Chapter 999: Performance of the second grade

The battle against the Demonic Dao has begun.

Li Qi finally understood at this moment.

The Demonic Dao is actually... not that scary.

Once a direct war begins, if the First Grades do not interfere, wanting to fight the Demonic Dao to a stalemate seems... not that difficult?

With the appearance of the third Demonic Dao Second Grade, all things began to be 'manipulated'.

If there were 'beings' who were smarter and more perceptive, they might realize... that they had become part of the battle.

The power of the Great Power began to traverse through minds, matter, history, and spacetime.

You cannot see any strong impact in the battles of Second Grades.

Things like destroying tens of billions of light-years with a single hand rarely happen to Second Grades.

Unless they are fighting for their lives, their power will not be so obvious, nor will it be displayed so wildly.

So what is a Second Grade battle more like?

It's more like... evolution.

There is an invisible hand controlling everything, manipulating the direction of history.

Beings will be interwoven within a common spacetime until one of them withdraws the change.

Supernova explosions are so magnificent that in space, one can see with the naked eye the spectacular eruption that transcends galaxies, and all the galaxies in the vicinity cannot compare to such a dazzling explosion, which can easily extend for thousands of light-years.

From the side, it looks like a line of light extending along the inner edge of the information spiral arm, erecting a wall around the star that can reach millions of kilometers in width and thousands of light-years in length.

How magnificent, right?

But who is manipulating the supernova explosion?

It is those most subtle, most inconspicuous 'truths behind the scenes' that exist in the smallest trivialities, like an apple falling down.

Whether it's a supernova explosion or an apple falling, 'they' are manipulating it from behind.

Everything is arranged, including my meeting with you; everything is artificial; they have long analyzed the characteristics of all things, obviously so, including the behaviors and reactions of all life, the trajectories and changes of all matter, and the rotation along many dimensions of spacetime is underway.

The world is like a puppet; they know what button to press for the puppet to perform a certain action.

Physical Laws, historical development, and even the thoughts of the human heart are all within their grasp; their war has no particularly magnificent sights, yet it is more shocking than anything.

Li Qi did not manipulate history; that was what the Demonic Dao was going to do. What Li Qi was going to do was defend history.

However, in such a war, Li Qi suddenly saw... something, how to put it?

Perhaps it can be called: 'Overseers'.

It was a mysterious object made of black-gold metal, existing parallel to the entire Universe, with an elegant outline and clean, sharp lines that seemed to highlight a certain geometric beauty.

But just as there are differences between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, this object made of black-gold metal follows different geometric rules.

Curved Dragon bones and countless energy veins make up the machine itself; compared to the Universe, this machine looks like a giant whale stranded on a beach.

The Universe is the beach, and it is the giant whale, trapped here, unable to move, only able to communicate with the outside world through various pipes connected to it.

Because of these 'pipes' and 'veins', this machine has gained a jumbled mess of grids around it, composed of many energy pipelines and physical pipes.

In certain locations, these external attachments extend from the void of history into the Reality Universe, covered with dazzling equipment, and many places are entwined with twisted transport tubes of devices, creating a sight that might induce trypophobia.

Moreover, there are many hardworking cultivators inside, their figures scattered everywhere; some stand on the machine's heights, some remain in the flow of time, and others navigate the labyrinth of countless devices, equipment, and accessories.

In the dimensional maze, they fly through temporarily constructed narrow passages, and many others stand directly at the edge of the battlefield between Li Qi and the Demonic Dao.

They were just milling about over there; a little further away, a small group of people gathered around a portable large display screen, gesturing at the information on it, clearly in a meeting discussing something.

People were working calmly and steadily, the entire scene busy yet orderly.

They were observing, using this machine to watch the war between Li Qi and the Demonic Dao.

In the cracks of history, at the nodes of spacetime, anywhere on the battlefield, they used that whale-like machine to survey the infinite possibilities of Li Qi's battle.

And a vast, almost indescribable, enormous torrent of energy permeated it throughout.

Li Qi glanced at them.

That was... The Axis of All Realms.

The observers next to them, those who were meeting, repairing, and observing, were from the Heavenly Supervision Bureau?

Humanity is quite idle, indeed.

However, Li Qi still saw The Axis of All Realms's situation from it.

Indeed... this thing can hardly interfere with the outside.

This thing is a 'mirror' suspended above and parallel to the Universe, suppressed by the Universe and unable to move, but capable of reflecting many things.

However, it seems to be heavily damaged; judging from the people constantly repairing it, The Axis of All Realms seems to have suffered greatly.

Was it caused by the Human-Shaman War?

However, now is not the time to look at them; the battle with the Demonic Dao must continue.

Li Qi composed himself.

At the same time, Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva descended at this very moment.

The tide of battle began to turn.

More and more Second Grades joined the battle, and thus, the situation became more three-dimensional.

History began to fork, possibilities intertwined, and numerous passages and small paths appeared in various outcomes, more complex than any maze.

Every Second Grade must traverse this entire maze, not missing a single inch, otherwise it would be impossible to understand what happened in this battle.

Unable to understand, naturally unable to participate.

And this maze constantly increases its complexity at the speed of a Gornard arrow every minute and second; the computing power of every Second Grade must be used in the entangled history, judging which node will affect the crucial situation.

The Great Powers searched along the historical forks one by one, knowing exactly what they were looking for.

They occasionally stopped, skillfully dissecting something of interest, or searching for the source of a line behind an event or a person.

The structural design of history and spacetime was understood by them, integrated within it—the Great Powers spread out the entire Universe as a blueprint, examining these blueprints meticulously, scrutinizing every detail.

Then they understood.

After that, they joined the battle.

This was a melee among Second Grades; although to the Reality Universe, nothing seemed to have happened, in fact, many things did happen, but these things were erased, and the future and the present, the past and the future coexist simultaneously.

An apple exists simultaneously in states such as 'hanging on a tree,' 'rotting,' 'falling to the ground,' and 'sprouting into a new tree,' and the only distinction between them is a state similar to a 'time slice.'

And each state of the apple would become a 'chess piece' for the Second Grades, used to create the environment they needed.

The so-called Second Grade war is essentially just a change in environment.

It's not a duel between two fierce tigers; that's just individual martial power.

Rather, it's a duel between a rainforest and a desert, with the swamp spreading outwards, and desertification and soil erosion constantly encroaching upon the rainforest; the environment is fighting—

The role of the fierce tiger in this is negligible.

Behind all these battles are wind, rain, thunder, and changes in water and soil; it is all natural phenomena, whether it's a fierce tiger, a rabbit, a monkey, or a tree, they are merely ordinary lives that adapt to environmental changes and are part of the environment, no different from pebbles by the roadside.

This is simpler than a Third Grade battle.

The battle of Third Grades, in the final analysis, still involves competition between Divine Abilities and Dao Arts; although they can travel through spacetime nodes, they generally fight in their true forms, only influencing more of reality through changes in the battlefield, thereby creating more advantages for themselves and their goals.

But in a Second Grade battle... even the battle itself no longer exists.

They do their own things, for example, Li Qi creating Qi Palace, or the Heart Demon constantly building the City of Dreams within the hearts of the Qi Palace's inhabitants.

When they finish, they either find that what they did was useless, or they win.

If they win, that's naturally the best.

If it was useless, it's just a matter of finding something to start over with.

To call it a battle... is very inaccurate.

For example, now—

"The fight has started, are you still here drinking tea?" Shen Shuibi looked at Li Qi.

"I am fighting," Li Qi said with a smile.

"The battlefield doesn't seem to have spread out," the rabbit looked up at the sky.

"Wrong, we are in the center of the battlefield," Li Qi explained.

Saying that, Li Qi picked up his teacup and poured it onto the ground.

Before the tea could reach the ground, it disappeared.

Shen Shuibi frowned slightly, reached out to form a hand seal, and calculated the celestial timing.

"The celestial timing has been tampered with, did the nature of that cup of tea just change? Does that mean our surroundings are also constantly undergoing unusual changes?" Shen Shuibi looked around.

This situation is not uncommon, nor is it dangerous for Fourth Grades.

Things similar to 'dimensional rifts' or 'anomalous events' can appear in many places.

Some other power suddenly appears in a certain civilization, or a certain country suddenly discovers that a house is connected to an anomalous dimension, where one can enter to explore, or even gain certain powers.

Anomalous invasions, various bizarre events appearing, occasionally misaligned spaces, intermittent hallucinations, but... everything seems to be fake, reality continues to operate, and no special situations arise.

Only some lucky ones.

They would respond to calls heard in their dreams, accidentally look into a mirror in the dead of night, or get separated when entering or exiting an elevator.

And then, what awaited them was a world of bizarre and fantastic things.

For instance, a Mortal fled his Family, beginning his escape on the night his home caught Great Fire.

We turned the car around, and then we fled the raging Great Fire in the city, fled all the past gloom, fled all the past specters; we brought almost nothing, had no plans for the future, and offered no explanation for what had happened, because... they had set the fire themselves.

They wrote letters to their brothers, wrote letters to the bank, and then received a formal letter and two sets of legal documents.

But these Mortals did not read these documents, barely even glancing at them, because after he hastily signed his name, these papers also burned.

Since then, the outside world seemed calm, nothing came looking for him anymore; he finally had about a year of precarious peace.

Then, some changes occurred again, and he was forced to move elsewhere, then elsewhere again, until the turmoil ended, and we finally arrived at a peaceful place, eventually coming to this small lakeside retreat, finding solace again, settling down, and continuing our precious, unchanging, peaceful life, completely sealing ourselves off, needing and wanting no one else.

All of this was because of what they saw in their closet back then; they believed they must be cursed, and only after burning down the house did they find this year of peace, here by the beautiful lake.

Only by this lake was there peace.

But recently, they began to feel restless again, and once more, they couldn't help but recall the past.

There was a tiny cloud of darkness in their Heart Demon—it was there, lingering.

However, the Family members never mentioned it to each other; they were all very restrained. If one day they couldn't control themselves and wanted to speak of it, they would surely cut out their own tongues before they could even utter a word.

Until one night, they couldn't sleep, because they were too nervous, afraid of having nightmares, afraid of dreaming of sights they couldn't face or control, afraid of dreaming of things I wanted to forget forever.

So, when I finally drifted off to sleep in a daze just before dawn, countless scenes I had wanted to forget slid past their eyes like slides in a projector.

It was many years later that this lakeside mansion became a famous ruin, inhabited by a few madmen, who were said to have once been elegant and decent people, but had a Family history of mental illness.

Many, many more years later, several young people came to this antique mansion to 'test their courage'—

The door to another world quietly opened.

Within it, many thoughts swirled, dream-like musings, bizarre physical Laws, completely different ecological environments, and indigenous creatures that could almost destroy one's mind.

But this kind of thing is not an isolated case.

This is a battlefield created by the collision of two Laws, two 'Daos'.

Li Qi's side, and the Demonic Dao's side, are crushing all dimensions, all history, and the bizarre events born from this are countless.

However... this is not a hot war.

Both sides are just doing their own things.

Li Qi's side is almost done.

His true purpose—