The World's Origin

While the Calamity Behemoths rampaged across the world, Zhu Shen had already located the Gaia Consciousness of the Parasyte World.

The Gaia Consciousness—or, in other words, the planetary will of the Parasyte World—existed in another Warp within this world, just as Zhu Shen did.

It could also be described as the subconscious ocean of all intelligent life on the planet.

Zhu Shen had absorbed a great deal of the Parasyte World's karma through the Reincarnators, and his essence was also that of a planetary will. On top of that, the Parasyte World's karma was in chaos. In the language of immortal cultivation, the heavenly secrets were in disarray and a great calamity had arrived. As a result, the subconscious ocean—which under normal circumstances should have been completely hidden—was now within Zhu Shen's reach.

Zhu Shen had already gathered all the parts of his descending will into his Ten-Tails clone. He raised one hand, and a black hole opened in space. With a light step, he entered the planet's subconscious ocean.

It was a hazy gray space, with no sky above and no underworld below. The whole expanse resembled some unknown, boundless ocean.

The waters flowing through it were no ordinary seawater. They were the subconscious minds of the countless living beings on the planet.

These subconscious thoughts contained benevolence, malice, obsession, and every other emotion and desire. An ordinary person who caught even a glimpse would be struck senseless by the countless thoughts within.

None of it could shake Zhu Shen's mind in the slightest.

With a single stride, he crossed the distance and arrived at the highest point of the subconscious space. A gigantic "sun" hung high above, illuminating the entire expanse. This was the world's origin!

The world's origin resembled a ball of light, like a star that gave off no heat. Chaos filled its interior. At times, it reflected the myriad wonders of the world in a dazzling array of colors; at others, it revealed the formless, intangible, nameless principles of the universe, leaving one dazzled and entranced.

Zhu Shen suppressed his excitement. By now, he knew the world's origin was already his.

The Calamity Behemoths were being slowly wiped out, and the Gaia Consciousness's final counterattack had come to nothing.

Although this was its home ground, someone had already entered its lair. It was obvious how weak it had become.

The Gaia Consciousness dwelled in the subconscious ocean below. No matter how fiercely it stirred the waters or launched its mental attacks, Zhu Shen suppressed everything with a flip of his hand!

At this point, however, Zhu Shen had become half the master of this space.

Its own consciousness, on the other hand, grew ever more muddled and helpless. It could only let Zhu Shen do as he pleased.

Zhu Shen now had two choices before him:

The first was to devour the world's origin completely and make it his own. He would gain a massive amount of karma all at once, then leave this world.

Deprived of its origin and its dwindling karma, this world would soon face irreversible decline. Perhaps there would be a mass extinction, an asteroid impact, or some other apocalyptic disaster. Whatever the cause, once the world's origin was gone, none of its lower-level life forms could survive. The planet would slowly become a dead world, until this small universe gradually perished...

The second choice was to connect the Main God Space's karma to that of the Parasyte World. That would be like stamping it with his will, assimilating it and making it part of himself, while leaving the world's origin in place.

This would yield far fewer points than the first option, but it would preserve hope for the beings of this world.

The world's origin and karma would remain, and the planet would continue to turn. Whenever a remarkable talent emerged, or the world's technology advanced and civilization developed, the resulting karma would flow back to Zhu Shen.

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhu Shen chose the second option.

After all, this was the karma of an entire world. Sustainable growth was the way to go.

He suspected that among the myriad worlds, there must be all sorts of gods and demons who destroyed planets and refined universes for their own use. But that was not his path.

More importantly, a world could serve as a base. How many Reincarnators could he recruit from it?

And how much could they bring him as they battled across the myriad worlds?

How much karma could a world's own strength generate? Building a powerful Main God Space that could steadily accumulate karma and strengthen him—that was the path he intended to follow!

Perhaps there were similar organizations that simply destroyed and plundered the myriad worlds, but that was surely a path that would make enemies of everyone.

All Zhu Shen wanted was to develop quietly and grow stronger. Once he was powerful enough, perhaps he could find a way back—or uncover some of the truth...

Returning his thoughts to the situation at hand, Zhu Shen imprinted his origin will upon the world's origin and received a system notification:

[The origin of the Parasyte World has been brought under your control. You have gained a massive amount of karma, for a total of 500,000 points!

Ding!

A perfect S-rank rare item, "Law Fragment," has been detected!]

A Law Fragment? What was that? Zhu Shen curiously drew it out.

A strange, chaotic aura floated quietly above Zhu Shen's palm, like a tiny streak of white stars.

When Zhu Shen immersed his spiritual will in it, he understood the importance of the Law Fragment.

A Law Fragment—or, more accurately, a fragment containing a trace of the universe's origin laws.

According to the Main God Space's classification of realms, the fourth tier was the Rule Realm, while the fifth was the Law Realm.

Rules were the basic principles that governed how all things operated in each universe (note that each "universe" here meant a world, such as the Ninja World or the One Piece World).

Laws, by contrast, were the foundations that made up a universe. Beneath the laws, they manifested as countless rules.

The various laws that ordinary people often created, such as economic laws and the law of the jungle, merely borrowed the name.

To use a human legal system as an analogy, laws were like each country's constitution, the fundamental law of that world.

Rules were like specific codes, such as civil and criminal law.

In other words, rules operated beneath laws, while laws stood above rules.

Every country had its own laws, just as every world had its own laws.

What about the origin laws? They were like international law, something every country had to obey—in other words, laws that applied throughout the myriad worlds. Different cosmic civilizations called them different things: the Way of Heaven, the Creator, Yahweh, and so on.

Laws were the fundamental principles of the universe that fifth-tier beings first began to touch. Origin laws were even more fundamental, and could only be comprehended at the sixth tier. Although this was merely a tiny fragment, containing less than one hundred-millionth of an origin law, its level was extraordinarily high.

The Quantum Control Zhu Shen had exchanged for earlier was actually an ability based on quantum rules. If he continued cultivating and comprehending them, and advanced his understanding of quantum rules to the level of laws or even origin laws, he would become an undying and indestructible being.

By then, he would be free to travel throughout the myriad worlds without worrying about anyone scheming against him. He would truly live up to the title of Main God.

The Law Fragment Zhu Shen held now contained the law of [Cell].

It allowed him to control the division, evolution, potential, and other aspects of the cells in flesh-and-blood life forms. It was exceptionally powerful against such beings.

Its obvious limitation was that it was far less effective against non-flesh-and-blood life forms, such as energy beings and mechanical beings.

Although Zhu Shen's essence was similar to a soul or will, and his only body at present was the Ten-Tails clone, there was no doubt that this Cell Law Fragment would be of immense use in any bodies he acquired in the future. So he absorbed it without hesitation.

The instant he absorbed the Law Fragment, Zhu Shen's soul seemed to travel across a river system made up of countless universes, arriving at a mysterious place in the Origin Universe Sea.

It was an extraordinary dimension: countless spherical universes, some dazzling and others dark and chaotic, intertwined. Some resembled writhing Black Mud, others were like rotting flesh, while still others were normal, roughly spherical universes.

Among this vast, boundless collection of universes was a strange, indescribable entity, existing in a parallel space alongside countless bizarre universes. A swath of chaotic darkness enveloped it, and its whole form resembled a vast, roiling mass of black clouds, decaying and collapsing. Looking closely, it was a gigantic chunk of flesh like a black cloud.

It had countless enormous tentacles and gaping mouths dripping with slime. Combined with a body so immense that even the universe could not compare, a single glance from it across the endless void was enough to make Zhu Shen feel as though his soul had frozen!

Yet this being of such exalted stature seemed completely unaware. It paid no attention to the gaze reaching it from another universe far away, and merely continued to spawn, by instinct, one hideous lump of flesh after another...

[Ding!

The system has detected an invasion of foreign energy. Emergency defense protocol has been activated automatically!

Beep! 100,000 points have been deducted to eliminate an unknown memetic contamination.]

A feeling of clarity spread from deep within his soul through his entire body.

Zhu Shen abruptly came back to himself. He paused for a moment, then realized what had happened and immediately felt a deep, lingering dread.

There was no mistake! That bizarre form, that appearance no one could look upon, that most uncanny existence in the mystical universe... No. He couldn't think about it!

Even though the system had eliminated the contamination, Zhu Shen still forced himself to drive the thought from his mind.

If he kept thinking about it, he felt his body would turn into a tentacle monster—or some indescribable mass of rotting flesh.

He gave a bitter laugh. He hadn't expected that absorbing the origin of an ordinary C-rank world would yield an S-rank origin Law Fragment. Even more absurdly, the fragment had pointed to a high-ranking being from the Cthulhu civilization.

What an unexpected turn of events. Still, that Outer God probably had no interest in doing anything.

After all, its only pleasure was giving birth to life. Everything else seemed to have nothing to do with it; it simply didn't care. That included even the life forms it had given birth to, let alone an origin Law Fragment separated from it by an unknown number of universes.

Even if it noticed and sent one of its offspring or something, Zhu Shen still wouldn't back down. If he kept yielding and cowering throughout the myriad worlds, how could he pursue his own path?

After the world's origin was assimilated, the storm in the subconscious ocean gradually subsided. Like the rain finally passing and the sky clearing, the entire space slowly grew calm.

The Gaia Consciousness was no longer violent. Instead, it developed a faint sense of dependence and acceptance toward him.

Once he confirmed he had fully taken control of the Parasyte World, Zhu Shen let out a long breath.

It had taken so much time and effort just to claim a D-rank world. The path to becoming the Main God of the myriad worlds wouldn't be easy!

[System notification:

Because the host's essence is the same as a world consciousness, descending in person will provoke fierce resistance from the consciousness of the world you enter.

If only Reincarnators descend, or if you send a clone to perform the final step of reclaiming the world's origin, the difficulty will be greatly reduced!]

Hearing the system's helpful explanation, Zhu Shen's eyes lit up. Right, he could send Reincarnators! If the main missions went smoothly in the early and middle stages, and the karma they absorbed reached the threshold, he could issue a world mission and have the Reincarnators reclaim the world's origin. Their lives and deaths were in his hands, so he didn't have to worry about them failing to complete the mission.

Otherwise, if he had to act every time it came to absorbing a world's origin, the myriad worlds would wear him to death. From now on, sending Reincarnators—tools, basically—was the right way to go!

At that thought, Zhu Shen wanted to return to the Ninja World's Origin Space and settle in there again.

For a seasoned homebody like him, this trip out had been a real treat. After being cooped up for who knew how long, it felt great to relax again.

But just like after a trip in his previous life, once the relaxation was over, he was hit by a wave of mental fatigue. He just wanted to go home, lie on his bed, play on his phone, or sleep. When he felt refreshed again, he could head out whenever he wanted.

Besides, he had already marked the locations of several worlds and hadn't visited them yet!

[Ding!

The first assimilation of a world's origin has granted the system advanced energy. The number of worlds that can be located has increased by 10. Worlds currently located: 6/20]

Huh? The system could be upgraded too? Zhu Shen was surprised.

"What is advanced energy?" Zhu Shen asked.

[Based on available data, when Reincarnators change the established plot and fate of a world, the sub-system distributed to them (the Reincarnator Assistant System) automatically absorbs energy, also known as points. This type of energy is classified as low-level energy.

When a world's origin is assimilated or absorbed, the resulting energy is classified as advanced energy.

Advanced energy can be used in place of low-level energy and can also strengthen the system's functions.]

Strengthen the system's functions? Zhu Shen rubbed his chin. The system really only had two functions: world travel and the manifestation of imagination.

All the power of the Main God Space came from them.

If these were also two laws, then did obtaining a world's origin fill in the missing pieces of those laws?

Zhu Shen had a vague feeling that his guess was very close to the truth.

But if they really were two laws, why had they become a system and turned into his cheat? Could there be someone behind it all?

[The host is this system's first-generation host. There is insufficient information to answer questions about the system's origin.]

What a headache. If he couldn't figure it out, he wouldn't think about it. Zhu Shen was broad-minded, after all. Whatever the reason, he would simply follow his own path!

Having thought it through, Zhu Shen felt much more at ease.

He settled down and reviewed what he had gained from this trip. After accounting for the two A-rank abilities he had exchanged, the points from reclaiming the world's origin had barely covered the cost. And if he included the unexpected memetic contamination and the mission rewards he had given the Reincarnators, he had really taken a huge loss!

The thought made his heart ache. He could only console himself:

It's fine, it's fine. The system has been upgraded, the Law Fragment is priceless, and controlling a D-rank world has plenty of benefits...

With everything accounted for, Zhu Shen took a single step and returned to the real world of the Parasyte World.