Outside Of Time

Chapter 1799: Defilement Pollutes Fate, Chaos Upholds Order

Editor: Atlas Studios

”Infinity!”

Xu Qing stood in the firmament, gazing at the Ancient Immortal reflected in the well of ten thousand realms, along with all the infinite causality and fate surrounding him.

He had to admit—this Ancient Immortal truly lived up to the title of ”heaven’s chosen”!

Such an Ordinance... even after all Xu Qing’s battles across the Fifth Star Ring and his vast experiences, he had never encountered anything like it.

To some extent, this was no longer something an ordinary Summer Immortal could master. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was infinitely close to the level of an Immortal Lord.

”He’s grown an entire level stronger compared to thirty years ago!”

Xu Qing murmured inwardly.

In the well’s reflection, the Ancient Immortal slowly raised his head, his aged eyes meeting Xu Qing’s.

One stood above the water, the other beneath.

The collision of their gazes made Wanggu tremble—mountains crumbled, lands split, wind and clouds shifted colors. The oppressive weight of their auras pressed down on all living beings, stirring an indescribable dread in their hearts.

Amidst this tension, the Ancient Immortal’s hoarse voice echoed across the world:

”’Countless was the seed of my Ordinance. To perfect it, I scattered infinite divine thoughts, creating infinite avatars. I relinquished control, allowing any one of them to become the true self.”

”I let them grow, devour, merge...”

”Even if the original ’me’ faded in the process, the Dao remained!”

”Until finally, my Dao was complete. My Ordinance—Infinite!”

”I returned here, condensed the power of Law, and sought one thing... all for that final leap.”

His gaze deepened, devoid of joy or sorrow.

”And you... I can see you stand before that same leap.”

As he spoke, the Ancient Immortal lifted his right foot and took a step forward.

The moment his foot descended—

The well’s surface roared!

Titanic waves surged as if struck by a cosmic gale, churning into a storm that shook heaven and earth, spacetime itself, and all existence.

The spatial fabric of Xu Qing’s Fishing the Moon from the Well trembled violently. The boundary between reality and illusion distorted. Every independent component of the divine ability showed signs of collapse—

As if it could no longer endure!

”As for your Ordinance... it’s not entirely unfamiliar to me.”

”Ten thousand years ago, in the Twenty-Seventh Star Ring, there was a god whose Ordinance bore striking resemblance to yours.”

”’A single thought spawns ten thousand realms, weaving spacetime into blossoms, seeking to bear the fruit of Dao.’”

The Ancient Immortal’s voice lingered as he took his second step.

Crack!

Fractures spiderwebbed across the well’s surface—in the void, in spacetimes, in parallels, in all realms.

The water turned turbid, polluted by the infinite causality and infinite fate radiating from the Ancient Immortal.

The duality of reality and illusion reached its limit—and began to disintegrate.

Xu Qing’s enhanced divine ability was undergoing irreversible collapse.

”But you... are still too young.”

The Ancient Immortal shook his head and took his third step.

Heaven shattered. Earth ruptured.

The Well of Ten Thousand Realms exploded!

The boundary between reality and illusion scattered like shards of broken glass, collapsing into fragments that sprayed in all directions.

As the divine ability crumbled, the Ancient Immortal’s form became whole again—but his appearance had transformed dramatically.

Though his face remained wrinkled and aged, his eyes now blazed with unprecedented silver light!

His hair billowed like a galaxy, every strand turned silver, cascading behind him with majestic grandeur.

Seven-colored immortal mist coiled around him, manifesting his supreme authority.

His aura skyrocketed, summoning tides of celestial energy and pulling starlight from the cosmos to bow before him.

His very existence embodied the concept of infinity.

A terrifying pressure erupted from him, a force capable of toppling mountains and drying seas—as he prepared to take his fourth step toward Xu Qing.

”You talk too much. It’s grating.”

Xu Qing’s voice was calm.

The Ancient Immortal’s Ordinance was indeed astonishing—using infinity to push Xu Qing’s divine ability beyond its limits, shattering it like a tiger breaking free from a cage.

But sometimes... what restrains a tiger doesn’t need to be an unbreakable prison.

Flexible vines can bind just as well.

A dark light flickered in Xu Qing’s eyes. He raised his right hand and pressed it downward.

Instantly, the scattered fragments of his collapsed divine ability transformed.

”Open the Parallel Realms!”

The nature of the fragments shifted—each one became a mirror, reflecting the Ancient Immortal’s infinite causality and fate in countless variations.

Every shard now showed a different version of the Ancient Immortal!

Different parallels. Different spacetimes. Different worlds.

Not all the Ancient Immortals in these worlds were cultivators!

In some, he was a mortal. In others, a beast, a plant, even an inanimate object. Gender varied—male, female, neuter.

Then—

Xu Qing’s outstretched hand twisted.

”Reverse!”

With this single command, parallel worlds inverted and ten thousand realms descended into chaos!

Every mirror fragment twisted violently, revealing unimaginable transformations within.

One could witness the projections of the Ancient Immortal’s causality and fate within those mirrors being forcibly overturned—men becoming women, women becoming men, genders reversing completely.

Some showed cultivators degenerating into mortals, humans transforming into livestock, beasts reverting to inanimate objects—every existence undergoing fundamental inversion.

Moreover, apocalyptic disasters manifested successively across these parallel dimensions—

Crimson stars plummeted from skies, incinerating mountains and boiling seas; spiritual rivers reversed their flow, swallowing entire cities.

Most strikingly, one mirror revealed a World-Tree that embodied a strand of the Ancient Immortal’s causality—now rotting from its roots upward, its branches weeping tears of blood.

This was Xu Qing employing the consolidating power of his Dimension Ordinance Law to recalibrate every independent manifestation across all parallels and timelines.

He turned absolute order into controlled chaos, transforming unyielding prison bars into pliant vines!

Thereby affecting the Ancient Immortal’s true form—

Using disorder to enforce supreme order!

In the next instant, all mirrors simultaneously rotated toward the Ancient Immortal as Xu Qing’s twisting hand suddenly clenched into a fist!

”Return to One!”

The echoes of these three words triggered spontaneous shattering of all mirrors. The inverted causality and polluted fate within came pouring forth like a tide of primordial corruption, rushing toward the Ancient Immortal.

His infinite causality became contaminated.

His infinite fate became defiled.

The Ancient Immortal, poised to take his fourth step toward Xu Qing, suddenly stiffened. He watched in horror as invisible forces gnawed at his strands of causality while his fate—once translucent as crystal—became coated in grimy filth.

Like a sacred spring poisoned by corpse-tainted blood.

Golden hues darkened to sickly brown, the ends of his fate-threads swelling with grotesque tumorous growths.

And the process appeared... irreversible.

The physical manifestations were immediate—

The web-like wrinkles on his aged face became actual fissures, cracking open his visage!

The silver light in his eyes—symbol of immortal ascendance—dimmed rapidly, materializing into flaking metallic powder that rained down to reveal turbid pupils beneath.

His galaxy-like white hair withered strand by strand, the ends curling and blackening as if scorched by fate’s flames.

The seven-colored immortal mist surrounding him thickened into a viscous sludge, clinging to his robes like putrid syrup and sprouting fungal patches.

Even his immortal power leaked from the fissures across his body—streams of black miasma—while some energy flowed backward through his meridians, boiling his bones and blood into molten agony.

Cough!

A mouthful of black blood laced with ice crystals sprayed forth as the Ancient Immortal staggered backward.

He desperately summoned his immortal might, only to find his once-obedient power now sluggish—as if moving through dense fog. The immortal light gathering at his fingertips morphed into sickly gray moths that fluttered weakly before plummeting earthward.

But the most lethal corruption struck from within his soul.

Countless fragmented memories rampaged through his consciousness—

The storm of all his polluted causality and defiled fate.

Everything became distorted, like a masterpiece painting dusted with poison—every vibrant hue now carrying lethal toxicity that seared his divine sense.

Veins bulged at his temples as millions of overlapping curses—the collective resentment of all the selves he’d ever consumed—echoed through his being.

They had forgotten their oaths to the Dao, remembering only the injustice of their dissolution.

Thus his aura began its inexorable decline—from immortal supremacy toward mortal frailty.

At this moment, the slightest push would scatter him like smoke, extinguishing his life-flame completely.

Yet...

Xu Qing did not advance. He remained motionless, observing dispassionately.

After an eternal moment, the Ancient Immortal slowly raised his head.

”What... magnificent... inversion...”

”The corruption... is complete... yet you refrain... from approaching...”

His voice grated like grinding stone.

Xu Qing’s expression was calm as he calmly spoke.Xu Qing’s response came calmly:

”’Countless was the birth of your Ordinance and Infinite its perfection. But you’ve surely touched Law—yet conceal it still.”

”Since you withhold it voluntarily... will circumstance now force your hand?”

The Ancient Immortal fell silent.

A long time later, he suddenly laughed.

”I entered... your trap... to study... your Ordinance of parallel extremes... to discern... your Law...”

”You pressed me... to this brink... to witness... mine...”

”Yet I sense... your true aim... lies deeper...”

His turbid eyes suddenly blazed with renewed silver radiance.

”What... do you... truly... await?”

Xu Qing’s lips curved slightly as his gaze took on profound meaning.

”I await what you await.”

”And time... flows ever in my favor.”

The Ancient Immortal’s pupils contracted to pinpoints.