“Old friend, if you were at your peak state, then you could persevere and I won’t be able to do anything to you. Unfortunately, that’s not the case right now.” Samsara said as the darkness was gaining grounds.

“As long as one light strand is left, the darkness will never take over the epoch completely.” Saint remained calm despite losing and continued to protect his dao heart. He needed the light to stimulate the origin of this heart and bring it back to the light. That’s the only way for him to oppose the seed of darkness planted by Samsara.

At this moment, amazing techniques, dao comprehension, and further fighting were useless. This was a cycle between light and dark; victory relied solely on protecting one’s dao heart and true nature. Losing would turn one into a dark overlord, all would be too late then.

“So what?” Samsara shook his head: “Maybe I can’t destroy you completely and all the light strands completely, but don’t forget, I’ve sealed all the lights in this epoch underground already. Alas, this is all meaningless. Our epoch is no longer around. After this defeat, you won’t be able to ever turn the tide. This might be our final meeting, old friend.”

The terrifying embodiment of darkness, Samsara, was actually cordial right now to his mortal enemy.

“Buzz.” Though Saint continued to protect the light, the situation was quite grim. His demise was certainly inevitable if this continued.

The emperors were shaking as well. Even someone like Saint couldn’t handle this, what about them. Under this reversal to the origin caused by the samsaric gaze, how many of them could remain strong? The only end for them was either suicide or succ.u.mbing to the darkness.

Saint had fought against Samsara for an epoch. If he couldn’t win, no one else could.

“Gentlemen, lend me your power so I can understand time enough to get there.” Li Qiye told the seventeen emperors.

“Very well!” The emperors roared as their wills became resplendent and full of power.

“Rumble!” The world was torn asunder; all thirteen continents were trembling. This power from their wills was enough to turn all of Pure into ashes in a split second.

With loud explosions, Li Qiye’s position in time and s.p.a.ce became unstable via melting. He was in the past, the present, and in the future at the same time.

“Boom!” Finally, another Li Qiye came out but the same one was still standing there with the seventeen emperors behind him.

However, this second Li Qiye was not an illusion or an avatar. It was his real body.

This second Li Qiye was different. How? That’s too difficult to describe but he seemed to be even more powerful and monstrous despite lacking a boost in aura and divinity.

Nevertheless, intuition told the watching emperors that this monstrous being didn’t belong to the present.

“Buzz.” He stepped into the river of time and immediately headed for the ancient epoch.

This was a very difficult matter. Even the twelve-will emperors might not be able to do so. Li Qiye with the help of the seventeen emperors and his grand formation prepared earlier allowed him to travel far to the past.

He finally reached the position of Saint and Samsara’s epoch on the river of time.

On one side was Saint and the other Samsara. The gap between them was a temporal one, not spatial.

Li Qiye didn’t belong to this place, seemingly peeled out of the spatial fabric like a guest, not part of the epoch.

“Fellow Daoist, you should know that divining into the future is not a good thing.” Samsara wasn’t surprised to see this and flatly stated.

“That’s true.” Li Qiye nodded.

“To come before time, this is not you and also, not necessarily your future.” Samsara said: “Just one mistake, it will bring out an unimaginable disaster, far worse than turning to ashes.”

The person ahead was naturally Li Qiye from the future. Of course, this was only done through a heaven-defying calculation of a potential him in the future.

It was indeed an incredible method - calculating one’s future then bringing it back through the river of time.

“That’s why I’m here on the river of time. Nothing is more separated from everything else than it.” Li Qiye chuckled.

“Right.” Samsara agreed: “Don’t forget, this is my epoch.” 

Having said that, Samsara raised his finger and unleashed a time-piercing ray of darkness.

This ray was exceedingly fast but it gradually became slower as it traveled through time. In the end, it couldn’t touch Li Qiye as if he was too far away from them.

The powerful ancestor still couldn’t attack through this temporal gap.

“You are truly mighty.” Li Qiye shook his head: “But you can only stop at our era, or rather, our epoch, unable to reach a further timeline. You don’t know which epoch I came from, or in other words, this is a new epoch that you will never reach.”

“You’re saying you someone who can start a new epoch.” Samsara looked at Li Qiye and said.

He actually couldn’t calculate where this Li Qiye came from. His future was a muddled mess so there were a few possibilities. One, this Li Qiye was simply too powerful or that the present Li Qiye didn’t actually have a future. It could also be that his future was in an entirely new epoch, one started by him.

The future was full of the unknowns, impossible to divine with dead-on accuracy. Thus, if Li Qiye were to open a new epoch, this was a new beginning. No one could read this epoch outside of him.

Thus, this was why someone as powerful as Samsara failed to see the future Li Qiye’s origin.

“Why can’t I?” Li Qiye chuckled and activated his Immortal Physiques and his indomitable dao heart. 

At this time, he exuded boundless holy light from the Void Imperfection Physique. Under the control of his dao heart, this physique finally broke through its own limit to reach the next level.

Lights freed from imperfection poured down like the morning dew over this epoch, especially around Saint.

They were the sacred lights from Void Imperfection, capable of removing all darkness and impurities. The growing strands of darkness were purified and slowly turned to smoke. 

Li Qiye wasn’t directly fighting Samsara. He only wanted to lend Saint a hand.

The light started returning and stabilizing, allowing Saint’s dao heart to s.h.i.+ne once more.

Samsara became serious after seeing this with his eyes narrowing.

The emperors heaved a sigh of relief. The consequences would be unimaginable if Samsara were to win today.

With Saint and Li Qiye working together, victory was certain if it kept on developing like this unless Samsara still had other moves up his sleeve.