Legend Management Bureau Chapter 434

[ … words ]

“Enenra…?” Du Yu furrowed his brows. “A long time ago, I feel like I heard that name…”

He was somewhat puzzled. Why would the Thread of someone who had never appeared on the Battlefield drift right before his eyes?

Du Yu extracted the contents of the Thread, forming a spatial fragment. With a slight twitch of his finger, the surrounding scenery shifted to Fusang during the Edo period.

He merely skimmed the story, yet a trace of sorrow leaked from his eyes.

“I’ve clearly witnessed the Suffering of hundreds of thousands of people, yet I can still empathize. As expected of you, A’xiang’s brother.”

Du Yu silently closed his eyes and told a lie. He conveyed to the Thread that its master had not died, but merely gone on a long journey.

He hoped this lie would bring some comfort to Jin Jianglang in whichever time and space he resided.

As the Thread shattered in response, Du Yu fell deep into thought.

He had previously felt that Time’s abilities were remarkably similar to those of the Shiranui family, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why.

“How truly fascinating. It seems those who have comprehended the Great Way of Time are neither You Si nor Zhan Qisheng, but rather you Time Masters.”

Du Yu stopped paying attention to Enenra’s story. Instead, he pushed the timeline of the entire great war forward by a whole hour. Yet, this slight adjustment equated to over a century of time passing.

His gaze had gradually grown dazed and lost.

Had it not been for the strange Threads drifting over periodically, Du Yu felt he would have completely turned to stone by now.

Amidst this vast river of stars, Du Yu could not sense the flow of time at all. He could only roughly estimate its passage through these stories, one after another.

Before him lay the future, and behind him lay the past.

He was a tragic, immortal entity trapped between the future and the past.

“Perhaps this is the reason why Saint and I didn’t pass out when we met in the Cave of Time back then… I was originally standing behind Time, while Saint was originally standing in front of Time.”

Years aged into years, days faded into days, autumns followed autumns, and generations pushed generations forward.

One gathering, one parting; one joy, one sorrow; one bed to rest a weary body; one life lived as a fleeting dream.

It took Du Yu thirty thousand full years to recreate this great battle.

Thirty thousand years.

Coupled with the days he spent wandering through the temporal rifts, he had been standing guard in this cave for forty thousand years.

What did forty thousand years mean?

Forty-two thousand years ago, the Earth’s magnetic field weakened.

Without its protective layer, massive amounts of charged particles bombarded the atmosphere and destroyed the ozone layer, leading to a surge in ultraviolet radiation.

Back then, auroras could be seen not just at the North and South Poles, but illuminating the night sky anywhere on Earth.

The ionized atmosphere frequently triggered severe thunderstorms, making the entire planet look as though the apocalypse had descended.

Under such high-radiation conditions, the lifeforms on Earth suffered unspeakably.

It was precisely because of these harsh conditions that the Neanderthals, humanity’s overlords at the time, rapidly declined, giving modern Homo sapiens an opportunity to rise.

Yet, the time since modern Homo sapiens came to rule the Earth and become the dominant species was a mere ten thousand years.

And the emergence of splendid civilizations, including the birth of Huaxia, had happened only a few thousand years ago.

For a single person to fulfill their deepest obsession by sacrificing hundreds of thousands of years in this eternal void, was the price not too agonizing?

Du Yu silently opened his eyes; his gaze had become utterly turbid and dim.

He knew that the time he had endured in this cave wasn’t even half of what was required.

Compared to three hundred and thirty thousand years, forty thousand years was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

For the remaining days, he could only sit withered on the stone stool, completely devoid of direction.

He didn’t want to become a madman, but he couldn’t control it.

In this dark, sunless environment where he could neither die nor break free, he simply had no idea how to keep himself sane.

After an unknown number of years had passed, Du Yu suddenly opened his mouth and bit down viciously on his own tongue.

In an instant, blood splattered, accompanied by excruciating pain.

But in the next second, the wound he had bitten open miraculously healed.

With his mouth full of blood, Du Yu lowered his head with a bitter smile.

Many more years passed.

He noticed that his fingernails had grown dozens of meters long. Spreading his fingers, he began clawing at the walls. He spent countless days and nights carving gouges into the stone, leaving broken, bloody fragments of his nails wedged within the deep scratches.

But he could not escape.

The walls automatically repaired themselves at regular intervals, making it absolutely impossible for anyone to flee.

…

…

…

“Old Zhan, come over and have a seat,” Du Yu said with a smile, speaking into the empty air in front of him. “We’ve known each other for so long, but we never really sat down to share our experiences. Can you tell me, if you encountered a story like Little Zhongli’s, how would you have handled it?”

“Ah! Little Zhongli, you’re here too?!” He turned his head toward another empty patch of space. “Can you take me away? My back hurts so much, and this stool is too hard. Let’s go rob provisions from wild ghosts, bathe in the River of Forgetfulness, sleep on the streets, and go eat sweets! Right, Little Zhongli?”

“Hey!” Du Yu glared fiercely at the thin air before him. “Fan Xiaoguo! Sneaking milk tea again! Shirking your work!”

After saying that, Du Yu looked as though he had lost his soul, suddenly turning his gaze to the side.

“Sister Qianqiu? Sister Qianqiu, have you been working too hard lately? You need to rest when it’s time to rest. You’re always staring at the screen, you don’t even have time to wash your hair. Oh, don’t worry, Big Cat will give you some time off.”

“Big Cat?” Du Yu blinked, startled. “Big Cat, hurry up and smash this chair… What? You can’t smash it? Then smash me… burn me into Ashes, tear me into pieces… I’m begging you…”

“Seventh Lord, Eighth Lord… don’t leave. I’m your sworn brother…”

“Boss! You owe me for that favor at the Zhang Family Stronghold! You have to help me think of a way out. You’re the Jade Emperor, surely you can think of something…”

After a long silence, Du Yu abruptly raised his head, a wild glint of madness in his eyes.

“A Can, A Kui! Let’s go find Liu Ling for a drink!” Du Yu’s lips trembled. “Fill it up! I want to drink! Call Jin Jianglang over too! Today, us brothers are going to drink him under the table!”

“Xie Yujiao… hehehehe, I’ll kill you… I’m going to kill you… Xiao Nian, help me kill her, and I’ll make you a star.”

“A’xiang…” Du Yu’s lips moved slightly. Staring at the hallucination of A’xiang before him, he remained silent for a long time, completely at a loss for words.

“Why did it have to be you… A’xiang… Why is falling in love with you the only way to become Time?”

Yet, to Du Yu’s surprise, A’xiang’s hallucination did not vanish immediately.

Instead, she walked over to a small stone and pointed at it. Her lips moved slightly, murmuring words he couldn’t hear.

Du Yu froze. He stared at the small stone on the ground not far away, feeling a strange sense of incongruity.

But before he could process what was happening, the Stone Door in front of him suddenly burst open.

A brand new You Si stood outside the doorway, gazing at Du Yu with deep affection.