"An Accident"

But it was still far too early to talk about that.

Leaving aside the pack of "sharks" madly fighting for the first-mover advantage and profits.

Just as Li Yun was enjoying himself browsing a forum post by a user named "Are Wives Required to Be Human?"—[Someone recommended a full set of Kämpfer, Dao-Heart Demon Seed, Dream-Shattering Saber, Narcissism Curse, and Divine Princess Bloodline to me? What kind of build is this? Is it a wheelchair?!?]

Someone suddenly ruined his slacking-off session.

"Administrator, I think you should come in and take a look at this."

"Mm, what is it?"

Slightly puzzled, the "panda" on the sofa abruptly raised his head.

With a sliver of consciousness entering the platform, he silently crossed layer upon layer of chaotic reflections and descended into the distant Star Realm—

The invisible "gaze" that descended was like a solitary firefly, quietly gliding through illusory stars, bright and dim, each representing countless worlds.

...Until it finally lingered upon a great star that had yet to fully rise.

Before him was a star radiant from end to end, its halo dazzling and its rosy light shimmering. Yet it had been swept into a state of near-absolute "stillness," along with the corresponding expanse of cosmic void, severed and suppressed within a realm of "neither born nor destroyed, neither increasing nor decreasing."

The speck of world-origin still being nurtured within it, as well as the fleeting lights and chaotic shadows that should have appeared and vanished like foam, had all fallen completely "still."

Li Yun blinked. Aside from a little confusion, he had little reaction.

He could sense that this anomaly was not true deathly silence. Rather, everything had been abruptly "frozen" at the very height of its flourishing, its fundamental traces preserved as all birth, destruction, and change were stripped away in an instant.

—A moment was eternity.

The entire world seemed to have become an incomparably vast painting, sealed within invisible amber.

And within this boundless Star Realm, where reality and illusion intertwined, the only one who could theoretically accomplish this so easily was the Main God itself, which possessed a portion of the "authority" Li Yun had granted it.

Unaffected in the slightest by that vast, unseen force that rendered heaven and earth still and emptied all eternal cycles of birth and death, his gaze swept through the depths of this frozen illusory spacetime with a single thought—

Within a ruined ancient temple, the vermilion walls had faded, cracked, and peeled away, while shadowy figures flickered in the gloom...

The dynasty's fate was nearing its end, and the realm was wracked by endless turmoil. Corrupt officials covered the court with one hand; wine and meat rotted behind vermilion gates while frozen corpses lay by the roadside. The people were trapped in misery beyond endurance...

Deep in the netherworld, countless vicious ghosts howled together in Wrongful-Death City. Beneath the River of Oblivion, endless corpses and resentful spirits sank into ruin. Black mountains rose and fell without end, and the dark earth stretched boundlessly. Demons, monsters, ghosts, and ghouls walked everywhere—yet not a single underworld deity or ghostly official could be seen...

Within the lofty halls of the imperial city, a colossal golden centipede coiled itself into a wheel. It devoured incense and the dragon aura of the nation, gnawed upon flesh and vital force, and behind it faint Buddhist light shone amid a thousand auspicious rays, as though it were on the verge of becoming a dragon...

Yin and yang had lost their balance, and true cultivation no longer flourished...

Humanity had reached its limits, and demons revealed their forms...

Reincarnation had fallen into disorder, and life and death had become entangled...

The heavenly court lay in ruins, with no trace of immortals or gods...

...There was no need to look any further. Li Yun already understood what sort of source world this illusory spacetime had been born from.

Those things were not important either.

He merely watched that "anomaly" with considerable interest.

By now, only this one thing seemed to have broken free of the nearly absolute confinement.

Amid that extreme stillness, it was the sole trace of "motion"—a mysterious heavenly light from beyond the world that had finally pierced some invisible, intangible barrier dividing time and space, slowly reaching into the depths of this world.

An "irregularity" that did not belong here.

It was clear that the suppression established by the Main God was not ineffective. This hazy stream of light, so profound and indescribable that no splendor in the world could encompass its form, still moved through it at an exceedingly slow pace, like a silent shot slowed down by hundreds of millions of times, making any definite "change" almost impossible to perceive.

Yet it was, in the end, slowly "moving."

That seemingly insignificant slowness was nevertheless something incredible when set against this absolutely motionless "painting."

Naturally, that made it very "special."

—Yet even after noticing this, Li Yun had no intention of rashly intervening.

More precisely, he had already sensed something subtle from it.

"Main God, why don't you explain first?"

Compared to Li Yun's understanding and confusion, the Main God spoke very evenly.

"Administrator, you should still remember the exploratory exchange you made back then along the path of 'Divinity,' correct?"

"Mm, I remember. What about it?"

"Simply put, after realizing the truth, you wisely chose to abandon it halfway. You were unwilling to acknowledge such a 'possibility,' so it naturally began to shatter and dissipate."

"But considering that it had involved a substantial investment of resources, and that you had suffered considerable psychological shock at the time and were unable to make a prompt judgment..."

"The Main God proactively introduced it into the Star Realm, intending to use it as one link in indirectly bearing the residual traces left after its essence shattered, thereby recovering and reusing the remaining resources."

"But judging from what happened afterward, perhaps because that 'possibility' was connected to you..."

"That essence, which theoretically should have completely dissipated in the Star Realm, merely gradually shattered into some relatively unstable 'fragmentary remnants.' It even ignored the various obstructions within illusory spacetime and drifted away to an unknown destination."

"The Main God initially judged that these things required no additional treatment. They would naturally decompose and disappear over time, becoming elements."

"But clearly, within this dimension where the concept of time is unclear, they have not completely dispersed even now. Some traces remain, and they have inadvertently merged into a newly created illusory world."

"After noticing this, the Main God promptly froze all temporal changes within this spacetime and locked the development of the timeline. But it still could not completely stop the trend of its integration. Thus, the situation you see now came to be."

It was possible to hear a trace of something akin to "helplessness" in the Main God's usually silent voice.

—Along with an intangible phantom, rather than merely a "gaze," Li Yun finally appeared beneath this vast river of stars, both real and illusory.

This manifested "Li Yun" did not react much. He merely watched that light for a long time before speaking.

"It's fine. I roughly understand now."

"When I encountered that Heavenly Heart back then, I saw 'It,' and naturally, 'It' saw me as well. Thus, a vague image of the other, a trace of thought, was left in each other's eyes."

"So even after being reduced to fragments within this Great Dream, that trace of thought still exerted a special influence upon that Heavenly Heart, preventing it from swiftly being worn away into nothingness."

"It even faintly carried a 'thought' capable of barely resisting the influence of your authority."

"How strange."

"Even now, I can still sense a little familiarity within it. It should be that vague thought left behind when 'It' saw me."

Pushing up his glasses, the phantom unexpectedly gave a soft laugh.

"...My intuition tells me that if it truly merges into this world, perhaps some unexpected results will occur."

"It is only a thought, after all, and not even one that carries anything particularly complete. Let it be."

"Mm, if that is the case... perhaps these fragments can also be regarded as an alternative kind of 'six roots'?"

After casually saying a few words, without any visible movement from him, that spacetime frozen amid infinity resumed its normal changes.

"Then let us first see what exactly happens..."