The Boundless River pierced through the entirety of the Cosmos Furnace. Countless tributaries—invisible to the naked eye and nearly undetectable even by divine sense—permeated the space within the furnace. One could say that the Boundless River was the fundamental reason the Cosmos Furnace could give birth to heaven and earth.
If the Boundless River could evolve worlds and conjure celestial phenomena, what about the River of Time and Space?
The moment this thought crossed his mind, Yang Kai unfurled the River of Time and Space in his hand and plunged into it, searching for the traces left behind by that strange and wondrous phenomenon he had just encountered.
The River of Time and Space had been forged by Yang Kai using the Daos of Time and Space as its foundation, drawing upon the power of ten thousand Daos that converged within it to manifest its physical form. Yang Kai had ventured deep into its currents on many occasions before, though those times had been to confront powerful enemies whom he had swept into the river with its flow. Fighting within this river granted him absolute home-field advantage, allowing him to maximize the full extent of his strength. Every undercurrent within it, every cresting wave, was an oscillation of the Great Daos.
This time was somewhat different.
Perhaps because of the act of forging the Myriad Dao Secret Realm just moments ago, his River of Time and Space had undergone changes that defied easy description.
In short, the instant Yang Kai burst into the river this time, an extraordinarily peculiar sensation seized him.
A feeling of temporal and spatial disorientation enveloped his entire being.
He raised his gaze and saw a series of bizarre scenes flash across his field of vision.
He beheld the towering and majestic Gate of No Return. Within and around it, human and Ink Race soldiers fought to the death amid seas of blood. Countless corpses drifted through the void—among them, human corpses, Ink Race corpses, densely packed as far as the eye could see.
Yang Kai couldn't help but furrow his brow, somewhat puzzled as to why he was witnessing this. He had never participated in the battle for the Gate of No Return back in the day, so logically there should be no memory of that battle in his mind. Moreover, how could memories manifest within the River of Time and Space?
But soon he realized something was amiss.
Among the scenes that continued to flash by, he saw his own figure, engaged in combat with a familiar one—none other than Mo Na Ye, a Mo Na Ye who had already ascended to the rank of King Lord.
The scenes flickered past one after another, each like a masterwork painted by a great artist's brush, rendered with exquisite strokes and technique that captured the brutality of each battle.
In the silent images, Mo Na Ye's corpse suddenly appeared, followed by Mo Yu's…
Then came a scene of humanity occupying the Gate of No Return, soldiers cheering and running in jubilation…
A sudden realization dawned upon Yang Kai. These were not scenes from his memories, but battles yet to unfold.
Prescience!
Or, one could say, the ability to perceive the workings of heaven.
Yang Kai had experienced something like this back when he had first emerged from the Great Sea Phenomenon. At that time, his mastery of the Daos of Time and Space had surged dramatically, and when he had activated the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel during his battle against that Ram-horned King Lord, fleeting images of the future had flashed before his eyes.
In the end, it had been proven true. Everything he had seen came to pass. He killed the Ram-horned King Lord who had been hunting him relentlessly, holding his severed head aloft while standing proud in the void—and that scene was precisely the one he had glimpsed beforehand.
The late Grand Emperor Tianshu, Chu Tianji, had been renowned for his ability to perceive the workings of heaven. It was said he could peer into all of the past and see through to the future.
Of course, given Yang Kai's current level of cultivation and attainment, Chu Tianji probably did not possess abilities anywhere near that mystical. If he truly had, he should have been able to avoid many dangers and would not have perished on the battlefield.
But Chu Tianji had possessed at least some capacity for perceiving heaven's secrets—otherwise he would never have earned the title of Tianshu.
Yang Kai now, compared to when he had first emerged from the Great Sea Phenomenon, had advanced not merely by small margins in both cultivation and attainment of his Daos. The River of Time and Space had been constructed upon the foundation of the Daos of Time and Space, and as he ventured deep within its currents, the power of those Daos resonated powerfully. Under the resulting temporal and spatial distortion, perceiving a glimpse of heaven's workings was hardly surprising.
That the Gate of No Return would fall was no shock to Yang Kai. With humanity's current strength, if they launched an all-out assault regardless of cost, they could certainly take the Gate of No Return—it would simply require a considerable price.
Thus, even having glimpsed such a future, Yang Kai's composure barely wavered.
If they couldn't even take the Gate of No Return, what talk was there of an expedition to the Primordial Heaven Great Restriction or ending the Ink calamity?
The true deciding point of the war between humanity and the Ink Race lay at the Primordial Heaven Great Restriction.
Within the River of Time and Space, the oscillations of the Daos of Time and Space grew ever more violent. Flashing images continued to cascade through Yang Kai's field of vision without pause.
Yang Kai's expression gradually turned solemn.
Because among the scenes that followed, many appeared that he had desperately wished never to come to pass.
Outside the Primordial Heaven Great Restriction, the great battle erupted as foreseen. Ink Race armies surged like tides upon a boundless sea, Ink Giant Spirits threading through their ranks. Stronghold after stronghold crumbled into ruins, and among the shattered walls and broken ramparts, countless corpses of human powerhouses lay strewn across the void. Yang Kai even recognized many familiar faces.
In another scene, a silver-white Holy Dragon ten thousand zhang in length drifted through the void, its body ravaged, every scale destroyed—a ghastly sight.
That was Fu Guang!
In yet another scene, within a world blanketed in Ink-black darkness, the ruins of Lingxiao Palace bore a signboard covered in dust. In the corner of the frame, the massive and imposing Sub-Tree stood with its branches and leaves long fallen away, having withered and died long ago.
The final scene showed a fortress hurtling deeper into the void, as if fleeing toward the very ends of heaven and earth. Within it, every surviving human had gathered together, and behind the fleeing fortress, a figure cloaked in Ink-black pursued them relentlessly, clinging to them like a parasite buried in bone.
In the scene, the faces of every surviving human within that fortress were twisted with terror.