154. The Spacetime Loop: The Grand Finale and the Beginning

When Chen Sheng heard the words spoken by that egg, he immediately gleaned some unusual information from them. He couldn't help but look around, searching for the gray snowflakes that had manifested when he redefined the civilization chain.

However, those gray snowflakes were nowhere to be found. Instead, Chen Sheng beheld countless worlds plunging into chaos.

Within those worlds, demi-gods wore expressions of grief and sorrow identical to Chen Xiaoyi's. Others were gripped by panic and unease, as if some terrifying entity were about to emerge.

Rumble!

The entire universe seemed to tremble, and the intertwined messages of anger and anxiety from the cosmic will crazily battered the minds of every demi-god.

Chen Sheng naturally felt it too.

Yet, unlike last time, fear did not rise in his heart. This time, he was immensely calm, as though he were merely an outsider watching a play unfold.

"What is going on here?"

As Chen Sheng watched these scenes play out, he couldn't shake a sense of incongruity. If Chen Xiaoyi and the others had recovered their forgotten memories and thus suffered psychological collapses, he too had recovered some memories—so why was he viewing everything from a third-person perspective?

He had clearly seen that photograph in his memory, the one that looked identical to him!

Logically speaking, that was the hallmark of having one's memories restored!

Chen Sheng instantly realized that this must be the crux of his own situation. Thoughts arose one after another in his mind until a hypothesis he had entertained not long ago suddenly surfaced. Walking up to the egg, Chen Sheng asked, "What on earth is my origin? Do you know?"

"You should be a consciousness brought into being out of nothingness, using the lingering soul of another as fuel," the egg replied without concealment. She was hardly a stranger to the power of bestowing new definitions upon things. Connecting this to the fluctuations within the universe, she immediately guessed that this rebellious whelp was the one responsible.

The power to bestow new definitions upon objects—once successful, it was utterly overbearing and inescapable.

"No wonder..."

A vague sense of understanding dawned within Chen Sheng. The photograph he had seen should be the very source of his consciousness. "Then what about this ability of mine to redefine things? Did you give it to me?"

"That should belong to you, because you inherited that lingering soul. And this ability to give new definitions is the initial authority of that lingering soul."

"Initial authority?"

Chen Sheng's heart shook. It was as if a floodgate had opened, and countless long-suppressed memory fragments surged into his mind like a breached dike.

He saw a cultivation-themed urban world.

This world was known as the Spirit Realm.

Since ancient times, it had been a sacred land for cultivation. Countless beings from other worlds whose cultivation had reached a standstill would choose to smuggle themselves into the Spirit Realm, seeking the possibility of ascending to the Immortal Realm from there.

Yet, for tens of thousands of years, those who successfully achieved immortality and ascended could be counted on one's fingers.

Until this particular day, an immortal from the Immortal Realm arrived in the Spirit Realm to recuperate from injuries sustained in a great war. However, no one expected that this immortal had actually already perished upon arriving in the Spirit Realm.

Following the immortal's death, countless baleful and dead energies spewed from the immortal's corpse, instantly driving the ghosts and specters of the entire world to their absolute peak.

The Immortal Realm sensed this anomaly and dispatched immortals and deities.

However, these immortals and deities were all suppressed and driven away by the ghosts and specters, who even severed the last remaining thread of connection between the Spirit Realm and the Immortal Realm. From then on, the Spirit Realm transformed into a domain overrun by malevolent ghosts.

The malevolent ghosts began to rule the mortal world.

Among the malevolent ghosts were three great ghost kings. Realizing that the ultimate source of ghosts was living humans, they did not kill all living beings; instead, they initiated a unique cultivation system known as Ghost-Possessed Practitioners.

Any living human could become a Ghost-Possessed Practitioner, but once possessed for too long, they would be assimilated by the ghostly entities and transform into ghost corpses themselves.

Naturally, this was not what living humans desired.

Consequently, the three great ghost kings forced everyone to organize by family units, requiring one member from each household to step forward and become a Ghost-Possessed Practitioner at regular intervals.

Ghost-Possessed Practitioners were built upon the sacrifice of family members, serving as a method akin to boiling a frog in warm water. Thus, farsighted individuals inevitably stepped forward to lead a resistance against the malevolent ghosts.

Those brave enough to resist, upon being executed by the ghosts through special methods, would transform into raw souls and eventually be cast into this "universe."

This constituted the primary source of this "universe."

As for the minor portion, they naturally originated from Ghost-Possessed Practitioners who had been assimilated by ghosts while possessing the lowest strength, or those who had been killed by the ghosts residing within them.

The likes of Chen Xiaoyi mostly did not fall into the latter category.

This "universe" was named the Virtual-Reality Ghost Spirit Realm, but in reality, it was an entirely new ghost art conjured by the malevolent ghosts by combining human technology.

The raw souls cast into this virtual-reality ghost spirit realm would eventually have a fraction of their number become demi-gods. Operating behind the scenes of this ghost art under the control of malevolent ghosts, they would step by step become tenth-chain demi-gods, forming so-called spiritual ranks.

These spiritual ranks were, in truth, crystalline condensations of ghost spiritual power belonging to this brand-new ghost art. Every matured crystal of ghost spiritual power could provide an endless stream of power to the Capital Ghost—one of the three great ghost kings—helping him expand his ghostly domain known as the Market.

The Capital Ghost well lived up to his name; even those who had resisted him in life were forced to toil for this ghost after death!

And toil as if their lives depended on it!

As for Chen Sheng—or more accurately, that lingering soul—he had been a programmer captured by the Capital Ghost and forced to labor for him. Yet, through a twist of fate, that lingering soul came into contact with the Capital Ghost's core, enabling him to forge a program named the "Cocoon-Breaking Hammer."

The appearance of this program not only upended the power of the ghost spiritual power crystals, but also shattered the Capital Ghost's monopolization of social strata, nearly reducing the three great ghost kings to two.

Consequently, the Capital Ghost naturally sought to kill that lingering soul. However, due to the intervention of the other two ghost kings, the lingering soul ultimately managed to escape and, through the indirect arrangements of a certain ghost king, entered this Virtual-Reality Ghost Spirit Realm.

After wandering through various turns and twists, that lingering soul eventually evolved into the present Chen Sheng.

Chen Sheng stood frozen in place. This vast influx of memories brought him no sense of discomfort because a form of ghost art was embedded within them, converting past memories into something akin to a movie. Receiving these memories felt much like watching a film.

"I remember now. What about you?" Chen Sheng suddenly asked.

"What?" The egg bounced in place, looking utterly bewildered.

Equally bewildered was Chen Xiaoyi. She had finally stopped weeping and merely stared blankly at Chen Sheng, completely unable to fathom why he would suddenly say such a thing.

"He is talking about me!"

An icy voice suddenly rang out, and the phantom of a female ghost materialized out of thin air.

Chen Sheng did not know who this female ghost was, but with her appearance, he knew this was the very ghost king who had indirectly aided that lingering soul back then!

"What is your purpose? I am no match for the Capital Ghost. Even if I were to leave right now, I would merely be a wandering ghost; only within this ghost art world do I possess a sliver of authority and power," Chen Sheng stated bluntly.

"Actually, I only wanted to give it a try at first. But since you have appeared, I can finally report back to the people of the Immortal Realm."

"Report back to the people of the Immortal Realm?" Chen Sheng was startled upon hearing this.

"You didn't think that once the Capital Ghost and the others severed the final connection between the Spirit Realm and the Immortal Realm, the Immortal Realm would simply abandon this world, did you? The Immortal Realm governs numerous ordinary worlds, but realms like the Spirit Realm are exceedingly rare—there are only three in total. And of the other two, one was seized by the Demon Realm, and the other by the Underworld," the female ghost king explained.

This was the first time Chen Sheng had ever heard of such matters, but upon careful reflection, it seemed entirely reasonable. Under these circumstances, the Immortal Realm would never abandon the Spirit Realm. It was no wonder that this female ghost king, despite being one of the three great ghost kings and a vested beneficiary of the Spirit Realm, chose to betray the collective of malevolent ghosts and defect to the Immortal Realm.

"What do you want me to do?" Chen Sheng asked directly.

"You are a consciousness brought into existence out of nothingness, which makes you precisely suited to activate an immortal artifact. Once that immortal artifact is activated, everything that has transpired in the Spirit Realm can be reversed. However, by the same token, you will also need to pay a price: you will henceforth become a monster neither living nor dead, forever frozen at a single point in time. Not even the most formidable immortals and deities will be able to save you," the female ghost king said.

"What do you mean?" Chen Sheng naturally failed to understand.

A monster neither living nor dead, forever trapped at a certain point in time?

Without offering an explanation, the female ghost king produced a transparent ring and handed it over.

This transparent ring seemed to exist outside of this ghost art world, appearing exceedingly hazy. Yet as the female ghost king extended it forward, the ring seemingly bridged the gaps between worlds, transitioning from non-existence to existence, and suddenly materialized right before Chen Sheng's eyes.

The moment the ring appeared, it immediately radiated an intense glow—the brilliance belonging to immortality. This caused Chen Xiaoyi and the young girl residing within the egg to instinctively lunge toward the ring. Strangely, however, both Chen Xiaoyi and the maiden inside the shell grasped nothing but empty air.

The ring descended slowly, coming to rest squarely in Chen Sheng's palm. His hand involuntarily trembled because the ring was intensely cold.

Yet it was precisely this chill that made Chen Sheng's tactile sensations overwhelmingly real, making him realize that he had truly grasped the ring.

Clenching his five fingers tightly, Chen Sheng instantly came to know the name of this ring.

The Space-Time Closed Loop!

It was a taboo immortal artifact of the Immortal Realm—terrifyingly powerful, yet no immortal dared to wield it, nor could any immortal activate it.

For activating this taboo immortal artifact required an entity that did not exist within the world.

Once this taboo immortal artifact was activated, the non-existent entity would become trapped at a specific point in time, forming a closed loop for that individual's timeline.

From that moment on, this person's time would never intersect with any other timeline in the world; it would belong solely to them.

And this closed loop of time would ensure that the person would neither age nor die.

Such was the Space-Time Closed Loop!

With that, Chen Sheng glanced at the egg. Although he was looking at a shell, he perceived the familiar silhouette of the young girl within, and without a second thought, he activated it.

Since the maiden had been capable of becoming a ghost spiritual power crystal—a ranked demi-god—she had undoubtedly died in life while resisting the malevolent ghosts.

He did not know how a consciousness created out of nothingness could help her, but since an opportunity lay before him to return the Spirit Realm to its genesis, how could he refuse?

Chen Sheng had many things he wished to say to her, yet when the words reached his lips, not a single one could be uttered.

Then let not a single word be spoken!

A sigh escaped Chen Sheng's heart. The moment he understood this was merely a ghost art world, he lost the luxury of making choices—in truth, he never had a choice to begin with.

Besides, could there possibly be a better option than this?

The taboo immortal artifact, the Space-Time Closed Loop, was activated. Its activation required no immortal power; it demanded only a being that harmonized with the artifact.

To be precise, a consciousness.

And Chen Sheng, born out of nothingness, was undoubtedly the most suitable candidate.

Or rather, Chen Sheng was the destined master of this taboo immortal artifact.

The taboo immortal artifact was Chen Sheng's natal immortal artifact, though this natal artifact had manifested countless ages before Chen Sheng himself.

Time instantly stalled. Everything changed, yet everything seemed to remain unchanged.

Only the ghost art known as the Virtual-Reality Ghost Spirit Realm vanished. The three great ghost kings remained, and the Capital Ghost's power was still formidable, yet he was forced into hibernation.

For the time of the Spirit Realm was reversing, rolling back to the exact moment when that wounded immortal had arrived to recuperate.

And at the very instant that immortal attempted to enter the Spirit Realm, chains of law materialized out of thin air, binding the immortal tightly like a rice dumpling.

An ethereal voice sighed softly: "Brother Juedao had indeed perished long ago; it was his obsession at the threshold of death that sustained him. The curse of the Underworld is truly terrifying, inescapable even for Brother Juedao."

Subsequently, the chains shifted, bearing away the corpse of the immortal that had already become the source of nightmares.

Nothing was disturbed by these events.

Everything transpired in utter silence.

...

Spirit Realm.

Soaring skyscrapers had long since replaced rows of single-story houses, and dirt roads had been paved with asphalt.

On the congested streets, cultivators riding flying swords occasionally drifted leisurely over the roofs of cars, drawing envious gazes from the motorists below.

In the Spirit Realm, driving a luxury car could never compare to riding a flying sword.

At that moment, a figure suddenly ran several red lights on a flying sword, streaking past like a rainbow arc. Close behind followed another beam of sword light—not another outlaw of the law, but a traffic guardian patrolling the skies.

Essentially, a traffic police officer.

The traffic guardian continually shouted phrases such as, "Front female cultivator, you are speeding! Pull over immediately and accompany me to the Cultivation Bureau for re-education!"

However, the female outlaw who had run multiple red lights not only ignored the traffic guardian, but her flying sword mastery was evidently superior, allowing her to vanish from sight in the blink of an eye.

Realizing she had completely shaken off the traffic guardian, the female outlaw lowered her sword light, touched her small nose, and said with a hint of triumph, "Hmph, you think you can catch me? Do you really take my status as the top swordsman as a fake?"

"He might not be able to catch you, but I know who you are! Get your ass down to the Cultivation Bureau tomorrow, Yu Youxin!"

An angry roar erupted, terrifying the smug female outlaw so badly that her pretty face instantly drained of color.