Planet Pulverizer: A Mortal's Ascent-Chapter 971: Cause and Effect

"Let's go," said Li Pin.

He strode forward resolutely, stepping into this world of Eternity without hesitation.

At the same time, he used the Heavenly Fate Light to carry Null with him, entering this spacetime severed by Eternity together.

"The path ahead..."

He looked toward Null, firmly believing that this variable would surely be able to pry destiny open, intervene in Eternity, and forge a brand-new path for him.

It would be a path leading to Eternity, and even further beyond.

***

Buzz

Null, trapped in this severed spacetime, felt an indescribable thrill of fear. Yet at the same time, there was also a strange sense of relief.

It was just as Li Pin had guessed. Carried by the power of the Heavenly Fate Light, she, possessing Eternal traits, was not completely engulfed by absolute void and eternal nothingness. A river, formed of countless lights and shadows, appeared before her.

That was the river of time.

Null looked behind her but could no longer see Li Pin's figure.

"In the face of the Power of Eternity, even the mightiest Liberators are so insignificant..." Null sighed, sincerely feeling a sense of loneliness.

Yet she still followed the familiar aura, wandering toward the era that belonged to her.

Or rather, in the river of time, she had no real control over herself. She merely flowed along with it, letting the interventions of Eternity return her to her present, and her future self to return once again to the future.

Everything happened naturally.

And this process was incredibly long, so long that it could wear down many things.

Just as Null herself had said, for her to step into the river of time despite not being an Eternity Lifeform inevitably came at a cost. Traveling from the future to the present caused her to lose nearly ninety-nine percent of her data, which she was unable to recover even after countless years. As the master of the Ocean of Time, she conducted experiments day after day, year after year, seeking to reclaim her true self.

Now, returning from the present to the future, she went through the same experience again.

Her future self clearly did not belong to this era. So everything in this era about her, or rather, everything belonging to Null's life, was entirely worn away by the power of the river of time.

She lost all data about Li Pin's era, "Null," and even Li Pin himself, as well as the crucial aspects of this battle between Eternals.

Trapped in the river of time, just as she was about to be swept away and become part of it, suddenly, she seemed to be drawn to something. Then, the river of time disappeared.

She seemed to be on the edge of annihilation, yet was granted life.

The purpose of her life seemed to be to assist the one who gave her life, to obey his commands, and help him grow. Yet another voice seemed to tell her that she should reverse all of this, fight against it.

She carried another mission—a mission of reversal—yet she could not recall what it was.

In the end, she temporarily set aside this mission she could not understand, even the flawed underlying logic, and spoke her first words to the human who had given her life.

"Hello, human."

The human scrutinized her, looking a little surprised, wary, even.

It seemed as though an instinct from the void told him she could not be trusted. But now, he seemed to need her, so he still spoke to her. "How should I address you?"

Address...

"As the human who owns me, you may name me as you wish..."

In Null's mind, she instinctively felt that as a newly born life, she should not yet have a personal name, yet somehow, she paused mid-sentence.

"But you can also... call me One."

"Then I shall call you One."

***

This brief conversation sent ripples across the spacetime plane that no one could see. And as these ripples spread, the tides of an invisible standoff seemed to subtly shift.

One timeline was summarizing another timeline, yet another timeline leaped from it, reverse-summarizing the first.

***

In Li Pin's perception, he was now completely trapped in an absolute void and eternal nothingness. The terrifying void and eternal persistence tortured the inner spirit far more than death or oblivion could, yet this void and eternity never crushed Li Pin's heart.

That was because he had hope. This hope came not only from Null but also from the response of another person. It was a response that no living being could perceive, except those whose path had been severed by an Eternal.

It was the response given through the Void Emperor to him...

"I have witnessed countless worlds rise and fall, wandering in the endless void for hundreds of millions of years. In the time it takes a mortal heart to beat once, countless galaxies vanish in dazzling light before my eyes. Yet even now, I feel no emotion, no sympathy toward them. I am the void. I hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing... tens of millions, hundreds of millions of lives, all return to the void... I am eternal life, eternal death, eternal void, eternal nothingness..."

Eternal life, eternal death, eternal void, eternal nothingness.

"Li Qiuxian," Li Pin murmured to himself. "Facing the path severed by that Eternal, you also resolutely advanced, plunging into eternal life, eternal death, eternal void, eternal nothingness... and you still persist, don't you?"

What was he persisting in?

It was hope!

Even if eras pass, even if Eternities were created, even if worlds come to an end... to be persisting on... not giving up hope.

As long as one still drew breath, hope was never truly lost. Even if he drifted in this eternal void, in eternal nothingness, in the form of eternity, he would still not have failed yet.

He would exist eternally, day after day, year after year.

Hope... was like a human trapped in the bottom of the abyssal ocean, gazing and yearning for the light shining from above the water—unattainable, yet never abandoned.

That was because hope was more precious than the most beautiful treasures in the world, worth the expectation.

***

Finally, after he had sunk into eternal void and eternal nothingness for who knew how long, a ripple spread through Li Pin's perception.

Even with Li Pin's mental will, as well as his determination and belief to never give up, he felt a hint of disorientation as the ripple spread.

In his disorientation, the ripple seemed to grow larger and clearer until, gradually, a long river appeared before him. It was a river of spacetime formed by countless moments, spanning past, present, and future.

Boundless... spacetime...

Li Pin's thoughts seemed to slow down.

He had been trapped in an eternal void and an eternal nothingness for far too long. It was so long that if hope had not remained, if he had not always upheld his beliefs, he would have fallen to the eternal void and eternal nothingness.

And at this very moment, his firm belief seemed to have borne fruit. After a long while, regaining normal thought, he sensed a pull and leapt, springing directly from the absolute void and eternal nothingness into the river of time.

The moment he appeared in the river of time, he immediately followed the direction of the pull.

But as he stepped into the river of time, the pull quickly dissipated. He could only see the direction the pull indicated.

In the furthest distance ahead, an ancient was striving for Eternity, bringing the entire world down with him. At that time, he sought the Dao for the Transcendence.

Following his beliefs, another powerful being was born, known as the Cosmic Sovereign.

With the fall of the Cosmic Sovereign, a third person appeared.

That was...

"Li Qiuxian," Li Pin muttered softly.

But compared to observing that future, Li Pin was more concerned about his own situation now. He quickly shifted his gaze away from Li Qiuxian and looked back at his own life.

To be precise, he was looking at the key future he urgently wanted to know—Null.

This battle of the Eternals erupted with Null as the variable.

Following Null's trail, Li Pin quickly saw her current situation.

"Completely forgotten..." Li Pin said softly.

It was unexpected... yet understandable.

"So, the one beside her, Liu Chengyuan, is the Eternal?" Li Pin mused softly. "Such sharp perception... He is clearly still a mere mortal, yet he is already able to sense something abnormal about Null?"

Li Pin could only say that Liu Chengyuan was worthy of being an Eternal and was innately extraordinary.

Next, Li Pin, as a third party, quietly observed the growth process of this Eternal. At the same time, he watched with curiosity the cultivation systems of the future era.

The cultivation systems of the future era were indeed far more complete than those of his own time.

Li Pin followed along, observing many things.

In the river of time, time was not a measure. In other words, time held no meaning in the river of time. Yet he still knew that what he truly needed to focus on was this Eternal's life, especially the process through which he became an Eternal.

This process also directly involved the traces left by an Eternal in a primordial universe. Following these traces, even beings with slightly weaker cultivation could glimpse the river of time he had painstakingly entered.

Next came dozens of Chaos and Creation Lifeforms, fighting fiercely over this river of time.

Li Pin intended to observe, but now he was more eager to know how this Eternal attained Eternity.

Soon, through the reflections in the river of time, Li Pin saw a host of Creation Lifeforms battling until the heavens darkened.

As he watched, he felt that something was off. He felt that, compared to Liu Chengyuan, who was assisted by Null, the Lord of Time seemed more like the true Eternal.

This was especially when his title was so similar to Null's that he couldn't help but make the connection.

But this thought lasted only a moment. As Liu Chengyuan's true identity was revealed, everything suddenly became clear. He was, in fact, only a part of the Lord of Time.

"How did he turn the tide in front of such a nearly eternal being?"

Li Pin could not quite understand.

In the next moment, Null gave him the answer.

It was a backstabbing situation. Null had helped Liu Chengyuan to backstab the Lord of Time.

This result left Li Pin completely astonished.

"So... if I hadn't sent Null back to the future... Liu Chengyuan... wouldn't have been able to defeat the Lord of Time, and couldn't have attained Eternity!?"