The Whole Story

Four Supremes from beyond the stars had fallen, and the Divine Ruins had been destroyed. The starry sky shook. Every Ancient Life Star and powerful race trembled at the news: a Life Forbidden Zone that had endured for ten thousand ages had been swept away just like that.

"Dao Shi, the Heavenly Emperor!"

"How powerful Dao Shi is! He truly deserves to be called a Heavenly Emperor. In this age, the Human Race has really produced a Heavenly Emperor!"

Across the universe, every race was shaken.

The news spread like a mountain-shaking, sea-roaring wave. Cries of wonder rose from countless inhabited worlds, followed by chants of "Dao Shi, the Heavenly Emperor!"

Most of the universe's powerful cultivators and great races came to Beidou to pay homage to Meng Chuan, hoping for guidance from the Heavenly Emperor.

Meng Chuan received them, discussed the scriptures with the various races, and debated the Dao with the Saints. Then he sent everyone away and met privately with a few friends.

In the end, only Meng Chuan remained in the Imperial Palace.

Watching Qingyue's figure disappear, Meng Chuan sighed. He sat quietly for a while, then sealed the Imperial Palace. He still had something to do.

"Let me see where you four really came from." Meng Chuan took out the Primordial Spirits of the four Supremes from beyond the stars, curiosity on his face.

Meng Chuan probed their Primordial Spirits with his divine sense and soon found what he wanted. With only a wisp of Primordial Spirit left each, the four had no way to stop him from searching their memories.

"So that's what happened..." Meng Chuan said in surprise. He knew the truth now.

Kungu and the other three came from the same world. When their cultivation reached a level roughly comparable to that of Saints in Shrouding the Heavens, they chanced upon the Immortal Cauldron and several inheritances. The opportunity had practically fallen from the sky.

The inheritances also contained some information. Translated into Meng Chuan's own terms, it said this:

There was a sea of worlds dotted with temples called Reception Halls. Entering one would take a person to the ultimate destination of all living beings, where they could transcend.

It also said that a vast world stood within the Boundary Sea, home to many supreme beings. It had ruled over the Boundary Sea for countless epochs.

The inheritances recorded some names renowned even in that vast world. None were given in full, however; their full names were said to be unspeakable.

Kungu and the other three saw those names and yearned to be like them. In a rush of excitement, they changed their own names, each taking one character from the name of a supreme being.

When Meng Chuan reached this part, he did not know whether to laugh or cry. Are you out of your minds? Don't you know the people you admired are already dead? And here I was, on edge because of your names!

After changing their names, the four cultivated the inheritances and relied on the Immortal Cauldron. Their progress soared. They soon became experts of the Supreme Realm, yet still showed no sign of slowing down. They grew stronger rapidly even within that realm until all four stood at the pinnacle of their world. Kungu was even hailed as its greatest expert!

Notably, the cultivation methods the four obtained from the inheritances differed from those of their world. Judging by their memories, that world's cultivation resembled the system of the previous epoch.

The four had reached the pinnacle, but could advance no further. After basking in glory for over a hundred thousand years, they decided to seek the Reception Halls described in the inheritances. They wanted to become immortals!

Meng Chuan was speechless when he saw this. What a bunch of blockheads. You knew nothing about the Boundary Sea, yet you went looking for a Reception Ancient Hall? Who even knows whether those halls still exist? What a rotten inheritance.

The four drew on the Quasi-Immortal King's power within the Immortal Cauldron and punched straight through the membrane of their world. They reached the Boundary Sea, but what they found disappointed them.

The Boundary Sea was nothing like the records described! According to the inheritances, it held endless waves, each one a great world. Even the vast world that ruled the Boundary Sea did not know how far it stretched.

But the Boundary Sea before Kungu and the others was utterly still. There were no waves, and not a single world or universe in sight.

All they could feel was pressure. It pressed on them from every direction and grew stronger with time. Before long, it became more than they could bear. Only by relying on the Immortal Cauldron could they continue through the Boundary Sea.

With the cauldron's protection, they traveled the Boundary Sea for five thousand years. Despair finally took hold. They had not seen a single universe with life, much less a Reception Hall that could take them to the ultimate destination.

Then the worst happened: they could no longer find the way home!

Even the Immortal Cauldron could no longer protect them. In their hands, it could only be controlled passively. It had never communicated with them, let alone acknowledged any of them as its master.

The four kept drifting. To awaken the Quasi-Immortal King's power within the cauldron, they sacrificed their Supreme weapons to it one after another. At last, they poured their own life Immortal Essence into the cauldron, hoping to draw out the Quasi-King's might and shelter themselves in the Boundary Sea.

But the power within an Immortal Artifact refined by a Quasi-Immortal King was finite. It soon ran out. Kungu and the others were spent, their life Immortal Essence on the verge of drying up.

As the four neared death in the Boundary Sea, they sensed a ripple in space-time. They held on long enough to find its source, and ended up in Meng Chuan's world.

After learning the whole story, Meng Chuan fell silent. Some of it did not match what he knew.

"Something has happened to the Boundary Sea," Meng Chuan mused. "The Desolate Heaven Emperor severed the ages with one sword strike, separating the Boundary Sea from the Immortal Domain and the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands. But he did nothing to the Boundary Sea itself. In Kungu's memories, it was lifeless. They traveled for ten thousand years without seeing a single inhabited world."

"And an Immortal Artifact protected them for five thousand years before they needed the Quasi-Immortal King's power."

"This is nothing like the Boundary Sea of countless earlier epochs. Something I don't know about has clearly changed."

"And the world those four came from must be similar to a fragment of the Immortal Domain. It's a higher-level world where emperor-level figures live for a long time. The Longevity Substance that came through when the Space-Time Passage first formed was the last few wisps the four squeezed from their Supreme bodies. Was it bait meant to..."

Recalling the scenes in Kungu's memories, Meng Chuan was startled by a thought.

"The Boundary Sea... looked as though it had died!"

A chill ran through Meng Chuan. The Boundary Sea was a sea of worlds. How could it be described as dead?

"And another thing. The Desolate Heaven Emperor cut off the ages. By all rights, a Space-Time Passage should never have been able to reach his homeland, the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands."

Thinking of the Space-Time Origin he had extracted, Meng Chuan asked the Chat Group what exactly it was.

This time, the Chat Group gave him part of the answer.

The Space-Time Origin's main purpose was to let someone travel through space-time. If Meng Chuan extracted it, for example, he could visit a fellow group member's world once, because each member served as a coordinate for him.

The Chat Group could make the Space-Time Origin controllable. Left to grow unchecked, however, it would form a Space-Time Passage.

The other end of that passage should not have led to a world in the Boundary Sea. It should have led to a different world, like those inhabited by the group members.

But Shi Hao's sword strike from ages past had disrupted the Space-Time Origin's activation, causing it to form a Space-Time Passage directly. That was how Kungu and the others had arrived.

If the Chat Group had controlled the Space-Time Origin from the start, this would never have happened. The passage would certainly have connected to a different world.

The Space-Time Origin's emergence was tied to the Chat Group, but the Chat Group gave Meng Chuan no answer about their exact connection.

"But the inheritances Kungu and the others found must have come from the Foreign Realm. Wasn't the Foreign Realm destroyed long ago?"