Chapter 1163: Key of The Past

Wraith realm.

The Wraith Temple, also known as the Temple of Worship, was the center of the Wraith realm’s authority system.

Deep inside the temple, within the grandest hall, stood three wraith statues.

There was an incense pot around the size of a bowl in front of each statue.

Green smoke drifted from each of them that filled the entire hall.

Countless screams of pain and suffering could be faintly heard from inside the drifting smoke.

The hall was completely empty at this point, but two of the statues suddenly came to life.

[Old Cang has already left, when are we going as well?]

[There’s no hurry, wait for me to finish today’s offering]

One of the statues opened its mouth, sucked in about half of the smoke, then commented: [Recently, the number of suffering souls have been decreasing within the offering. It’s beginning to be less than the established 100,000,000]

The other statue also breathed in and absorbed the rest of the smoke before sighing.

It replied: [Although we’ve destroyed so many parallel worlds, souls are a rare commodity, and it would only decrease the more we use it]

At this point, a flare talisman flew into the hall as it unfolded itself in the air manifesting as text.

One of the statues skimmed through it all and sighed emotionally: [That Wraith General who was stuck inside the Demon Dragon had already been killed by old Cang]

The other statue scoffed: [What? Are you pitying him? Or did you actually want that Wraith General to enter this hall and share our offering?]

[No. He obtained a lot of Space-Time Coins, which helped our subordinates travel through space and time, unveiling many secrets and accomplishing many pivotal events—– although the coins would occasionally malfunction, it was still his great contribution]

[Then, what are you implying?]

[He’s already dead, we might as well give him a good name. This way, many more wraiths would learn from him]

[Hm, that makes sense]

All of a sudden, another flare talisman made its way into the hall.

Unlike the previous one, this one appeared a lot more urgent.

In front of the two statues, the flare exploded and manifested as a voice:

“Reporting to the Wraith Lords! Just now, we’ve lost contact with all the users of the Space-Time Coins! Please state your verdicts!”

The voice then disappeared.

One of the wraith statues muttered: [Let me see… how strange, the hundreds of Space-Time Coins I keep have all been damaged]

The other statue waved its hand to summon a thick stone book.

The pages of the book started flipping through.

Only to display numerous names written in wraith fire being snuffed out in large numbers.

The statue spoke in a low voice: [What trouble… my men had all been restrained with Causality Talismans, with their wisps of life in my hand. If they become stagnate in the past without returning, the talismans would naturally activate and kill them]

——-these wraiths had all used the coins to return to the past to carry out certain missions.

There were many uncontrollable issues that naturally manifested in this type of work, so the Wraith Lords were worried that his subordinates would remain in the past for too long for unrelated matters, thus he placed these talismans to control them.

But now, the coins suddenly became unusable.

The wraiths who were carrying out missions could no longer traverse the long period of time to return to the present.

Which naturally triggered the Causality Talismans to kill them.

Hearing that, the other wraith statue also pointed its finger into the void of space.

Hundreds of jade talismans manifested out of thin air, hovering in front of it.

But over half of these jade talismans had become dirty and gloomy, no longer calmly glowing.

[Over half of my subordinates died as well, how detestable…] that wraith statue’s voice gradually sunk: [Those coins had been in use for numerous years without causing any issues, who would’ve thought that he had endured for so long and only triggered the recoil in his death?]

The other wraith appeared to be shivering: [It’s quite fortunate that we never gave him a chance to turn things on their heads, otherwise, it would be hard to tell who would be sitting on this Wraith Lord seat at this moment…]

…

The past.

A certain place in the space vortex.

The orange cat sat on top of the ship’s wreckage, silently waiting.

In a few moments, the Demon Dragon’s power would be fully absorbed and converted into his own strength.

His strength had already far surpassed the limit of {Mahesvara King} realm, allowing him to attempt his Sumeru Lord realm Tribulation any time he wished.

But Gu Qing Shan’s control over his power was a lot more refined and natural, capable of suppressing his spirit energy without triggering the Laws of Reality.

He focused his attention on his Thought Sea.

The three Space-Time Coins were vibrating inside his Thought Sea, explaining their abilities to him.

Lines of glowing text appeared on the War God UI:

[You’ve obtained the Space-Time Divine Artifacts, the Explorer of Countless Mysteries, the Source of History’s Distortions, the Key of the Past, Fragment of the Traveler’s Proof, the Space-Time Coins]

[This set of artifacts have the following power:]

[Proof: While in possession of these three coins, you will not draw the attention of the monsters in the River of Time, nor become the object of their hunt]

[Cruise: By using the three coins and their corresponding powers, you can traverse the River of Time, either travelling to the past, or returning to the present from the past]

[Attention: While travelling to the past, you must not affect any historical events, otherwise, you will be erased by the combined power of the Law of Fate and Law of Time, unless you activate Distortion]

[Distortion: By expending an appropriate amount of Soul Points, you can become the only person with the permission to distort history]

[Attention: You may affect or alter the course of history, but the events you alter cannot be related to your past in any way, nor can you affect any people or objects that are related to your past, or you will be erased by the combined power of the Law of Fate and Law of Time]

[Special attention: When you activate ‘Distortion’, the Space-Time Coins will lose their function to travel through time, until the exact moment that you naturally arrive at the point you began travelling back through the River of Time] [1]

Gu Qing Shan felt almost overwhelmed, only able to fully understand the use of these three coins after a while.

[Proof] was the most basic type of protection when traversing the River of Time.

[Cruise] was the exact same function as the copies of the coins.

[Distortion] on the other hand, might be the true value of these three coins. Although the requirements for triggering it were quite strict; not only did it require the user to never come into contact with anything from their past, but they would also have to live naturally from the past era that they had altered up until the ‘present’ before the coins could be used again.

“What unimaginable power!” Gu Qing Shan silently muttered.

The three coins had now become docile, silently resting within the Thought Sea.

Gu Qing Shan temporarily ignored them.

For the next while, he sat still on the wreckage of the ship until he had fully absorbed the Demon Dragon’s power.

Finally, he returned to human form.

“Gongzi, what do we do next?” Shannu asked.

“It’s quite troubling… I heard Demon Dragon claim that the Eternal Abyss was about to be destroyed, but I have no idea what exactly happened or is about to happen” Gu Qing Shan replied.

Shannu thought for a bit and reminded him: “Didn’t gongzi have a rooster with a lot of colors? Perhaps that rooster would be able to tell you”

Gu Qing Shan tapped his forehead in shock: “You’re right, if you didn’t remind me, I would have forgotten about it”

He tapped his Inventory Bag, taking out the colorful rooster statue.

After pulling on its comb, the colorful rooster gradually came to life.

It made a loud yawn, then sleepily asked:

“Long time no see. You looking for a bit of fun, or some information?”

Gu Qing Shan replied: “I heard that the Eternal Abyss will soon be destroyed, so I want to know about that”

The colorful rooster looked around, then said with a troubled voice: “About that… I think I’ve heard about it, but we’re currently in the past, so if I tell you, it would be the same as a prophecy, and prophecies aren’t my area of expertise…”

Gu Qing Shan put his hand forward and transferred 100,000 Soul Points without saying a word.

The colorful rooster instantly became spirited and flashed a brilliant – almost frenzied – chicken smile.

It patted its chest: “You’re too kind, with how close we are, something like this is——-”

“Wait!” Gu Qing Shan stopped the rooster: “I have a question, can you only give me one piece of information per day because it would place extra heavy stress on you, or because of any other reasons?”

The colorful rooster froze briefly before chuckling: “What kind of extra stress would there be from collecting information? I’m not even tired in the first place, just that the Laws dictate that I can only report one piece of news per day”

“I see” Gu Qing Shan nodded.

The colorful rooster then continued: “Listen carefully. Originally, today was supposed to be the decisive battle, but something strange occurred in the Wraith realm: numerous powerful wraiths died without knowing the reason within the flow of time, causing the entire Wraith realm to be plunged into chaos. The three Wraith Lords had no choice but to send the order to postpone the attack on the Abyss, giving up a small hope of survival”

After it finished, the colorful rooster returned to a statue again and remained still.

Gu Qing Shan couldn’t help but ponder this information.

All the coins being destroyed was a trick pulled by Demon Dragon.

But the deaths of the wraiths——- the replica coins wouldn’t be able to do such a thing, so that must have happened due to other reasons.

It seems this was also one of Demon Dragon’s ways of taking revenge.

Wait a minute——-

Gu Qing Shan suddenly realized something else.

The only person who can still use the power of the three coins to travel through time right now is me.

With that in mind, he took the three coins out and tried to use [Cruise] to travel one day forward in time.

——such a short distance didn’t cost any power, nor did he need to enter the River of Time.

Gu Qing Shan simply stood still and found himself now at the next day.

He put the three coins away and pulled on the comb of the colorful rooster.

The colorful rooster came to life.

“Yahhh—– how perfect, a brand new day!” the colorful rooster exclaimed.

It was shocked to see Gu Qing Shan.

“I feel like I saw you just now, why are you here again?” the rooster asked.

“Maybe it’s just your imagination?” Gu Qing Shan said.

“Alright, are you looking for a bit of fun or some information?” the rooster asked.

“I need information” Gu Qing Shan replied.

The colorful rooster appeared to be troubled: “But we’re currently in the past, so if I tell you any information, it would the same as—–”

Gu Qing Shan transferred over 100,000 Soul Points over.

“Aha, you were too kind, ask me anything you want to know!” the rooster loudly declared.

Gu Qing Shan said: “I want to know about the Wraith realm, it’s related to one of my enemies called Cang Wu Zhang”

“Oh? Him? He brought with him a large number of subordinates to the 900 million World Layers, looking for trouble with you. But the real issue here isn’t him, but the army of 1 million wraiths and the Wraith Might that leads them. She wants to take your twin swords Heaven and Earth. Tsk tsk, your death is approaching, youngster”

[1] In case anyone still hasn’t realized, this and the replica coins were the reason why Demon Dragon and many of the Wraith realm managed to appear over a million years ago to prepare things in the 900 million world layers, despite there being nothing noteworthy that far back into the past. And also why there was a time discrepancy 4 chapters ago. To the Wraith Might called Yu, she had only given him this task 10,000 years ago, but to him, it had already been a million years