Before primordial chaos was divided, there was no heaven, no earth. Even "emptiness" had yet to grow into being. A membrane of chaos hung in the very center of nothingness, pulsing again and again, so slowly that an eternity passed between beats.
Source Power seeped from the membrane, accumulating over untold epochs into a sea without end. Billions of starry rivers hung upside down, their starlight swelling as it soaked in Source Power. A sound rumbled in the deepest reaches of primordial chaos, muffled like an old dragon turning beneath the stone.
All methods had their lineage; all things returned to source.
Three thunderous cracks rang out, and the membrane convulsed. A shadow surfaced from its core, thin at first, then thickening, finally condensing into a faceless Dao silhouette. A taiji vortex coiled around the figure, and a source core hung at the figure's heart. Rings of gold and silver Dao patterns revolved one within another, utterly steady and utterly cold.
The figure had no eyes. Billions of points of light gathered before the figure, condensing into a single Dao eye. One downward sweep left nothing concealed.
"Dao. Return. Source."
Three primordial golden glyphs flew forth and roamed around the figure, their divine light gentle. Not one of the myriad realms across the heavens dared make a sound.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor.
Through all eternity, his Dao heart had been like an ancient well. All things arose and would ultimately have somewhere to return-this was ordained. No one could defy it.
Yet someone beneath the abyss refused to believe.
An ancient furnace of stillness and annihilation lay overturned within the abyss of nothingness, covering a darkness that never reached its bottom. Fragments of epochs fell in from every direction, dropping into the cracks of temporal order. Once the Heavenly Dao fell into disorder, cause and effect ran backward, and newborn glimmers were extinguished in the blink of an eye.
At the very bottom of the abyss, something floated upward, black and gold: a ring. Dark red stillness light flowed over its body, not dazzling, yet weighing heavily on the heart.
The origin incarnation of the Stillness Dao at its ultimate pinnacle: the Black Gold Ring.
The Source Dao governed birth, proliferation, and the return to order, seeking to gather all methods back into one place; the Stillness Dao governed cleansing, destruction, and erasure, seeking to sweep away the myriad realms and return them to nothing. Their origins opposed each other, their principles contradicted each other, and these two Dao traditions had been destined never to coexist since primordial chaos was first born.
But that was ancient history. The Black Gold Ring was long past being an existence that needed to fight and kill with its own hands.
The Black Gold Ring thrummed, its voice grinding all the way from the end of temporal order to the core of chaos. "Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor, you stole the lingering resonance of my origin and falsely proclaimed perfection throughout the heavens-nothing but a thief of worlds, a fraud seeking fame."
The taiji vortex turned leisurely, and the voice of the Source Dao came unhurriedly. "Source Ring, your Dao foundation is broken. You barely escaped death, and you have long since lost the qualifications to stand within primordial chaos. Submit and return to oneness, and your Dao traces may be preserved; persist in resistance, and I shall annihilate you, silencing your Dao tradition for all eternity."
"If you have the will for Dao Contention, then go ahead and strike."
The instant those words fell, the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor struck. His source core tilted, pouring forth a torrent of gold and silver as countless vortices of Dao thoughts advanced in layers. With every rotation, primordial Dao strings rang in unison, piercing straight at the foundation of the divine soul-not chopping or cleaving, only smoothing, dissolving, and guiding all things back to source.
Golden radiance filled heaven and earth, locking onto the Black Gold Ring.
The Black Gold Ring did not move.
It did not even stir its stillness light. Its body merely trembled gently, and a ring of extremely faint dark radiance spread soundlessly outward, like a pebble entering water, its ripples utterly untouched by the smoke and fire of the mortal world.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor suddenly discovered that his vortices of Dao thoughts were still turning, and the primordial Dao strings were still ringing, yet the very act of "attacking the Black Gold Ring" was gone.
It had not been blocked, broken, or annihilated. It had never existed at all. The gold-and-silver torrent pouring from his source core still surged onward, but the command-"rush toward the Black Gold Ring"-had been plucked out of the foundation of all methods. The torrent swept aimlessly through the void, like a river that had suddenly forgotten which way to flow.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao heart tightened slightly.
"Logicless Deconstruction." The Black Gold Ring's voice was neither warm nor cold. "That move of yours just now was called 'Supreme Dao Birth: Thought Returns to the Source Flow.' A fine name. But here, the thought behind your attack is already gone. Without a thought, where would a move come from?"
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor fell silent for an instant.
The taiji vortex churned again. He no longer attempted a direct attack, instead unfolding "Supreme Dao Extinction: Realms Return to One Source." The dimensional barriers of eternity became thin as cicada wings, and the principles of countless realms dissolved and reformed, seeking to draw both the Black Gold Ring and the void it occupied into perfect returning order.
Realms flowed into the Source Dao torrent like melting snow returning to rivers.
The center of the Black Gold Ring sank, and dark radiance rippled outward again.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao thoughts stopped in unison the moment they came within three inches of the Black Gold Ring. Those thoughts remained solid and perfect, yet the action of "returning the Black Gold Ring to the source flow" dissipated on its own upon contact. With the thought gone, the force naturally had nowhere to land. Countless Dao thoughts hung in midair, unable to advance or retreat. They froze for half a breath, then slowly dispersed.
"Do you still not understand?" The dark red stillness light on the Black Gold Ring brightened slightly. "I do not contend with you over victory or defeat. What I sever is 'contention' itself. Before you unleash any move, you must first have the thought, 'I want to hit him.' The moment that thought emerges, I snuff it out. What will you hit me with?"
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao voice deepened. "Then even 'thought' itself shall return to source."
He activated "Supreme Dao Fusion: Narratives Return to the Endless." Golden ripples spread, and three thousand rivers of time twisted into golden threads, binding drifting cause and effect and condensing into a closed-loop Dao seal that locked onto the Black Gold Ring's origin. The seal encompassed past, present, and future, seeking to force the Stillness Dao into a system of perfection.
This time, the Black Gold Ring finally exerted a trace of real effort.
Jet-black sharpness abruptly erupted from its body, slicing through boundless nothingness. Black light cut into the narrative source of the heavens-"Logicless Deconstruction" rose again, but this time, it was not passive defense.
It directly rewrote the underlying premise of the Dao seal: at the root of the narrative, the grounds that made the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's attempt to incorporate the Stillness Dao into his system of perfection "viable" were erased.
The golden Dao seal remained, yet it had become water without a source. It hovered there, its structure intact, golden radiance circulating, but the command to "lock onto the Black Gold Ring" had had its sinews pulled out of the chain of cause and effect. The seal spun blankly twice, shattered into billions of motes of golden dust, and was swallowed clean by the gaping abyss of stillness.
For the first time, the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao heart wavered.
"What you change is not the move." An exceedingly faint hitch entered his Dao voice. "What you change is the act of 'making a move.'"
"At last, you understand." The Black Gold Ring hung within chaos, dark red stillness light flickering across its body. "However perfect your Source Dao may be, you first need an 'enemy' to return to source. I deny you that enemy. Every time you throw a punch, I peel the concept of an 'opponent' off your fist. Who are you hitting?"
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor did not answer.
The taiji vortex churned violently as he changed his approach. No longer trying to act directly upon the Black Gold Ring, he unfolded the Great Heavenly Cycle Source Return Formation, chanting in the Dao resonance of eternity to dissolve its edge and affirm the destiny of all things returning to source.
The formation spread, neither attacking nor assaulting, only enveloping-immersing everything the Black Gold Ring could see or touch with its thoughts in perfect Dao resonance, using its surroundings to force it to "naturally return to source."
The Black Gold Ring fell silent for a moment.
"Clever," it said. "Instead of acting on me directly, you act on the void around me, making everything beneath my feet, before my eyes, and within my thoughts become you. Given enough time, I would believe I was part of you."
"Will you sever it, then?" "I will." The Black Gold Ring's body sank. "But you overlooked one thing."
"What?" "I stopped relying on the word 'I' to live long ago."
Black light erupted, yet it did not attack the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor. The Black Gold Ring rewrote the underlying definition of its own existence-it plucked the designation "Black Gold Ring" out of the chain of cause and effect.
The "Black Gold Ring" enveloped by the formation remained, as did the "Black Gold Ring" steeped in Dao resonance, but the true body that was actually remaking heaven and earth had already leaped beyond the narrative layer the formation could reach.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao resonance continued to permeate and dissolve, but its target had suddenly become an empty shell. The "Black Gold Ring" covered by the formation still bobbed within dark red stillness light, appearing far more docile, yet the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao heart sank.
"You cannot deceive me." His Dao voice turned cold. "You removed your designation, but you still exist. Your very 'existence' is something to return to source."
"Then try it. See whether you can return this 'existence' to source." Both sides' anger truly flared at once.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's source core erupted with eternal brilliance, and torrents of pure white and dark purple origin poured down. Mirror surfaces throughout the heavens shattered layer after layer, their broken reflections becoming dust that his source core swallowed and settled. Fine Dao cries rang without end: return to nothing, return to nothing.
"True Realm Annihilation!" Boom! Boom! Boom!
A purple-and-white curtain of light bore down upon the chaos of eternity, erasing the underlying definitions of existence and annihilation. This move no longer listened to reason-it was not "returning the Black Gold Ring to the source flow,"
but "erasing even the act of returning itself." Can't you sever thoughts, Black Gold Ring? Then I will dig out the very roots of this thing called 'thought.'
Web-like cracks spread across the Black Gold Ring, and its dark red stillness light dimmed rapidly. Bound by the purple-and-white tide of light, it was truly suppressed for the first time.
"Limitless Annihilation and Stillness Dao."
A thread of stillness light stretched across the gap between birth and destruction, and countless vortices of perfection were annihilated into dust before they could approach. But this time, the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor did not stop. The purple-and-white sea of light pressed down wave after wave. Return to nothing, return to nothing, return to nothing-the Dao cries never ceased.
The center of the Black Gold Ring sank into the bottomless abyss of stillness. "Boundless Annihilation Domain."
Countless realms disintegrated like broken mirrors, melting like lingering snow. Yet the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's "True Realm Annihilation" paid no heed to the continued existence of realms-he directly erased the word "realm." However powerful your annihilation domain might be, if the domain itself is gone, what will you annihilate?
The Black Gold Ring's cracks deepened, and its dark red stillness light was nearly extinguished.
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao voice flowed like a stream, yet was cold to the bone. "You can sever thoughts, cause and effect, and narratives. But you cannot sever 'nothingness' itself. My True Realm Annihilation returns to nothing.
"Your Stillness Dao also governs nothingness, but your nothingness is 'emptying everything,' while mine is 'even emptying is gone.' What will you sever it with?"
The Black Gold Ring remained silent for three breaths. Then it laughed.
"You are right." Cracks still spread across its body, and its dark red stillness light continued to dim. "My nothingness empties everything, while yours leaves even emptying gone. I truly cannot sever it."
"Then return to source." "But I do not need to sever you."
The center of the Black Gold Ring suddenly flashed, its brilliance utterly cold. "I will sever myself."
Black light exploded, not toward the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor, but toward the foundation of the Black Gold Ring's own existence-it erased the underlying logic of the existence called "Black Gold Ring" along with it.
Don't you want to return me to source? This 'source' you return me to presupposes a 'Black Gold Ring' for you to return. Now that I have plucked myself entirely out of the chain of cause and effect, what will you return?
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's purple-and-white sea of light struck empty air.
The Black Gold Ring remained, and its dark red stillness light remained, but the "Black Gold Ring that could be returned to source" was gone. Dao seals could not reach it, Dao resonance could not permeate it, and Dao thoughts could find nowhere to land. The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's system of perfection still operated, but the command to "incorporate the Black Gold Ring into perfection" could not be executed at its very root.
"You are mad." For the first time, emotion seeped into the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao voice. "You have removed the very foundation of your existence. You cannot survive either."
"Even if I cannot survive, I will not belong to you."
The Black Gold Ring began to shatter. First, the web-like cracks broke into fragments. Then its dark red stillness light peeled away in sheets. Finally, even that deepest speck of black-and-gold origin at its center began to disintegrate.
It had endured the backlash of True Realm Annihilation and severed the foundation of its own existence. Its Dao foundation collapsed, its divine ring shattered, and it became billions of black-and-white points of light scattered through the void in all four directions.
Amid the points of light filling the sky, a lingering voice echoed, its defiance unchanged. "I have not lost, for no enemy exists. Though you have won, you shall not obtain my origin."
The Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's Dao heart buckled. The taiji vortex shook violently, golden radiance surged wildly, and primordial runes flew about in disorder. Eternal fury resounded through the myriad realms of primordial chaos. "Black Gold Ring! You despicable thing!! You would rather shatter your own origin and destroy your eternal Dao foundation than merge into me!!"
Towering golden flames boiled the eight wildernesses, and the void trembled and wailed. After that wild fury, chaos returned to deathly silence. The sea of Source Dao light still surged, and the glyphs for "Dao. Return. Source." twisted and rampaged, yet could no longer find the Black Gold Ring's intact true body.
Billions of black-and-white points of light scattered and drifted. The vast majority dimmed, died, and dispersed as they fell, leaving not even an echo. Only one was heavier than the others, slower than the others, with black and gold entwined within it, twisting into an exceedingly fine vortex that held one complete origin Great Dao of the Black Gold Ring.
It did not drift toward the sea of Source Dao light.
It fell into the depths of a fissure, passing through the layered manifestations of the myriad realms across the heavens, past the half-living, half-dead fragments of epochs in the cracks of temporal order, plunging ever downward.
As it fell farther, the surrounding "realms" thinned, "laws" faded, and even "Dao" grew sparse. Even the Source Dao Supreme Return Emperor's pursuing divine sense became indistinct, as though separated by a thick layer of muddy water.
Just before this point of light fell into a lower-dimensional world and was swallowed whole by its Heavenly Dao, it veered.
A hairbreadth to the east.
Beyond that hairbreadth, there was nothing. No source, no stillness, no Dao, no non-Dao; even the statement "there was nothing" had no place there. That place neither received the point of light's falling momentum nor rejected it. It simply "was not part of this matter."
The instant the point of light veered inside, black and white twisted together, and its origin Dao resonance contracted. Before even the remnant will of the Black Gold Ring wrapped within it could struggle, the whole thing faded and thinned, like a drop of ink falling into boundless clear water.
But it did not disperse. The point of light paused at the edge of that expanse of "nothing" for an instant, so brief that no existence within primordial chaos could perceive it. Then it bent, changed direction, and fell once more toward that lower-dimensional world, plunging straight into the depths of Hidden Source Ridge on the Great Yan Continent.