In another time period, The Maitreya and a transmogrified Xia Longwei were locked in combat when The Maitreya suddenly froze, allowing Xia Longwei to land a powerful punch.
BANG!
“What, you think I wouldn’t have noticed that you went to the time period when I was a child to kill me then? Well, you made a mistake, mate,” Xia Longwei sneered as The Maitreya spurted out blue blood.
PTFF!
“What have you done!” The Maitreya shouted as injuries began to appear on its body.
BANG!
The Maitreya’s abdomen suddenly caved in.
“Staying in this Archipelago has made you too arrogant. You think you’re a damn dragon, but you aren’t. Have you forgotten who rules The Mainland and is my father? Have you forgotten the very dynasty that sealed you to this island? Have you forgotten everything?” Xia Longwei taunted.
“You tried to destroy my past, yet unfortunately, my father, no matter how much I try to avoid him, is protective of my past. When you tried to kill me, he acted and destroyed you. Now your entire existence is unstable as it is missing a piece of time which is destroyed.” Xia Longwei snorted.
“You think this can end me!” The Maitreya roared in pain.
“Oh, I know this won’t end you, but it does make you weak—weak enough for me,” Xia Longwei spoke as his transmogrified body started changing again.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Finally, it’s done,” Ling Xuan thought as he clenched his fist. He had finally constructed 90 meridians, completing The Ox Pathway.
“Everything…it feels so light,” Ling Xuan muttered. He could feel it—the Qi present in the physical area around him: the soil beneath his feet, the air around him.
“Looks like it was successful, eh?” a voice called out, and Ling Xuan turned to see the mutilated body of the man possessed by Xia Longwei. The sheer force of Qi falling down upon Ling Xuan had led to everything near him being destroyed in the process.
“Yeah, it was,” Ling Xuan replied.
“So, what do you plan to do now?”
“The Maitreya still exists at this point in time. I’ll just go to where it is and end this time war,” Ling Xuan shrugged.
“Alright.” Saying this, the mutilated body burst apart, dissolving into the ambient Qi.
Ling Xuan ignored the scene and looked in a certain direction.
“There you are.” He narrowed his eyes and vanished.
WHOOSH!
As he headed toward the location, Ling Xuan reflected on the information he had received the moment he completed The Ox Pathway. These were memories—memories that Ling Xuan had sealed away during the invasion of The Thunder Law Sect.
“So that’s what happened,” Ling Xuan smirked as he reached a thatch hut. The hut had no door, only a mat of grass hanging over the doorway.
SHHHHH...
As Ling Xuan entered the hut, the mat rustled softly. Inside, he saw The Maitreya seated with legs folded in meditation.
“Oi, I know you're not in meditation,” Ling Xuan called out, prompting The Maitreya to open its eyes.
“Who are you?” The Maitreya asked, scrutinizing Ling Xuan intently. “You do not belong to this time.”
WHOOSH!
The Maitreya vanished and reappeared before Ling Xuan in an instant, gripping his head with a powerful hand. It narrowed its eyes as if processing information.
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“So you’ve arrived to kill me?” The Maitreya's face contorted into one of pure mockery. “You don’t even know what you’ve gotten yourself into.” The Maitreya snorted.
“Let me show you the truth.” As Ling Xuan heard those words, everything around him began to fade.
WHOOSH!
A new scenery popped up, unfolding before his eyes like a vivid dream.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the sea, where the sky had turned crimson and the waters had paled like snow, two gigantic behemoths faced each other.
One was a serpentine creature, its sinuous body undulating through the air without the aid of wings. Its scales, matching the hues of the sea, shimmered with an iridescent glow, reflecting the crimson sky in a mesmerising dance of colours. Each scale was like a precious gem, creating a mosaic of blues and greens that blended seamlessly with the snowy waters below. Its eyes were deep, oceanic abysses, exuding an ancient, unknowable wisdom.
Opposite it stood a Great Titan, a towering colossus that exuded an aura of sheer menace. This monstrous figure bore three grotesque faces, each more terrifying than the last. One face was twisted in wrath, its eyes blazing with a furious inferno. Another face contorted in fear, its eyes wide and bulging, locked in perpetual terror. The third face was a grotesque mask of ecstasy, its eyes glinting with a disturbing, fiery pleasure. The Titan's entire form radiated overwhelming power, its body adorned with symbols and engulfed in a swirling, fiery aura. It stood upon a massive beast, adding to its terrifying presence.
GRAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The Dragon cried out, its voice a primordial roar that shook the heavens and the earth. Shockwaves erupted from its mouth, sweeping up an enormous tsunami that surged towards the Titan. The sheer force of the shockwaves evaporated the water instantly, turning the tsunami into a vaporous mist.
“What is this?” Ling Xuan questioned as he saw the scene unfolding before him, the sheer scale of the conflict leaving him in awe.
“These are the last moments of The Era of Myth,” The Maitreya appeared from behind Ling Xuan, speaking as they observed the cataclysmic scene from the sky.
BOOM!
CRACKLE!
The Titan charged towards the Dragon, and a thunderous explosion ensued, shaking the very fabric of reality. Lightning crackled through the sky, and the earth below trembled in fear.
“What you're seeing is a degraded version of the actual event,” The Maitreya revealed. “Even if I showed you the real one, you’d die.”
“No Mythical Being is to survive to the next Era,” The Maitreya continued, its tone somber. “These were the orders given by The Dragon of Everlasting Immortality to its lesser Dragons. All Mythical Beasts had to die, including the Dragons.”
CRASH!
The earth quaked as the Titan and the Dragon of Celestial Might clashed, their immense powers colliding in a cataclysmic battle. The sky was ablaze with the energy of their conflict, and the ground below was torn asunder.
“Everyone was killed until only three remained,” The Maitreya said, its eyes fixed on the battle below. “The Titan, The Dragon of Celestial Might, and The Dragon of Everlasting Immortality.”
BOOM!
RUMBLE!
The ground shook with each titanic blow exchanged between the Dragon and the Titan, the air thick with the sound of their roars and the crackling energy of their attacks.
“The Titan, against all odds, was actually winning.”
The scene shifted to show a bruised Dragon barely able to stay afloat and the bleeding Titan approaching it.
“It would’ve won.”
ROOOOOOAAAARRRR!
The Titan gave a tremendous roar that began to evaporate the Sea.
“Yet that wasn’t the case.”
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, an unfathomably large Dragon arrived and roared towards The Titan.
WHOOOOOM!
The shockwaves from the Dragon’s roar hit The Titan, throwing it back with immense force.
“The Dragon of Everlasting Immortality—that's a weird name. A better term to refer to it would be God of Myths.”
The Titan struggled to regain its footing, its state deteriorating.
“The Titan being able to almost best The Dragon of Celestial Might was already a miracle, yet against The God of All Myths? No being can ever stand an infinitesimal chance against it. That King of yours might be strong, but the most that King of yours can compare to is Heaven and Earth,not much more than that.”
The Titan's state, on the other hand, was getting worse with time.
“Unsurprisingly, The Titan lost. Its past and future were both chained to death, and its memories were converted to mere information.”
BANG!
The scene shifted to The Titan’s final moments, its once powerful form crumbling.
“As for its physical corpse? It was left to be, floating in the sea forevermore, unable to decay. With time, vegetation would arrive, and life would be born on its cadaver. The corpse would lose uniformity and become ten islands, only linked by a few strands of flesh. Some would use the flesh obtained from its decaying three heads and mold a protector for themselves,” The Maitreya revealed.
“Wait, then you’re—” Ling Xuan realized, eyes widening.
“Indeed,” The Maitreya nodded, “The Archipelago is the corpse of The Titan, and I am an organism who was moulded into form through its flesh.”