Up, down, and the four cardinal directions together form space; the past and present together form time. The secrets of the universe are thus the secrets of space-time, and within them lie profound mysteries and unfathomable wonders. Though
The scenes playing out in this place were entangled with the space-time of the universe itself, making it impossible for him to distinguish truth from illusion in the moment.
After the third "himself" finished speaking, he suddenly whipped his head around to look behind him. His expression darkened and he whispered urgently, "Lord Wind is coming — run!"
As he spoke, he seized Yang Kai's arm without explanation and bolted toward a nearby rift. Just before plunging into it, the third "himself" blurted out in haste, "That hourglass in Lord Wind's hand — its power is unfathomable. Be extremely careful…"
Rushing into the rift, Yang Kai found himself alone once more. He had clearly entered alongside the third "himself," yet the moment he arrived here, the other had vanished without a trace.
However, when he turned to look around, Yang Kai's spirits lifted.
The great hall had finally changed from what it had been before. Each previous time he had found himself in this hall, it had been riddled with spatial rifts, but this time the hall was free of those eerie phenomena.
Yang Kai let out a quiet breath of relief. If those scenes had continued to repeat endlessly, he truly would not have known how to cope. Now that something had changed, nothing could be better.
The hall was vast and empty — no sign of living beings, no traces of battle. Side doors stood open on both flanks. Yang Kai extended his Divine Sense to probe the area, found nothing of interest, and picked a direction at random before stepping out of the hall.
Outside the hall stretched a long corridor, flanked on both sides by private chambers. The corridor extended so far that its end was invisible. Beneath his feet, the floor shimmered with ever-shifting hues, creating a dazzling, otherworldly spectacle.
Yang Kai approached the nearest chamber, steadied himself, and pushed the door open. After a careful search he found the room entirely empty — not a soul in sight.
He checked chamber after chamber, but found nothing in any of them.
Moreover, as he searched, Yang Kai discovered that in this place he could not feel the passage of time at all. One might say decades or even centuries had passed, or one might say time had simply stopped flowing altogether.
This visit to the Temple of the Years was entirely different from the last.
He had lost count of how many rooms he had searched when, upon pushing open yet another chamber door, something finally caught his eye.
The room was not empty after all. Inside lay a fearsome beast, crouched low on the ground. At first glance it resembled a ferocious tiger, but it bore a pair of horns on its head and a pair of wings on its back.
The creature had no inkling of Yang Kai's arrival. Its snoring rattled the walls like peals of thunder. Who else could it be but Qiongqi?
Yang Kai stepped forward with delight and called out, "Old Qiong! Old Qiong!"
He called several times in succession, but Qiongqi showed no reaction. Yang Kai frowned. A fearsome creature like Qiongqi was, at the very least, a Sacred Spirit of formidable power. Setting aside mere slumber, even if it had been deep in seclusion for Cultivation, any intruder should have roused it immediately.
Yet here he was, having called out multiple times with absolutely no response. That was peculiar.
Calling proved useless, so Yang Kai stepped closer and patted its head. Still no effect. Qiongqi seemed to have truly fallen into a dead sleep, its thunderous snoring never once pausing.
Bang, bang — Yang Kai landed a few punches on its skull, each strike calibrated to be neither light enough to tickle nor heavy enough to wound, but more than sufficient to jolt it from slumber. The result, however, left Yang Kai stunned. After taking several of his punches, Qiongqi still had not budged in the slightest.
That sent a chill down Yang Kai's spine. If even this could not wake Qiongqi, what had happened to it?
And Qiongqi had clearly entered the Land of Four Seasons together with
Unable to wake Qiongqi, Yang Kai attempted to store it within the Mysterious Boundary Bead, but after several tries he failed each time. It was no fault of his own—Qiongqi's body was wrapped in an invisible layer of force that left Yang Kai's divine sense with nowhere to take hold. Until that invisible barrier was broken, there would be no way to store the creature within the Small Mysterious World.
After struggling for quite a while, Yang Kai shook his head helplessly and gave up.
Though Qiongqi was sound asleep, there was nothing abnormal about it, so there was no need for excessive worry.
Besides, if Qiongqi could be found here, then Liu Yan and the others should be findable as well. Yang Kai immediately accelerated his search, examining the side chambers one by one.
In this Divine Temple of Time, the passage of time was an exceedingly vague concept—even someone as powerful as Yang Kai could not tell how long had passed. He had no idea how much time went by before he finally found Liu Yan in another side chamber.
Liu Yan was unchanged, still appearing as a little girl, but like Qiongqi she had fallen into a deep slumber, curled up on the floor of a side chamber, sleeping soundly.
After trying earnestly, Yang Kai found that Liu Yan too could not be awakened. Her situation was identical to Qiongqi's.
First Qiongqi, then Liu Yan—he truly had no idea what they had encountered after entering the Land of Four Seasons.
Yang Kai had hoped he might still find Yang Xiao and Yang Xue, the two little ones, but by the time he had searched through every single side chamber, not a trace of the two children could be found.
At the far end of the long corridor, it connected to another great hall.
Upon entering, Yang Kai's mind went hazy once more—the great hall looked exactly the same as the place he had just left, making him think he had returned to where he started.
But this place was not empty!