Before the Damo Secret Realm, as the special day finally arrived, a dazzling, pure light began to radiate from within the swirling vortex.
The golden brilliance was so intense it illuminated half the sky, a clear sign that the Damo Secret Realm had officially opened for this cycle.
"The Damo Secret Realm has now fully opened. This realm was left behind by the founder of Future Maitreya Mountain and contains an extremely unique Law of Time. Be very cautious when entering." Kong Chen, the venerable leader of the Great Thunder Temple, warned solemnly.
"Law of Time?" Su Min was slightly puzzled upon hearing this. She hadn't expected this to be public knowledge.
"Only a few of us in the highest leadership knew that the founder mastered the Law of Time. Even those within Future Maitreya Mountain itself were largely unaware. Moreover, the Buddhist sects are naturally secretive, so this knowledge never spread beyond our circles."
"I see." Su Min didn't press further. It seemed she'd been somewhat uninformed about this particular matter. But considering how early that figure had died, without leaving behind a widely renowned legacy, it made sense that the wider world, including her, had never learned of it.
"We will enter together. This realm contains many secret pocket dimensions, but the most precious is undoubtedly the founder's personal legacy. For countless years, no one has ever truly glimpsed its full form." As he spoke, Kong Chen gave Su Min a meaningful glance, clearly hinting at something deeper that he couldn't say aloud.
"Huh?" Su Min was left confused by the look, but since no one seemed inclined to explain further, she didn't ask.
"All disciples, pay attention! Once we enter, you must follow closely behind me. Do not stray from the path." Just as Su Min was puzzling over this, Hui Xing turned and addressed the gathered disciples. His cultivation had progressed well, likely due to consuming that precious Dao Comprehension Pill, and he had now reached the early Dao Comprehension stage, though his foundation was still visibly unstable.
This trip was probably meant to temper his cultivation through real experience. As for Hui Ming, his progress was slower, only at the early Divine Transformation stage. It was clear that the Great Thunder Temple had mobilized a significant portion of its elite forces for this venture.
"Then let us depart." Kong Chen nodded, taking the first confident step into the glowing vortex. Su Min and Kong Hui followed closely behind him. In the blink of an eye, the main hall was nearly empty of its powerful figures.
But the next moment, Su Min felt the world spin violently around her. She instantly lost all contact with everyone else and found herself alone in an extremely peculiar, isolated space.
It was a serene chamber bathed entirely in a soft, golden light, and beneath her feet flowed a strange, ethereal river of shimmering energy.
"The River of Time?" Su Min was genuinely shocked. This was one of the highest, most dangerous mysteries of the cultivation world. Gazing into it supposedly allowed one to see the past, present, and future, but at the terrible cost of bearing immense karmic backlash.
However, she soon realized something was off. This river wasn't the real, terrifying thing; it was more like a sophisticated projection or an echo. Compared to the overwhelming, soul-crushing pressure she had briefly sensed before, this was nothing more than a pale shadow.
"It seems you truly have comprehended the Law of Time… and even stepped into the periphery of that place." A calm, ancient voice suddenly rang in Su Min's ears, startling her. The fact that someone could evade her spiritual perception entirely was nearly impossible for someone of her status as the world's top alchemist and a Dao Comprehension expert.
But she quickly steadied herself; she'd already guessed the speaker's identity.
"Future Maitreya Bell?"
"Correct. I am the Emperor-tier artifact of the Sinful Buddha, the Future Maitreya Bell."
"Sinful Buddha?" Su Min blinked. "What kind of title was that?"
"The Sinful Buddha, Wuxin, one who bore the sins of the world. He sought to create a pure paradise for all beings, and he was also the founder of Future Maitreya Mountain."
"Uh…" Su Min's mind spun at the sudden information dump. She'd never heard of this title before; there were no historical records of it. Still, she felt somewhat relieved. At least the artifact didn't seem immediately hostile toward her, though its last remark about her 'stepping into that place' carried some hidden meaning.
"That wasn't my doing." Su Min chuckled awkwardly, offering a weak defense regarding the sect's destruction.
"That is irrelevant now. The Sinful Buddha spent ten full lifetimes comprehending the Primordial Time, finally reaching the Dao Comprehension stage. But during his final breakthrough, he entered a unique state of enlightenment; he peered into the future. Though I do not know exactly how, it must have been what you call the River of Time."
"Yeah." Su Min saw no point in hiding it and nodded frankly.
"My core was constructed based on the principles of this river. I never knew what it truly was, until I felt your aura. So I must ask you: what did you see when you were there?"
Silence fell over the golden chamber. Su Min hadn't expected the artifact to be so direct. But since things had come to this, she couldn't just say nothing.
"Nothing. I could sense an overwhelming karmic force, something far beyond what a mere Dao Comprehension-stage cultivator like me could ever hope to bear. So I didn't look, not at the past, the future, nor even the present. I shut my spiritual eyes and just endured the enlightenment process."
"Sigh…"
The ancient bell seemed to exhale in palpable relief. Then, in a flash of brilliant light, a massive, intricately carved bell materialized beside Su Min. "The past is locked, it cannot be changed. The future is fluid and full of forks. The Sinful Buddha sought the Pure Land with all his heart, so he often lingered by the River of Time, searching for the best path."
"Damn, that's insane…" Even Su Min couldn't help but feel a surge of horrified admiration. This guy truly didn't value his life at all, daring to peer into time repeatedly? She at least had the sense and self-preservation not to do that.
But at the same time, she was burning with curiosity. What exactly had the Sinful Buddha seen that drove him to such extremes?
The bell, however, didn't seem inclined to hide anything anymore. As the artifact that had followed the Sinful Buddha for thousands of years, no one understood his past and burdens better. And now, Su Min was one of only two people in the world to have truly comprehended the Law of Time, making her the true successor the Sinful Buddha had hoped to find.
So, it began explaining in detail:
"The Sinful Buddha saw countless possible futures. A world fallen into eternal silence, a shattered ruin after complete destruction, even one ruled by unfathomable horrors from beyond the stars."
"Uh…"
Su Min froze, then subconsciously touched her nose. These scenarios perfectly matched several 'bad endings' from the game's original storyline. The "silent world" referred to one where everything had been consumed by the Fallen. The "shattered ruin" was the outcome if they lost the final battle against the Skeleton Emperor, where he would activate a grand formation to "reset" the heavens and earth. As for the last one, that was the hidden ending, the one that connected to the official sequel's setup. But since no one had ever unlocked it, Su Min was in the dark about its specifics.
"When the Sinful Buddha peered into the future… the future also peered back at him."
"???"
Su Min shuddered involuntarily. This was completely unexpected. Was the past not as fixed as she thought? Or was it simply that she was still too weak to perceive its true, immutable nature?
"Then, on that fateful day, an unfathomable being from the future took action. It crossed the River of Time, enduring immeasurable karmic backlash just to descend its will into this era."
"!!!"
Su Min's expression turned horrified. She hadn't even dared to look, yet someone could actually cross the River of Time? What kind of monstrous existence was that? At the very least, a true immortal, and not just any ordinary one. It might even be something far beyond her current comprehension. But she suppressed her boiling curiosity and continued listening.
"The Sinful Buddha burned his very soul and essence to repel that being. But before its will was forced to leave, it scattered drops of its corrupted blood across our land. That blood was strange and supremely sinister, so much so that the Heavenly Dao itself had no choice but to seal our world off from the wider cosmos to recover and contain the contamination."
"!!!"
At this moment, Su Min realized a critical, horrifying truth. The sudden arrival of the Age of Decay, the dwindling spiritual energy, it might have all been triggered by this very event. In other words, the fallen ones and their corruption were a direct result of that future being's blood. No wonder the founder called himself the Sinful Buddha; he truly had borne the original sin for this catastrophe.
Su Min felt a powerful surge of gratitude that she had resisted the primal temptation to peer into the future back then.
"And then what happened?"
"After that, combined with the accumulated karmic backlash from all his temporal meddling, the Sinful Buddha's remaining lifespan was brutally short. He perished before even reaching ten thousand years of age, his soul utterly scattered to the winds. But from that day onward, the world became plagued by malevolent spirits and the slow decay you see now."
"Holy shit…" Su Min couldn't help but exclaim. That guy had really been asking for death, playing with forces far beyond his control.
"Since you never gazed into the River of Time, that is excellent. No matter what, never attempt to peer into it, not the past, the future, nor even the present. Their mysteries must remain undisturbed by our kind."
"Of course, I don't have a death wish. By the way, what exactly did the Sinful Buddha see that made him so desperate? Logically, the past is fixed and recorded, it can't be altered."
"Nothing is absolute. Some existences simply surpass our understanding of logic. As for what the Sinful Buddha saw in his final vision, I…" The bell hesitated briefly, but seeing Su Min's utterly curious expression, though to an ancient artifact, even her peerless beauty was no different from a bleached skeleton, it eventually continued. "He saw a withered, dead world. He tried thousands of times to glimpse a better outcome, a single thread of hope. In the end, he saw a single, blurry figure. Only through that person's existence and choices could the world be steered away from ruin and toward the brightest possible future."
"…Was it me?" Su Min's mind blanked. What kind of damn fatalistic nonsense was this?
"I do not know. The Sinful Buddha did not know either. The vision was unclear. Perhaps it is you. Perhaps it is another. But it has no true bearing on the present. You are who you are. According to the Sinful Buddha's final words to me… you may become my next master."
"Uh…"
Well, that was unexpected. An Emperor-tier artifact offering itself to her? What kind of astronomical price or condition would that entail?
"Not now, of course. The power of an Emperor-tier artifact is far too immense for your current vessel." The bell chuckled, a strange sound from a magical object, at Su Min's stunned reaction. "You must first pass a trial."
"A trial?" Su Min calmed down slightly. That made more sense. Even if she obtained it now, she wouldn't be able to wield it properly.
"Correct. A trial." The bell's tone was laden with meaning, sending an involuntary shiver down Su Min's spine.
At that moment, a luminous screen unfolded before Su Min's eyes. On it, three shadowy figures were moving at incredible speeds through a misty landscape within the realm, all of them radiating the potent aura of the late Dao Comprehension stage.
This lineup was incredibly formidable; even major factions would struggle to muster such concentrated strength on short notice.
"When that being scattered its blood across the world, one of our own, Liao Xin, was tainted by it. At first, we didn't realize the profound danger; we thought he had merely been severely injured during the battle."
A cold trace of killing intent seeped into the bell's normally calm voice. No matter how powerful that being from the future was, crossing time itself required an unimaginable price. And since it hadn't fully descended, only projecting its will, its strength was greatly diminished. The Sinful Buddha had managed to drive it back, but the blood it left behind… perhaps it hadn't cared to retrieve it. Or perhaps it had been too injured to do anything about it.
"By the time I realized something was deeply wrong and forcibly expelled Liao Xin from the sect, it was already too late. The corruption had taken root. Future Maitreya Mountain had been poisoned from within."
"…"
Su Min could only remain silent. This was far beyond her current level of involvement or responsibility.
She also understood now why the bell had stood by as she destroyed Future Maitreya Mountain without lifting a finger to stop her. They had long since severed all ties. That they hadn't turned openly hostile was already a minor miracle. For a sect to fall out so completely with its own Emperor-tier artifact… that was truly one of a kind in all of history.
"So what's my trial?" Su Min grinned fiercely, pushing aside the heavy thoughts. Those distant, cosmic matters weren't her immediate concern. What she needed right now was to grow stronger, because that being from the future might one day return. With the Sinful Buddha gone, she would be the only one left with the means to face it. There was no avoiding this duty, not when she, too, had comprehended the Law of Time.
"Kill him. Purge the corruption he spreads. If you succeed, I will acknowledge you as my master. I will also give you a single, purified drop of my original master's blood essence. Though it has long since weakened over the ages, it should still grant you a significant breakthrough in your cultivation."
"Deal!" Su Min agreed without a moment's hesitation.
The Future Maitreya Bell's core function was based on the Law of Time, making it a perfect, symbiotic match for her. It was countless times more suitable than the Golden Crow Bell, which was aligned with pure Yang fire.
The next moment, the golden light around her flared, and she vanished from the serene chamber.
She reappeared,
"WHAT THE HELL?! YOU'RE THROWING ME INTO A 1V3 RIGHT OFF THE BAT? THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!"
Staring at the three bewildered, but very real, late-stage Dao Comprehension experts who now stood facing her, Su Min cursed with even greater bewilderment than they displayed.
What kind of insane, unbalanced nonsense was this? A three-on-one fight against peak experts right from the start?! This trial was utterly ridiculous