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

Qian Renxue suddenly understood something.

To anchor a future, one must first know what one wants. And what one wants stems from who she is—not as a prince, not as a god, not as a guardian, but as Qian Renxue, as an independent individual.

This return to Douluo Continent is not only about finding the future, but also about finding oneself. The self that has gradually become blurred during ten thousand years of godhood needs to be clarified and redefined through the experience of being a mortal.

“Then let’s begin,” she said to herself. “From this day forward, I am not an angel god, not a guardian. I am Xueyan, an ordinary wandering scholar, searching for my own path in this world threatened by nothingness.”

In the morning, Qian Renxue ate breakfast in the small restaurant on the first floor of the inn. Simple wheat porridge, a few slices of black bread, and a cup of weak tea. The food tasted ordinary, even somewhat rough, but she ate it earnestly. As a god, she no longer needed to eat; occasionally tasting divine fruits and nectar was merely for enjoyment, not a necessity. But now, food was essential for survival, and with each bite, she could feel the tangible energy entering her body.

There were five or six people in the restaurant, all scholars or researchers, discussing their work in hushed tones.
"The spacetime curvature of the Northeast Rift has increased by another 0.2%."

"Sample analysis shows that the time flow rate in the blurred area is 0.03 seconds/day slower than that in the normal area."

"The latest report from the Spirit Pagoda indicates that the spiritual consciousness of the soul beasts near the rift is showing signs of degeneration."

Qian Renxue listened quietly, gathering information. From these fragments, she roughly pieced together the current situation: the abyssal rift was slowly but irreversibly expanding; its impact on the surrounding environment was not only spatial, but also temporal and conscious; the major powers on the continent were cooperating to research countermeasures, but so far they had not found a fundamental solution to stop the expansion.

"Excuse me," a voice said from the side, "may I sit here?"

Qian Renxue looked up and saw Lin Mo from last night. He was holding a plate, his eyes bloodshot, clearly having not slept all night.

"Please go ahead."

Lin Mo sat down, ate a few bites in silence, and then lowered his voice to say, "Xiaoyu, that girl, she's completely recovered. This morning's tests showed that her Void Connection Index was zero, lower than the average for ordinary people. The experts at the observatory couldn't explain it and could only classify it as a rare case of spontaneous healing."

Qian Renxue nodded without saying a word.

“I know it was you,” Lin Mo said, looking directly into her eyes. “Although I don’t know how you did it, thank you. Xiaoyu is my neighbor’s child; I watched her grow up. Her parents disappeared five years ago during a Rift investigation. She’s always been very strong, but if it weren’t for you this time, she might…”

He paused, took a deep breath, and said, "So, in return, I owe you a favor. You came because of the Abyss Rift, right? What do you want to know? As long as it doesn't violate the rules, I can provide some inside information."

Qian Renxue pondered for a moment: "I want to know, what is the essence of the rift? What consensus have the major powers reached in their research?"

Lin Mo looked around and lowered his voice even further: "There is no consensus, only conjecture. There are four mainstream hypotheses: First, it is an invasion channel from another dimension; second, it is a 'wound' in the universe itself, which has cracked here for some reason; third, it is a harbinger of the awakening of some ultimate soul beast or being; fourth, it is a bug in the rules of the world, a loophole in existence itself."

"What do you personally think?" "I think," Lin Mo put down his cutlery, his expression serious, "it's a kind of 'forgetting.' Not physically, but in a sense of existence. What is swallowed by the rift is not destroyed, but 'forgotten'—forgotten by the world, forgotten by time, and even forgotten by itself. That's why phantoms appear; those things are still there, but they have forgotten what they are and can only imitate other existences they see."

This statement stirred something within Qian Renxue. Forgetting, erasing all traces of existence—how similar this was to the "annihilation" described by the old man. To erase an existence, annihilation must erase all traces of it in time. And the rift seemed to be an inefficient, spontaneous process of annihilation.

"Does the observation station have data on the inside of the fracture?" she asked.

“Very rare. Those who enter the rift either never come out again, or they change after they do. Not a physical change, but an existential change. They remember everything, but they feel ‘empty,’ like exquisite replicas. Moreover, all recording media brought back from the rift—photographs, videos, audio recordings—expire within three days, becoming blank. It’s as if the rift refuses to be recorded.”

Qian Renxue fell into deep thought. If the rift was indeed a manifestation of annihilation, then the way to combat it might lie hidden in the anchoring of time. If she could anchor herself firmly enough, could she also help the world anchor itself and resist being "forgotten"?
“I want to get a closer look at the fissure,” she said. “Not to go inside, just to observe it closely.”

Lin Mo frowned: "It's very dangerous. Even outside the three-kilometer safety line, long-term exposure is risky. And you'll need special permission."

"Can you arrange this for me? As part of my academic trip."

Lin Mo hesitated for a long time before finally nodding: "Okay, I owe you. But you can only go to observation point number two, which is five kilometers away. No closer. And you must follow my instructions the whole time and not do anything out of line."

"I promise."

After breakfast, Lin Mo went to arrange the formalities, while Qian Renxue went to the town library. It was a small building, but it had a rich collection of books, especially information about the Abyss Rift, which occupied three entire bookshelves.

She spent the entire morning reading. From the initial discovery records to thirty years of research papers, and various folk tales and conjectures, one fact gradually became clear: the appearance of the rifts was neither isolated nor uniform. Over the past thirty years, a total of seventeen rifts have appeared on the Douluo Continent, their distribution seemingly following a certain pattern, but the mystery remains unsolved.

What caught her attention even more was the timeline. The first rift appeared thirty years ago, approximately 9,900 years after she left the Douluo Continent timeline. Afterward, the frequency of rifts gradually increased: the second appeared twenty-five years ago, the third twenty years ago, and in the last five years alone, eight have appeared. Moreover, the expansion rate of each rift is also accelerating.

“Exponential growth,” she said, closing the research report in her hand. “If this trend continues, it may reach a tipping point in seven or eight years, not ten.”

In the afternoon, Lin Mo brought news: the permit had been issued, and we would depart for Observation Point No. 2 early tomorrow morning.

“Get a good rest tonight,” he said. “We’ll be out in the field all day tomorrow, and the observation post is poorly equipped with no supplies. Also,” he hesitated, “if you feel anything wrong there—headache, hallucinations, inexplicable sadness—tell me immediately, and we must leave right away.”

"I understand." (End of Chapter)