The Mother of the Stars ' colossal stellar hand ceased its downward press.
It wasn't that they stopped, but rather that they were "stuck" by Asmodeus's gaze. The gaze of the Lord of Hell carried a special law— the Gaze of Original Sin. Any being looked at by this gaze, as long as they still possessed a trace of original sin, would be forced into a state of "self-reflection" and temporarily unable to act.
Does the Mother of the Stars have original sin?
This question is meaningless.
Because the Mother of the Stars is the Controller of the Material Dimension, and within the Material Dimension, there is no corner where original sin is not present. The burning of every star is accompanied by jealousy—jealousy of the light of other stars; the operation of every Black Hole is accompanied by greed—greedy attraction of surrounding matter; and the light and heat of every star are accompanied by rage—ruthless Destruction of anything that approaches.
When Asmodeus gazes upon the Mother of the Stars, He is not gazing at a person, but at the projection of original sin across the entire Material Dimension. The power of that gaze is dispersed to every corner of the universe, insufficient to truly "freeze" the Mother of the Stars, but enough to pause His giant hand of stars for a fleeting moment.
That instant was the gap that Dale needed.
The Magic Pioneer retreated abruptly, escaping the crushing range of the giant star palm. Pure white light of law fluctuated violently around him, a testament to how his laws had been scraped away by the edge of the giant palm during his retreat.
Dale's face was ashen, but his eyes remained calm.
"You've finally arrived," the Magic Pioneer whispered.
Asmodeus did not look at Him; his gaze remained fixed on the Mother of the Stars.
In reality, the Lord of Hell could have arrived much earlier. As the one who controls the Gate of Myriad Worlds, He is second to none in the entire Astral Realm when it comes to action. The reason why the Lord of Hell deliberately arrived later was to test whether his soon-to-be ally was qualified.
"Dale, I never expected you to actually make such a significant leap forward, taking another giant step beyond the Eternity Elemental Law. But I'm not here to help you."
The Lord of Hell's voice was hoarse and deep, like an echo rising from the bottom of Abyss.
"I'm here to get what I want."
He raised his left hand, fingers spread, pointing towards another direction in the Void —the location of the Fantasy Dimension, the second dimension controlled by the Mother of the Stars and being gradually refined by Him.
"The origin of the Fantasy Dimension... be entrusted to me."
"In exchange, the entire Adrian Federation, the spellcaster community, and the Magic Pioneer are all at your disposal."
"How about we divide the Astral Realm equally between the two of us?"
The nebula vortex in the eyes of the Mother of the Stars slowly resumed its rotation, and a hint of sneer seemed to flash in her star-like eyes.
"Lord of Hell, who do you think you're talking to?"
Upon hearing this, a dangerous smile appeared on Asmodeus's lips.
"I'm talking to you, who's about to become Third-Step Eternity."
"You only need the Elemental Dimension to complete your Inner Universe, but the Magic Pioneer just burned half of the Elemental Dimension, so you can't gather the rest."
"Since you can't gather them all, why not give me some of the essence of the Fantasy Dimension? After all—you don't need the Third-Step Eternity of the Inner Universe anymore, do you?"
"After that, the two of us can join forces to invade other realms. With our strength, as long as we take over a dozen or so medium-sized realms, it will be enough for us to both advance to the One of Third-Step Eternity. In the future, when we arrive at the unfamiliar Land of Origin, we can support each other, right?"
There was silence for three full breaths in the Void.
Then, the Mother of the Stars smiled.
That wasn't laughter, but the resonance produced when every star in the universe simultaneously erupted with flares. The sound pierced through the Void, through dimensions, through time, exploding simultaneously in the souls of all beings.
"Lord of Hell, who do you think I am?"
"I am the mother of the earth, the source of the Stars, and the ultimate interpretation of the material world from 'one' to 'ten thousand'."
"My existence predates the Nine Hells you inhabit by far."
"I witnessed your birth, watched you fall into the Abyss to become the Lord of Hell, and climbed step by step the stairs to Eternity."
"I won't give up on the whole picture just because one piece of the puzzle is broken."
"Besides, even if I were willing, you're not qualified to make me give up!"
He raised his left hand, and this time, what he drew from the Void was not a fragment of a star, nor a singularity of mass, but a piece of—
Stone tablet.
The material of that stone tablet was indescribable, for it was not any known substance. It was denser than any known substance in the Astral Realm, older than the Void itself, and more primordial than fragments of laws. Its surface was devoid of any runes, patterns, or text, yet anyone who gazed upon it could "read" countless messages from it.
That was the first solidified matter when the Astral Realm was first created.
That is the ancestor of all "earth" and the prototype of all "mass".
It is the Chaos Stele.
The Mother of the Stars held a corner of the Chaos Stele as if it were a divine artifact that had existed for countless ages. The weight of the stele was immeasurable, for its mass was equivalent to that of a forming realm.
This isn't a level 12 Miracle Creation that's still at the Immortal level; this is a genuine level 12 Miracle Creation, and its level has even touched the threshold of level 13.
It can be said that the Chaos Stele is the number one artifact in the Astral Realm.
As for the immense power that this supreme artifact will unleash under the wielding of the most powerful being, the Mother of the Stars, no one knows.
I don't want to see that either.
"You want the origin of the Fantasy Dimension?"
The Mother of the Stars raised the Chaos Stele above her head.
A cold smile appeared at the corner of his eye, as if he were scrutinizing his prey, or perhaps testing something.
"Then you'll pay with your life."
The moment the Chaos Stele crashed down, all the light in the Void went out.
It wasn't swallowed up, but rather crushed by the "primordial mass" attached to the stone tablet. Light is also a form of matter, an electromagnetic wave, a quantum fluctuation. When the mass of the stone tablet was large enough to warp space itself, the propagation path of light was completely disrupted, and no beam of light could escape the gravitational pull of the stone tablet.
Then there is Space-Time, where everything, including space and time, is bent and twisted into circles, like an ouroboros, eventually turning into dots that float around the Chaos Stele, as if the world has been atomized and is being pulled by it.
The River of Space-Time of the plot seems to be contained within the Chaos Stele, giving it an unbelievable weight.
The entire battlefield was plunged into absolute darkness.
In the darkness, only the flames of Asmodeus's original sin still burned.
The Lord of Hell's eyes—those two balls of sulfurous flame—became the only source of light in the darkness. He saw the Chaos Stele hurtling towards him, not fast, but that "slowness" itself was a form of despair—because you knew it was going to hit you, you could even clearly calculate how long it would take to strike, but you couldn't dodge it, because its mass was too great, so great that the gravitational field it generated as it moved had already locked you in place.
"Damn it..."
Asmodeus cursed under his breath and suddenly dodged to the side.
The Lord of Hell underestimated the power of the Mother of the Stars.
After advancing to the Second-Step Eternity and sweeping across the Astral Realm, devouring countless planes and life forms, the Lord of Hell had completely stabilized at the Second-Step Eternity. This made him think that even if he couldn't defeat the Mother of the Stars, he could at least hold his own for a while. However, he didn't expect that once they clashed, he would feel a terrifying pressure as if he were being crushed.
As Eternal skilled in spatial manipulation, His evasion is not a physical movement, but rather a folding and leaping of space. In an instant, His body is folded into ninety million different spatial layers, each corresponding to a different coordinate position. Theoretically, no physical attack could possibly hit ninety million different spatial coordinates simultaneously.
However, the Chaos Stele is not a physical attack.
It is the concept of "quality" itself.
The moment the stone tablet crashed down, the gravitational field it generated did not act on a particular spatial layer, but rather on the concept of "space" itself. Ninety million spatial layers twisted, folded, and collapsed simultaneously within the gravitational field. All the spatial coordinates where Asmodeus was hiding were covered by the gravitational field, leaving no safe place.
At the same time, the Miracle Trait of the Chaos Stele [matter] was also at work. The surrounding spatial material structure was completely distorted and changed under the influence of the Chaos Stele, becoming something that seemed ambiguous and completely unfamiliar to the Lord of Hell.
At this moment, he went from being the master who controlled the Law of Space to being a rejected existence.
The Lord of Hell was forced out of the spatial interlayer and faced the oncoming stone tablet head-on.
He raised his right hand, using his Hand of Hell to shield himself.
The Chaos Stele struck the Hand of Hell.
At that moment, a light appeared in the darkness—not the light of light, but the "embers of law" produced when the law shattered. The Hell Core at the top of the Hand of Hell trembled violently during the impact, its pulsation frequency soaring from a normal hundred times per breath to hundreds of thousands of times per breath, almost stopping due to overload.
Asmodeus's body was blasted away by that immense force, smashing through several spatial barriers before finally crashing into a naturally formed spatial wall deep within the Void. That spatial wall was the boundary of the Material Dimension, a dimensional barrier that even the Eternal could not easily break.
But when Asmodeus's body crashed into it, spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the spatial wall.
The Lord of Hell slid down the spatial wall, a trace of dark red blood spilling from the corner of his mouth—this was no ordinary blood, but the "blood of original sin" produced after the origin of the Hell dimension was severely damaged. Every drop of blood of original sin that fell into the Void would transform into a Abyss rift burning with the flames of original sin.
His Hand of Hell was shattered and completely destroyed.
This Miracle Creation, renowned throughout the New Realm, appears as fragile as a clay statue before the Chaos Stele and the Mother of the Stars, easily crumbling at the slightest touch.
"The Chaos Stele... truly worthy of being called the strongest Miracle Creation in the Astral Realm."
Asmodeus wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, the sulfurous flames burning in his eyes even more intensely than before.
His body once again unfurled those thirty-six enormous bat-like wings, each wing vibrating, and each vibration tearing open a rift in the Void leading to the dimension of Hell. What poured out of the rift was not demons, but pure, undisguised energy of original sin.
"Then let me show you the power and resources that have been accumulated in my hands, the power of the Endless Hell."
His hands clenched into fists, and from the Void emerged a spear condensed from the energies of the seven original sins. The spear was a dark rainbow of colors—red for wrath, green for envy, blue for sloth, yellow for greed, purple for pride, orange for gluttony, and pink for lust. The seven colors intertwined, creating a bizarre beauty that was both nauseating and impossible to look away from.
"The Spear of Original Sin."
Asmodeus threw his spear.
The spear pierced the air, its target not the Mother of the Stars, but the Chaos Stele suspended above Mother of the Stars.
He seemed to be trying to destroy the stone tablet.
The spear struck the stone tablet.
At that moment, the seven-colored flames of original sin collided head-on with the primordial bronze light. There was no explosion, no impact, only the mutual devouring of the two laws at the ultimate microscopic level.
Original sin attempted to seep into the stone tablet, corrupting it from within; the stone tablet's mass attempted to crush original sin, rendering it unable to even exist.
The two forces remained locked in a stalemate for a full ten breaths.
Then, the Spear of Original Sin began to crack.
It wasn't destroyed, but crushed by the sheer weight of the stone tablet. The essence of original sin is "the distortion of matter by the spirit," but when the mass of matter becomes so great that even the spirit cannot influence it, original sin loses its basis for existence.
Asmodeus's pupils contracted, and he immediately abandoned the Spear of Original Sin, retreating once more.
But the Mother of the Stars has already locked onto Him.
"Chaos Stele, suppress."
The stone tablet crashed down with a whoosh, this time faster, heavier, and more unavoidable than before.
Asmodeus gritted his teeth, no longer trying to dodge, but instead gathering all the power of the laws in his hands to meet the falling stone tablet.
The moment His hands touched the stone tablet, space collapsed beneath His feet, time fractured around Him, and cause and effect reversed above His head. Behind the Lord of Hell, a projection of the entire dimension of Hell appeared—a Abyss world composed of pain, sin, and despair, forever burning with the inextinguishable Fire of Original Sin.
At this moment, all the power of the Hell dimension was invoked by Asmodeus.
The stone tablet fell down.
The Lord of Hell's body was smashed backward, his feet carving a long trail of burning sin flames through the Void. His hands trembled, the skin on his arms cracked, and dark red blood of sin gushed from the cracks, crushed into the finest particles by the mass of the stone tablet, and even the particles were further pulverized, ultimately turning into nothingness.
But He held on.
It wasn't that He truly "held on," but rather that He wasn't killed by the stone tablet's impact. His legs had sunk deep into the Void, disappearing completely below the knees into the spatial rift. His body was like a bent bamboo, poised to break at any moment.
"I refuse to believe it. We're both at the Second-Step Eternity, yet I'm utterly powerless against you. What about the sacrifices those arrogant ones made before?!..."
Asmodeus gritted his teeth, each word seeming to be squeezed out from between them.
The sulfurous flames in His eyes suddenly ignited, spreading from His eyes to His entire body, engulfing Him in the flames of original sin. The temperature of those flames exceeded the limits of any means of temperature measurement, because it was not heat, but the burning of the very concept of "sin."
The body of the Lord of Hell swelled, deformed, and reformed in the flames.
Thirty-six pairs of wings folded together, and new eyes grew from each bone spur, each eye gazing upon a different dimension of law. The ram's horns on its head broke off and regenerated, the regenerated horns covered with ancient runes never before seen.
This is His "Hell True Form".