"The world... has changed."
Gou Wuyue murmured as he raised a hand, as though touching the most magnificent treasure in the world.
Looking up, he saw streams of purple light cascading down from the heavens, trailing specks of starlike brilliance in a spectacle of breathtaking beauty.
It had nothing to do with self-awareness. At this moment, merely standing where he was and witnessing this sight caused insights into the Great Dao to surge forth like a tide.
All manner of realizations came flooding in.
Those former "shackles" that had once seemed hazy now felt like clouds parting to reveal the sun. Without excessive thought, he could glimpse the true meaning.
This was from the outside in.
Naturally, it also owed much to all the past efforts from the inside out.
It was like a bottle filled with water. Its inner space had originally been limited.
To keep pouring in more water, one could only compress it endlessly, increasing its mass and density, until it evolved into another, higher form.
But now, the bottle itself had suddenly expanded.
Once the bottleneck loosened, the power compressed in the past gained a new meaning: accumulated strength bursting forth at last.
The Holy Spirit Continent was the bottle, and the Great Dao rules were the water.
The cultivators of the Five Domains were the bottles, and their comprehension of the Great Dao was the water.
When Kui Leihan sacrificed himself and the Ancestor Nian Divine Network was constructed, when Dao rhythms burst forth to bless the entire world, both the world and its people underwent a qualitative transformation.
The weak had poor Perception of the Great Dao, and their gains were limited.
But those who had been stuck at the very peak of the bottleneck, suppressing themselves for who knew how long, received enormous