Outer universe
Yang Kai was going to the Heavenly Great Restrictions. With him, some Open Heaven level masters were traveling. They did not notice someone watching them from a distance. They could not sense him with their divine sense. He was Lu Si — looking very young. Around a fifteen-year-old boy, but his true age was ten thousand years or more. His hair was white and long. His eyes were dark, as if an abyss lived inside them. His face was cold and there was no emotion there.His body cover with blue color Qi.
Suddenly that person made an ambush on them. In a few strikes he killed all the Open Heaven stage cultivators. But Yang Kai remained. Lu Si killed all the others, yet his expression did not change a bit. He moved like death itself — silent, precise, and without mercy. The battlefield emptied in moments; only the two of them remained amid broken formations and spilled blood.
Lu Si attacked him.
[Divine attack: Thousand Illusionary Needle]
Immediately a thousand needles appeared from the void. All of them were highly condensed with death energy. They filled the space between the two like a rain of black stars. Yang Kai became an ancestral dragon around ten thousand zhang. He used his dragon breath and destroyed all the needles. The shock twisted the space and even the distant stars trembled at the force of his roar.
But Lu Si had fully prepared. New needles emerged, not from the void but from his Open Heaven. All of them were highly condensed with world energy. They rushed on Yang Kai, piercing and making a thousand holes in his body. Blood burst from every injured place and stained the ground dark. Yang Kai's scales cracked, yet his figure did not fall. Pain carved deeper into him, but he refused to collapse.
Lu Si did not stop. This time he used a formless hand to try to capture him. But Yang Kai escaped and rushed toward the Heavenly Great Restrictions area. There the Heaven Devouring Great Emperor guarded the threshold of the Restrictions. He was a statue of wrath and law, a living barrier between realms. Lu Si followed Yang Kai and arrived at that place like a shadow slipping through cracks.
Yang Kai asked, "Who are you?"
Lu Si did not reply. He had not intended to answer. He only started killing randomly in the Heavenly Great Restrictions area. Hundreds of people died by his hand. Their defenses shattered before him like thin glass. Yang Kai predicted something — that Lu Si was possessed by Ink. While Lu Si killed, all who tried to stop him fell, and he never hesitated. He targeted those who stood between him and Yang Kai as if clearing chess pieces from a board.
At the same time, the Heaven Devouring Great Emperor attacked him to stop him and to save Yang Kai. Lu Si summoned a giant skeleton that spread Yin qi and the five elemental qi. It stormed at the Heaven Devouring Great Emperor and held him back, blocking the emperor's rescue. The two titans clashed; sparks of Dao laws scattered like falling flowers.
Suddenly Yang Kai said, "I saw you somewhere. You... you are from the Small World of Tong Xuan Realm. But I don't remember your actual identity."
Lu Si, who had not spoken the whole time, suddenly said, "You are right. If you give me your Space-Time River then I will not kill your relatives." Saying this, he opened his Open Heaven, which was at the ninth level of Open Heaven. A spiritual hand reached out and brought two captives: one was Yang Kai's father and the other was his mother. They were bound and limp, their lives hanging by a thread.
"Decide in three breaths," he said.
Suddenly Su Yan, Xia Ning Chang, Yang Kai's wives, his sister, and his adopted son — who was actually a dragon — reached the place. They arrived panting, alarmed, and ready. Seeing them, Lu Si said, "Oh... good timing." He shifted his cold gaze to Yang Kai and said, with a tone that held no warmth, "If you do not give me your Space-Time River then all of your wives, your adopted son and your sister will die with you."
Yang Kai tried to strike at Lu Si with his Space-Time River, but something blocked him. It looked like a sword.
[Blade of Incomplete Crops Dao]
This was Lu Si's original cultivation path, given a blade form of his dao. He controlled it like an extension of his will. Lu Si then used another divine attack.
[Divine attack: Mirage of God of Death]
This technique was made from Yin energy. Immediately, all of them — including Yang Kai — fell into an illusion. The world twisted; memories and senses tangled into shadows. Lu Si controlled his Incomplete Crops Dao blade and slashed Yang Kai into pieces in that illusory space. A world burst out from Yang Kai's dantian. This was Yang Kai's eighth level Open Heaven world. Lu Si sealed time, space, and the Spear Dao inside it.
"I don't need this," Lu Si murmured as he looked at Yang Kai's Open Heaven world. "I want only his Space-Time River. With it I can take Ancestor Mo's Space-Time River, and with the two of them I can gain eternal life." His voice was quiet and hungry.
Soon a Space-Time River flowed out from Yang Kai's Open Heaven. Lu Si tried to catch it, but the river flew over and landed in Su Yan's hand. It destroy the illusion devine attack.It slipped from Lu Si like a golden dragon unwilling to be taken.
Lu Si said, "Hand over this Space-Time River then I will let you go."
Su Yan cursed, "You demon. You killed my husband. We will not let you go." Her voice cracked but it held blazing resolve.
"Sisters, are you ready? We are going to use that secret technique to give all the information to Yang Kai in his past so that he can take revenge from this old demon."
All of Yang Kai's wives agreed without hesitation. They loved Yang Kai too much to hesitate. They were prepared to sacrifice themselves to save him.
Su Yan, who did not know who Lu Si truly was and who had never seen him before, cursed at him with all her anger. Lu Si did not care. He rushed at her to seize the Space-Time River.
Su Yan shouted, "Yang Xue, Yang Xiao — activate the array. We will sacrifice ourselves to send all his memory into his past. We will use our lifespans to activate the River of Time of this world."
Yang Xue and Yang Xiao brought out a special artifact. It had been made by them.
[Fixed Travelling memories River of Time]
Seeing this artifact, Yang Xiao thought, "I thought if my father died because of Ink Clean Supreme Being then we would use it to save him, but now we have to use it because a human killed my father." He felt the weight of that choice.
Yang Xiao also thought, "This artifact is not complete yet. I don't know if it will really work. But if we are successful, my brother Yang will recover his full life memories".
Both of them looked at each other and nodded. They used Yang Kai's Space-Time and the lifespans of Yang Kai's wives to activate the artifact. Lu Si attacked, but the artifact activated immediately and absorbed the lifespans of Yang Kai's wives. Not only them — it drew life from the thousand-mile area, taking years from countless lives, including Lu Si's.
*****
Ghost King Valley
A boy around twelve years old opened his eyes. His hair was blue. He was lying on a tree branch. The tree was enormous — at least thirty times taller than the boy. His eyes had first been full of innocence, soft and bright as a child's.
But his expression changed. It became dark like an abyss. The boy's name was Lu Si. He began to look at the surrounding area with a new, cold focus.
He said, "Why has my hand become small? Wait, I can't sense my cultivation. What's going on? A moment ago I was in the Ink battlefield. Wait. Yang Kai's wives are taking some type of array. Is this because of that array? Is it an illusion?"
He cut his finger faintly with his teeth.
"Ouch."
It was hard. Last time when he had fallen, he could cut his entire body and endure the pain. But now even cutting a finger hurt. The sensation told him something had changed inside him. He looked around the valley and remembered slowly, "This place is so familiar... Oh, I remember. This is where I first transmigrated from Earth." The memory settled like dust on an old path — small, sharp, and impossible to ignore.
He sat up on the branch and felt the world tilt. The valley wind whispered old names and old bargains.
To be continued