Chapter 1307: Hex Enlightenment (2/2)

Time passed. Several days later, Meng Hao opened his eyes, and yet still had no idea of what to do. The only thing that he could sense was that the world he was in seemed like something from ancient times.

Also, he could confirm that this place... was not illusory, but was indeed real.

He looked down and could see that he had no body, only a soul. After considering the matter for a moment, he began to fly, to examine the land, the sky, and the vegetation....

More time passed. A month. Meng Hao was starting to get anxious because of the passage of time, which he could clearly sense. According to his speculations, the passage of time in this world was no different than that in the Mountain and Sea Realm.

“I need to figure out a way out of here. Based on how much time has passed, Lord White of the Seventh Mountain and Sea will most likely have fully recovered by now!” Meng Hao sent his divine sense out to search for an exit.

However, another whole month passed, and he still had no idea what was going on. More anxious than ever, he waved his right hand, summoning a divine ability. Everything began to tremble, portions of Heaven and Earth collapsed, and yet no exit could be seen.

Apparently, this place was a trap, and he was now stuck here permanently.

One month. Two months. Three months.... Meng Hao was starting to go mad. Booms rang out constantly as he attempted to free himself. He unleashed the Demon Sealing Hexing magics, and yet, none of that did any good.

He howled, demanding for Lord Li to appear, but Lord Li had long since left. There were primordial beasts in the world, but considering how much Meng Hao was raging, none of them dared to show their faces.

Despite Meng Hao’s deepening anxiety, time passed relentlessly.

A year. Three years. Six years....

Meng Hao watched time passing by, lonely and also worried about his Grandpa Meng. However, there was nothing he could do except experience the stabbing pains in his heart.

“Six years have already passed....” he murmured bitterly. He could only hope that his own judgement regarding the passage of time was somehow incorrect, and that time moved differently here than in the outside world.

However… ten more years passed. Meng Hao could feel his soul aging, and his body trembling. Because of that, he now had the feeling that his previous speculation had indeed been correct, that time here and time in the outside world... passed at the same speed.

A hundred years went by, and Meng Hao had become calm. Except, that calmness was a facade. Deep in his heart, he was worried about his Grandpa Meng, the Ninth Mountain and Sea, Xu Qing, and especially the 33 Heavens and the other two terrifying forces approaching the Mountain and Sea Realm. The worry in his heart was impossible to dispel.

“What's going on...?” he thought bitterly. Throughout the hundred years which had passed, he had tried everything he could think of, but nothing worked.

500 years later, Meng Hao was truly calm.

After that much time had passed, whatever happened on the outside world was over and done with, and could not be changed.

Most of the time, he wasn’t even conscious. He spread his divine sense outwards ever further, and would go for long periods without retracting it.

1,000 years passed. Then 1,500. Then 5,000....

Eventually, Meng Hao lost sense of the passage of time. Whether it was 50,000 years or 100,000, he didn’t really know. He was no longer truly conscious. The only thing that remained behind were the tiny strands of thought that were diffused throughout the world.

He had seen the world transform, had seen animals live and die, had seen the grand passage of time. He had even seen humanoid creatures come into being. They hunted the wild beasts, gradually learning their habits, and eventually began to develop. Meng Hao sent his thoughts out into the world, whereupon the living beings learned how to practice cultivation.

More time passed, although it was impossible to tell how much. The cultivators of the world grew more numerous, and their cultivation level grew higher. They began to war with each other, and the resulting dead were innumerable.

More time passed. After the wars passed, life flourished again, and everyone prospered. Then there was war again, and after that, prosperity. It happened over and over again until one day a hail of fire descended from the sky above.

The world burned, transforming into ash, as if everything that had been built up was being knocked over and was now starting over from scratch. Meng Hao was not conscious, and yet his thoughts were everywhere, observing everything.

Life appeared again, prospered, and then devolved into war. Again, everything was destroyed by fire from Heaven. It was like a cycle.

Meng Hao no longer thought of things in terms of the passage of time, but in terms of cycles.

One cycle after another, over and over. Meng Hao saw endless life and death, endless joy and sorrow. He was like a visitor, or a passerby, until it reached the point that he didn’t even know what it was that he was watching. The cycles continued until the 10,000th cycle arrived.

When the 10,000th cycle was destroyed by fire from Heaven, when everything was destroyed, the world didn’t vanish. Instead, it continued to burn. Rumbling sounds could be heard as everything shook and shattered. Meng Hao's thoughts, which had been scattered throughout the world for so long, suddenly began to converge back together.

As the world was destroyed, he slowly began to regain lucidity....

It was as if the cage he had been trapped in for such a long time, was collapsing.

The rumbling lasted for a long time, until Heaven shattered and Earth collapsed. When everything was gone, Meng Hao finally... opened his eyes!

There he was in the world of the door on Patriarch Reliance’s back. However, the sky had vanished, and the land was nothing but a void. The only thing that existed was the statue of Lord Li, smiling at Meng Hao, seemingly asking him a question.

Do you really understand?