Chapter 403: Pinnacle of Soul Path, A Battlefield

Far beyond the sealed realm.

Far beyond the trembling formation.

Within a timeline that had been severed from the Greater Heavens.

A slightly older Yu Xuan sat alone at the center of Highest Heavens.

He no longer looked like a mortal youth.

His presence was calm, restrained, immeasurable.

In his hands floated an ethereal orb – intangible, translucent, containing within it shifting constellations of consciousness.

It was a soul-aggregate.

An experimental Heaven.

He looked toward a distant coordinate, toward a ripple that had just faded.

"...It failed?" he murmured.

He had felt the connection.

A pull from his past self in this timeline being directed to the [Origin of Time]

He had attempted to follow that thread.

To observe.

But the access had been severed.

"Well... that was expected," he said softly.

"I cannot reach that place from here."

Then he paused.

"...But I did not expect myself to be there."

In this timeline.

The moment Yu Xuan was born, the balance of the Heavens shattered.

His birth was not accompanied by auspicious signs.

It was accompanied by slight disappearance of fate.

Ten years later, during his awakening ceremony.

He awakened the [Minor Soul Origin].

A fragmentary authority over the essence of soul itself.

On the tenth year and first day of his life after being awakened.

He ascended to Immortality.

It was absurd.

It should not have been possible.

But it occurred.

Ten thousand years later.

He controlled the entire Eight Heaven.

One million years later.

The entirety of Nine Heavens.

One trillion years later.

The entire timeline.

He became the pinnacle of the Soul Path within his timeline.

Then.

He isolated the timeline completely.

Severed from the Greater Heavens.

Not out of fear.

But for experimentation.

This Yu Xuan sought something greater.

He sought to create his own Heaven.

He cut off the Underworld.

Sealed the Spirit World.

And established the One Soul Existential Plane.

A realm where beings existed not as flesh, not as energy.

But as pure soul-entities.

He governed every soul within his isolated timeline.

He refined their evolution and experience.

He observed karma without external interference.

He iterated models of transcendence over soul multiple times.

He had accomplished everything.

And yet.

He found it insufficient.

His focus had been almost entirely on the soul.

The structural aspect of Heaven itself still eluded perfection.

He was currently attempting to design entities that existed purely within the One Soul Existential Plane as their true and only state of being.

No reincarnation.

No physical anchor.

It was then he felt it.

A faint tug from his past self.

Brushing against the Origin of Time.

He traced it instantly to enter that place but it was severed.

Severed by chaos.

His gaze sharpened.

As he sensed something else.

Two unpleasant gazes.

They had been watching his timeline for a long time.

Waiting.

Probing.

Ever since he isolated it from the Greater Heavens.

But, they did not dare enter directly.

They circled it like predators.

Yu Xuan’s expression darkened slightly.

"These bastards never learn, do they?"

His aura did not flare.

But the entire isolated timeline darkened faintly in response to his irritation.

"The moment I become Absolute..."

His voice lowered.

"I will kill them and plunge the Heavens into Chaos."

A faint smile appeared.

"I suppose Hundun would find that amusing."

The ethereal orb in his hand rotated slowly, as the timeline’s sovereign returned to his experiment.

But somewhere deep within his consciousness.

A fragment of attention remained fixed on that past.

***

Unknown Location.

The Eternal–Impermanent Battlefield.

There was no sky.

No ground.

No void.

The place resembled a blank white canvas stretched infinitely in every direction.

No depth. No shadow. No dimension.

And yet.

Within that featureless expanse, two beings clashed.

They had been fighting for a long time.

Not centuries.

Not eras.

But long enough that "time" itself had lost conventional meaning.

The duration they perceived could not be measured by mortal or immortal minds. Each exchange between them altered histories, futures, and rewrote probabilities across the Heavens.

They were not merely combatants.

They were principles.

Then.

Both paused simultaneously.

Their attention shifted toward a distant direction beyond the canvas.

Eternity spoke first.

"How about we stop for a moment?" it suggested lightly.

Impermanence sneered, its presence flickering.

"Hmph. You really are pathetic, trying to distract me at a moment like this."

"But aren’t you curious as well? About that being." Eternity replied calmly.

Impermanence hesitated.

Just slightly.

And that hesitation cost it a lot of things.

Its authority over several developing timelines slipped for a fraction.

Impermanence’s expression darkened.

"You bastard, dare!"

Within that pause, Eternity had quietly erased Impermanence’s dominance from multiple emerging branches of existence.

A subtle theft just occurred.

Impermanence burned with fury.

’How could I fall for such a lowly trick?’ it thought, enraged at itself.

Trusting Eternity was like entrusting a thief with your treasure, how could it not vanish the moment you blinked?

And how could something Eternal ever change disposition, even briefly?

That brief curiosity had been enough.

Eternity smiled faintly feeling greatly refreshed in a long time.

"I was saving that move for my vacation." Impermanence’s aura flared violently, the blank canvas cracking as if strained by unknown weight.

"But now, Impermanence you!" it growled giving Eternity a strange curse.

A dangerous pressure radiated outward, destabilizing countless unseen things.

Eternity’s expression shifted, genuinely surprised for once.

The battlefield warped as their clash resumed.

As it always had.

Since time immemorial.

Their struggle was not about victory.

It was about influence.

Every exchange subtly altered the trajectory of all that would ever exist within the Heavens.

And somewhere far away.

Though almost no one could perceive this clash.

Its consequences rippled outward.

Knowingly or unknowingly, countless beings were affected.

Perhaps it was a supreme emperor delaying a decision.

Perhaps it was a cultivator surviving a tribulation by a hair’s breadth.

Or perhaps.

It was just a normal mortal.

Sitting quietly.

Reading something.

Unaware that even that small moment existed because something or someone wished for it.

Or maybe they themselves did?