What if the apocalypse is just a god's careless breath? In the vast, despairing cosmos of the web novel Beyond Time's Gaze (光阴之外), this is not a philosophical question but a daily terror. The land of Wanggu (望古) Continent lives under the perpetual, silent gaze of a divine, slumbering face in the sky. Its occasional, reflexive actions—a blink, a sigh—unleash cataclysms upon the mortal world below.
Into this grim hierarchy steps Xu Qing (许青), an ostensibly ordinary youth whose existence threatens to unravel the very fabric of a system built on predation and absolute power. His journey is the story of a cosmic anomaly, a living contradiction navigating a world where gods farm immortals, and survival is an act of rebellion against universal law.
A World Built on Misunderstanding
The universe of Beyond Time's Gaze originated from a single beam of light, which expanded into the Primordial Sea—a reservoir of fundamental energy. At its heart lies the primal mother star, with energy radiating outward to form 36 distinct star rings, layered like celestial bracelets. The upper rings, known as the Ascendant Soul Rings, are the domain of the Shenling (神灵), beings who seek to devour and accumulate divine essence. The lower rings, the Descendant Soul Rings, house the Wanggu Continent and its Xianren (仙人), cultivators who strive to comprehend and command the natural rules and the Heavenly Dao.
These two systems are fundamentally incompatible. To the Shenling (神灵), the Xianren are nourishing sustenance. To the Xianren, the Shenling represent a corrupting, toxic force; contact leads to madness or monstrous transformation. At the apex of this structure lies the ultimate goal for all powerful Shenling: the Divine Umbilical Cord, a gateway to the higher realm known as Shenmingjie (神明界). The colossal, somber face hanging over Wanggu Continent, known as The Visage, is the remnant of a supremely powerful Shenling named Shanghuang (上荒). He failed in his ascension attempt, his body disintegrated, leaving only this countenance and lingering aura suspended above the Ninth Star Ring.
His periodic, devastating interventions upon the continent are not acts of malice, but of impersonal reconstruction. When The Visage stirs, attempting to reconstitute its shattered form, the resulting fallout is apocalyptic for Wanggu. Yet, from its perspective, this is no different from a human walking and inadvertently crushing an anthill. The destruction is a byproduct of cosmic scale, a chilling indifference rooted in the absolute disparity of existential rank. The continent is merely a farm; its inhabitants, ripe for periodic harvest.
The Flaw in the System
In such a world, where deities reign supreme and mortals are but grass, the rise of Xu Qing is an impossibility. His secret lies in a piece of purple crystal embedded in his chest. Initially seeming a simple tool for healing and resisting corruption, it reveals a far greater purpose: it can absorb and neutralize the divine pollution that drives others mad, and even resonate with The Visage itself. This makes him a unique entity, capable of surviving where others would perish.
Xu Qing's survival and growth are not accidental; he is a pivotal piece in a game between supreme wills. One player is Prince Ziqing (紫青), the earthly agent of The Visage's will, who has schemed for millennia to replace the Gods and seize divinity for himself. The other, more formidable force is within Xu Qing. Deep within his soul lies a mysterious corridor leading to countless doors and an empty chair, upon which sits the residual will of an ancient powerhouse named Sique.
Sique, who fell just half a step short of achieving divinity, used the moment of a god's regression to send a sliver of his own possibility into the future—into Xu Qing. This legacy provides a different path. While The Visage's path involved parasitism and usurpation, Sique's (司缺) chosen method was to shatter all established rules. Xu Qing thus becomes the vessel for this unprecedented experiment.
The Hybrid Path
What makes Xu Qing truly formidable is his dual cultivation. He walks both the path of the Xian, mastering its rules and wielding its power of "Xian" (宪, often representing cosmic law or mandate), and refines the body of a Shen. When divine power tries to assimilate him, he uses Xian principles to lock down its authority. When immortal energies attempt to reject him, his Shen-hardened physique withstands the assault. These two opposing forces, like water and fire to all others, find a paradoxical synergy within him.
He is neither pure Xian nor pure Shen, but a unique hybrid—a product of the violent collision and forced fusion of the two supreme cosmic systems. He is not a chosen one blessed by heaven, but a disruptor of the old order. The gods seek to destroy Wanggu Continent to maintain their own survival cycles; Xu Qing exists to break those cycles entirely. His presence is a glitch in the system, an unknown variable that introduces infinite possibility into a rigidly predetermined hierarchy.
In the novel's culmination, Xu Qing merges these dual powers, transcends dimensional boundaries, and ventures beyond the river of time itself in pursuit of a realm known as Xiyi (希夷). From this vantage, the gods' destruction, however cruel, is a comprehensible natural disaster, part of the universe's ecological rhythm. Xu Qing's rebellion, however, is a supernatural revolt. For the entrenched sovereigns gazing down from their celestial perches, nothing is more terrifying than a flaw that cannot be controlled, a possibility they cannot foresee—the birth of something entirely new from the ashes of their design.
