desolation."

"Overnight?" Lin Chen frowned.

"Yes," Lin Yuan said. "The records from that time are very vague, only saying 'divine punishment descended, and all things perished.' But now it seems that it might not have been divine punishment, but rather..."

"Dimensional cleaning," Lin Chen replied.

Lin Yuan glanced at him and nodded.

"The purging of lower-dimensional civilizations by higher-dimensional civilizations. When a civilization develops to a certain stage and threatens the interests of a higher-dimensional civilization, they will take action to eliminate it."

"The attempt three thousand years ago was clearly successful," Lin Yuan said. "The sacred lands of cultivation were wiped out, civilization regressed, and it wasn't until the last few centuries that it recovered."

"And now, they're back again," Lin Chen said.

"Yes." Lin Yuan's voice was calm, but his eyes held suppressed anger. "And this time, their target is us."

The next day at Chenshi (7-9 AM), at the main peak square.

More than two hundred inner disciples had assembled, each with a look of tension and anticipation on their faces.

Shen Qingluan stood on the high platform, her gaze sweeping over the crowd.

"You've all heard about the crisis at Yanhuang Pass," her voice wasn't loud, but it reached everyone's ears clearly. "This isn't an ordinary monster tide, nor is it an ordinary war. Our enemy comes from a dimension we cannot comprehend."

"They are powerful, they are mysterious, and they can take your life in an instant."

"But I'm going to tell you."

Her voice rose: "They are not invincible!"

"Three thousand years ago, our ancestors faced the same threat. Although they failed, they left behind valuable experience. They told us that while higher-dimensional civilizations are powerful, their power in lower-dimensional spaces is limited."

"They can't act arbitrarily; they have to follow certain rules."

"And our task is to find these rules, use them, and drive them out of our world!"

A low chorus of responses rang out in the square.

"Now, I announce the expedition roster." Shen Qingluan took out a scroll. "The first team, led by Elder Chu Li, will be responsible for frontal reconnaissance; the second team, led by Deacon Fang Zhiyuan, will be responsible for flank cover; the third team..."

She paused, her gaze settling on a spot in the crowd.

"Lin Chen will lead the team, tasked with penetrating deep behind enemy lines to find the weaknesses of the higher-dimensional agents."

A murmur arose in the square.

Lin Chen? That freshman who entered the inner sect less than a month ago?

Many people turned to look at Lin Chen, their eyes filled with doubt, confusion, and curiosity.

Lin Chen himself was also surprised.

He stepped forward and bowed, saying, "This disciple obeys."

Shen Qingluan looked at him, her eyes holding a certain profound meaning.

"Your father carried out a similar mission back then," she said. "I believe you're no less capable than him."

With the teams assigned, the three groups prepared for action.

Lin Chen's third team consisted of twelve people. Besides him and Qin Mo, there were ten inner disciples, all of whom were at the Foundation Establishment stage, including Chu Qing, the female disciple who had sparred with Lin Chen in the practical combat class.

"I never expected we'd become teammates," Chu Qing said.

"I didn't expect that either," Lin Chen said. "Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm afraid," Chu Qing admitted frankly, "but I have to go. If those things are allowed to go south, the entire empire will suffer, including my family."

Lin Chen nodded.

"We will come back alive."

"I hope so." Chu Qing smiled. "I'm still looking forward to another match with you. I've been holding a grudge about losing to you last time."

Lin Yuan walked over, holding three jade talismans in his hand.

"This is a time-slowing jade talisman I made." He handed the talisman to Lin Chen. "Once crushed, it will create a time-slowing zone around you, lasting for ten breaths. It can be a lifesaver in a critical moment."

"What about you?" Lin Chen asked. "Aren't you coming with us?"

"I have another mission," Lin Yuan said. "I need to go to the ruins of Yanhuang Pass to find something."

"What is that?"

"Last time..." Lin Yuan lowered his voice, "I left a time mark there. If I can find it, I'll know how this time is different from the last."

Lin Chen understood.

"careful."

"You too." Lin Yuan turned around, took a few steps, then stopped, turned back, and said, "Remember, if you encounter higher-dimensional agents, don't fight them head-on. Their power is beyond your ability to contend with. Find their weaknesses, then retreat."

"I know."

"And..." Lin Yuan hesitated for a moment, "If I really find that time imprint, I might see some... things about you."

"What's wrong?"

"Your future," Lin Yuan said. "Last time, I saw you die at the Foundation Establishment stage. This time, I want to see if your future has changed."

Lin Chen was silent for a moment, then smiled.

"Then go see it," he said. "And tell me how I died."

Lin Yuan paused for a moment, then smiled.

"You're quite magnanimous."

"It's not about being open-minded," Lin Chen said, "it's about believing. I believe this time, the outcome will be different."

Three days later, at Yanhuang Pass.

The once magnificent fortress is now in ruins.

The city walls had collapsed, the beacon towers were extinguished, and traces of battle were everywhere. But strangely, there were few corpses to be seen. Only some shriveled remains, as if all life had been drained from them.

Lin Chen stood on the city wall, gazing northward.

To ordinary people, the north is just a barren plain stretching to the horizon. But in his perception of time, there is a massive rift there, lying between heaven and earth.

It was a rift in time.

A cold and unfamiliar aura continuously flowed from the cracks, corroding everything around it.

"Is that the entrance for the higher-dimensional agents?" Qin Mo asked.

"It should be," Lin Chen said. "I can feel something coming from over there."

"What is that?"

Lin Chen closed his eyes, concentrated, and tried to use his sense of time to "see" clearly.

Then, he saw it.

They were...human-shaped outlines, but not entirely human. Their bodies were made of some kind of translucent substance, with light flowing inside, like living energy entities.

They had no faces, no features, but in Lin Chen's perception, they were "looking" at him.

"They've spotted us." Lin Chen suddenly opened his eyes.

"What?"

"Retreat!" Lin Chen shouted. "Everyone, retreat immediately!"

But it was too late.

A beam of light shot in from the north, moving too fast for the naked eye to follow. Lin Chen only had time to activate time slowdown before he saw the beam pierce through the time barrier and shoot straight at one of the disciples in the group.

Before the disciple could even utter a sound, his body began to shrivel, his skin lost its luster, and his hair turned white.

In the time it takes to breathe, a Foundation Establishment cultivator is reduced to a dried-up corpse.

"Scatter!" Lin Chen roared, "Don't gather together!"

The disciples scattered and fled, but several more beams of light shot out, and two more people fell.

Lin Chen gritted his teeth and activated the time slowdown function with all his might.

This time, he expanded the scope of time slowing to the limit. Within a radius of fifty feet, the flow of time for everything was reduced by a factor of ten.

The speed of those beams of light also slowed down, giving the other disciples a chance to dodge.

"Retreat into the city!" Lin Chen shouted while maintaining the time slowdown. "Use the ruins as cover!"

The disciples all hid in the ruins. The light lost its target, hovered in the air for a moment, and then slowly retreated to the north.

Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief, but then felt a wave of dizziness. Maintaining the large-scale time slowdown was too taxing; his spiritual energy was almost completely drained.

"Are you alright?" Qin Mo helped him up.

"It's nothing," Lin Chen said, catching his breath, "but I discovered something."

"What?"

"Those rays of light... are time energy," Lin Chen said. "They don't attack directly, but rather accelerate the target's time flow, causing the target to age instantly."

Qin Mo gasped.

"Then how do we defend against it?"

"Time manipulation abilities can be countered," Lin Chen said. "I just used time slowing down, which weakened their effects."

He looked north, his gaze hardening.

"I know their weaknesses now."

As night fell, Lin Chen led his team to rest in the ruins.

In the battle during the day, they lost three disciples, leaving nine people, including Lin Chen and Qin Mo.

"I've looked into those things in ancient texts," Chu Qing said, walking over with a tattered book. "They might be called 'Time Eclipses,' servants of higher-dimensional civilizations, specifically responsible for cleaning up 'unqualified' lower-dimensional civilizations."

"The Time Eclipse..." Lin Chen repeated the name.

"Ancient texts say that the power of the Time Eclipses comes from time itself, but they also have a limitation. They cannot stay in one place for too long, otherwise they will be repelled by the time laws of lower-dimensional space."

"how long?"

"No more than twelve hours," Chu Qing said. "That means they must retreat into the dimensional rift to 'recharge' every other day."

Lin Chen's eyes lit up.

"That's our opportunity," he said. "While they retreat, we can get close to the crack and find a way to close it."

"Close the dimensional rift?" Qin Mo frowned. "Is that even possible?"

"I don't know, but we have to try," Lin Chen said. "If we let the rift continue, more and more Time Eclipses will flood in, and then the entire empire will be finished."

He stood up and looked north.

In the darkness of night, the rift in time emitted a faint light, like a hideous scar lying across the earth.

"Tomorrow," Lin Chen said, "when they retreat, I'll go check the crack alone."

"It's too dangerous," Chu Qing said.

"It's actually safer for me to go alone," Lin Chen said. "My time manipulation ability can shield me from their senses; having too many people around would only make us more vulnerable."

He looked at everyone, his eyes resolute.

"This is an order."

At noon the next day, the eclipsers indeed began to retreat.

They receded into the dimensional rift like a tide, and the light from the rift dimmed as a result.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Lin Chen sneaked up to the vicinity of the crevice alone.

Upon closer inspection, the crack was even more astonishing. It was hundreds of feet wide and thousands of feet high, like a wound stretching across the heavens and earth. The inside of the crack was pitch black, with occasional flashes of light, like lightning from another world.

Lin Chen cautiously approached, using his time perception to probe the structure of the crack.

Then, he discovered something.

At the bottom of the crack, there was something. It was a black cube, about the size of a fist, suspended three feet above the ground. The cube's surface was covered with countless fine lines, emitting a faint glow.

That was the "anchor point" of the crack.

Lin Chen had read about it in his father's manuscript. Dimensional rifts need anchor points to exist stably in lower-dimensional space; destroying the anchor point will close the rift.

But the question is, how do we destroy it?

He carefully examined the cube and discovered that it was surrounded by a time barrier, which would neutralize any physical attack.

It takes time and skill to break through.

Lin Chen took a deep breath and began to circulate the spiritual energy within his body.

He wants to concentrate all his time energy into one point to create a time shock.

This was a technique he had never tried before, but he had to give it a shot.

Just as he was about to make his move.

"careful!"

Lin Yuan's voice came from behind.

Lin Chen turned around abruptly and saw a beam of light shooting out from the crack, heading straight for him.

He had no time to dodge, so he could only activate time slowdown with all his might.

The light slowed down, but it continued to move forward, and was less than ten feet away from him.

"Run!" Lin Yuan rushed over and grabbed Lin Chen's hand. "That anchor point has a trap; anyone who touches it will suffer a backlash from time!"

The two ran desperately, with the light chasing closely behind them.

Just as the light was about to catch up with them, Lin Yuan suddenly stopped and turned to face the light.

"Keep running!" he yelled. "I'll hold it off!"

"you……"

"Trust me!" Lin Yuan's voice brooked no argument. "I won't die, at least not today!"

He formed a hand seal, and a golden time barrier unfolded before him.

The light struck the barrier, emitting a piercing shriek.

Lin Yuan gritted his teeth, doing everything he could to maintain the barrier. His body began to tremble, and his hair turned white at a visible speed. He was sacrificing his lifespan to ensure the barrier's stability.

"Go!" he roared. "Go find Elder Shen, tell her the location of the anchor point, and let her figure out a solution!"

Lin Chen watched his retreating figure, her eyes welling up with tears.

But he knew that now was not the time to hesitate.

"Come back alive," he said.

Then, he turned around and ran wildly towards Yanhuang Pass.

When Lin Chen returned with reinforcements, Lin Yuan was already lying on the ground, unconscious.

His hair had turned completely white, and his face was covered with wrinkles, making him look as if he had aged decades in an instant.

But he is still alive.

"Time backlash," Shen Qingluan said after examining him. "He used his time-manipulation abilities to withstand the attack of the Time Eclipse, at the cost of... approximately fifty years of his lifespan."

Lin Chen knelt beside him, holding his withered hand.

"Why..." he muttered to himself, "Why did it have to come to this..."

"Because your life is more important than mine." Lin Yuan weakly opened his eyes, his voice hoarse. "In my timeline, you've already died once. This time... I don't want to see that ending again."

He struggled to raise his hand, pointing to the crack to the north.

"The anchor point... I've found a way to close it... It requires the resonance of the Guardian's bloodline... you and your father..."

His voice grew weaker and weaker until he finally lost consciousness completely.

Lin Chen gripped his hand tightly and looked north.

The dimensional rift remained, radiating a cold light.

But he knew that a way to shut it down had been found.

"Wait for me," he whispered. "When I become stronger, I will close that rift myself."

"For all those who have died."

"For Lin Yuan."

"For...the future of this civilization."