195: Chapter 195 Time Can Only Be Suspended - Death

The spatial rift fully opened.

A thick, almost solidified bloody scent wafted from the other side of the rift.

Su Bai stepped out.

Beneath his feet was not normal ground, but a black altar covered with countless dark red patterns.

Those patterns squirmed like living things, contracting and expanding. Each pulse caused a large amount of uncontrolled Mental Power to gush out.

Boom!

Not far away, a twenty-meter-long green giant python crashed through a mountain wall.

Its scales had largely fallen off, and dozens of white bone spurs, not belonging to a snake, grew on its body.

A 5th-tier Beastmaster knelt on the ground, clutching his hair tightly.

The contract patterns connecting him to the giant python flickered erratically.

"Stop!"

"Green Scale, stop!"

"I am your master!"

The Beastmaster roared hoarsely.

The green giant python, however, seemed not to hear.

Its Vertical pupils were covered in blood, its massive body thrashed wildly, and it crashed once more towards the Beastmaster's location.

The Beastmaster's face turned pale.

He tried to forcibly recall his pet beast, but found that his mental commands couldn't be transmitted through the contract at all.

Quite the opposite.

A chaotic, painful, and aggressive mental wave was rushing back into his mental sea along the contract.

Pfft!

The Beastmaster spat out a mouthful of blood.

Just as the giant python was about to swallow him, a silver spatial barrier appeared out of thin air.

Bang!

The giant python crashed into the barrier.

The force, enough to collapse a mountain, caused no ripple in the thin, cicada-wing-like silver light.

Li Qingyue walked out of the spatial rift.

She didn't look at the out-of-control giant python, but simply raised her eyes to scan the entire Secret Realm.

Su Bai finally saw the surrounding situation clearly.

This was not an ordinary pet beast breeding Secret Realm.

Mountains of varying heights had been artificially transformed into beast lairs.

Hundreds of contract arrays floated in the sky.

Different environments like forests, lakes, volcanoes, and ice fields were forcibly compressed into the same Secret Realm by spatial arrays.

This was the Song family's core Beastmaster Secret Realm, which they had operated for hundreds of years.

Normally, at least a thousand different types of pet beasts lived, evolved, and reproduced here.

But now, the entire Secret Realm had completely fallen into chaos.

Hundreds of high-tier pet beasts simultaneously lost control.

Dozens of flying pet beasts tore at each other in the air.

A huge flaming bird, dragging its scorched wings, plummeted towards the forest.

A group of Ice Armored Demonic Apes were frantically attacking the array nodes that maintained the Secret Realm's operation.

Even more dangerous was that all the rampaging pet beasts were entangled with intermittent bloody contracts.

When a pet beast was injured, the injury would be fed back to the Beastmaster along the contract.

When the Beastmaster lost mental control, the chaotic emotions would similarly stimulate the pet beast in reverse.

The two influenced each other.

Like countless ignited powder kegs.

"The Song family's contract system was attacked?"

Qin Ye was the last to step out of the rift.

A dark golden [World] appeared behind her.

It folded its arms, its gaze sweeping over the rampaging pet beasts, and the Mental Power within its body slowly awakened.

"Doesn't seem like it."

Su Bai looked down at the contract patterns on the altar's surface.

These patterns had not been subjected to external attacks.

They were more like they had simultaneously begun to collapse from within due to some common reason.

"It's evolution."

Su Bai said.

"All these pet beasts have undergone some special evolution."

"The evolution paths are interconnected."

"After a problem occurred at the core evolution node, the backlash spread through the contract network to the entire Secret Realm."

Qi Yuan had just walked out of the spatial rift when he heard this sentence.

He immediately looked up at the contract array in the sky.

"All contracts are connected to the same core?"

"Where did the Song family get such courage?"

Connecting a large number of Beastmasters and pet beast contracts to the same core could indeed improve the utilization efficiency of Mental Power and evolution resources.

However, once the core had a problem, all contracts would be implicated.

This was no longer an accident involving one Beastmaster and one pet beast.

It was a disaster capable of destroying the entire younger generation of the Song family.

A Song family Steward, covered in blood, rushed over in a hurry.

He seemed not to have expected Li Qingyue to descend personally, and his steps abruptly halted.

"Space-Time Supreme!"

"The Family Head and several Elders are all at the Central Altar!"

"Miss's mental sea is about to collapse!"

Li Qingyue looked towards the deepest part of the Secret Realm.

Without the Steward leading the way, she had already pinpointed the source of the entire contract backlash.

The next instant, silver light spread.

Su Bai only felt the surrounding space slightly distort.

Everyone simultaneously vanished from their original spot.

When their vision returned, they were already in the center of the Secret Realm.

The scene here was even more tragic than the periphery.

A blood-colored altar, nearly a thousand meters in diameter, floated in mid-air.

Below the altar, tens of thousands of contract patterns intertwined, each connecting a Beastmaster and a pet beast within the Secret Realm.

Originally, these contract patterns should have been pure silver-white.

Now, more than half had turned dark red.

Some patterns had even broken.

Every time a contract completely collapsed, a painful roar would echo from around the altar.

Dozens of Song family Healers surrounded the altar.

They continuously poured Mental Stability Potions and healing cards into the array, but could only slightly slow the spread of the blood color.

The true source of the backlash was right in the center of the altar.

A pitch-black giant wolf lay there.

The giant wolf was over thirty meters long.

It should have had smooth, hard fur like Obsidian, but its body was now covered in grotesque cracks.

No fresh blood flowed from the cracks.

Instead, viscous black demonic energy continuously overflowed.

Behind it, seven underdeveloped crescent-shaped bone spurs pierced through its flesh, exposed to the air.

Some of these bone spurs were covered in scales, some had black beast fur, and two were already completely crystallized.

Life structures from different evolutionary paths actually appeared simultaneously within its body.

They competed for flesh and blood.

Devouring each other's energy.

Attempting to forcibly transform this body into their respective desired forms.

A young woman knelt beside the giant wolf.

Her white Beastmaster's robe was already soaked with blood.

She tightly embraced the giant wolf's neck, allowing the continuously overflowing black demonic energy to corrode her arms.

She was the Song family's Eldest Young Miss.

Song Qingli.

"Obsidian."

"Don't sleep."

"Look at me."

"You can't sleep!"

Song Qingli's voice had long become hoarse.

The giant wolf seemed to hear her call, and with difficulty, opened one eye.

That eye should have been pure silver.

At this moment, its pupil continuously shifted between silver, blood-red, and pitch-black.

It tried to lift its head.

But as its neck moved only half an inch, the seven evolutionary structures within its body simultaneously erupted.

Crack!

Obsidian's shoulder blade let out a crisp sound.

A crack, deep enough to expose bone, instantly spread to its chest.

Song Qingli's body trembled violently.

Almost at the same time Obsidian was injured, an identical bloody mark appeared on her chest.

Stand damage would be fed back to the main body.

And beast contracts also had a certain two-way connection.

However, traditional Beastmasters would use contract rules to suppress most of the damage within the pet beast's body.

But now, the contract structure had completely lost control.

Every injury on Obsidian was synchronously fed back to Song Qingli.

"Qingli!"

A white-haired Song family Elder spoke sharply.

"We can't wait any longer!"

"Obsidian's evolution core has shattered."

"Every second it endures now is pain."

"Immediately perform 'Sever Beast to Preserve Master'!"

Sever Beast to Preserve Master.

Upon hearing these four words, Song Qingli abruptly looked up.

"No!"

"There's no other way!"

The Song family Elder pointed above the altar.

Two cards floated there.

One was responsible for forcibly severing the beast contract.

The other was responsible for devouring the soul origin left behind after the pet beast's death.

If the contract was severed now and Obsidian's soul origin was injected into Song Qingli's body, it might be possible to save her mental sea.

Otherwise, once Obsidian completely lost control, both would be destroyed by the contract backlash.

"Qingli, Obsidian is beyond saving."

Another Song family Elder said in a deep voice:

"All seven of its evolution paths are conflicting."

"If you continue to delay, not only will you die."

"The contracts throughout the entire Secret Realm will be dragged into collapse by it."

Song Qingli hugged Obsidian tightly.

"Impossible."

"Obsidian won't hurt me."

"I'm not saying it wants to hurt you!"

The Song family Elder roared angrily:

"It can no longer control its own soul and body!"

"Wake up!"

"If you devour its soul origin now, at least it can still become a part of you."

"If you continue to drag this out, it will only completely dissipate!"

A Healer suddenly exclaimed.

"Miss's mental sea integrity has dropped to forty-three percent!"

"The contract backlash is intensifying again!"

"Obsidian's life aura is fading!"

The blood-colored patterns on the altar surged again.

Song Qingli grunted, and blood flowed from all seven orifices simultaneously.

Obsidian seemed to sense its master's pain and instinctively struggled.

It wanted to move away from Song Qingli.

But the more it struggled, the more severe the contract backlash became for both sides.

"Hold down Miss!"

The first Song family Elder to speak finally made up his mind.

"Immediately sever the contract!"

Four high-tier Beastmasters stepped forward simultaneously.

Song Qingli looked up.

A blood-red contract pattern suddenly lit up deep within her pupils.

"Who dares touch it!"

Boom!

The Mental Power of a 6th-tier Beastmaster instantly erupted.

A phantom of a snow-white flying bird appeared behind her.

That was Song Qingli's second pet beast.

As soon as it appeared, it spread its wings, shielding Song Qingli and Obsidian.

The four Song family Beastmasters paused.

No one dared to truly attack Song Qingli.

But Obsidian's condition no longer allowed them to hesitate.

"Qingli!"

The Song family Elder trembled with anger.

"You are the Song family heir!"

"Are you going to drag everyone in the entire Secret Realm down with you, just to save a pet beast that is destined to die?"

Song Qingli wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.

"Obsidian is not just a pet beast."

"It has been with me for seventeen years."

"It has saved me three times."

"If the Song family's so-called solution is for me to personally devour it—"

She raised her hand and grabbed the Sever Contract Card floating in the air.

"Then I'd rather not be this heir!"

The card's light instantly extinguished.

The Song family Elder's face completely darkened.

He raised his right hand.

The pressure of an 8th-tier Beastmaster descended with a roar.

The white bird behind Song Qingli let out a mournful cry, its mental phantom almost collapsing on the spot.

"This is not up to you!"

Song Qingli desperately shielded Obsidian.

She knew she couldn't block an 8th-tier Beastmaster, yet she still didn't move aside.

Just as both sides were about to fully erupt into conflict, a clear, cold voice came from outside the altar.

"Everyone, stop."

[part:gemini-3.5-flash-lite]

The voice was not loud.

Yet it overwhelmed the roaring and rumbling of the entire mystic realm.

The Song family elder's movements suddenly stiffened.

He turned his head and only then saw Li Qingyue, who had appeared at the edge of the altar at some unknown time.

"Space-Time Supreme?"

Li Qingyue ignored him.

She merely glanced at Hei Yao on the altar.

Silver light slowly flowed within her eyes.

Time, space, Mental Power, contracts, and life fluctuations simultaneously transformed into countless minute data and law trajectories.

With just a glance, she saw through Hei Yao's current state.

"Seven evolutionary laws are written into a single body simultaneously."

"Using the symbiotic contract to share the evolutionary pressure."

"And then extracting the life fluctuations of other spirit beasts through the contract network of the entire mystic realm to assist the core individual in completing the leap."

Li Qingyue's tone was calm.

"Your Song family has quite some ideas."

It sounded like a compliment.

Yet several Song family elders simultaneously lowered their heads.

They could naturally hear the chill in Li Qingyue's tone.

The greatest advantage of this evolutionary method was being able to concentrate the life data of a large number of spirit beasts to deduce the most perfect evolutionary route for a core spirit beast.

But now, all seven routes were out of control simultaneously.

The contract network originally used to share pressure had also turned into a channel for the backlash to spread.

"Supreme."

An elder braced himself and said:

"Now is not the time to assign blame."

"Hei Yao's soul has already begun to collapse."

"If we do not devour its mental essence immediately, Song Qingli will also—"

"Who said its soul has begun to collapse?"

Su Bai suddenly spoke.

The crowd from the Song family only then noticed the young man behind Li Qingyue.

Someone recognized Su Bai in the first instance.

More people subconsciously looked at the faint white outline behind him.

What was that?

A Stand?

But they could not see the specific form clearly.

The white-robed Stand appeared for only a fraction of a second before disappearing once again.

Su Bai walked up to the altar.

The Song family elders wanted to stop him, but were pinned in place by a single glance from Li Qingyue.

Su Bai arrived in front of Hei Yao.

After close observation, he became even more certain of his judgment.

Hei Yao was indeed close to death.

But what was truly fatal was not the soul injury.

It was that this body could no longer decide what it should actually evolve into.

The seven evolutionary routes were like seven conflicting blueprints.

They all wanted to transform Hei Yao into different forms.

Taken individually, any single form might allow Hei Yao to step into the 7th tier.

But with seven different life structures appearing simultaneously, it would only completely tear it apart from the inside.

"Can you save it?"

Song Qingli looked at Su Bai.

She evidently also recognized the person before her.

This Card Creator, who had just won the true greatest attention of the National Competition and created the Stand System, had now become the most watched person in the entire Dragon Country.

Su Bai did not reply immediately.

"Make it stop first."

"What do you mean?"

Su Bai turned back to look at Li Qingyue.

"Master."

Li Qingyue raised her hand gently.

There were no incantations.

There were no cards.

There were not even violent law fluctuations.

A silver ripple spread from her fingertips.

The ripple crossed the altar.

Crossed the peaks.

Crossed forests, lakes, volcanoes, and ice fields.

In the blink of an eye, it enshrouded the entire mystic realm.

The next instant.

The world grew quiet.

The cyan giant python crashing toward the peak stopped mid-air.

The flame bird falling from the sky hovered less than ten meters away from the forest.

The flying spirit beasts biting each other froze simultaneously.

The collapsing rocks stopped in mid-air.

The burning flames lost their flicker.

All over a hundred berserk spirit beasts in the mystic realm were fixed in place.

There was no leaning forward.

No falling.

No struggling.

As if the entire world had been forcibly intercepted from flowing time into a static painting.

In the center of the altar.

The seven wildly conflicting evolutionary structures within Hei Yao's body likewise stopped changing.

The spreading cracks stopped.

The overflowing black magic power solidified in mid-air.

The wound on Song Qingli's chest no longer deepened.

Even the contracting patterns of both parties that were collapsing stayed at the very last moment before breaking.

Tens of thousands of dark red patterns floated between heaven and earth.

Li Qingyue, with her own strength alone, paused the disaster of the entire mystic realm.

Everyone in the Song family fell into a dead silence.

They knew a 9th-tier Supreme was powerful.

They also knew Li Qingyue was one of Dragon Country's top space-time powerhouses.

But knowing and seeing it with one's own eyes were completely different matters.

The core mystic realm built by the Song family for hundreds of years.

Over a hundred berserk spirit beasts.

Tens of thousands of interconnected contracts.

All the chaos, injuries, and backlash actually stopped completely within the span of her raising her hand.

The Song family elders breathed heavily.

"Has Hei Yao's life aura stabilized?"

"No."

Li Qingyue said.

"Its life aura has only stopped declining."

Song Qingli abruptly looked at her.

"Supreme, can you restore Hei Yao to before its evolution?"

"Yes."

Hearing this reply, hope instantly appeared in Song Qingli's eyes.

Several Song family elders also breathed a sigh of relief.

The Space-Time Supreme could reverse time.

As long as Hei Yao was returned to the state before evolution began, all problems would naturally disappear.

But Li Qingyue's next words made everyone's expressions freeze once again.

"I can reverse its physical body."

"I can also reverse its evolutionary core."

"I can even make these seven erroneous evolutionary routes never appear."

"However—"

Li Qingyue looked at the contract between Song Qingli and Hei Yao.

"After the evolution began, you shared your Mental Power, memories, and life origin through the symbiotic contract."

"A part of you has already entered its soul."

"A part of it has also entered your Mental Sea."

"These changes are not external injuries."

"Instead, they are everything you have truly experienced during this period of time."

"If only Hei Yao is reversed, it will lose all memories after the evolution began."

"The two ends of the contract will no longer be equal."

"It may no longer recognize the current you."

Song Qingli's complexion turned slightly pale.

"Then reverse me together with it."

"Yes."

Li Qingyue still did not refuse.

"However, your time coordinates do not completely overlap."

"Forcing a simultaneous reversal will erase all mutually influencing mental traces within this period."

"The best outcome is that you both simultaneously forget everything that happened after the evolution began."

"The worst outcome—"

Li Qingyue paused for a moment.

"You will become strange lives that possess memories of the past, yet can no longer establish the original soul resonance with each other."

Song Qingli's hands holding Hei Yao trembled slightly.

Memories were still there.

Experiences were still there.

Yet they were no longer the life they once knew.

What difference was this from death?

"Why?"

An elder of the Song family could not understand.

"Isn't time reversal just letting everything go back to the past?"

Li Qingyue glanced at him.

"Time is not a save file that you can restore at will after breaking it."

"Physical body, soul, memories, contract, karma."

"Every single thing has its own time."

"The seven erroneous structures within Hei Yao's body have already fused with each other."

"Song Qingli has also borne a portion of them through the symbiotic contract."

"I can pull them apart."

"But I cannot decide for them which segment of experience should be retained and which part of the self should be deleted."

The Song family elder opened his mouth, speechless.

Su Bai looked at the contract patterns solidified in mid-air.

What Li Qingyue could do already exceeded the imagination of the vast majority of people in this world.

Yet her ability was not a wish after all.

She could reverse time.

But she could not choose an absolutely perfect answer out of thin air from all conflicting results.

"So it still hasn't been cured?"

Song Qingli asked in a low voice.

"No."

Li Qingyue withdrew her hand.

The silver light shrouding the mystic realm did not disappear.

All spirit beasts, injuries, and contract collapses still remained at this very moment.

She looked calmly at everyone present.

"What I have paused is death."

"It is not that it has been cured."

The central altar of the Song family fell into silence once again.

Su Bai squatted down.

His fingers hovered above Hei Yao's forehead.

The system interface was still displaying that line of quest information.

[Create a completely new concept of growing life.]

Traditional methods could only choose between two outcomes.

Hei Yao dies.

Or Hei Yao returns to the past, bearing the risk of the soul relationship breaking.

But what if they did not repair this already erroneous body?

What if they preserved everything truly important about Hei Yao and then sought a new life form for it?

The light in Su Bai's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

Song Qingli noticed his expression.

"Did you think of a way?"

"I only thought of a direction."

"What about the success rate?"

"I don't know."

Several Song family elders instantly frowned.

"You don't know?"

"Even the success rate cannot be judged, how can you risk Qingli and Hei Yao's lives?"

Su Bai ignored them.

He looked at Li Qingyue.

"Master, how long can this scale of space-time freezing be maintained?"

Li Qingyue did not answer immediately.

She looked up at the silver laws spread across the entire mystic realm.

Pausing a few spirit beasts held no pressure for her at all.

But right now, what she froze was not just over a hundred high-tier spirit beasts.

There were also tens of thousands of interconnected mental contracts.

She had to keep the spirit beasts' life activities operating at a minimum while pausing their injuries and backlash.

If frozen too thoroughly, the spirit beasts would lose their life vitality in the stillness of time.

If not frozen thoroughly enough, the contract collapse would continue to spread.

This was far more difficult than simply making the entire mystic realm stop.

Li Qingyue finally extended three fingers.

"Seventy-two hours."

The expressions of the Song family crowd tightened.

"Three days?"

"Within seventy-two hours, I will maintain the basic life state of all spirit beasts while pausing the contract backlash."

Li Qingyue looked at Su Bai.

"Exceeding this time, the frozen contracts and normally flowing life time will produce an irreversible deviation."

"By then, even if I continue to maintain the space-time laws, their souls will begin to detach from their physical bodies."

Song Qingli hugged Hei Yao tightly.

"What about after seventy-two hours?"

Li Qingyue's voice had no fluctuations whatsoever.

"After seventy-two hours, I must lift the space-time freeze."

Above the altar, countless blood-red contracts floated quietly.

Death still stopped right there.

It was merely temporarily unable to move forward.