Far beyond the sealed realm.
Far beyond the trembling formation.
Within a timeline that had been severed from the Greater Heavens.
A slightly older Yu Xuan sat alone at the center of Highest Heavens.
He no longer looked like a mortal youth.
His presence was calm, restrained, immeasurable.
In his hands floated an ethereal orb – intangible, translucent, containing within it shifting constellations of consciousness.
It was a soul-aggregate.
An experimental Heaven.
He looked toward a distant coordinate, toward a ripple that had just faded.
"…It failed?" he murmured.
He had felt the connection.
A pull from his past self in this timeline being directed to the [Origin of Time]
He had attempted to follow that thread.
To observe.
But the access had been severed.
"Well… that was expected," he said softly.
"I cannot reach that place from here."
Then he paused.
"…But I did not expect myself to be there."
In this timeline.
