Chapter 1056: Let me see

Li Qi couldn't find a solution.

How could a mere First Grade achieve a method to transcend subjective time?

Thus, the Heavenly Demon merely extracted Amitabha's power with ease, toying with the Western Pure Land, and casually playing with Li Qi.

Forty-five billion years passed, and the Western Pure Land was completely controlled by the Heavenly Demon.

Most of Amitabha's legacy had been seized by the Heavenly Demon.

Li Qi was no match for the Heavenly Demon at all; although he had truly become one of the Heavenly Demon's demonic thoughtss, the Heavenly Demon didn't care whether he had one more or one less demonic thoughts.

Every flicker of the Heavenly Demon's demonic thoughts was like a hundred billion stars exploding, and this heat would be enough to evaporate the pagoda.

However, under Li Qi's constant repairs, it didn't evaporate; it merely melted, golden liquid flowing, beginning to move.

The pagoda flowed down from the wreckage, forcing its way through chaotic time and space, finally cooling and solidifying into another form, like a strange molten form self-molding through a complex network.

The disturbance of the demonic thoughts was terrifying, and a great crisis was hidden beneath the unstable balance formed by the collapsing wreckage of the massive pagoda.

No, it couldn't be called hidden, because even a child could see that this thing could completely collapse at any moment, and without the pagoda's protection, Li Qi would be destroyed at any time.

But even if he wasn't destroyed, he still didn't look well.

He didn't look human at all now, like a mixture of flesh, spirit, and bones violently stirred by a monster's giant claw.

The golden liquid from the melted pagoda fell from the sky and merged into his body; these golden liquids barely glowed as they flowed, but dazzling white hot metal droplets splashed out where they injected.

Underneath the chaotic array of surrounding time and space, a black裂口 opened; this was originally a normal, gentle area, but the Heavenly Demon's gaze had separated the possibilities here, revealing the crazed abyss located in the dark depths.

Inside, a First Grade corpse could be seen; Amitabha's remaining chaotic and tangled body parts were placed here, and the pagoda was slowly falling into it.

Everything was under the Heavenly Demon's control; to be honest, although the Heavenly Demon knew why Li Qi was doing this, he still felt bored.

The feeling of everything being under control was truly boring.

The Heavenly Demon could clearly see everyone's thoughts, even those of other First Grades.

However, for other First Grades, it didn't matter if their thoughts were known.

What could the Heavenly Demon do even if he knew? For a First Grade, no matter how many times they thought about something, many things could be false until they were realized.

Therefore, before they truly acted, or even after they acted, their thoughts might not keep up with their actions.

But for beings below the Heavenly Demon, the problem was significant.

Every thought, every idea of Li Qi, he knew clearly.

What Li Qi wanted to do, what he planned to do, what enlightenment he had, what decisions he made, even what he knew, what secrets he held, the Heavenly Demon knew everything.

Such a world was truly uninteresting.

There were no demonic thoughtss in the world, only the World Honored One Tathagata.

And now that the Tathagata had entered nirvana, only Li Qi and the Demonic Prince remained as backup plans in the world.

So the Heavenly Demon gave Li Qi and the Demonic Prince ample time to develop, letting them make their moves, hoping they could stir up something.

Unfortunately…

He was too disappointed.

It was truly boring; the Demonic Prince stood outside with no intention of entering, while Li Qi was useless, his mind filled with plans that were fundamentally impossible to succeed.

There wasn't even a theoretical chance of success.

The Heavenly Demon had no more expectations for Li Qi; Li Qi could die.

The flickering demonic thoughtss gradually condensed together, forming a long river of thoughts.

This long river was so terrifying; the spiritual fluctuations it stirred up made all sentient beings in all time and space of the Universe feel an inexplicable palpitation.

It was like they had some… uh, worries?

For Li Qi, he could only see his body appearing, disappearing, and reappearing continuously and rapidly, like a constantly appearing slide show.

A strong sense of fear struck him, but he couldn't escape, like a moth caught by the uncovered burning brazier in a lighthouse.

He knew it was an extremely dangerous heat, but he uncontrollably rushed towards it.

All the demonic thoughtss converged, and naturally, Li Qi was also a part of the demon thoughts; having lost Amitabha's power, he couldn't control himself.

The situation seemed irreversible.

Li Qi tried to resist.

He prepared to use his magic to disturb his thoughts.

But his magic was interrupted before he could use it.

He prepared to use the remaining pagoda to resist.

However, when he wanted to summon those remaining pagodas, the Heavenly Demon had already changed his method in advance; he couldn't keep up with that change.

Li Qi thought of other ways.

But he found that other ways had also been blocked.

In one second, he changed 76,000 different self-rescue measures, and then found that these measures had already been considered by the Heavenly Demon.

There were no loopholes.

The Heavenly Demon understood Li Qi even better than Li Qi himself.

Because the Heavenly Demon could see every thought of Li Qi and knew his every action.

This wasn't about giving up thinking and just flailing around.

If you want to act, there will inevitably be traces; if you want to act systematically, you need to think systematically, and even instinct is a form of thinking; it makes no difference to the Heavenly Demon whether the thinking organ is the brain or the muscles.

Li Qi had no chance.

So, he merged into the demonic thoughtss.

Not only that, but when Li Qi merged into the demonic thoughtss, his perception was completely distorted.

To be precise, all his senses merged into one.

Now, the light and shadow he saw were like sounds to him.

He 'touched' the sound of flames, even breathing in their twisted entanglement; he heard the swirling smoke, he heard the flickering, and he tasted the strange flavor of mocking shadows.

Colors became pain, heat, cold, and pressure for him.

Touch became taste for him; the feel of wood was now sour, and his fingers felt the taste of his clothes as sweet.

And smell became touch; something smelled like velvet brushing his face. The smell of molten metal felt like his body had been beaten.

How to put it…

He wasn't blind, not deaf, hadn't lost his senses.

Sensations could still reach him, but all his senses had merged into one, no longer differentiated.

The taste of cold was like fruit, and the vacuum felt like being drenched by waves; the light from the starry sky tormented his body like some disease.

On Li Qi, sounds appeared as visuals, movements were identified as sounds, colors became sensory pain, touch became taste, and smells became tactile sensations.

He was not only trapped within the Heavenly Demon's demon thoughts; he was also trapped by his own kaleidoscopic cross-sensory signals.

This distorted sensation was clearly a Demon of the Five Aggregates's method, but the Heavenly Demon seemed to use it… very smoothly.

And his body didn't stop.

What is the fastest thing in this world?

Is it light? Or a Great Power moving at full speed?

No, neither.

The fastest speed is thought.

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of thought; as soon as a thought moves, no matter how far, it can arrive instantly, even ignoring all obstacles.

For Mortals, this so-called 'thought' is merely an illusion, a delusion.

But for the Heavenly Demon, using this trick, he could come and go freely even from the Human Emperor's Palace in Chang'an.

The only thing that could suppress the Heavenly Demon was 'nothingness'.

That was a Domain that even thought couldn't reach.

But could Li Qi do it?

He couldn't.

Therefore, after Li Qi was pulled into the Heavenly Demon's thoughts, he was forced to speed through endless time and space at the speed of thought, far surpassing all known speeds; the speed of light was practically the slowest on that list, and his speed per second couldn't even be described in light-years, because he would cross countless Observable Universes every second.

His spatial velocity was so astonishing that his time axis was distorted, changing from a vertical line from past to present to an axis from present to future; he flickered along the new geodesic axis, this new arrow of cosmic time, driven by the Heavenly Demon's thoughts, transcended conventional laws.

And most importantly, the awareness of thought space, the entire complete time axis, and his specific point on it are inherent to everyone, deeply buried by the trivialities of life—for Li Qi, they had already surfaced. He moved through other spaces and other times along the Universe's wavelength, driven by thought.

Li Qi watched in horror as all his possibilities were laid out before him.

For the Heavenly Demon, all of Li Qi's possible actions were spread out before him.

All of Li Qi's actions, to the Heavenly Demon, were 'past tense'.

All of Li Qi's actions, in the Heavenly Demon's eyes, had already been done; he had already tried countless times, and each time the Heavenly Demon had easily broken them.

Therefore, no matter what he did, the outcome was failure.

Possibilities converged here.

“No need to struggle, you can die now,” the Heavenly Demon said to Li Qi, who had already been absorbed into his body.

Then, Li Qi was destroyed.

However, at this very moment—!

“Oh?” The Heavenly Demon let out a surprised sound.

Li Qi didn't die.

He used a new move.

A move he hadn't seen.

Wait, why couldn't he see his thoughts? He shouldn't have the ability to resist.

There was only one thing in this world that could resist the Heavenly Demon's prying eyes, and that was the Buddha.

So, what happened?

The Heavenly Demon fell into doubt, and at the same time, he was somewhat pleased.

The next moment, he let out a surprised sound: “Wait! You're not Li Qi!”

“So, what I saw was indeed Li Qi's reaction, but you are not Li Qi, and you resisted my observation. This is the power of the World Honored One Tathagata.”

“Hmph… Shang Fan?”

The Heavenly Demon called out the true identity of the 'Li Qi' before him.

Only the power of the World Honored One Tathagata could resist the Heavenly Demon's demonic thoughtss, because only the World Honored One Tathagata achieved a similar 'emptiness'; he was truly free of demonic thoughtss, and thus immune to the Heavenly Demon's gaze, and by this, he Seal the Heavenly Demon.

“Can you also achieve emptiness? Oh, no, it's the Heavens of the Formless Realm. Your control over the Heavens of the Formless Realm is truly astonishing; so this thing has this function.” The Heavenly Demon immediately understood.

This was a secret that even the Heavenly Demon didn't know.

The Heavenly Demon knew everything that everyone in this world knew, but if there was one thing that no one knew except the World Honored One Tathagata, how could he know it?

“When did you two switch identities?” the Heavenly Demon asked. “To actually hide it from me, that's truly surprising. The Heavens of the Formless Realm can indeed conceal your thoughts, but it shouldn't be able to obscure my perception.”

The Demonic Prince did not reply.

There was no need to explain so much to the Heavenly Demon; having deceived him all the way here wasn't for pleasantries.

He immediately proceeded with the next plan.

The Heavens of the Formless Realm unfolded here.

But the moment it unfolded, the Heavenly Demon clapped his hands and cheered: “Oh! I understand!”

“You've integrated the Desire Realm, Li Qi's Myriad Heavens, and the Heavens of the Formless Realm! No wonder I wondered why Li Qi would cast the Myriad Heavens into the Desire Realm, why you would use this to suppress the Desire Realm! So you two had already switched places back then!” The Heavenly Demon immediately understood why.

Li Qi and the others' plan was seen through by the Heavenly Demon in this instant.

The Demonic Prince studied Buddha-Dharma, Da Sanzang, and Da Zhengzang, all for the sake of better understanding and controlling the Heavens of the Formless Realm, because the Heavens of the Formless Realm had a crucial characteristic: 'nothingness', 'emptiness'.

Only this could resist the Heavenly Demon's prying eyes; this was the Heavenly Demon's blind spot.

They had long known about the existence of this blind spot, so they formulated two plans, one overt and one covert, to do something big using the blind spot that the Heavenly Demon couldn't see.

The Heavens of the Formless Realm had already been brought into the Heavenly Demon's body by the Demonic Prince, and it was the Heavenly Demon who had actively absorbed it.

He wanted the Heavens of the Formless Realm to unfold within the Heavenly Demon's body!

To display 'emptiness' within the Heavenly Demon, and once again, let the Heavens of the Formless Realm suppress the Heavenly Demon!

However, facing the Heavens of the Formless Realm unfolding within his own body, the Heavenly Demon said with a grin: “Speaking of which, I should thank you for bringing the Heavens of the Formless Realm right before me. I'll gladly accept it. Also, that was a good move. Do you have anything else?”

With that, the expansion of the Heavens of the Formless Realm stopped.

The Heavenly Demon reached out and pulled the Heavens of the Formless Realm out of his body, holding it like a glass bead.

The Heavens of the Formless Realm was extracted completely intact.

And the Demonic Prince stared in astonishment at all of this.

“Shang Fan, don't make that face. You didn't really think you could beat me, did you?”

“To be honest, even if I closed my eyes and let you do whatever you wanted, you couldn't harm me.”

“But I'm curious what else you can do. Come on, continue, let me see what other tricks you have.”