Worlds’ Apocalypse Online

Within the dark, cold and frigid mist, Gu Qing Shan was quickly moving forward.

The Heaven Realm Rotation Jade Disk was giving off an invisible power that carried him along as it headed towards the next unique phantom image.

Behind Gu Qing Shan, a phantom image was glowing slowly brighter as if it was burning up.

At a certain point, the phantom image became blindingly bright before shattering within that light.

It scattered and disappeared within the boundless mist of space-time.

Gu Qing Shan gritted his teeth and tried his best to conceal his presence while arranging layers upon layers of concealment formations without caring about expenditures.

Everything happened too suddenly.

The Divinities and Desolate monsters had joined forces to completely destroy that fragment of time.

Fortunately, Luo Bing Li managed to get to him in the nick of time, otherwise both her and Gu Qing Shan would've been in danger.

Gu Qing Shan recalled everything that happened up to that point.

Luo Bing Li was unfathomably strong.

It wasn't very hard to slow down time around an ant, or even perform [Time Stop] to it.

But if the target was a Divinity, any temporal technique would be greatly resisted by the Divinity's own power, making it fail most of the time.

However, just now, while being surrounded by countless powerful Desolate monsters and Divinities, Luo Bing Li still managed to slow down time.

She slowed time down for every enemy.

That was completely unimaginable.

And even then, the two of them nearly got caught by the Divinity.

Gu Qing Shan quickly thought about what happened and struggled to arrive at a conclusive answer.

A Desolate coin that could suppress the power of Divinities was hidden inside that phantom image.

But the preparations of the Age of Old human cultivators have been ruined, and Gu Qing Shan lost his chance to obtain that coin.

How would the next steps of the plan be affected without that coin?

Gu Qing Shan didn't know and had no way to find that out.

Around him, there was nothing but a frigid fog of mist.

The Heaven Realm Rotation Jade Disk continued to release its guiding power to bring him through the thick fog.

Gu Qing Shan avoided phantom image after phantom image, heading in a determined course towards the next prepared phantom image.

This was a moment where he was truly alone without anyone to rely on.

No one would be able to help him here.

After staying silent for a while, Gu Qing Shan suddenly gritted his teeth and drew his sword.

A sword phantom flashed.

Cra-rik!

A soft shattering sound echoed.

The Heaven Realm Rotation Jade Disk was broken into countless pieces by his attack.

The power that came from the jade disk disappeared.

Without the power of the jade disk, Gu Qing Shan began to descend towards the deeper end of the space-time mist.

As he descended, he went past countless phantom images.

Gu Qing Shan stayed silent and did nothing.

He was letting himself fall without a destination.

At some point, he suddenly entered an unassuming phantom image.

This was a completely random entry, not even Gu Qing Shan knew which point in time of the Age of Old did he actually enter.

…

Barren land.

Thick clouds of smoke rose to the sky, dying the sunlight from afar a deep shade of red.

The deep red setting sun slowly sank into the horizon.

Gu Qing Shan had arrived in the middle of a ruin.

He found himself standing in a puddle of blood.

He glanced around.

Countless severed and tattered limbs laid were scattered all over where he stood, together with various mangled corpses and skeletons.

This place looked like some sort of human slaughterhouse.

No, from the bite marks on those skeletons, this place had clearly been ravaged once by the Desolate monsters.

The monsters had already eaten their fill and left.

Gu Qing Shan stood still, releasing his inner sight to check his surroundings.

He didn't even know which point in time he arrived at, so he needed to immediately collect intel and make a proper assessment of his current situation.

Shannu appeared from the void of space.

She glanced at the thick red shade of blood on the ground, shocked by the ruined and desolate scenery around them.

Even in hell, sceneries like this weren't common.

"Gongzi, why did you destroy the jade disk? You should know that if we lost that jade disk's guidance, we wouldn't be able to find the Heaven sword" Shannu doubtfully asked.

Gu Qing Shan paused briefly before answering: "I know that arbitrarily destroying the jade disk wasn't a good idea either"

"Gongzi, then why…"

"I was asking myself a certain question"

"What question is that?"

Gu Qing Shan slowly explained: "If I were one of the Age of Old Divinities who devised that plan, what would I do after I've just destroyed one of many phantom images that humanity arranged?"

Gu Qing Shan continued: "Obviously, I would destroy every known phantom image that humanity prepared, that way, no one will be able to make it through this special process and arrive at that true final moment of the Age of Old"

"This way, all of humanity's hope will be reduced to nothing"

"So gongzi decided to destroy the jade disk and decided not to head towards the final destination anymore?" Shannu asked.

Very unusual of him, Gu Qing Shan appeared to be indecisive.

"I… don't know if what I did was correct. But if we try another hypothesis, what if I'm the existence that traveled back from the future attempting to capture Gu Qing Shan, what would I do in this situation?"

Shannu froze and answered right away: "I don't know"

Gu Qing Shan replied: "If I were him, I will discuss with the Divinities from the Age of Old, have them temporarily not destroy the next unique phantom image and instead hide inside it, silently waiting for Gu Qing Shan to arrive"

"Simply hiding is the dumbest solution, but also the safest solution. The Divinities will be in their peak condition against an exhausted enemy, as soon as 'Gu Qing Shan' appears, they will ambush and capture him without much trouble"

Shannu couldn't help but shiver at that thought and couldn't help asking: "Would the Divinities from the Age of Old be willing to listen to that existence's words?"

Gu Qing Shan muses: "They should be… Earlier, in the Xie Qi Fiend Realm, the Divinities from the Age of Old were also trying to search for me, this meant that they were very interested in the final secret of humanity"

He concluded: "That's right, Gu Qing Shan wasn't strong, so the Divinities would be more than willing to leave at least one phantom image and wait for Gu Qing Shan to take the bait. After all, capturing him is easy, as long as he appears at all"

Shannu sighed: "Gongzi, I really can't see anything but danger everywhere. How about you and I return to Huang Quan, the Grand Tie Wei Mountain can resist even the Winds of Chaotic Tribulation, as long as we hide inside hell, even Divinities wouldn't be able to catch you as the Devil King"

Gu Qing Shan looked at her and spoke in a heavy voice: "Shannu, you're afraid"

Shannu shook her head: "I'm not afraid of the Divinities, I'm afraid of them taking your soul captive. If they did that, gongzi wouldn't even have the chance to reincarnate"

Gu Qing Shan's gaze slowly turned gentle and warm.

"Don't worry, it's only the beginning, your gongzi has never been scared of these garbage" he softly declared.

While saying so, he walked forward on the bloody ground.

With each step, he changed his appearance.

"All I need to do is hide, and I'm quite the expert at that"

First he turned into a burly man, then a white-haired old man, then a long-bearded Daoist, then a young boy around 7-8 years old, and finally a young teenager.

The teenager stopped, his gaze followed the trail of blood on the ground to look at a tattered corpse.

"I'll borrow your appearance, if fate allows it, I will avenge you, thank you"

Saying so, he and Shannu disappeared from this ruined scenery.

…

On another side.

The space-time fog.

A certain phantom image.

Around this phantom image, countless figures were hiding within the void of space.

With their strength, no human cultivator would be able to sense them here without being a great cultivator of Xie Gu Hong's level.

They silently hid themselves there, patiently waiting.

Even if hiding took a very long time, they had the patience.

But this wait seems to be without end, as the human that they were waiting for never appeared.

Finally, a voice rang out from the void of space.

「 I think… he might not be coming 」

The Golden Flame Divinity appeared from the void of space and said regretfully.

He looked at the Desolate coin in his hand.

Soon.

I'll be able to use it soon.