Sage Li Yao crouched in a corner of a dark room, murmuring incoherently to herself. "Who am I?" she questioned herself multiple times.
"I am the Sage of Causality, Li Yao," she said.
She then clutched her head in pain.
"No, I am... I am Sect Master Li Yao," she said.
She shook her head violently.
"That’s not it either. I am... husband’s wife... yes, that’s it. My husband..."
She began screaming. "What is husband’s name again?"
She paused suddenly. "Ah, I see it now. How could I have forgotten? Senior Brother Xiang Yu," she said. She then began biting her fingers until they bled.
"What is happening to me?" she wondered aloud.
After a long while, she calmed down. "I get it now. Someone is messing with my memories," she murmured softly. "What sage? I am clearly husband’s wife. Someone is messing with my memories so I forget about husband."
Her expression twisted into something dark and menacing. "Who is it? Who dares to do this to me?"
Her aura flared violently, destroying everything around her. The world began shaking. Stars began exploding across light-years as her aura continued flaring out of control.
She stopped abruptly. "Oh no, I need to control myself. What if I destroy everything and Senior Brother happens to be there?"
She looked around at the destruction she had caused. She then smiled sweetly. "Senior Brother, I’m so strong now. I can conquer the world for you, just like we promised."
She waved her hand, recreating an elaborate castle from nothing. "It looks just like our wedding home. Senior Brother will love it," she said, giggling to herself like a young girl in love.
As she was lost in these thoughts, a holographic screen suddenly appeared before her. "What’s this?" she wondered, waving it away dismissively with her hand.
As she did so, information flowed directly into her mind.
"Meeting of sages?" she wondered aloud, then she remembered something important.
"That’s right, it’s in my false memories. Something about sages meeting once every thousand years to find a path to the Dao Realm."
She dismissed it with a wave. "I’m not a sage anyway, so why should I go?" she asked herself before pausing thoughtfully. "Sages? Could they be the ones messing with my memories?"
Her face transformed into a menacing smile. "Then I have to attend this meeting and give them all a piece of my mind," she said.
She disappeared from her position instantly, appearing in another location several billion light-years away. This wasn’t teleportation - she was simply that fast.
She looked at the location before her. It was a giant floating island suspended in space, about ten million miles across and surrounded by shimmering golden rings.
A ball of energy gathered in her palm.
She threw the ball casually toward the floating island.
A massive explosion erupted, and when everything cleared, nothing remained but empty void. Space struggling to reestablish itself.
"Sage of Causality, what is the meaning of this?" someone spoke from behind her.
She turned around slowly to come face to face with nine people - six men and three women.
"Women?" Her expression twisted with sudden rage.
"So it was you all along?" she said, her voice dripping with fury.
"What are you talking about..." one of the women began to speak, but before she could finish, cold energy spread from the Causality Sage’s hand, instantly crystallizing all three women in blocks of solid ice.
She appeared next to the crystallized ice block in an instant.
"I’ve always wanted to try this," she said in a soft voice.
"Nihility Collapse..."
...
The ice block was enveloped in dark energy and completely erased from existence, leaving no trace behind.
"You... what are you doing?" one of the remaining sages asked, his voice shaking.
"Are you insane?" another person demanded.
The six men quickly surrounded the Causality Sage, forming a defensive circle.
One of the men, seemingly the strongest of the group, looked at the Causality Sage nervously, wondering what had gotten into her.
He thought to himself that she was the eldest sage among them all.
When they had become sages, she had already been a sage for several eras.
This also meant that she was the strongest of them all, having reached the fifth path of the Sage Realm. The three women from just now had only been second path sages. With how quickly they were erased, the six of them remaining probably wouldn’t fare much better.
Two of them were at the second path like the women, three others were at the third path, and he himself was at the fourth path. Even though he was at the fourth path, the difference between minor realms at such high levels was so vast that he might as well be a mortal compared to her.
"What do I do now?" he wondered desperately.
It was then that he got an idea. Just now, the sage hadn’t used the law of causality, but rather the yin-yang law and void law. The sage was known for her mastery over the causality law. To use these different laws instead, combined with the way she was behaving, meant she wasn’t herself.
"Did you finally get taken over? I told you that method would eventually backfire on you," he said, testing his theory.
"What are you talking about?" the sage replied, looking genuinely confused.
"Hahaha, you really did get taken over! You don’t even remember what method you practice," the man laughed with growing confidence.
He smiled widely. It looked like this was going to be much easier than expected. His eyes, which had been filled with fear earlier, were now filled with greed.
He thought to himself that from what he could observe, the Sage of Causality didn’t even seem to have much understanding of the laws she had just used. She was probably using her overwhelming energy to force the laws to work through brute strength alone.
If that was the case, then she wouldn’t have her full fifth path combat power.
At best, it would be equivalent to the fourth path - just the same as him.
With this level of power, he should be able to fight her. And with the help of the others, he should be able to bring her down. His eyes gleamed with greed as he thought of all the treasures and riches accumulated by the eldest sage over countless eras.
He couldn’t control his excitement.
"Hahaha, I’ve always known this day would come," he said, his voice filled with anticipation.
"I was hoping to challenge you once I broke through to the fifth path in a few million years, but it seems I’ll have to do it early," the man declared boldly.
"If I can take you down, I’ll finally be the strongest sage," he said with growing ambition.
He quickly used voice transmission to communicate his plan to the other five sages.
Although they were nervous about confronting the Causality Sage, they agreed to his plan, knowing they didn’t have any other option.