Chapter 926: No rest

However, after the battle continued to a certain extent…

Li Qi gradually gained the upper hand, because the opponent had many concerns, for example… the opponent needed to protect the Fourth Rank below.

She naturally had one more target than Li Qi, and it was an exposed target.

Therefore, Li Qi had more methods to target her.

This is the importance of intelligence; knowing the opponent's goal, knowing where the opponent cannot back down, then there are more opportunities to interfere with the opponent, or even force the opponent into a direct decisive battle with oneself, rather than just hitting blindly in the vortex of time and space.

However, similarly…

Misleading the opponent is also extremely important; as long as others are made to believe that one cares deeply about a certain matter, then letting the opponent spend a lot of energy interfering with that matter, and finally reversing it, can also achieve a great advantage.

Therefore, the essence of Third Rank warfare is an intelligence war; before the absolute strength of both sides has widened, other things like spellcasting, Divine Ability, or even interference itself, are not that important.

Li Qi precisely seized the point that the opponent needed to protect the Mortal, frequently attacking the Mortals to force her to rescue them, thereby continuously consuming the opponent's computational power.

Moreover, the opponent's consumption for retrospection must be greater than Li Qi's, because it is very difficult to tamper with the time and space where Li Qi is located; Li Qi's stability is very strong.

Even with vast Divine Ability, computational power is ultimately limited, at least within a unit of time.

If it were truly infinite computational power, then it would be like playing Chinese chess; in a no-ban situation, there would exist a ‘certain draw’ situation, precisely because the upper limit of computational power required for Chinese chess is relatively low, making it easy to achieve ‘internal infinity’, meaning that for Chinese chess, once a threshold is reached, a state similar to infinite computational power can be achieved.

In such times, it is necessary to constantly expand the chessboard.

If one game is not enough, then two games.

If that doesn't work, add rules; if that still doesn't work, change the game.

Extreme environments constantly appear, past and future constantly interfere, all sorts of bizarre situations emerge endlessly, numerous incredible mystical events frequently occur—all of this is to guide ‘reality’ towards a result desired by a Third Rank.

Using all means to force the opponent to ultimately ‘miscalculate’.

As long as there is a miscalculation, the opportunity arises.

All extreme environments, all Karma interference, actually have only this one purpose.

However, just as Li Qi was steadily building his advantage—

The unknown Third Rank of the Human Dao suddenly disappeared; clearly, the opponent had retreated.

This is why Third Rank battles are so difficult to decide; if the opponent is willing to retreat, willing to ‘abandon the results of the battle’, then leaving is possible at any time, at most sacrificing what they originally intended to protect.

As long as one is willing to abandon what they guard, willing to let the opponent interfere with the world, willing to fully accept all changes to reality made by the opponent, willing to acknowledge the opponent's absolute dominance in this place, and directly admit defeat, then choosing to retreat at the cost of damage is a very simple matter.

After the opponent retreated, Li Qi also stopped.

He glanced down; in the real world, the Fourth Rank named Chen Ang, and all his subordinates, had already withdrawn.

However, the opponent was injured; when he tried to withdraw, Li Qi had already injured him several days prior, by questioning the meaning of ‘human’ to intelligent life in a high-dimensional manifold environment, Li Qi successfully caused some damage to the opponent’s Dao path.

It must be said that after comprehending a part of the Celestial Pole Golden Elixir Method's usage, Li Qi, among the Third Ranks, could now fight a bit better.

Rescuing some Fourth Ranks, but getting injured himself, truly… foolish.

It was a huge loss.

However, Li Qi did not gloat, but quickly looked towards the second target.

He was like a commando, not needing to operate a war zone, but needing to constantly rush to places needing support, acting as a sudden combat force to influence the battle as much as possible.

Li Qi joined this war, and he did so in the stance of a Third Rank.

All Third Ranks are ‘basic units of time and space’; time and space themselves are defined by the existence of Third Ranks, and the movement between Third Ranks confirms the movement of time and space themselves.

Therefore, because Third Ranks move at different speeds, time will naturally be different, and will always be different.

Looking at the Universe as a whole, there is no past, and no future, only events.

The events that Mortals experience are like a small dot, a pixel, on the super-huge magnificent painting of the Universe; the axes connecting these pixel points are space and time.

The way Mortals think cannot keep up with this; in their eyes, events spread continuously like a line, moving from one event to the next, everything is very natural, events will be arranged by Karma, and everything can be seen changing in order, one after another.

But in reality, because the foundation of time and space, which are the Third Ranks, can move freely, and time is defined by their movement, when they crisscross, time will reverse; when they rotate, time will twist; when they move in parallel, time will stop.

Therefore, nowhere can there be a unique event happening in the so-called ‘present’.

Because of this, history becomes blurred, and amidst an endless series of conjectures and counter-conjectures, information is generated, then erased, and finally reshaped.

Naturally, every object itself must have a certain history, and every life itself also has a history, so Li Qi believes these are real.

For Mortals, modifying reality means these real things are killed.

If a Third Rank modifies a person's past, then for that person, it means the Third Rank has deprived him of his life, his memories, his entire life, and all things that are extremely important to him—those precious things that make ‘him’ who he is, all taken away by the Third Rank.

This is cruel.

But similarly, different lives might be tens of billions of light-years apart, so one cannot calculate the date of an event at point B, tens of billions of light-years away, using the date at point A; they might differ greatly, and you can even see the past from point B again at point A.

The relative motion between Third Ranks completely messes up all stable timelines.

The real battle situation is entirely controlled by the outcome of the Third Ranks' battle.

With the power of a Third Rank, you can retrace events.

With the power of a Third Rank, you can jump freely on the space-time map.

And Li Qi was constantly getting familiar with all of this.

He had many crucial decisive battles, he met many people who were ‘key points’, many, many histories would change because of these key points, and there would be even more uncertainties.

The farther the time and space, the blurrier the vision.

As a Third Rank, Li Qi was the great wind; he swept past fleets more numerous than stars, witnessed star clusters burned by war, and even entire Observable Universes; even the most massive stars would die in one insignificant flash of light during the war.

Li Qi, as the wind, witnessed all that; before him, war was a lit fire, and the specters of death flowed everywhere like melted candle wax beneath the flame.

And what he had to do was to blow on this flame, making it burn ever more fiercely, relentlessly.

Although this would make the candle burn faster and faster, causing wax to flow everywhere, it didn't matter; as long as you didn't care, it wasn't important.

Because new candles were constantly being delivered.

The underworld was overflowing, Reincarnation accelerated.

Just like that, about ten thousand years passed in real-world time.

In the eyes of Mortals, the war slowly developed through a series of continuous events, forming a clear history, which is the ‘History of War’.

But in Li Qi's eyes, his subjective experience of time had already exceeded 1.5 billion years.

This short ten thousand years of history, who knows how much time and effort it cost the Third Ranks, who knows how many times it was replayed…

Li Qi's role was that of a commando, and 1.5 billion years had already passed for him; then… for the Third Ranks who were war zone commanders responsible for a region, it would be no surprise if their time experience was ten times that, as they had to constantly adjust, while Li Qi only needed to provide support.

Li Qi interacted with many Third Ranks of the Human Dao, and at the same time, he also got to know many Third Ranks of the Shaman Dao.

Li Qi himself was already very famous, so interactions went smoothly.

However, most Third Ranks were relatively solitary; everyone had their own things to do, so they didn't make many friends.

Nevertheless, although not exactly friends, Li Qi had integrated into the Shaman God Mountain Third Rank family, becoming one of its members, and could call for support when needed.

After all, fighting is the easiest way to build relationships; one mutual rescue can bring many relationships closer, and Li Qi, as a commando, was constantly putting out fires everywhere, so he had built good relationships with many people.

It's just… such days seemed endless.

“Sigh.” Li Qi sighed.

“Sighing like that, what, are you very dissatisfied with helping me?” At this moment, a Shaman Dao Third Rank beside him said with a smile.

Li Qi looked at that Third Rank.

This was also a Third Rank Great Shaman, named Wu Lie.

One could tell from his name.

Li Qi's Master was Zhu Fengdan; the surname Zhu was inherited from the Heavenly God Zhu Rong, and was also one of the origins of the ‘Invoker’ Dao lineage.

Even the name Zhu Rong itself was once an honorific title, and also a former official title; as is well known, Zhu were ancient divine functionaries, so Zhu Rong can also be understood as “the Zhu whose bright light shines far away,” still interpretable as a position.

Similarly, the Wu Lie before him was also like this; his surname ‘Wu’ clearly came directly from ‘Shamansan’ or ‘Wu Geng’, these high-ranking Shamanes, so it could be seen that he was the descendant of a Great Power, and also his Disciple.

Both a descendant and a Disciple, this was truly a double bond.

“It's not dissatisfaction, it's just that your place here is a bit of a waste of time; I'm very busy, having to stay here with you for so long, outside I could have helped seven or eight other people.” Li Qi said.

“No choice, my territory here is just that valuable, so much so that they specifically sent you here to assist me.” Wu Lie smiled, stomping his foot on the ground.

Li Qi nodded slightly.

Indeed, no matter how dissatisfied, what the other person said was correct.

The area Li Qi now had to defend was called ‘Mengtan’ (Alliance Altar).

‘Meng’, in ancient times, referred to a ritual, primarily meaning to swear an oath and form an alliance before the Heavenly God, declaring oneself united.

The so-called ‘Mengzhu’ (Alliance Leader) referred to the person presiding over this ritual, and ‘Mengyue’ (Alliance Covenant) was the specific content of this oath, while ‘Mengtan’ (Alliance Altar) was the place where the ritual was held.

Once, in the ancient times of the Human Dao, the group of Emperors and Sovereigns had together established an alliance, and each successive Mengzhu was called a ‘Ba’ or ‘Bawang’ (Hegemon).

As the saying goes: “When the state is in doubt, form an alliance, facing north to invoke the Heavenly Officials of Caution and Destiny, slaughtering sacrifices and smearing blood, with vermilion plates and jade bowls, to establish the bull's ear.”

This also gave rise to a saying: ‘Zhi Niuer Zhe’ (Holder of the Bull's Ear).

Anyone referred to as a ‘Zhi Niuer Zhe’ is a leader, an alliance leader.

And Wu Lie, his position in the Human-Shaman War was ‘Si Meng’ (Director of Alliances); he was responsible for presiding over this ritual, a super Grand Ritual covering countless Observable Universes, maintaining this sacrifice to allow all Third Ranks and beings below Third Rank to communicate across time and space.

He served a function somewhat similar to the communication aspect of The Axis of All Realms.

Of course, The Axis of All Realms's communication function was merely its most basic ancillary feature; the true essence of this item was a super-large intelligent computational power provision device, a Second Rank Spiritual Artifact, which Si Meng Wu Lie could not compare to.

However, those things were not needed; Shamanes preferred to solve things in their own way, rather than building The Axis of All Realms like the Human Dao and making everyone use the same evaluation system.

And now, what Li Qi was doing was helping the Wu Lie before him maintain the normal operation of the alliance ritual.

All of this was due to Li Qi's Dao Resonance.

Li Qi had collected more than forty wisps of True Knowledge, almost all the remaining True Knowledge in the entire Universe; Li Qi didn't know where to get more, probably from other Great Powers.

So much True Knowledge, its power was already sufficient to keep up with Third Rank battles, and the information processing ability brought by True Knowledge itself could exert a considerable amount of power within the ‘Covenant’.

Now, the Covenant itself had been impacted multiple times by the Human Dao, requiring Li Qi to guard it here.

It needed Li Qi's combat power, and also, when Wu Lie was unable to act, it needed Li Qi to use True Knowledge as a temporary backup to preside over the Covenant.

“Your Dao Resonance, I remember you named it True Knowledge, right?” At this moment, Wu Lie suddenly asked.

“Yes, what’s wrong?” Li Qi asked.

“Nothing.” Wu Lie said, “Just asking.”

“Telling a Shaman a name, that’s not ‘just asking’.” Li Qi smiled.

Shamanes are very sensitive to things like true names; as long as you tell a Shaman a name, all sorts of curses and blessings can be thrown at your head.

“If I don’t know the name, how can I call you at a critical moment? Ah, here it comes again.” Wu Lie said.

The Human Dao's attack came again.

“Alright, I’ll go meet them first.” Li Qi nodded; he was here to do just that.

Immediately after, Li Qi's power spread out.

Then, Li Qi suddenly felt something was wrong.

It was an acquaintance on the other side.