Douluo: Martial Soul White Tiger, I am the White Emperor of Heaven

An anchor point. A point that remains unmoved no matter how the river of time flows. A node connecting the past, present, and future. A "real" entity that is undeniably established in the long river of time.

This realization brought Qian Renxue's soul to a critical point. The precipitated "golden particles" began to merge, no longer scattered, but converging into an increasingly dense and heavy core. It was not a seed radiating outward like Tang Wulin's, but an inward-condensing "nucleus"—an anchor point of existence.

She felt her body, soul, and divine status being reintegrated by this "core." Every breath, every heartbeat, became more certain, more real. She even felt that if someone tried to deny her existence now, that denial would shatter like hitting an iron wall.

But this is only the beginning.

Qian Renxue continued deeper into the Time Corridor, arriving at the innermost circular space. Here, there was no echo of time, only absolute silence, and a strange object suspended in the center of the space—an hourglass, but the sand inside was golden and flowed extremely slowly, almost still.

“Anchor of Time,” an aged voice echoed through the space.

Qian Renxue turned around and saw an old man with white hair appear from the void. He was dressed in a simple white robe, his eyes were as deep as time itself, and he was holding a twisted wooden staff.

"The God of Time?" Qian Renxue asked cautiously.

The old man shook his head slightly: "The God of Time has long since fallen, a very, very long time ago. I am merely a wisp of his consciousness left behind, guarding this ruin. You are the first deity in ten thousand years to truly step into this place."

"Why me?"

“Because you have grasped the true meaning of ‘anchor’,” the old man said, walking toward the hourglass, the golden sand shimmering slightly as he approached. “Time needs an anchor, or it will fall into complete chaos. Existence also needs an anchor, or it will vanish into nothingness. What you have come to seek is the method to become an anchor.”

Qian Renxue stared at the hourglass: "This hourglass..."

“It is a symbol of the anchor of time,” the old man explained, “but not for you to use. The real anchor is in your heart. You have found the core, and now you need to let it run through your entire timeline.”

How to penetrate it?

“Memory,” the old man said, “but not ordinary memory. It is reliving, it is reaffirming, it is affirming every past moment with the existence of this moment. When your ‘present’ can anchor your ‘past,’ your existence gains half of its stability. Then, in the same way, anchoring the possible ‘future,’ your existence will be complete.”

Qian Renxue frowned: "Reliving the past? But the past has already happened, how can we relive it?"

The old man smiled: "Time is a river, but you are standing in it. Looking down, you see the water that has already flowed by—that is the past. Looking up, you see the water that has not yet flowed by—that is the future. But no matter which way you look, you see the same water. Your existence is you standing in the river right now. When you use the 'real' of this moment to touch the 'shadow' of the past, those shadows will become just as 'real'."

The explanation was somewhat esoteric, but Qian Renxue seemed to understand something. She walked to the hourglass, reached out her hand, but this time she didn't touch the hourglass itself, but rather the invisible thing flowing around it—the texture of time.

In an instant, she was pulled into a memory.

No, it wasn't that she was "pulled in," but rather that she actively "entered" that memory. In her present state, she relived that moment—when she was six years old, displaying her Angelic Martial Soul for the first time before her grandfather. Golden light bloomed in her tiny palm, faint yet pure. Her grandfather, Qian Daoliu, knelt down, holding her small hand in his calloused yet exceptionally warm hands, his eyes filled with tears.

“Good boy,” he said, “you are the purest angelic successor in our family’s history. You will do what your grandfather could not do, and reach heights that your grandfather could not reach.”

At that time, she didn't fully understand the weight of those words. But now, Qian Renxue, experiencing that moment again with thousands of years of life experience, understood. She understood the expectation and worry in her grandfather's eyes, the responsibility and burden behind this inheritance, and how that moment defined her long life thereafter.

“I’m sure,” Qian Renxue whispered at that moment, not to her grandfather, but to her six-year-old self, “this moment is real, you are real, your existence is real.”

The scene in her memory froze, then seemed to be plated with gold, becoming exceptionally solid. Qian Renxue felt a line extending from the "core" deep within her soul, connecting to this node of memory.

She returned to the center of the time tunnel, to the scene before the hourglass. But something was different—her presence was stronger, and that sense of "realness" was more pronounced.

“Anchor once,” the old man’s voice rang out, with approval, “Continue, anchor all the key moments in your life. When you’re done, you will no longer be scattered points in time, but a continuous line. And a line is harder to erase than a point.”

Qian Renxue nodded and touched the flow of time once more.

This time, she entered her memories of being twelve years old—disguised as Xue Qinghe, stepping into the Heavenly Dou Imperial Palace for the first time. That magnificent yet turbulent world, those outwardly respectful but inwardly treacherous courtiers, that lie that needed to be maintained at all times. She remembered that loneliness, that oppressive feeling of having no one to confide in, that confusion in searching for her true self amidst the lies.

“I’m sure,” she said to the masked version of herself, “that the pain of this moment is real, that your persistence is real, that your existence is real.”

Another node has been anchored.

Time and again, Qian Renxue entered those moments that shaped her—

At eighteen, during the ninth test of the angels, he struggled on the edge of light and darkness, ultimately choosing to embrace the light rather than fall—a moment of divine awakening.

At the age of twenty-five, in the final showdown with Tang San, his divine position shattered, and he fell from the clouds, experiencing both despair and relief at that moment.

After the fall, three long years passed, during which time the divine status was gradually rebuilt, searching for meaning in nothingness and for wholeness in shattering.

Meeting Tang Wulin, the pure trust in that child's eyes, warmed her cold heart once more.

In every moment, she re-experiences, confirms, and anchors herself through her present existence. Each confirmation extends a line from her "core," connecting to a point in time. These lines multiply, weaving into a network, but unlike Tang Wulin's network that spreads outward, this is a network that takes root deep within time.

After an unknown amount of time, when Qian Renxue reached the last important juncture in her life, she opened her eyes and found herself still standing in the center of the Time Corridor, before the hourglass. But the golden sand in the hourglass had somehow all flowed to the bottom. (End of Chapter)