David_Lord
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Chapter 736
🕑 Added 2025-12-02 05:00:03 +0000 UTC"Finally."
Lines of illusory text gradually faded from his vision. Lin Yuan gently closed his eyes.
Over the past fifty years, Lin Yuan had tried every possible method to kill the Emperor of Grand Feng.
Assassination.
Poisoning.
Luring him into a trap.
And so on.
But the success rate was never high.
Out of ten future timelines, only three or four actually resulted in a successful assassination of the Emperor.
And once he failed the first time, trying to kill the Emperor with the same method again would see the success rate plummet.
Only this time, Lin Yuan leveraged seventy years of accumulated momentum to tie down nearly all of the Grand Feng Dynasty’s forces.
Then he infiltrated the imperial palace alone and successfully killed the Emperor.
From start to finish.
It was executed in one clean stroke.
No unforeseen variables occurred.
"Let’s keep watching a bit longer."
Lin Yuan reined in his thoughts.
He once again attempted to peer into future timelines.
[You killed the Emperor of Grand Feng.]
[You killed the Emperor of Grand Feng.]
[You killed the Emperor of Grand Feng.]
He viewed dozens of future timelines in a row.
In nearly every one, the probability of breaking into the capital’s palace and assassinating the Emperor of Grand Feng through this method was nearly one hundred percent.
That’s the advantage of absolute power.
If Lin Yuan had gone alone without leveraging any outside forces, it’s not that he definitely couldn’t have killed the Emperor, but countless unpredictable variables would’ve cropped up.
No matter how meticulous the planning or strategy, it wouldn’t have mattered.
The variables would still be there.
“However...”
Lin Yuan’s brow furrowed slightly.
In those dozens of timelines he just viewed, even after killing the Emperor of Grand Feng, the time loop didn’t end.
He still reached the natural end of his lifespan.
“Is it that the future seen through the Way of Runes cannot truly break through this world’s time loop... or is it something else?”
Lin Yuan fell into brief contemplation.
But soon—
His gaze turned outward.
At that moment, a surge of mental force was rippling through Blackwind Fort.
As the place where Lin Yuan first rose to power, Blackwind Fort naturally had many contingency plans laid in place.
However, in order to bait the Chief of the Dao Suppression Division, Lin Yuan had already withdrawn most of the Dao Masters from the Fort.
Now, only seven or eight Dao Masters remained in Blackwind Fort, just within the range the Dao Suppression Division Chief could handle.
If there had been too many Dao Masters—exceeding what the Chief thought he could manage—he would’ve sensed something and turned back without hesitation.
As for hiding the rest?
Other Dao Masters didn’t have Lin Yuan’s ability to perfectly conceal their presence.
This wasn’t a matter of Dao secret techniques, but of total mastery over one’s own body.
And when it came to dealing with twenty or thirty Dao Masters, Lin Yuan alone was more than enough.
He didn’t need anyone else to share the burden.
Blackwind Fort wasn’t like the imperial palace.
It had no terrain advantage.
With the strength Lin Yuan had cultivated over seventy years, he could easily sweep away any Dao Masters.
In the many future timelines he had viewed, Lin Yuan’s deaths in the capital or palace weren’t due to being overpowered.
He died from exhaustion—his physical, mental, and emotional strength all worn down.
In this looped world, everyone had mortal bodies. Even the slightly extraordinary mental force still depended on the physical form.
A weak body couldn’t generate endless mental force.
Even someone as powerful as Lin Yuan would eventually die from sheer depletion.
That’s why, for decades, he had poured a significant amount of effort into building up his own forces.
Lin Yuan suspected this might also be part of the loop’s trial for him.
In the past, Lin Yuan had always crushed everything with brute strength—even when leveraging a force, it was only a stepping stone. In the end, he always relied on his own overwhelming power to suppress all enemies.
But in this time-looped world, without building a powerful enough force, forget killing the Emperor—he might not even get to see him.
“The fish is on the hook. Time to reel it in.”
Lin Yuan rose to his feet. At this moment, in his perception, over twenty Dao Masters from the Dao Suppression Division had engaged the seven or eight defending Dao Masters in Blackwind Fort.
Within the Fort, energy signatures at the Dao Master level were clashing non-stop.
“Well, well, rebels and traitors... Just a mere Blackwind Fort, yet it’s hiding eight Dao Masters?”
The Chief of the Dao Suppression Division was both shocked and furious. Even though he’d known Blackwind Fort was deep and unfathomable, and that its master surely possessed the power of a Dao Master.
Eight Dao Masters?
And ones he had never seen before?
The Dao Suppression Division monitored the entire realm, yet under his nose, eight Dao Masters had emerged without his knowledge?
You have to understand: Dao Masters were extremely rare. Excluding the official ones, Grand Feng only had forty to fifty Dao Masters in total.
And those were scattered across ninety-eight provinces.
But now, just in the remote Black Mountains—in a single Fort—there were eight?
“Form up!”
The Chief swept his gaze over the other twenty-two Dao Masters.
These eight unknown Dao Masters had crossed his bottom line.
While a Fort usually concentrated a faction’s power, it was never the sum total of its forces. If the Fort alone housed eight, there had to be more elsewhere.
That meant the Blackwind Fort Master commanded at least ten, maybe even close to twenty Dao Masters.
A single faction holding half the non-official Dao Masters in the entire empire—plus wealth and influence?
That thought made the Chief’s heart go cold.
“Yes!”
The twenty-two Dao Masters exchanged glances.
Their mental forces began to merge.
This “formation” was an extremely powerful Dao secret technique known only to Grand Feng.
It allowed the mental force of multiple Dao Masters to fuse, unleashing power far beyond what any of them could achieve individually.
But this technique had very high requirements.
It demanded perfect synergy and coordination.
Only Dao Masters trained and cultivated by the Grand Feng Dynasty could perform it.
The situation now had startled the Chief. He had decided to end things quickly and crush the eight Dao Masters inside Blackwind Fort.
Whoosh!
Vast mental force swept outward, blanketing the entire Fort.
The eight embattled Dao Masters turned pale, immediately beginning to retreat.
“Too late.”
The Chief’s face turned cold. Once twenty-three Dao Masters joined forces, the mental cage they formed would solidify in an instant.
That was basically the death sentence for the eight inside.
As the Chief considered how to extract information from the captured enemies...
Thump—
A soft footstep echoed out. Subtle, yet it sent ripples through the mental plane.
Thump. Thump. Thump—
The footsteps drew closer, each one landing squarely on the minds of the twenty-three Dao Masters.
Thump—
The final step landed.
The twenty-three Dao Masters, led by the Chief, turned pale and involuntarily took several steps back. Their joint mental cage shattered instantly.
“This...”
The Chief stared hard into the depths of Blackwind Fort.
A tall figure slowly stepped forward.
It was a young man—noble in bearing, with a deep and commanding presence.
“Master.”
The eight Dao Masters who had narrowly escaped death were overjoyed at the sight of Lin Yuan and bowed at once.
“Master? You’re the Blackwind Fort’s lord?”
The Chief’s expression grew grim.
Though they hadn’t fought yet, just the man’s footsteps had shattered the combined secret technique of twenty-three Dao Masters.
That alone made the Chief’s heart tremble.
At the same time, a terrifying thought flashed through his mind.
With someone this powerful, how could there have been such obvious traces for him to follow?
“Retreat!”
The Chief suddenly bolted backward.
The other twenty-two Dao Masters, moving with unspoken coordination, also scattered in all directions.
Lin Yuan’s display had alerted the Chief to enormous danger. It occurred to him that maybe the clues he’d followed were left behind on purpose.
If that was the case, then he had walked right into a trap.
He couldn’t afford to stay.
“You’re too late.”
Lin Yuan smiled faintly.
Vast mental force surged like an ocean. In the blink of an eye, every direction—heaven and earth, above and below—was saturated with solidified mental power.
The Chief and the twenty-two Dao Masters were all snatched back like helpless chicks, dumped at Lin Yuan’s feet.
“Solidified mind force? This scale of mind solidification? Monster, you’re a monster!”
The Chief was utterly devastated. The more he understood about the Dao Master level, the more he realized how terrifying Lin Yuan’s mental power was.
The Chief controlled all of Grand Feng’s intelligence—this era’s intel, the last era’s, the one before that...
He knew full well that the ultimate goal of an Dao Master was mind-force solidification.
But most never reached it.
A few top-tier Dao Masters might barely begin the process, and even then, with all their strength, they could only solidify a few meters of space.
But Lin Yuan just now—
If he hadn’t seen it for himself, the Chief would never believe a Dao Master could solidify mind force on such a massive scale.
After dealing with all twenty-three of Grand Feng’s Dao Masters—including the highly-ranked Chief—
Lin Yuan gave some instructions to the eight Dao Masters under him, then returned once more to the depths of Blackwind Fort.
But this time, he didn’t go to his usual meditation chamber.
Instead, he entered another room.
Inside sat an elderly man, white-haired and visibly uneasy.
It was his Third Uncle.
Eighty years had passed.
The old man who had risked everything to help Lin Yuan escape the imperial purge was now nearly 130 years old.
If Lin Yuan hadn’t regularly used his mental force to keep his blood and energy flowing.
His uncle would’ve died long ago.
At 130, even for a Dao Master, that was an exceptional lifespan.
Lin Yuan still looked youthful—that was due to his complete control over his blood and body.
Even so, he estimated his maximum lifespan to be about 177 or 178 years.
Not counting the 18 years before he transmigrated.
He could live, at most, 150 years in this time-looped world.
A hard limit approaching 178 years.
“Young Master.”
Seeing Lin Yuan enter, Third Uncle immediately stood and asked with concern, “Just now, outside...”
“A minor issue. It’s handled.”
Lin Yuan smiled.
“That’s good.”
Third Uncle breathed a sigh of relief.
After all this time, he had long since seen through everything.
All he wanted now was to watch Lin Yuan continue forward.
“Third Uncle.”
Lin Yuan sat beside him and said calmly, “Back then, what was the Red Lotus Sect trying to achieve?”
“Red Lotus Sect?”
Third Uncle blinked.
At this point, the name felt like a distant memory.
“The Sect was the leader’s life’s work. All he ever wanted was to overthrow Grand Feng. But...”
Third Uncle shook his head slightly. Over the years, he had learned much of the empire’s hidden truths and now understood how laughable the sect’s ideals had been.
“I see.”
Lin Yuan nodded.
He clapped his hands.
A shadowy figure stepped out from the darkness and knelt before him. “Master.”
Lin Yuan looked at his Third Uncle.
“Then, according to your wishes...”
He turned his gaze to the figure who had emerged from the shadows:
“Let it begin.”
Comments
Dustin Thomas
Great chapter
