Star Odyssey

Chapter 3975: Mercy

Lu Yin could not understand how a mere Dukkhan could possess such a technique. No, this was not a battle technique, but an innate gift. This was Unbroken Time’s innate gift, which the Immortal Lord had perfected by using themselves as the template. Without the Immortal Lord, this freakish innate gift could have never come into existence.

However, there had to be a cost or limitation to this ability. If not, Unbroken Time would have used it at the very beginning of the battle.

This move meant that none beneath the Immortal realm could hope to ever defeat Unbroken Time.

“What do you call this move?” Lu Yin asked as he stared straight ahead.

He knew that Unbroken Time was observing him, though he did not know if the creature’s eyes were its needle or the alternating sun and moon.

“You don’t want to talk? It looks like you really do consider me a dead man.

“It’s no wonder. I mean, who could possibly compare to the Immortal Lord’s lifespan?”

He could see his surroundings quiver, and gray threads appeared, spreading outward.

“Human, how do you know about that?”

Lu Yin praised Unbroken Time, “This is truly an invincible move, and yet you keep it hidden, preferring to let your opponents die without even knowing how. Are you wary of me, or are you cautious of our human Immortals?”

“Human expert, you are worthy of my caution.”

“What an honor. To be killed by this move, my life won’t have been in vain.”

“Human expert, what is your name?”

Lu Yin clasped his hands behind his back. “Lu Yin.”

“Lu Yin? I will remember that name.”

“In your River of Aeons, there were a tremendous number of droplets of unassimilated time. Most of that must come from using this move, right? Unless I’m mistaken, the Immortal Lord has traversed your River of Aeons to become your template, and whenever a creature is killed by this move, their time enters your river.”

Unbroken Time stayed silent.

Lu Yin asked curiously, “Where did your River of Aeons even come from?”

Unbroken Time still refused to answer.

Lu Yin’s eyes flickered. “This is from the megaverse where you were born, isn’t it?”

“Lu Yin, what are you looking for? Do you truly expect to die?”

Lu Yin nodded. “Of course. No one can overcome this move of yours. To compare their lifespan to that of the Immortal Lord, only an Immortal could hope to do that, and I am not an Immortal.”

“And yet I get the feeling that you will not die easily. You keep questioning me, probing me, and wanting to learn something. A dead man would not care to learn about such things.”

“Wrong. It is precisely because I’m about to die that I want to understand my death. That’s a common trait among humans.”

“Is that so?”

“Go ahead and ask that human-looking Insect Lord. She’ll know that much.”

“But I do not want to tell you. Somehow, you feel wrong.”

Lu Yin sighed. “Is it not good to offer the dying a bit of mercy? Does your Nest civilization not have any mercy?”

“The Immortal Lord is the most merciful. They created us.”

“They’re merciful to you, but cruel to us.”

“Human, if you want respect, I can give you that. I will remember your name. However, if you seek mercy, I cannot grant that to you. If you seek knowledge, I cannot offer that either.”

Lu Yin exhaled deeply. “I see. In that case, let’s compare.”

“Compare?”

“Lifespans.”

“Human, you should just wait, or perhaps find a way to share what you’ve learned with those outside. It’s possible that your human Immortals can save you. Comparing your lifespan with the Immortal Lord’s is not an amusing joke.”

“I’ve heard that there are many jokes in the cosmos.”

“True.”

“Tell me one.”

Unbroken Time fell silent.

Lu Yin raised his hand and slowly pointed at the spinning needle. “When that needle spins clockwise, it represents the future. In that case, does spinning counterclockwise represent the past?”

Lightstream flickered out, and Lu Yin’s eyes sharply focused as he reversed time by one second.

A crisp crack rang out.

The needle instantly came to a halt when Lightstream slammed into it.

No matter what he had tried before, Lu Yin had never been able to make contact with the needle, but once it started spinning, it had merged with the template. It was still impossible to physically touch the needle, but time could touch it. Using Lightstream, Lu Yin reversed the needle’s spin.

Past and future; where the future exists, the past exists as well. The future represents lifespan, but so does the past.

You want to compare our futures, but I want to compare our pasts.

“You can decide the method, but I decide the direction.”

“Lu Yin, how long have you lived for? Can you fathom how long the Immortal Lord has lived? To compare future lifespan is already granting you mercy. If your pasts were compared, you would already be dead. What makes you think that you can compare to the years the Immortal Lord has lived? What gives you such confidence?” Unbroken Time’s voice wavered, as it could not understand what Lu Yin was doing.

Clearly, the Immortal Lord had lived for eons. It was likely that not even the human civilization’s Immortals had lived as long as the Immortal Lord. Just how long could the entrapped human have lived for? It was possible that even one turn of the needle would kill him.

In that case, why did he insist on doing this?

The more unreasonable Lu Yin’s actions appeared to be, the more unsettled Unbroken Time became.

There was no chance that this human was simply killing himself, so what was he trying to do?

Outside, Dan Jin and the others were watching, and even farther away, Greater Sancte Awe Gate and Master Qing Cao saw all that transpired. They watched as Lu Yin took action, and while they did not understand what he was doing, the fact that he was doing something meant that he was still able to fight back.

Greater Sancte Awe Gate let out a breath, though she continued to stare intently. She was ready to save Lu Yin at the crucial moment.

The needle quickly spun one full turn in reverse.

Lu Yin remained unharmed.

A second turn completed, yet Lu Yin was still unharmed.

The needle sped up, still spinning counterclockwise. Soon, it was spinning just as fast as it had originally, resuming the appearance of a circle.

Lu Yin still remained unharmed.

Unbroken Time was dumbfounded. Ever since the Nest civilization had first attacked the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, there had been many things that it could not understand. The Great Master and Lu Yin had both left it confused. These humans were unlike any civilization Unbroken Time that had ever fought. What is going on? This human should have died long ago.

It understood how much time one spin of the needle represented better than anyone else. The human should not have survived even one full turn. But how many times had it spun? How could he still be alive?

“Lu Yin, what did you do?”

Lu Yin slowly smiled. “Nothing much. I’m just comparing how long I’ve lived with the Immortal Lord. We’re seeing who’s been around longer.”

“Impossible! You cannot have lived longer than the Immortal Lord!”

“Who can say? Maybe I’m already an Immortal myself,” Lu Yin teased.

Unbroken Time fell silent and seemed to be observing Lu Yin.

The human appeared to be completely relaxed, though Lu Yin had already paid a heavy price. His Karmic Dao had been depleted by a full fifth.

He had managed to greatly increase the karma of his Karmic Dao after entering the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. In particular, his encounters with Yue Ya and the transparent moth had granted Lu Yin a tremendous amount of karma. Even so, just one search for an answer related to this Dukkhan had consumed a fifth of Lu Yin’s karma. It was a terrifying cost.

After all, Unbroken Time was merely a Dukkhan, not an Immortal.

Since arriving in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, rarely was Lu Yin forced to expend so much effort on a Dukkhan, and that included peak Dukkhans.

He was personally witnessing the terror of a bizarre lifeform.

The transparent moth had been one, and Unbroken Time was another.

None of the other three Insect Lords were simple either.

“You are definitely not an Immortal.” Unbroken Time suddenly spoke up again.

Lu Yin calmly replied, “Then just watch. We’ll see if my existence can compare to the Immortal Lord’s.”

The needle kept spinning. The longer it spun, the more intense the tremors around Lu Yin became. Unbroken Time’s emotions grew chaotic. It could not comprehend how Lu Yin was staying alive.

As for those outside, Dan Jin and the others remained focused on Lu Yin. Chang, Shan Xiao, and Luo Chan were not attacking, as everyone was watching the bizarre scene.

Those who understood Unbroken Time also understood just how unbelievable what they were seeing was. Apart from a dead Immortal, Lu Yin could be considered the first creature who had reversed the direction of the spinning needle and also managed to survive for so long. If Chang and the others were targeted by this ability, they would not have survived for so long.

This was despite the human clearly looking to be very young.

How could his age possibly compare to that of the Immortal Lord?

As time went on, the needle finally started to slow down.

Lu Yin arched a brow, and his smile grew. “Looks like I’m about to win.”

“Impossible! This is impossible! Human, just how are you doing this?”

“Do you... want mercy?” Lu Yin suddenly asked.

Unbroken Time fell silent.

When it came to comparing lifespans, Lu Yin could never compare to the Immortal Lord in terms of how long he could live, but when it came to comparing their pasts, why not? Lu Yin was confident because he had discovered that he was not truly being compared to the Immortal Lord, but rather the template of the Immortal Lord that existed in the River of Aeons.

The Immortal Lord had left a template within Unbroken Time’s River of Aeons, which served as proof of how long the Immortal had lived. However, Lu Yin had also left footprints of his own in the River of Aeons.

During his Origin-realm breakthrough, he had walked up the River of Aeons, regressing to an ancient era and approaching a group of ancient powerhouses. Even Greater Sancte Green Lotus and the other Immortals had been shocked by what Lu Yin had done. How long ago had those ancients lived? Lu Yin had no idea whether those people still lived, but there was no doubt that they had existed for an unimaginably long time in the ancient past. He had no doubt that he had walked up the River of Aeons and reached a point in history that was absolutely at least as far back as the Immortal Lord’s birth. No, he had definitely moved past that.

He had nearly touched the shoulder of the last ancient powerhouse.

The River of Aeons that Lu Yin had walked upstream on, regressing to the past, had been the main river, whereas Unbroken Time’s River of Aeons was just a branch. That was the source of Lu Yin’s confidence.

Both the main stream and its branches were all parts of the same River of Aeons, and all of the branches had to eventually converge back into the main stream.

If you want to compare, then let’s compare. We’ll see who’s left traces farther up the River of Aeons.

That was the answer Lu Yin had found through karma. This was his only chance at survival.

Time was a mighty power, and it was capable of truly wondrous things, but karma was also a mighty power, and it could open up a path to survival even at the brink of death.

Without his karmic deduction, Lu Yin would have struggled terribly to break free from Unbroken Time’s ability. Nothing would have given Lu Yin any confidence of success, and he might have actually died. This was how dangerous these bizarre lifeforms could be.

His surroundings trembled ever more violently, and the needle formed from the alternating sun and moon started to crack. Light appeared before Lu Yin’s eyes; he had transcended time.

All along, what had entrapped him had been time, the time of Unbroken Time’s ability.

Lu Yin was just about to break free.

There was no need to mention Chang and the others; even Unbroken Time itself had never seen such a thing before. It had always used the Immortal Lord as a template, and thus it had never failed. No creature had ever survived an encounter with Unbroken Time. Lu Yin was the first, which was why even Unbroken Time was unfamiliar with what was happening .

Lu Yin took a step forward and stepped out.

Tick-tock.

Bang!

There was a deafening crash as the needle spinning in reverse suddenly snapped. Lu Yin reached out and grabbed the broken needle as the void surrounding him dissipated, as though it were restarting. Now that the needle had shattered, time and space themselves were vanishing.

“Behave yourself!” The Great Master slammed her oar into Luo Chan, who had instantly appeared behind Lu Yin. The bug was sent flying again.

Qing Xing empowered his Chaotic Ancient Qi Art with Immortal matter and attacked Shan Xiao with a finger. Dan Jin released numerous alchemical pills, her expression more solemn than ever before. “Pill Arts: Infinite Restart.”

Chang roared in rage and charged straight at Lu Yin.

The pills exploded with a thunderous blast, creating countless ripples that spread across the cosmos, overlapping and shattering space. It looked like the reset of a megaverse. For a moment, even Chang was held back.

Dan Jin coughed up blood. “Mr. Lu, hurry!”