Star Odyssey

Chapter 4421: Above One's Level

Half a year later, Ancient God emerged from the megaverse. As everyone stared at him, it was clear that his entire condition had changed. He had become far more sharper and imposing.

Garan Zhiluo exclaimed, "Musclehead, now this is how I remember you!"

Chu Yi laughed loudly. "Congratulations, Musclehead! You're the first of us to break into Immortality, succeeding before even Master."

Ancestor Lu Yuan arrogantly spat, "But don't get cocky! We'll catch up to you soon enough."

Ancient God stated, "I'm not the first."

Everyone was taken aback. As Lu Yin stared at Ancient God, the images of the God of Death and Destiny appeared in his mind.

Ancient God continued, "No one knows what really became of Blackie or Lassy. One faked his death and vanished, while the other disappeared outright to scheme against time. They may already be Immortals."

Chu Yi frowned. "Lassy might not be. If she were already an Immortal, she would have been able to handle everything in the Tianyuan and wouldn’t have needed to be cautious of Master Qing Cao."

After that, he said no more.

Lu Yin did not know where the God of Death had gone, but Destiny had indeed left behind a contingency plan, just not within the Tianyuan.

Whether Destiny had broken through to the Immortal realm or now could not be judged solely by that, because Obscura’s Keeper of Balance was still hiding within the Tianyuan. Their presence alone was enough to make everyone wary.

Master Qing Cao had not been the only thing holding Destiny back.

In high spirits, Lu Yin said, "Let's go. Senior, your breakthrough is a great blessing for all of humanity. It's time to announce this good news to everyone."

Very soon, the entire human civilization was in an uproar. Ancient God's breakthrough to the Immortal realm was a tremendous encouragement to humanity. After all, they had recently suffered an attack from the Plume Immortals, forcing Greater Sancte Green Lotus to seal himself away. Kang Tian had also died, which had cast a shadow over many people. Ancient God's breakthrough managed to lighten that shadow.

In particular, with the consequential spread of battle force, countless people suddenly saw hope of being able to break into the Immortal realm. Transforming battle force into Lifeforce could be a key point for a successful breakthrough. After so many years, humanity had finally reached a turning point. No matter how difficult this method might be, it was still better than having no hope at all.

At once, the entire human civilization was stirred up, and countless people started searching for ways to cultivate battle force.

Compared to the excitement of the lower cultivators, Blood Tower and the other top powerhouses were much calmer. "We always believed that an Immortal breakthrough was limited by a given era. If one person in an era succeeded, then a second person would fail. That is why so many geniuses were put to sleep in the Scion Spire. Looking back now, we were overly worried."

The Scion Spire was where the Nine Odysseys Megaverse’s most gifted prodigies were put to slumber because someone else in their era had attempted to break into the Immortal realm.

For example, in the current era, people had been placed into the Scion Spire because of Ku Deng.

But someone’s chances of breaking into the Immortal realm did not actually depend on how many other people had tried it in that era. The Immortal realm had no restrictions tied to a given era. If there were any restrictions, it lay in the method used and one’s path.

Breaking through to the Immortal realm had always required both an individual’s own ability and an opportunity. Neither could be lacking.

Blood Tower and the others had not been entirely wrong; luck was something that no one could truly explain.

Perhaps if one person in a generation broke through, it exhausted the luck of their generation, leaving no chance for others.

Lu Yin had seen luck with his own eyes. Qian Shu was still in a Zenith Mountain, and with him, Lu Yin had no choice but to believe in such a thing.

He said, "Senior Ancient God isn’t really from this current era. He is far older and has accumulated enough."

Awe Gate looked at Ancient God. "Congratulations."

Mister Mu burst out laughing.

Ba Yue examined Ancient God in amazement. Although the man had only just broken through, she could already feel some degree of pressure from him. He was clearly no weakling.

The joy brought about by Ancient God's breakthrough did not subside until after more than half a month. At that moment, Lu Yin set out to search for other cosmic civilizations.

For years, Ancestor Lu Yuan and others had discovered a number of megaverses while working on their star chart. Lu Yin now needed to search through them one by one, check on their Mother Trees, and absorb the green motes of light whenever possible.

Back when he had first stepped out of the Tianyuan, how could he have imagined that the three human megaverses were actually so close to each other, or that the unfathomable Aevum Inch could even be mapped?

He wondered just how vast the star chart that Obscura’s Black possessed was.

***

In another megaverse, a fine drizzle fell from a dim sky. Thick storm clouds pressed down upon heaven and earth, weighing heavily on one’s heart. Thunder boomed from time to time, but this world seemed long accustomed to it. Even when lightning struck straight down and shattered a mountain peak, it caused little reaction.

The Mother Tree here had long since become riddled with holes. Enormous scars crisscrossed its body, looking like ropes tied around it. In fact, there really were ropes around its trunk. It was not just one, but rather countless ropes. At the other ends of the ropes were what looked to be millstones, and they pulled the ropes as they slowly circled around the Mother Tree.

These millstones moved very slowly, relative to the Mother Tree, but for the creatures that were pushing them, their pace equated to their entire lifetime. Depending on the strength and cultivation of each being, the force that they could exert on the millstones varied, as did how long they could keep pushing.

Stronger beings could push harder and for longer periods of time. Weaker ones would die after spending their whole lives pushing. Most creatures failed to complete even a full circuit around the Mother Tree. Given the size of the tree and the length of the ropes, one circuit took up most of the creatures' entire lives.

This was a cosmic civilization within a megaverse, and it was one of the strangest that Lu Yin had ever seen. Why were they all pushing millstones?

Lu Yin peered into the distance. Throughout the entire universe, there were hundreds of millstones, large and small, and they were all being pushed by the inhabitants of the universe. Whether they were sapient or not, all of them were pushing.

Many of the creatures would even commit suicide in despair once they were no longer able to push their millstone.

Lu Yin could not understand what he was seeing. He had come here to absorb the green motes of light from the Mother Tree. If he did so, the Mother Tree would be reduced to ash, and those ropes would have nothing to wrap around. It would completely shatter the ecosystem of this megaverse.

He did not particularly care about that. Even resetting this megaverse would not disturb him much, given his current mental state. The wall in his heart consisted of both white and black bricks. He was not a merciful person, only another creature struggling to survive in the Aevum Inch, and in the scale of the Aevum Inch, his influence was pitifully small.

It was not his place to be merciful.

Still, he wanted to clearly understand this megaverse. Something about the scene before him felt wrong.

After some time, Lu Yin understood. The act of pushing millstones had a very long history in this megaverse. When traced back to its origins, all of the creatures were obeying the commands of a god.

That god had ordered them to push millstones to maintain the operation of the megaverse. That god had told them that, if the millstones stopped moving, their entire megaverse would collapse and all life would die. It was that god who had granted them life, and their millstones maintained the basic operations of the megaverse, so they needed to keep pushing them.

The creatures who were no longer able to push their millstones killed themselves for two reasons; first, it was because they felt their failure was shameful, as though their life no longer had meaning once they could no longer push a stone. Second, they did not want to increase the burden on their megaverse.

The more living creatures in the megaverse, the greater the need to push the millstones. Thus, every creature needed to push. If they did not, they had to die, as they would otherwise only increase the burden on those who could still move.

In this megaverse, the millstones were regarded as the fundamental reason why the megaverse kept functioning.

Was it laughable? Some being calling themself a god had explained the mystery of existence to this megaverse, and all of the creatures had believed them without question.

It was not laughable. At least, Lu Yin did not find it laughable. He understood that the “god” was deliberately playing with that “god” could see this megaverse clearly. But what if one could not see the truth clearly? For example, what if one had no understanding of the Aevum Inch itself?

Who could explain to these creatures how the Aevum Inch itself operated? Perhaps even the reasonable explanations of humanity’s own understanding of the cosmos were merely jokes, or even a mockery, of some greater existence.

What appeared laughable in the words or actions of others was based solely on what distance they stood above them.

Perhaps humanity itself also maintained some absurd behavior just like these creatures who believed that their actions kept the megaverse going, all while having no clear understanding of the truth of the cosmos.

At that thought, Lu Yin was once again reminded of the scene that he had witnessed after destroying the Plume Immortals' great tree. He had seen an incomparably enormous Mother Tree that covered the endless Aevum Inch, a great flowing river, and many other things that he still could not understand.

Taking a deep breath, Lu Yin stopped dwelling on that matter. At this moment, he was mostly curious about what kind of creature that “god” was. To lay out a scheme that covered an entire megaverse, they had to at least be a peak Dukkhan.

He continued investigating the rest of the megaverse. After some more time passed, he teleported outside. With one last backward glance from a distance, he left.

He could not touch that megaverse for the time being, because their “god” was from the Divine Realm.

That was right, the Divine Realm. The name sounded just as absurd as the idea of pushing millstones to maintain a megaverse, and yet it was a fishing civilization.

The Divine Realm was also the only fishing civilization that lay within 1,000 years' travel from the Trio as it was the one that Obscura had informed Lu Yin about. He had obtained all the information related to this civilization as a reward for completing a five-star mission. He had thought that he would only come into contact with the civilization after a very long time, only for it to happen soon.

The Law of Laws was the Divine Realm’s absolute means as a fishing civilization. They believed that all things followed cosmic laws, and even creatures that broke into the Immortal realm had to align with cosmic laws. If that was true, then was that not itself a cosmic law?

Extending from that, they had created an absolute means: the Law of Laws. It embodied the concept that all things in existence had to align with cosmic laws, and they imposed laws upon everything under their control, especially upon themselves. After reaching the level of a Progenitor, they also possessed something similar to a Progenitor’s world. By setting the laws of those worlds and making the beings within them operate according to those laws, they could continuously expand those laws until they fused with the Aevum Inch itself, thus achieving a pseudo form of Immortality.

This method was actually similar to Ancient God's own breakthrough into the Immortal realm, which he had accomplished by transforming his battle force into Lifeforce.

Under normal circumstances, Ancient God should have failed his breakthrough, but because he had transformed his battle force, he had succeeded in igniting the Lifeforce within him and successfully stepped into the Immortal realm. It was a case of obtaining results first and then completing the process.

The Divine Realm's absolute means worked similarly; they first created a law that aligned with the cosmos through their absolute means. Then, they used that cosmic law to activate Immortal matter and achieve a level of strength comparable to Immortals. That was why it was considered pseudo-Immortality.

However, these pseudo-Immortals were not true Immortals. They were not able to produce endless Lifeforce, so they were closer to Aberrants.

In other words, by resonating with a cosmic law and Immortal matter, they achieved a level of strength comparable to ordinary Immortals.

Of course, they did not see things that way. They believed that, once the cosmic law they created fused with the Aevum Inch, they truly entered the Immortal realm. That was why their civilization had fifteen Divine Seats, and anyone who succeeded in becoming an Immortal through their method could ascend to one of those seats.

Fifteen was the greatest number of immortals that Lu Yin had ever seen in a single civilization. To say that the Divine Realm did not have that many Immortals would be wrong because their pseudo-Immortals were truly able to contend with ordinary Immortals. But calling them Immortals was also incorrect because they did not have an endless supply of Lifeforce.

And yet it was also inaccurate to call them Aberrants because they did have karmic chains.