"For what?"
The Empress smiled and shook her head, raising her hand to send the Root of Chaos in her grasp into the void.
With a thunderous boom, heaven and earth shook.
Radiance flared across the sky as the White Jade Palace rose higher and higher, instantly reaching the apex of the Myriad Realms.
"Your Majesty, come with me."
The Empress gestured with her hand, leading Li Yu out of the palace and onto the steps beyond its gates.
A verdant vine swayed its blossoms as it followed beside Li Yu onto the steps.
Standing on the steps and looking down, Li Yu saw the sight of the Myriad Realms.
It was... a flower!
An incomparably vast white lotus!
At its center was a seedpod! Nine lotus seeds grew upon it. Those seeds were precisely the nine Pearls of Origin.
Outside the seedpod grew layer upon layer of petals. There were nine layers in total.
Every petal had condensed from countless worlds and planes. Nine layers of petals, nine realms.
Each of the nine Heavenly Emperors of old had controlled one realm, which was one layer of petals.
Beneath the petals grew a green stem covered in sharp thorns. That stem was the Root of Chaos.
Beyond the lotus petals, there was also a scattered petal. Upon that scattered petal, Li Yu saw all the worlds he had experienced.
That scattered petal was the Lost Plane, the various worlds Li Yu had traveled through over the years.
"Before Heaven and Earth were born, there was only a stretch of Chaos Void within the entire Chaos Void. There was nothing else."
The Empress pointed at the World Lotus below and said to Li Yu, "One day, consciousness suddenly arose within that Chaos. Thus, the Sovereign appeared!"
"The Sovereign existed alone for