"Why must you make this difficult for me?" Liu Yinlan exasperatedly heaved a heavy sigh as she observed the silver-eyed youth bound by several restraints condensed from void energies.
Boosh!
Suddenly, she felt an explosive aura as the housing unit that Wei Wuyin previously resided in shook violently. She could hear Liu Suyin's accusatory voice toward Cao Cuifen. With a thought, she sent a spiritual transmission to Liu Suyin, and her rampage ended abruptly as a comet of silver light rushed toward them.
Wei Wuyin's eyes were icy cold and unyielding as tempered steel, and he kept exerting his cultivation base to shatter the bindings to no avail. However, as a Realmlord, he was unable to muster any significant results with Liu Yinlan relying on the Endless Void Mirror. However, she was faintly shaken by how Wei Wuyin was able to cause faint disturbances in the restraints that bound him. It was as if given enough time, Wei Wuyin could potentially undo his bindings.
"Trying to run? Where could you even go?" Liu Yinlan sighed once again. This was the Endless Voyage Realm and only by using the unique formations empowered by Void Energy could one hope to enter, and even then, they'd need specific permissions from the Endless Void Mirror to do so. How rare was Void Energy?
"Anywhere but here! Even if I have to enter the Time Vortex, I refuse to be enslaved by oaths!" Wei Wuyin bitingly bellowed as his silver eyes flashed brightly with spiritual light.
Liu Yinlan stared at Wei Wuyin for a long, long time. Soon, Liu Suyin arrived confused and distraught. Her emotionless state had shattered entirely after last night, and she was no longer as icy-eyed or frosty-faced as before, changing her temperament and projecting a moving expression. Her relief upon seeing Wei Wuyin was as genuine as the heartbeats in her chest.
"What happened, Sect Master?" Liu Suyin tried to regulate her surging emotions as she asked Liu Yinlan.
Liu Yinlan remained silent; she was shaken slightly by the resolve to end Wei Wuyin had to end his life before being subjected to the strict regulations and restrictions of the Destined and thereby the Void Voyage Sect. She resonated with his feelings as she too at one point held them.
"Vice-Sect Master, we'll be returning to the City of Endless." Her words were flat and calm. Liu Suyin was taken aback, but so was Wei Wuyin. His struggles almost immediately intensified as blood leaked from his ears and nose, causing Liu Suyin to yelp in fright. She knew that Liu Yinlan had bound Wei Wuyin, but she still took two steps forward with the desire to apply first aid, but her steps stopped short as she felt an icy glare from Liu Yinlan.
After giving Liu Suyin that glare, Liu Yinlan turned to Wei Wuyin. "There's no escape from the Endless Void Realm for Destined or Seekers without my permission. That said, I won't stop you if you want to kill yourself. Ye Ziling can still replace you as the True Destined Voyager." While Liu Yinlan knew that Ye Ziling's chances were infinitesimal and abysmal, she still used this excuse to show that Wei Wuyin's actions were overly extreme.
Of course, she didn't intend to simply let Wei Wuyin leave. With a wave of her hand, she infused a hidden rune within Wei Wuyin's Sea of Consciousness. With it, as long as he lived, she would be able to locate him in an instant. As a mere mortal, even with the blessing from the Law of Space, Wei Wuyin wouldn't be able to detect it due to the mystic principles and properties of the rune.
"You didn't take her chastity and ruin her future, so I won't involve myself with that. However, your actions are quite careless and cruel." She glanced at Liu Suyin, whose expression reddened slightly after being exposed, and she turned around without a second thought. The bindings on Wei Wuyin dissipated as he slumped into a half-kneeling position in shock.
"You're letting me go?" Wei Wuyin asked in bewilderment.
Liu Yinlan didn't turn around as she vanished. Her voice lingered in the air, "As of now, you're a citizen of the Endless Voyage Realm. You're free to do as you wish."
Liu Suyin gazed at Wei Wuyin and opened her mouth a few times, the light in her eyes was incredibly complex, but before she could speak out a solid syllable, her spine straightened as if she was given an order via spiritual transmission, and she nodded firmly before giving Wei Wuyin one last longing look and vanishing as well. They both spatially shifted by the Endless Void Mirror's powers.
Wei Wuyin with a bloodied nose and ears watched with a strange gaze.
On Imperial Sky, Wei Wuyin's sharp gaze was inscrutable by both Zhangjie Wushu and Hu Meifang.
Within the Eye of Illusion, Liu Yinlan's approach was indirect and calculating as she silently observed Wei Wuyin like a caged bird. Wei Wuyin obviously didn't take his own approach in the illusion, entering the Time Vortex and making a heaven-shaking breakthrough.
Wei Wuyin wanted to take this moment to do what he would do, not what would elicit a typical response from Liu Yinlan if given this situation and unable to escape easily. With a deep breath, his Eye of Illusion elevated in activity. His Second Mind sighed in frustration as it allowed its memories, knowledge, and developed personality habits to be sealed and replaced via Alchemic Eden Force to replicate the Wei Wuyin within the image.
With a single thought, both Wei Wuyin and Liu Yinlan were involved in the illusion. It wasn't perfect as the moving pieces of Liu Suyin, Zhangjie Wushu, and everyone else had to be emulated based on how the mental fluctuations that Wei Wuyin and Eden had grasped during his short stay, gaining faint insight into their personalities. He had to limit their exposure.
Because of this, he couldn't create a true alternative timeline. Perhaps one day, if he could envelop an entire population in the Eye of Illusion, he could emulate an alternative path of events, even simulating death by inactivity within the illusion. The idea sparked something in his mind, but it was only a seed without proper soil or water to grow.
The next sequence of events was something that Wei Wuyin had half expected and half hadn't. That version of Wei Wuyin would have noticed the rune marking left by Liu Yinlan due to Eden's presence in his Sea of Consciousness. Unable to foresee any outcome that wouldn't cause a powerful Liu Yinlan to hunt him down, he decided to assist in finding a replacement for himself in Ye Ziling.
The spiritual jade Liu Yinlan handed to him contained a lot of information, including the difficulties in cultivating the cultivation method needed to attune with the Endless Void Mirror. Wei Wuyin immediately spent time with Cao Cuifen for a while before seeking out Liu Yinlan.
Wei Wuyin didn't hide his Alchemic Talents with Liu Yinlan and Liu Suyin. After convincing them to swear an oath of secrecy, he showcased all his talents as an unprecedented Mortal Saint Alchemist. With a few casual displays of concoctions, he showed them his true potential and acquired both of their support. Moreover, he attempted to actively diffuse the sense of impending danger by implying that he knew of the rune within him.
Liu Yinlan wasn't bothered and she had falsely removed the rune, trying to hide it even deeper despite saying otherwise. Wei Wuyin in the illusion didn't bother with this as he already devised a few ways to rid himself of it, and having it will allow him great flexibility to devise an escape or retaliate unexpectedly. For example, luring Liu Yinlan into a trap and slaying her with the Nexus War Flag.
Considering that was Wei Wuyin's plan before, only Xu You had been unfortunately caught in that web, the real Wei Wuyin didn't bother penalizing Liu Yinlan for her deceitfulness.
Wei Wuyin's skill in the Alchemic Dao was unprecedented and awed Liu Yinlan to no end. Unlike debonair Wei Wuyin's timeline where the Alchemic Dao was treated as an auxiliary cultivation path and only meant to further his own cultivation base. This led to a deterioration of potential talent and rapid, compromising progression in his cultivation base. Debonair Wei Wuyin was an Earthly Saint in his early hundreds, a sign of how rapid his cultivation was!
Eventually, Liu Yinlan's thoughts began to rapidly shift miraculously by Wei Wuyin's displays of brilliance and excellence. Due to this and the hope of a second King of Everlore being born, her thoughts went from using Wei Wuyin to escape as a replacement to using Wei Wuyin to progress her cultivation base and solidify all aspects of her revenge by strengthening herself. She even began to contemplate plans to do AFTER!
Ye Ziling would soon be nurtured into becoming the next Void Voyage Sect's Sect Master with all the requirements and giving Liu Yinlan her freedom thanks to Wei Wuyin. Wei Wuyin actively assisted her in cultivating the cultivation method. Liu Suyin's Mental Incarnation was ineffective with Wei Wuyin's presence, so she eventually took another path and accompanied Wei Wuyin as a 'guardian'.
That was a different story.
What mattered was the result: Liu Yinlan of this timeline hadn't resorted to desperately replacing Wei Wuyin's bloodline with her own, forcefully making him the Void Voyage Sect's Sect Master and preventing him from escaping the confines of the Endless Voyage Realm and the Ancient Sealed Region.
Eventually, he would enter the Time Vortex to ascend to the Temporal Eye Phase of the Astral Core Realm, becoming a genuine Timelord. He would discover the memories of his debonair self.
"..."
It didn't matter whether 'that' Wei Wuyin developed distrust or hatred toward Liu Yinlan and decided to act against her for revenge or plot her demise. The Liu Yinlan here would've taken Wei Wuyin as an ally and the situation of him being bound by oaths or being forced into the position of the Void Voyage Sect's Sect Master was impossible. Furthermore, even if Wei Wuyin wanted to emulate a proper timeline of events and possibilities, he couldn't do so given that he hadn't properly ascended yet to the Mystic Ascension Realm, and that version of himself, sealed memories or not, was pursuant of absolute perfection-the stage of a Mortal Paragon.
He hadn't even truly reached that yet, but if he did, then Liu Yinlan simply couldn't try to seize Kratos. By the time he reached the Mystic Ascendant Realm, he believed that even a Heavenly Saint Liu Yinlan would have been slaughtered by him easily, even at the Mystic Star Phase, the First Stage of the Mystic Ascendant Realm! She just wasn't enough.
In Liu Yinlan's last memory within the illusion, she found herself gazing out into the stars of the World Beyond using a slight opening in the Endless Void Mirror, holding a spiritual jade depicting her sister's youthful smile and exuberant radiance of beauty and power as the hope of being free and obtaining revenge pulsed vigorously within her heart in one hand. In her other hand, she held a bottle that contained a pellet.
"As long as I have him, I'll save you one day..."
Since she had a potential King of Everlore in her midst, Liu Yinlan's schemes and sinister plans to escape were no longer necessary as all focus was on ensnaring his heart. She could directly deal with any issue with time. And then, with Wei Wuyin's support and future, he could take the route once taken by the King of Everlore and take both her and her sister out of this forsaken cage into the vast and boundless World Beyond.
She decided to seal the situation with certainty. After acquiring a Mortal Returning Pellet, she stood before Wei Wuyin's room door with resolved and expectant eyes.
The world faded into darkness.
The illusion ended.
Wei Wuyin's desire to inflict revenge on this Liu Yinlan faded like icy mist on a heated summer day-entirely. However, the Liu Yinlan of that other potential timeline, the fury within his heart and soul remained unabated. While this Liu Yinlan took a different route, as is expected with different timelines of events, that Liu Yinlan had committed the deed, and all of Wei Wuyin's anger remained nestled in his heart and waited to one day be unleashed.
With the Eye of Illusion retracting its powers, Liu Yinlan slowly awoke. She felt as if she was in a dream as two sets of memories flooded her mind. The memories of reality and illusion. Her hand subconsciously clenched as if to find that bottle containing the Mortal Returning Pellet.
She was slowly brought down to stand on her own two legs. Liu Yinlan discovered that her energies had been replenished slightly, enough for her to stand and breathe comfortably. She was shocked as her gaze landed on Wei Wuyin standing there with a neutral smile.
"Your sister is right there. Don't tell me you're going to just stand here looking lost now that Tian Taizong is dead?" Wei Wuyin said as his gaze went past Liu Yinlan into the Sky Judgment Mountain.
"Sister? Tian Taizong? Dead?!" Liu Yinlan had to take a couple of seconds to process everything given how confusing her two sets of memories were. She had to verify which was reality and which was a dream, which was somewhat difficult before she saw Zhangjie Wushu and Hu Meifang. Her eyes proceeded to gradually brighten with realization and recollection.
"You killed Tian Taizong!" Liu Yinlan exclaimed.
Wei Wuyin shook his head. With a wave of his hand, Liu Yinlan's Internal World was opened up. She couldn't even resist and this brought her a feeling as if everything was within Wei Wuyin's control. A figure was extracted and brought here.
Her facial features were very similar to Liu Yinlan, and they could easily be mistaken for close relatives, even sisters. She had a gaze of complete indifference and an icy chill that could cause the spines of mass murderers to shiver.
"..." Liu Suyin.
Wei Wuyin looked at the silver-robed young woman who had brought him to and across the Endless Voyage Realm all those years ago. The woman that he had subtly influenced due to Eden's aura, essentially causing her Mental Incarnation to crumble as her true personality leaked through, and then she willingly and unexpectedly gave her body to him in a night of heated passion.
She appeared within ten feet of Wei Wuyin and they could see each other entirely.
"..."
PAH!
Liu Suyin moved with the speed of lightning and her arm pulled back and swung forth. With an open hand, her right hand swept across Wei Wuyin's left cheek.
[Author's Note: Don't worry. The true culprit will not escape!]
