Beyond Heaven

Elsewhere, as Tenkai sensed the sublimation and transformation of its own concept, Zhang Qi fell into deep thought.

He could clearly feel that his existence stood at a crossroads.

One path led upward, toward the realm of "gods" he had just glimpsed;

The other led back to his original rank.

As long as he took one more step forward, he would completely break free from this world's restraints and become an existence akin to a "Magic god."

The structure of this world was rather peculiar.

If reality were compared to an infinitely expanding canvas, then the so-called "phases" were the different scenes painted onto it by artists. They overlapped with one another, jointly forming a dazzling yet complex "world."

Magic Gods were the artists who had stepped beyond the canvas, brushes in hand.

Because of this, the artists could add new content to the canvas as they pleased, using new phases to overwrite and distort existing reality.

Their ability to do this was entirely based on this world's unique structure.

The Digital World was similar. His counterpart in that world could achieve something much the same through administrator privileges.

But at its core, that relied on the vast computing power of the Yggdrasil mainframe. It was an indirect means of controlling the "canvas," not because he himself was truly that powerful.

The Magic Gods of this world were not omnipotent either.

Though they had become artists, the authority in their hands was incomplete.

They seemed only able to continuously add new scenes to the canvas—that was, add new phases to interfere with reality—yet could not easily erase or alter the canvas itself.

Moreover, once one completely left the canvas, returning was an exceedingly troublesome matter.

Becoming a Magic god meant becoming estranged from the entire real world, turning into an