278: Guardians of Time

Lin Yuan attempted to use the true meaning of "command" over all laws from his 80% Chaos Great Dao to forcibly organize and control the chaotic flow of time around him! It was like a captain steering through rough seas, using supreme will to resist the chaotic tides of time!

The area around his left arm was accelerating in time? The mighty power of Chaos forcibly intervened, lowering its acceleration rate!

His right foot was trapped in a time stasis? The dao rhyme of Chaos vibrated, breaking that solidified force field!

A turbulent stream of regression swirled toward his head? The Eye of Chaos Ruin Divine Ability flashed in his right eye, and a will to annihilate all laws swept across, forcibly erasing that force of regression!

At the same time, the [Devouring Evolution] skill mark on his wings operated quietly, attempting to capture and decompose the relatively "gentle" fragments of the Great Dao of Time that had been forcibly organized, transforming them into nutrients to nourish his Soul and temper his insights into time!

This was an extremely dangerous and delicate process! It was like dancing on the tip of a blade, seeking a Breakthrough on the edge of destruction! Lin Yuan's spirit was highly focused, and the power of the Chaos Great Dao was pushed to its limit. Under the scouring of the violent time turbulence, his Soul became more condensed and tenacious, like refined iron being repeatedly forged! His understanding of the Great Dao of Time also deepened rapidly in this extreme confrontation!

The peculiar "pulse of time" in the center of the storm was becoming clearer. Lin Yuan could feel that the source of that pulse contained an extremely pure power of the Origin of time!

Bearing the ever-increasing pressure, he advanced with difficulty, step by step, firmly toward the center of the storm, the source of the pulse of time! Every step he took was a direct confrontation and command over the chaotic Great Dao of Time! Under the tempering on the edge of life and death, his control over the Soul Great Dao was steadily advancing toward 66%! And his affinity and understanding of the Great Dao of Time had also reached a whole new level!

Deep within the storm, a relatively calm area could be vaguely seen. In the center of that area, a strange, crystal-clear "plant" formed entirely from flowing Sea of Time Sand floated quietly. It resembled an Epiphyllum sculpted from sand; its petals were composed of countless slowly flowing time runes, and at the stamen, a brilliant light condensed to the extreme, seemingly containing the Origin point of time, flickered in sync with that "pulse of time."

A Heaven And Earth Treasure nurtured by the Sea of Time Sand — the Instant Eternity Flower! The calm zone in the center of the storm was like an isolated island, where the "Instant Eternity Flower," condensed from the pure Great Dao of Time, floated. Its crystal-clear petals rotated slowly, each unfurling seemingly performing the most exquisite fragments of the River of Time. Every flicker of the brilliant light at the stamen caused the surrounding Great Dao of Time to pulse, as if it were the heart of this Sea of Time Sand.

Lin Yuan stood at the junction of the storm and the calm, his Chaos Domain contracted to three inches from his body surface, like a form-fitting dark gold armor. The mighty power of the 80% Chaos Great Dao surged through his Meridians, resisting the final tearing of the outer storm. The vortex of Ruin deep within his right eye's pupil rotated slightly, scrutinizing this strange time treasure.

"Three thousand petals, corresponding to the branches of the River of Time of the three thousand great worlds; the single point of the stamen is the projection of the Origin point of time..." Lin Yuan realized in his heart that this strange flower was by no means a simple Heaven And Earth Treasure, but the manifestation of the Origin of the entire Sea of Time Sand! If he could refine it, not only would his Soul Great Dao break through the 70% barrier, but he might even be able to touch the threshold of the Great Dao of Time!

Just as he was about to take a step, a hair-raising sense of crisis suddenly descended!

The sandstorm around the calm zone boiled up without warning! Countless flowing sands of time gathered madly, turning into translucent sand tentacles. Each tentacle flowed with completely different time runes—some accelerating, some flowing backward, some static, and in some areas, the logic of time was completely chaotic, forming paradoxical vortexes that defied common sense!

These tentacles did not attack Lin Yuan directly but intertwined with each other, constructing an extremely complex cage of time around the Eternal Flower! Inside the cage, the Great Dao of Time was completely disordered, and the concepts of past, present, and future were completely shattered! Even more terrifyingly, the space in the center of the cage began to distort, and a blurry figure was slowly emerging from the River of Time—

That was the shadow of an old man wearing a tattered robe of time, his face withered. He held a broken hourglass with both hands, the flowing sand inside it eerily motionless. The old man's eyes had no pupils, only two slowly flowing shadows of the River of Time, one flowing downstream and one upstream, converging at the center of his brow into an eerie Möbius strip.

"Gua...rd...ian...of...Ti...me..." The old man made a hoarse sound, each word seeming to come from different time nodes, carrying a dizzying sense of confusion.

Lin Yuan's pupils constricted! This was by no means an ordinary time creature, but the manifestation of the Origin will of the Sea of Time Sand—the "Guardian of Time"! Its aura was so strong that it was in no way inferior to the Origin will of the ten thousand laws he had encountered previously at the Myriad Dao Origin Pool, and it was even more treacherous and unpredictable!

"Intruder... Time-thief... shall suffer eternal tribulation..." The old man slowly raised his withered arm, and the broken hourglass tilted slightly. Immediately, a heart-stopping wave of time annihilation swept out!

The space where Lin Yuan was located was instantly cut into countless fragments, and the flow of time in each fragment was completely different! His left arm withered and aged at a speed visible to the naked eye, and in an instant, it was as if it had experienced ten million years of weathering; his right leg, however, eerily reverted to a juvenile state, with bones and muscles developing in reverse; his torso was plunged into absolute stasis, and even his thoughts were almost frozen; even more terrifying was the area where his head was, where the logic of time was completely chaotic—one moment it was aging and death, the next it returned to an infant's crying, looping back and forth, endless and unceasing!

This was an attack even more terrifying than simple time acceleration or reversal—the Paradox Cage of Time! It separated the victim into different timelines, forcing them to experience birth and death, growth and decay simultaneously, until their self-consciousness collapsed, and they became part of the Sea of Time Sand!

"Chaos Unification!"

At the critical moment of life and death, the bit of glazed Chaos Heart Light in Lin Yuan's Sea of Consciousness erupted with unprecedented radiance! The true meaning of "command" from the 80% Chaos Great Dao and the eternal dao rhyme of the Great Accomplishment Chaos Body blended perfectly, turning into an invisible shockwave that slammed fiercely into the chaotic cage of time!

Boom! The ultimate collision between Chaos and time!

Lin Yuan's body forcibly reassembled amidst the shattered fragments of time! The aging of his left arm was reversed by the mighty power of Chaos, the regression of his right leg was forcibly corrected, the stasis of his torso was shattered by the dao rhyme of Chaos, and the paradoxical cycle of his head was forcefully broken by the eternal characteristic of the Chaos Heart Light!

"Pfft—" A mouthful of dark gold blood sprayed out, and Lin Yuan's aura instantly wilted by thirty percent. Although this strike had freed him from the cage of time, it had also come at a significant cost. Even more troublesome was that the "Guardian of Time" had now fully solidified, the flowing sand in the broken hourglass began to flow slowly, and an even more terrifying attack was brewing!