Chapter 512 |
Those words — to the mages they were almost nothing. Previously Adam and the True Spirit Mages had assumed the Primordial Heavenly Sovereign was a benevolence cleaved from demonic thought; this reversal caught them off guard, but for the most part meant only that more effort would be required to properly process the captured Super-Void limbs.
For Daoyuan, however, it was catastrophic — an overturning of his entire worldview and the destruction of the faith he had relied on.
So that was it. No wonder the Primordial remained unmoved. No wonder he allowed Daoyuan to control the True Demon torso. No wonder he didn’t strike down the Primordial Demons even when he could have. No wonder he permitted the True Demon to be reborn.
Everything Daoyuan had done, in the Primordial’s eyes, had been the antics of a vainglorious clown — tailor-made robes for another man’s ascent.
Now trapped within the True Demon body and unable even to speak, Daoyuan’s Primordial Spirit began collapsing faster and faster under the weight of that despair.
“I attempted ascension at the dawn of this epoch — and I failed. So I abandoned my original body: my Primordial Spirit severed itself and became the Primordial. I transmuted the Ancient Path into the Immortal Dao and rebuilt the Immortal Realm to replay a path of evolutionary transcendence. I divided my own energy and gave it to you, that you might be born powerful. Yet now it seems I was in error.”
The Primordial Heavenly Sovereign continued: “Your Dao has always been my Dao. Across endless ages you never once surpassed it; you didn’t even try.”
Daoyuan’s eyes went hollow. After his failed ascension all he wanted was to live — he was still at tenth-tier strength, the strongest this epoch had seen; as long as he lived, he believed he still had a chance. He thought the Primordial would devour him out of disappointment.
The Primordial shook his head. “I will not devour you. All you are now amounts to the dross I once severed from myself. Once cut off, how could I willingly refold it?”
“You exist because of me,” the Primordial added. “Your present fate is also my fault.”
Prometheus’s tone turned cold. “You intend to let him go?”
The Primordial looked back. “May I?”
“Of course not. He goes nowhere. He has no right even to die. The rest of his days will exist as experimental material for the mages.”
The Primordial fell silent for a long while, then sighed. “Very well. As you wish.”
Prometheus and the True Spirit Mages joined forces to bind Daoyuan layer by layer. Magic pierced the True Demon husk; in an instant Daoyuan was grievously injured. His Primordial Spirit tumbled down several realms and could only barely cling to a supersensory state — it was a life worse than death.
The mages did not need Daoyuan to be powerful. They only needed him to remain alive. Even if he became a mute lunatic, it would be sufficient.
After Laura took custody of Daoyuan, Prometheus said, “If this is the explanation you give the mages, it won’t be enough.”
The Primordial replied, “Of course not. From now on, Wanxiang may bind her Primordial Spirit and join the Mage civilization.”
Prometheus still shook his head. “With Daoyuan in hand, others matter less.” It was a blunt, practical truth. Wanxiang was indeed formidable, but she was still a ninth-tier Heavenly Sovereign — ultimately expendable. The mages had courted Wanxiang before thinking to use her as a wedge to split and co-opt the Immortal civilization. But now the Immortal civilization was hollow; Daoyuan’s accumulated knowledge of Immortal Dao could be written into the mages’ nameplate. What truly mattered to mages was knowledge — they did not lack fighting power.
Wanxiang, treated like cargo in their deliberations, appeared numb. She stared blankly at the Primordial, her spirit seemingly broken.
The Primordial knew this. He could catalyze so many ninth-tier lives; matched with the mage world’s aptitude, this might be feasible. Handing Wanxiang over was akin to entrusting a ward.
“What if we add the Heavenly Dao as well?” someone asked.
The Heavenly Dao — what the Primordial had intended as Wanxiang’s inheritance — could now be used as bargaining. Without it, Wanxiang would likely die; the Primordial’s next moves would be affected.
The Heavenly Dao was the concretized manifestation of the rules and capacities the Primordial had mastered. Unlike the Mage World’s origin, the Heavenly Dao resembled an artifact: it could be wielded directly or granted to a user to instantly endow them with great power. In a sense the Heavenly Dao was the crystallized knowledge of Immortal civilization and would aid the mages even more than Daoyuan’s notes.
The True Spirit Mages glanced at one another. Prometheus said, “With the Heavenly Dao included I guarantee Wanxiang and the remaining immortals live and remain intact.”
The Primordial bowed deeply to Prometheus, then laughed heartily. “Excellent! Great virtue! Primordial will ascend today as well — True Spirit Mages, please witness!”
A mighty surge exploded from the Primordial. Wanxiang was pushed far away; the True Spirit Mages also retreated.
From the Primordial’s position as center, his own domain expanded to cover ten thousand light-years in every direction, repelling all living things. At the same time innumerable Primordial simulacra descended.
Joy and sorrow, love and hatred, fear and frenzy — multitudes of beings, countless manifestations, and the embodiments of Immortal Dao’s powers: whatever the Primordial knew and imagined was severed from him and born as avatars.
He truly became lord of the domain: a single thought could birth a world, another wipe it away. Civilizations were born, evolved, and perished in instants — each distinct yet repeating endlessly.
His massive power became a torrent that coalesced into a galaxy, and he expanded the domain tenfold. The galaxy swept across the simulacra, flattening and shattering civilizations, hurling them together and grinding them apart. His Primordial Spirit grew ever purer and more ethereal — supreme detachment perfected to its extreme.
His Primordial Spirit began to radiate a transcendent light that broke the bonds of time and space and instantly shone into every corner of his domain.
It was like a supernova unleashing its final brilliance.
Then the domain shrank precipitously. The myriad simulacra’s evolutionary paths and the Ancient Path replayed in full splendour — this was the Primordial’s memory of the Third Epoch.
Civilizations dimmed one by one. Super-Void Lifeforms from the great civilizations burst forth, fought, plundered, allied, and betrayed. The weakest among them were already tenth-tier lives — each body vast enough to blot out the skies. None of these could be compared to the Daoyuan who had just fallen.
The number of Super-Void Lifeforms dwindled. The survivors’ might exceeded Adam’s comprehension; each was individually capable of destroying the present Mage civilization.
But, as Adam had guessed, they were perfectly entropic lifeforms — their individual strength accelerated the destruction of the epoch. Soon the Destruction Cataclysm descended.