"Who am I? Who is me?"
Confusion welled up in the man's eyes, but soon gave way to a clarity that seemed possessed of boundless wisdom, as though he had been born knowing all things.
"I am the Heavenly Emperor, the Supreme Sovereign of this age!"
With this proclamation, the surrounding void trembled, and a gate seemingly condensed from starlight opened amid the boundless darkness.
Ancient and majestic, the gate looked as though it had been cast from bronze, with the sun, moon, and stars depicted upon it, yet its immense length spanned hundreds of millions of miles.
Upon it, even the laws of time and space seemed distorted. The contradiction between being close enough to touch and distant as the ends of the earth appeared upon it simultaneously.
The Heavenly Emperor turned to look at the gate.
Silvery starlight shone upon his face, revealing features resembling Fang Qianyuan's, but distinctly middle-aged, with a far more imposing, dignified, and regal bearing.
For he was the Heavenly Emperor, the Heavenly Dao of this age, the embodiment of the hope for immortality and imperishability sustained by the Immortal Dao and all living beings.
He was the Spirit of Nature of the "Immortal Realm," the being who could truly command its laws to perfection and sustain the origins of its Dao paths.
And the Immortal Realm had itself emerged from the Spirit-Taming World, allowing him to control all things in that world through its connection to its parent body.
Distributed through successive layers, this represented a ruling order from the top down, but also a system through which the origins of Dao paths, the power of the laws, spirit essence, and origin energy transformed and flowed.
Once the system was established, sounds like chains clashing rang out through the void.
Beneath the Heavenly