"You understand? Understand what?"
Tai Yi, Zhen Yuanzi, and Minghe, three of the Prehistoric World's foremost great powers, spoke almost at the same time, their faces full of bewilderment.
The sense of disappointment and finality that had just spread through the hall was instantly shattered by Lu Jun's sudden certainty.
The three great powers all fixed their gazes on Lu Jun, as though they wished to see through him.
A trace of imperceptible contempt and mockery flashed through Minghe's scarlet eyes.
Even beings like them had concluded that this path was impassable. So what if a mere Grand Unity Immortal had successfully achieved Nirvana?
What could he possibly understand?
It was nothing more than youthful pride, an unwillingness to admit defeat.
He had lived through countless Eons and seen far too many people whose ambitions reached the heavens while their fates were thinner than paper.
Zhen Yuanzi also furrowed his brow slightly, stroking his long beard with rational scrutiny in his eyes, along with a hint of indescribable doubt.
He believed Lu Jun possessed extraordinary qualities, but the Path of Incarnating Billions involved the splitting of one's origin, the convergence of Timelines, the expansion of vessels... Its difficulty was simply heaven-defying!
Even Minghe had only "fortunately" achieved his innate divine ability by relying on the Blood Sea's favorable circumstances and his own obsession.
What direction could Lu Jun's "understanding" possibly point toward?
Could he have found some alternative method?
But how could an alternative method compare to the ambition of "One Attainment, Eternal Attainment"?
Only Tai Yi, after his initial astonishment, had a faint flame of expectation ignite deep within his Golden Eyes, like a great sun furnace.
It was so faint that even he himself had not fully noticed it...
He understood this nephew of his who had returned from Nirvana. Beneath that Taotie-like devouring instinct lay a resilience far beyond reason and... an unfathomable mystery!
The true meaning of Nirvana... Chaos Origin... Perhaps he had truly glimpsed something?
"Lu Jun, my nephew," Tai Yi said, with a trace of barely perceptible urgency in his voice. "What do you understand? Tell us."
Lu Jun did not answer at once. His gaze slowly swept across the three great powers before finally settling on Tai Yi.
His eyes were calm to the point of profundity, as though that earthshaking declaration of "understanding" had not been a moment of impulse.
"Whether it will work," Lu Jun said softly, his voice nevertheless echoing clearly through the silent hall, "I'll know once I try."
The moment his words fell, Lu Jun's body abruptly transformed into a dazzling streak of golden light.
Like an arrow that tore through space, he instantly shot through the gates of the Sun God Palace and streaked toward the boundless starry sky!
"Hm?" The three great powers were all taken aback.
"Follow him!" Tai Yi reacted first. The phantom of the Chaos Bell flashed, and he vanished from where he stood.
Zhen Yuanzi and Minghe exchanged a glance, each seeing uncertainty and alarm in the other's eyes.
What was that boy up to?
But in the end, curiosity overcame all else. The two moved, turning into two streams of light as they gave chase.
Their speed was incomparably swift. In an instant, they had left the blazing domain of the Sun Star's radiance.
They arrived at a deeper, loftier place—the boundary between the Great Desolation World and the Chaos World!
This place was even higher than the Thirty-three Heavens!
Countless stars, some bright and some dim, some large and some small, hung high above like cold gems embedded in the endless night, exuding an ancient, desolate aura.
Violent Chaos Qi surged in from beyond the boundary like invisible tides, battering against the Great Desolation World's membrane.
Those stars were the Great Desolation World's feelers reaching into Chaos.
They greedily devoured the Chaos Qi, converting it into relatively gentle Star Power before scattering it across the Prehistoric World to nourish all things.
At the same time, they silently drove the Great Desolation World's gradual expansion.
The energy here was chaotic and violent, the spatial structure bizarre, and one had to constantly endure the invasion of disorderly Chaos power. Thus, most living beings rarely ventured here.
The three great powers followed closely behind Lu Jun, watching him constantly weave through this boundary region, the cradle of stars.
He moved at incredible speed. At times, he approached a massive, ancient star that had long since taken shape, circling it for a moment as his powerful Divine Sense seemed to scan every detail of the star.
At other times, he swept over sparse nebular dust, his sharp gaze searching for star cores that might be gestating within.
Yet more often, he lingered in areas of "Star Eggs" that had yet to take shape, where energy fluctuations were weak and nearly drowned by the Chaos Gas Flow.
"What is he doing?"
Minghe's brows were tightly drawn, his blood-red robe snapping in the turbulent Chaos Gas Flow.
He could not make sense of Lu Jun's actions at all.
Was he searching for a suitable star to serve as a Dao Field?
But most of the stars here were either barren and dead or violent and chaotic, far inferior to an Innate Star like the Sun Star.
Was he looking for Chaos Spiritual Materials?
That did not seem right either. His Divine Sense scans carried a particular sense of purpose.
"I don't know, but he certainly seems to have a goal."
Zhen Yuanzi held the Book of the Earth in his palm. Its pages turned without wind, giving off a hazy yellow glow as it attempted to sense the flow of earth-vein and star power in this special region.
But this place was already close to Chaos. The Great Desolation World's earth veins extended here only faintly and chaotically, greatly interfering with his perception.
Tai Yi remained silent, his gaze tightly fixed on Lu Jun's figure.
The phantom of the Chaos Bell flickered around him, shielding him from the erosion of the violent Chaos Gas Flow.
A vague guess had formed in his heart, but he did not dare to be certain.
At last, Lu Jun came to a stop in an area where the Chaos Gas Flow was relatively calm.
Before him floated an... exceedingly tiny, exceedingly dim point of light.
It could not even be called a "star." It was more like a core of primordial nebular dust that had only just condensed and had yet to ignite a star core.
It was extraordinarily fragile, trembling slightly beneath the washing Chaos Gas Flow, as though it would completely collapse and return to Chaos the very next moment.
The energy it contained was so weak that it could almost be ignored. Had Lu Jun not stopped precisely before it, even the three great powers would have found it difficult to notice its existence against the vast backdrop of Chaos.
This was a true "Star Egg," still in its embryonic stage of gestation!
"Why did he stop here?" Minghe was even more puzzled.
"There are countless Star Eggs like this at the Great Desolation Edge. Ninety-nine percent will be extinguished by the Chaos Gas Flow. Even those that form will only become the lowest-grade Fragmented Stars, utterly worthless..."
But within Lu Jun's sea of consciousness, a tempest was raging!
The system's voice echoed without cease!
[Detected: Within this star's (host's) Gravitational Field range exists an unformed Star Embryo. Host, please immediately select a course of action:] [Option One: Accretion!] [Activate the host's core Gravitational Field to forcibly draw in this unformed Star Embryo's energy and material origin, strengthening yourself.] [Reward: Barely worth mentioning; gain control over some of its as-yet-unformed Great Dao laws.] [Option Two: Empowerment!] [Use this system's special protocol, consuming part of the host's energy to help this unformed star undergo Star Evolution until it takes shape.] [The host may choose to grant part of their origin to it, personally intervening in its growth at all times.] [Reward: During future evolution of stars of the same type, the host's origin will split autonomously without loss. Every star shall contain the host's origin.] [Option Three: Indifference!] [Ignore this unformed Star Embryo and allow it to evolve on its own.] [Reward: None]
Just as I thought. The Star Evolution System really would make this kind of judgment.
Before you continue