The Desolate Serpent slumbered here, and here it gradually approached the end of death-a true annihilation, with no entry into reincarnation and no place in the Six Paths.
It had fallen long ago in that Great Tribulation.
It could sense that the others were in the same state.
Within this world, yet outside it; within these years, yet outside them; on the boundary between life, death, and reincarnation.
That was how they saw themselves. But in the eyes of everyone else, they were already dead.
A million years had passed. Even the resonant voice of the Great Dao had long since vanished, and the Great Dao itself had shattered.
Even if a new, identical Great Dao emerged, along with a new Dao Lord, it would never be the path of the Great Dao they had once walked.
That was perfectly natural.
The Desolate Serpent had never mourned spring or grieved over autumn for such things.
It was just that...
It gazed toward that road to Immortal Ascension and glimpsed a corner of Transcendence on the Other Shore of the Cultivation Sea.
"How lively..."
"The ancient will ultimately decay. We seek Transcendence, while others seek Longevity..."
Yet someone had already stepped onto the road to Longevity and Transcendence.
That was why this age was so lively.
So lively that even the Desolate Serpent had noticed the Providence within the Nine Heavens.
It had noticed countless geniuses bursting forth like a gushing spring within the Six Paths, and the arrival of those sects called ancient, whose origins lay in the distant past.
The contest between Variable Fate and Fixed Fate played out on that chessboard.
It could see it clearly.
Only now, that chessboard had silently exchanged one Mortal Realm for another.
The chessboard still existed, and the Heaven's Will and