Chapter 29: The Glorious Ancient History Fades into Nothingness

The patriarch and his companions met a tragic end before the monstrous wild boar. Ye Chen lowered his gaze into the illusory realm, watching as the patriarch and the others failed again and again in confronting the boar fiend, each failure ending in their lives being devoured. When seized in the jaws of that beast, their bones were squeezed out of their bodies, the agony so intense it brought them to tears and left deep shadows in their hearts.

Death lingered over them like a shadow, their spirits nearly shattered by repeated demise. Yet, when the situation became utterly irredeemable, the great realm collapsed and was born anew—everything began again, as if caught in an endless cycle.

During this process, the vast realm absorbed power from the rolling mists, expanding and growing ever stronger. The people of the tribe became mere instruments; had the realm absorbed the mist gradually, the process would have been much slower. Now, however, Ye Chen found himself benefiting greatly.

As for the tribesmen, they were baptized by blood and fire, forced to face death head-on, and inevitably transformed. After paying a heavy price, they finally managed to slay the wild boar fiend.

There was nothing surprising in this outcome. The boar, powerful as it was, could not truly kill the tribe’s people, who had unlimited time to learn and adapt.

In Ye Chen’s eyes, only a moment passed, but in the illusory dream, a thousand years could flash by in an instant—time itself was a plaything within Ye Chen’s palm.

Thus, the final result was inevitable, though the process remained beyond his control.

Unexpectedly, upon the beast’s death, a golden radiance spread throughout the illusory world, bathing it in light and making it seem like a divine land. In this light, Dream Butterfly was washed in brilliance, sublimating within the flames, as if breaking through a critical threshold to achieve an extraordinary transformation.

Indeed, the illusory realm itself had gained much from these events, and as its master, Ye Chen’s own strength was naturally elevated.

“Still at the Ninth Rank Deity,” Ye Chen mused with some dissatisfaction. “There’s been no breakthrough. For a deity to ascend, incense and the power of faith are indispensable. My recent breakthroughs are owed to Dream Butterfly’s own bloodline and its evolving divine abilities.”

A low hum resonated. The spirit butterfly danced as if transforming to its utmost within the infinite flames.

Ye Chen was shrouded in boundless fire, reborn within it.

A spirit butterfly fluttered gracefully; crystalline mist drifted around, pooling into surging waves.

Suddenly, heaven and earth fell silent. An unimaginable brilliance burst forth as the butterfly, riding the waves of mist, soared across the endless sky.

“Is this a breakthrough?” Ning Peachblossom wondered, her curiosity piqued.

The Great Dream Immortal Butterfly—a spirit born of heaven and earth, of unparalleled origin. Should it break through, it would step into a whole new realm, gaining insights beyond the ordinary.

Ning Peachblossom could sense Ye Chen’s aura rising ever higher, but just as it reached a certain peak, it faltered, soon declining without advancing further.

“What a pity,” Ning Peachblossom thought with some regret. “Though there are gains, this is the Great Dream Immortal Butterfly. If it were of the dragon lineage, it might already have transformed into a flood dragon, but to evolve into the Immortal Butterfly still lacks something.”

“But what exactly is missing? The Great Dream Immortal Butterfly is extraordinary, but not born a celestial species. Even after transformation, its power may not change overnight. Why then is this metamorphosis so arduous?”

In a daze, as Ye Chen transformed, his bloodline surged, stirring the inherited radiance of the Great Dream Immortal Butterfly. Before his eyes, a mottled scroll slowly unfolded.

It was like an epic—grand and vast—visible only to himself.

In that scroll, all things appeared desolate, the heavens in ruin, the void shattered, and unfathomable torrents of energy swept everything away.

A scene of apocalypse: a corner of an ancient battlefield, the sky bleeding, torn open by great wounds.

The heavens had ruptured; raging winds swept across the endless expanse, the stars reversed their course, sun and moon plummeted together, and living things were nearly extinct.

Amid this terrifying vision, a long river appeared, condensed from the ages. Each wave that rolled was time itself enacting countless wonders.

The River of Time truly existed.

It was meant to be unfathomable, unapproachable, unseeable—one with the Way, never revealed to mortal eyes. Only the greatest immortals might glimpse a corner of its majesty.

Ye Chen’s strength was far too lacking. If this was the true River of Time, he would certainly have lost himself utterly and died in an instant.

However, perhaps it was but a trace of the river’s aura leaking out; mysterious still, but at least it did not cause Ye Chen to explode on the spot. Blood streamed from his eyes, nearly blinding him.

Then, the power of the illusory realm rushed in, rapidly restoring him. The world he saw was shrouded in a bloody haze, and as it faded, he saw spirit butterflies dancing across the scroll’s world.

“How did those spirit butterflies come to be?” Ye Chen wondered as he watched the River of Time burst forth, its waves surging as if to wash away the filth of the world, perhaps bringing about an era of peace.

The rise and fall of the waves overturned all things; the passage of time trembled, as if the grand chronicles of antiquity were being shaken.

Each wave performed countless stirring tales of glory—like myths rising from the riverbed, buried memories emerging like pearls, their luster now set to dazzle the world.

In the next instant, a wave leapt heavenward, transforming into a spirit butterfly.

Bathed in radiance, the butterfly looked magnificent, yet just as quickly as it appeared, it turned to ash and vanished.

It had perished—the waves’ performance ending in oblivion, the myths they carried dissipating like smoke.

The past could not be reclaimed, slowly eroded away.

Ye Chen felt a chill in his heart. Reflecting, he realized that the legends glimpsed in those waves were ones he had never heard before.

Perhaps it was his own ignorance, or perhaps those bygone tales had been erased from the ages.

Myths were decaying at a terrifying rate!

“Could it be that a cataclysmic war among cultivators shattered the heavens, bringing divine retribution and erasing all history related to cultivation?”

“Has the glorious ancient history become nothing but emptiness?”

If not for Ning Peachblossom’s mention of this realm’s illustrious past, Ye Chen would never have guessed, instead believing this was a wilderness where all cultivation was still in its infancy—heaven and earth vast and untamed, the ways of cultivation incomplete, and all progress hard-won in the mortal world.

Ye Chen did not dwell on it. Whether or not the grand history had been arbitrarily erased by heaven itself made little difference to him.

For now, it seemed irrelevant, but the fact that the waves turned into spirit butterflies was inextricably linked to Ye Chen.

The waves were only the surface; in truth, they were concepts of myth stripped from the River of Time.

Each wave floated up and then dispersed, seeming to bring no change, leaving no mark.

Yet in truth, even water drops can wear down stone—how much more so these waves, which, though gentle in appearance, surged forth from the River of Time, carrying unimaginable power.

The waves turned into spirit butterflies, which then decayed. When enough butterflies had perished, the accumulated resentment and unwillingness would rise—when death reaches its utmost, life is born anew. So many butterflies, not yet allowed to shine, withered in an instant—how could they not resent the injustice of heaven and earth?