The battle between Jun Changxiao and the Rose Empress had ended.
The space that had shattered from their power was silently crying and licking its wounds as it slowly healed.
In this battle, who won?
Without a doubt, it was Jun Changxiao.
But the price was extremely high. Not only did he consume one Heaven and Earth Talisman and one Seal-Breaking Talisman, he even activated the Stone Statue’s power.
This matter also fully illustrated that Jun Changxiao, who could nearly cover the sky with one hand on the Xingyun Continent, still had quite a gap when facing top-tier powerhouses from other planes.
As for using the Spacetime Worm to roam various major planes, the consequence would likely be… running away the entire time.
The Soul Clan ultimately wasn’t a battle-oriented race. In the vast universe, there were even stronger races. With Jun Changxiao’s current cultivation level, initiating planar travel would definitely result in him being crushed.
Of course.
He wouldn’t have thought that after sneaking in, he would encounter a major BOSS right at the start—and it wasn’t even the Lingping Empress. Otherwise, he would definitely have developed on the Xingyun Continent for a while longer before coming to cause trouble.
Since things had already happened, complaining was useless.
“Drip, drip.”
On the gradually recovering sky, dark clouds gathered densely. Drops of rainwater splashed on Jun Changxiao’s face, allowing him to wake from his coma of a day and a night.
Pain, explosive.
Rising from his body and head.
“What happened…” Jun Changxiao had no strength whatsoever and could only lie on the ground asking in his mind.
The System, which usually liked to mock and criticize him, should have already answered, but there was consistently no movement.
“Playing dead?”
Jun Changxiao didn’t take it to heart and closed his eyes to try hard to recall everything.
He remembered the scene of sacrificing the stone statue to savagely crush the Rose Empress, and then… he couldn’t remember anything else.
“I should have won…”
“But… what happened after?”
The pain from his head made him give up thinking. It wasn’t until after being drenched in the rain for several hours that he struggled to stand up.
Because of the double DEBUFF enhancement, he only had the strength to walk and had no cultivation power whatsoever.
“I’m very weak right now and need to quickly find a place to recuperate…” Jun Changxiao steadied himself, then put the Unstoppable Blade and the stone statue into his spatial ring, dragging his weak body as he walked randomly in one direction.
During this time, he had called for the System, but it still didn’t respond, so he cursed inwardly: “Are you pretending to be dead?”
…
Several hundred miles away, there was a mountain range that had collapsed from being affected by the battle. Jun Changxiao struggled to arrive and found a cave that was passable.
“Phew!”
As soon as he sat down, his entire body felt like it was falling apart.
The side effects from using both the Heaven and Earth Talisman and the Unstoppable Blade were much more intense than before.
“Right.”
“Did the side quest complete or not?”
Jun Changxiao focused his mind and pulled up the System panel.
However… the various data that appeared in his field of vision showed garbled code, with only the main quest and side quest still existing!
“What’s going on?”
As someone from Earth who had also encountered a lot of high technology, after a brief moment of confusion, Jun Changxiao blurted out: “Poisoned, crashed, malfunctioning?”
“System!”
“Say something!”
“Don’t tell me you’ve died!”
No matter how Gou Sheng shouted in his heart, that voice that constantly bickered and traded barbs with him never sounded.
“It’s over…” Jun Changxiao’s face completely collapsed as he said: “The System must have malfunctioned, making it temporarily unable to operate normally.”
Temporarily shut down and unable to operate—the meaning was actually about the same, so his guess wasn’t wrong.
“The System must have self-detection and repair functions. What I need to do now is quickly recover my cultivation!”
If it were before, without System assistance, Jun Changxiao might have panicked a bit. But now that he was at the Sword-Martial Dual Saint level, he didn’t feel helpless or isolated, but instead quickly calmed down.
“Swoosh!”
Using his extremely weak consciousness, he merged it into the spatial ring, then locked onto the vortex-shaped Spacetime Secret Realm, thinking: “Whether I can escape this predicament now depends entirely on you!”
After resting for a while, once he had barely gathered a bit of strength in his body, Jun Changxiao dragged his body up and took out formation flags from his spatial ring one by one, inserting them at the cave entrance.
“Buzz!”
An isolation formation appeared out of thin air, sealing the entire cave.
“Good thing setting up formations doesn’t require spiritual energy enhancement.” Jun Changxiao wiped the sweat from his forehead, and his consciousness once again merged into the spatial ring, moving the Spacetime Secret Realm out.
“Whoosh! Whoosh!”
The vortex entrance gathered and formed out of thin air.
Jun Changxiao stepped forward and walked in. As soon as he entered, he was surprised to discover that extremely strong heaven and earth attributes existed within the Spacetime Secret Realm. He couldn’t help but exclaim: “Mid-grade is indeed better than low-grade!”
Of course.
What he really cared about was the time acceleration, so he hurriedly began to test it in combination with external time. The final answer he got was a hundredfold acceleration!
“Low-grade is fifty times, mid-grade is only a hundred times—the improvement isn’t too obvious.” Jun Changxiao shook his head.
“Swish!”
He suddenly turned sideways with a displeased tone and said: “Host, you’ve really gotten arrogant! This still isn’t enough for you!”
Suddenly splitting personalities—extremely silly.
But after Jun Changxiao finished speaking, he sat down dejectedly.
Without that annoying criticism maniac, he felt very uncomfortable.
“Whether it’s poisoned, crashed, or malfunctioning, it should be able to resolve it.”
Jun Changxiao took a deep breath, then summoned the Spacetime Worm and placed both hands on his knees, saying: “It’s just two years of weakness. With a hundredfold acceleration, that’s only seven or eight days…”
“Wait.”
He frowned: “How long can I accelerate in this mid-grade Spacetime Secret Realm?”
The low-grade Spacetime Secret Realm could only accelerate fifty times for three days each month. This mid-grade Spacetime Secret Realm could accelerate a hundred times—it wouldn’t be just six days per month, would it?
“There’s no point in thinking about it.”
“Host should just take it one step at a time!”
Jun Changxiao suddenly split his personality again into the System’s tone. As he spoke, he became melancholic.
This melancholy grew increasingly intense day by day, to the point that when he had nothing to do, he would always split his personality into the System.
One person sitting stupidly in the secret realm talking to himself—very foolish, also very sad.
However.
What comforted Jun Changxiao was that six days had passed outside, and he still hadn’t been expelled from the secret realm.
“Looks like it’s not just six days.”
“If there’s no time limit and I can cultivate inside all year round, that would be amazing!”
…
Seventh day.
The sense of weakness in Jun Changxiao’s body, who was in the middle of splitting personalities, suddenly vanished completely. A powerful aura of a Great Saint’s return surged from his entire body!
“Snap!”
He stood up, covering his face with a strange laugh.
That man had returned!
After the Sword-Martial Dual Saint recovered, Jun Changxiao didn’t leave the Spacetime Secret Realm, because he needed to confirm whether the mid-grade Spacetime Secret Realm had unlimited usage or a fixed time!
…
Eighth day.
Ninth day.
Until the tenth day, Jun Changxiao and the Spacetime Worm were forcibly sent back to the outside world.
“Sigh.”
He shook his head: “Only ten days.”
A hundredfold acceleration that could last for ten days—this was undoubtedly extremely awesome. What more could Gou Sheng be dissatisfied with?
Looking at the Spacetime Worm that was still sleeping and miniaturized, Jun Changxiao said helplessly: “It’s been nearly three years inside, yet this guy still hasn’t woken up.”
Especially the System, that fool!
It’s just poisoning, crashing, garbled code, or malfunctioning.
If it couldn’t self-recover from such a small matter in three years, how could it dare call itself the Strongest System!
Or perhaps… time acceleration had no effect on this guy, so although it seemed like three years had passed inside, in reality it was the same as the outside world—only ten days?
“Forget it, forget it.”
Jun Changxiao shook his head: “I should just rely on myself.”
He wouldn’t become completely at a loss just because the System didn’t appear.
“Swish!”
He reached out to remove the formation he had set up and got up to leave the cave. But just as he stepped out, a notification sound rang in his ears—
“Ding! System assistance punishment ended, now restarting… Loading 10%… 20%… 100%!”
“Ding! System assistance loaded successfully.”
“Ding! Strongest Sect System’s various functions activated. All programs operating normally!”
Hearing the series of mechanical notification sounds, Jun Changxiao immediately had a big question mark on his face.
“I’ll be damned!” Just then, that long-missed voice that made people grit their teeth and curse explosively rang in his ears at an eardrum-shattering decibel: “If you dare randomly use that damn stone statue again next time, I curse you to be lonely and alone for the rest of your life!”
—