Black-and-white light intertwined as a pillar, ripping through the thick layers of earth and surging out of the Earth Core Secret Realm, straight toward the highest heavens.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, nor any immense pressure that shook the cosmos. Yet this seemingly ordinary beam carried a strange rhythm that transcended the rules of the Heavens and shut out the origin of Chaos. Wherever it passed, the Seven-Colored Divine Radiance pouring down from the sky instantly froze. The Supreme's enormous palm, which had suppressed ten thousand miles of sky and locked onto the entire Earth, halted in midair, unable to descend even a fraction further.
The overwhelming force of destruction between heaven and earth abruptly broke off.
The suffocating, despairing silence was completely shattered by this wisp of black-and-white light.
Above the firmament, the Seven-Colored Supreme Avatar who had stepped through the dimensional rift shuddered. For the first time, a storm of shock erupted in his indifferent, merciless divine eyes, filled with incredulous fury and wariness.
"The power to reverse rules... This is the source of balance sealed away since ancient times!"
His cold shout shook the dimensional barriers, carrying the terror of one from the highest echelons of the Heavens.
Billions of years had passed, and the Heavens had long since assumed that every trump card in this universe had been sealed away and left to decay, with the remaining power utterly insignificant. Even if the Realm Overlord awoke, he would be no more than a dying ember, incapable of stirring up any waves. Yet the black-and-white beam bursting from the secret realm was unmistakably the Balance Dao Rules, which had vanished completely during the ancient war.
The Heavens belonged to yang, wielding judgment, order, plunder, and control.
Chaos belonged to yin, wielding annihilation, collapse, devouring, and disorder.
And this black-and-white power was the only ultimate force capable of suppressing yin and yang, balancing the Heavens and Chaos, and standing apart from the rules of the multiverse.
On the other side of the void, the Chaos King, who had watched coldly all along, trembled as his immense, boundless shadow of darkness churned violently. Extreme wariness showed in his hollow eyes, and his unchanging indifference of billions of years finally crumbled.
"Impossible... How could the ancient sages have left behind a source of power of this level?"
His low, hoarse roar resounded across heaven and earth. The source of Chaos instinctively shrank back in a frenzy, and the dark fog that had already been unsealed and spread out, about to swallow the surrounding lands, actually avoided the area shrouded by the black-and-white beam.
Chaos was born of disorder and feared balance most. The Heavens stood upon rules and feared being checked by disorder.
This wisp of light emerging from the secret realm happened to counter the fundamental foundations of the two supreme powers.
High above the ground, Kallen, Frieza, and Golden Super Saiyan all felt their bodies relax as the suffocating pressure bearing down on their souls and flesh suddenly dissipated by more than half.
The instant that palm descended, they had been prepared to burn their origins and fight to the death to intercept it. Even if it meant exhausting their lifespans and shattering their foundations, they would have blocked the Supreme's strike by force and bought the secret realm a little more time to unlock. None of them had expected the ancient trump card to be so powerful.
With nothing but a single beam of light, it had forcibly halted the Supreme of the Heavens' killing blow.
"So this is the final trump card left by the ancients?" Kallen stared at the black-and-white glimmer where heaven and sky met, his breathing slightly quickening as his surging Saiyan blood burned ever brighter.
Billions of years of grievance, billions of years of restraint, billions of years of resentment at generations being treated as livestock—all surged forth at this moment. It turned out their ancestors had never given up. Even as their lands shattered and their universe fell, even after signing a humiliating sacrificial pact, they had still buried an ultimate contingency in the depths of their despair, one capable of turning the entire game on its head.
Frieza slowly relaxed his tense body, his scarlet eyes fixed on the black-and-white beam, filled with shock.
He had believed all his life in absolute power, waging war across the stars and sweeping through every direction. He had considered his combat strength superior to all living beings and believed he understood every rule governing strength and weakness in the world. Only today did he understand that true supreme power was not simply destruction and crushing force, but a source of Dao that could balance heaven and earth and reverse a foregone conclusion.
"No wonder the Supreme of the Heavens came in person, crossing realms at any cost, just to shatter the secret realm." Frieza spoke in a low voice, his tone unusually grave. "This thing really can overturn the game that's lasted since time immemorial."
Golden Super Saiyan stood at the highest point in the sky, his long hair fluttering in the wind. His gaze pierced through the black-and-white beam and fell upon the secret realm passage deep within the Earth, which had not yet fully opened. Realization filled his ancient eyes.
"The ancients didn't lose completely. They lost on purpose."
With one sentence, he dispelled the fog of ages.
In the past, he had pored over countless ancient remnants and investigated countless battlefield ruins, yet he had never understood how a universe at the height of its power could have suffered such a complete defeat, or why the ancient sages would rather sign a humiliating pact of eternal sacrifice than fight to the bitter end. Now that the truth had surfaced, everything had become clear.
If they had fought to the bitter end, the universe would have been destroyed on the spot, their people completely wiped out, and any chance of turning the tables lost forever.
By pretending to lose and signing the pact, they used billions of living beings as bait to numb the Heavens and Chaos, buying billions of years to lie in wait. In secret, they nurtured the source of balance and sealed away the ultimate secret realm, waiting for the one chance to break through their desperate predicament.
They made the humiliation of the ages their game board and generation after generation of living beings their pieces, gambling on a heaven-defying reversal.
How patient, how grand, how tragic.
At the center of the sky, the hazy phantom of the Realm Overlord trembled slightly. His distant, ancient voice slowly echoed through heaven and earth, carrying a trace of relief.
"The ancient sages were the wisest people in the world, and also the bravest."
"They knew that directly opposing the Heavens and Chaos would end in certain defeat, so they entered the game themselves, stained the land with infamy, and imprisoned all living beings. They traded their eternal infamy and generations of humiliation for this one sliver of hope. People cursed their ancestors as cowards who surrendered and clung to life, unaware that this was the only heaven-defying strategy left in their desperate circumstances."
The sinners of the ages were, in truth, the saints of the ages.
They bore the curses of countless generations and endured for billions of years, waiting only for their descendants to defy fate. When calamity came and the Heavens and Chaos fought with all their might, they would use the source of balance to turn the tide and end the two powers' hegemony once and for all.
The black-and-white beam still soared into the sky, holding back the Supreme's divine palm.
The imprisoned rules of the Heavens struggled ceaselessly, and the Seven-Colored Divine Radiance roiled and surged violently. The Supreme Avatar had clearly become truly enraged.
A mere remnant of the source of power in a low-dimensional universe, a mere trump card left behind by the ancients, dared defy the supreme will of the Heavens and obstruct the great reckoning that had been planned for all time.
"An ant trying to stop a chariot—you're asking for death!"
The cold fury of the divine being swept across dimensions. From deep within the rift, even more intense seven-colored divine light surged out in a frenzy. The power of the Supreme, which had originally been no more than an avatar's projection, began to swell rapidly. The rules crossing between realms stacked layer upon layer, attempting to crush the black-and-white beam of balance by force.
"I'd like to see how long a mere wisp of the remaining source of balance can hold out!"
Boom!
The void exploded violently, and the Divine Radiance filling the sky became countless blades, striking down densely upon the black-and-white beam.
Every strike made the entire world tremble violently. The Earth's surface continued to split and collapse, and countless mountains and rivers still standing were reduced to ashes. Yet that seemingly slender beam of black-and-white light remained steadfast as a rock, no matter how furiously the rules of the Heavens bombarded it. As black and white flowed around one another, they continually dissolved, assimilated, and reversed the incoming supreme divine energy.
The stronger the Heavens, the greater the balance.
The fiercer the rules, the more violently they were reversed.
That was the terrifying power of the Balance Dao Rules.
At the same time, Lin Chen stood at the central formation point on the ground. The ancient golden light of his bloodline surged violently, and the final fragment of his ancient memories was finally made whole. The complete ultimate secret entered his soul without reservation.
Yet the instant he saw the entire truth, his face turned deathly pale. The flame of hope that had just kindled in his heart was suddenly doused by a basin of ice-cold water.
Everyone else saw only the strength of the secret realm's trump card and the hope of a heaven-defying reversal.
Only he knew the most brutal, blood-soaked price behind this plan that had spanned the ages.
The source of balance nurtured in ancient times and the ultimate treasure of the secret realm had never come from nothing.
For billions of years, the fortune, vitality, and soul origins sacrificed from the living beings of this universe had seemed to be sent entirely to the Heavens to nourish the Supremes. In truth, the ancient sages' two-layered formation had secretly intercepted most of it.
What the Heavens had taken was only a thin layer of superficial nourishment.
The purest and most essential source of all living beings had been secretly sealed away, accumulated, and gathered, day after day and year after year. It had been used to nourish this wisp of the black-and-white Balance Dao Rules and forge the ultimate trump card within the secret realm.
In other words,
the sacrifices of living beings over billions of years and the tragic fate of generation after generation had not merely fed the Outer Realm Heavens.
They had also been deliberately arranged by the ancient sages as a sacrificial offering of accumulated power spanning the ages.
All the suffering people had endured, the deaths of all living beings, and the destruction of all civilizations had never been meaningless sacrifices.
They were all indispensable fuel in this heaven-defying game.
The ancestors used the people of countless generations as kindling and the entire universe as a furnace. They burned through the ages and exhausted every last spark of life, all to forge the one power capable of resisting the Heavens and Chaos.
Tragic and magnificent, yet cruel to the utmost.
"So... that's how it is..."
Lin Chen's throat tightened, and a jumble of emotions filled his heart as boundless desolation washed over him.
He had been furious at the Heavens for their plunder, hated Chaos for its devouring, and pitied the living beings condemned to ignorant fates.
But in the end, the ones who had set this tragedy of the ages in motion were not only the Outer-Domain Supreme, but also his own ancient ancestors.
To win, to turn the tables, to end the twofold rule of the Heavens and Chaos, they had personally buried generations of their descendants, making countless innocent beings into pieces on a game board and kindling for generation after generation, sending them to their deaths in ignorance.
Who was right or wrong, who deserved credit or blame—it was impossible to tell anymore.
"Though the source of balance can hold the Heavens and Chaos in check, it is not perfect."
The Main God's voice sounded at just the right moment, heavy with sorrow as he revealed the final forbidden secret.
"It came into being through the blood and tears of all living beings, and was formed by carrying the resentment of the ages. The more powerful it becomes, the greater the negative source it accumulates. When it is completely unsealed, as it balances the Heavens and Chaos, it will also turn on this world and devour the life force of all living beings."
That was the greatest flaw in the ancient plan, and an incurable consequence.
They had borrowed the blood and tears of the ages to forge a divine treasure. Once the treasure was complete, it would devour the very beings whose blood and tears had made it.
If the game was won, another calamity would befall the universe.
If the game was lost, everything would be utterly annihilated.
From the moment the ancient plan was set in motion, this universe had been destined to have no perfect ending.
Just as Lin Chen's mind reeled and he struggled to absorb this cruel truth, the secret realm deep within the Earth was finally unsealed.
A massive black-and-white gate slowly rose from the center of the earth, spanning heaven and earth. Beyond its threshold, the true form of a void secret realm slowly appeared: a realm of balanced yin and yang, without heaven or earth, without rules or Chaos.
An aura of extreme antiquity surged forth, washing over the entire cosmos.
At the same time, in the heart of the gate, an ancient, unadorned jade disc appeared, round and flawless, its black and white patterns flowing as if it contained the balance of the entire multiverse.
The Balance of All Things Jade Disc—the ultimate trump card of the ancient era—had finally appeared!
The instant the jade disc emerged, heaven and earth fell utterly silent.
The Divine Radiance of the Heavens stopped raging, and the black fog of Chaos stopped roiling. The two supreme powers retreated in wariness more profound than ever before.
But before anyone could rejoice, countless densely packed blood-red lines suddenly appeared across the surface of the jade disc that held all things in balance.
The lines twisted and writhed, as if formed from the blood, tears, and resentment of countless living beings. They wrapped tightly around the jade disc's surface, continually corroding its pure source of balance.
Buzz—
A strange vibration sounded from within the jade disc.
The ultimate treasure that should have suppressed the Heavens and reversed fate showed signs of slipping out of control the very moment it appeared!
Above the firmament, the Supreme Avatar, whose attack had been halted, did not fly into a rage at the sight. Instead, he gave a cold, mocking laugh, his indifference showing that he saw through everything.
"The ancients' foolish plan was their own undoing."
"You think forging a trump card to hold the Heavens in check from the blood and tears of the ages will let you defy fate and turn the tables? You have no idea that once the resentment accumulated by all living beings over billions of years erupts, this universe will annihilate itself without my intervention!"
The instant his voice fell, the Black and White Jade Disc trembled violently, and the blood-red lines on its surface spread wildly.
A power of empty resentment, stranger and more terrifying than the judgment of the Heavens or the annihilation of Chaos, began to spread through the jade disc, silently shrouding the entire ruined Earth.
Lin Chen's pupils contracted. The final ancient prophecy suddenly surfaced in his mind, chilling him to the bone.
"Balance shall bind the Heavens; resentment shall bury all life. When the jade disc slips from control, there shall be neither heaven nor life."
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