That was a billion stars.

This was the first time Wang Qi activated the Martial Arts True Intent within the three Dragon Clan Coins. He felt as if his brain had been struck, stuffed with an abundance of information.

A Heavenly Star Map—a star chart. It wasn't flat but three-dimensional. The stars were like treasures evenly scattered on the ground, each one breathtakingly beautiful.

Yet, so distant.

Wang Qi realized that the scene within the True Intent Inheritance was viewed from a vast expanse between several galaxy systems. It was removed from all celestial bodies, a region unwarmed by light and heat.

Deep space, deep cold, oblivion.

Through the legacy of martial arts, Wang Qi crossed time and space, experiencing the awe of the founder before that galaxy.

Yet, soon, the true destruction began.

A swath of red appeared on the tip of an arm of a certain galaxy, then slowly expanded outward. All of the constant stars underwent a terrible transformation. They were turning red.

Only the weakest constant stars were red, signifying relatively cool temperatures.

Most stars didn't permanently lose their light and heat. Their reddening didn't last too long. However, many stars underwent irreversible changes. Once trapped in a state of low temperature, their nuclear fusion could no longer resist gravity, collapsing the stars themselves into brown dwarf stars, red giant stars, or causing nova explosions.

When this effect occurred simultaneously across different planets, the result was horrifying.

At the edge of the galaxy, a red band of light, ten thousand light-years long, swept across to the other side of the galaxy. Behind this light band, intense sparks of light came and went in a flash. The luminosity of the entire galaxy dimmed, the entire cosmos was losing light and heat.

...No, that's not right!

Wang Qi suddenly realized that this reddening phenomenon was happening at the same time. It's just that the disaster was so vast that when events nearby concluded, those far away had not yet been observed. The speed of light was insufficient. Light from the far end of the galaxy took much longer to reach that nameless observer, hence the seeming difference in the times of occurrence.

Nearly the entire universe lost its light and heat at the same moment!

Dimming wasn't limited to this galaxy alone. Surrounding galaxies, farther superclusters... the entire cosmos was darkening!

Cold!

So cold!

A chill that could freeze the soul seized Wang Qi.

Was this the "Galaxy Battlefront"? Was this the "Universal Calamity" that the Dragon Clan had once witnessed?

This was beyond the scale of any "Heavenly Calamity."

Soon, Wang Qi's spiritual turmoil was too much, breaking his comprehension. The dread felt by that unknown observer, too, traveled through the True Intent Inheritance to him. It was a loneliness and mourning that seeped into the marrow. Wang Qi's mere century of life experience was no match for such will. Trembling, he exclaimed, "This is absurd..."

Feng Luoyi, who was also witnessing this scene with the help of Wang Qi's Mana Flow, fell silent for a long while. After all, he was a Carefree Practitioner, and his resolve was far superior to Wang Qi's current state. Plus, he wasn't directly facing the True Intent Inheritance as intensely as Wang Qi. He only asked, "Do you think the Ancient Dragon Emperor, or some Great Power behind the Dragon Clan who deliberately left behind this legacy, were madmen?"

"A single Life Being, how could it plunge billions of light-years of the universe into such a state?" Wang Qi gasped, "This is not... this is against the Way! Even the strongest Immortal we can conceive of is just a nebula creature, with a body spanning dozens of light-years, compared to a being that can affect tens of billions of light-years simultaneously..."

Could we have encountered the Supreme Being of this universe?

"Steady your mind!" Feng Luoyi chided, "With your wisdom, you should have guessed the clues! The phenomenon that corresponds to this move is called 'Galaxy Battlefront'!"

With this reprimand from Feng Luoyi came the Demon Suppression Heart Sound, causing Wang Qi to break into a sudden sweat.

"Right... I should have realized..." Wang Qi muttered.

Galaxy Battlefront... Galaxy Battlefront...

That red band of light was merely a visual phenomenon caused by the limit of light speed and didn't mean the redness was actually a "battlefront." However, the thing reflected by this move did indeed encompass the mental realm of "battle"...

If there's a battle, there must be at least two factions, two collectives at war.

"Is this universal phenomenon of light and heat loss actually a battle between Immortal factions?" Wang Qi said, "But how are they breaching the gap of light speed?"

What principle could allow the same event to happen simultaneously on a scale of hundreds of millions of light-years?

Wang Qi couldn't understand at all.

The cosmos contains different times and spaces; the flow of time varies slightly across different gravitational fields, making even atomic clocks irrelevant. Unless the battling Immortals could observe the cosmic microwave background radiation, understand how to measure the precise age of the universe based on it, and agree to launch the attack at a designated time after the Big Bang. That was the only known standard time axis that could be utilized on a universal scale.

Or perhaps those Immortals had grown mad enough to master more sci-fi "over-membrane broadcasting" skills.

If they really had such strengths, then there was no need to adhere to the Modern path anymore. Everyone should just split and ascend or wait for death as appropriate.

Yet, Feng Luoyi countered: "Do you think Taiyi Heavenly Venerable has attained the Dao?"

Wang Qi was stunned, "Taiyi Heavenly Venerable is the most significant figure since the Yuanli Master..."

"I'm asking you, has Ai Citan attained Dao?" Feng Luoyi inquired with the Demon Suppression Heart Sound, "Can his word be regarded as the Dao?"

"Of course not..."

"Then is there any problem?" asked Feng Luoyi.

Wang Qi finally suppressed the Heart Demon triggered by the inheritance of martial arts, "Yes..."

Relativity is correct, but not absolute.

Scientists discovering phenomena that do not conform to the existing theoretical system should not cry out in panic, "This is unscientific," and then deny it, but should be happy instead.

Because every phenomenon that the existing theoretical system cannot explain means an opportunity for breakthrough!

The two small clouds in physics—the Michelson-Morley experiment and the blackbody radiation experiment—were phenomena that the classical physics system could not explain. Later on, these two small clouds separately gave birth to relativity and quantum mechanics.

"Since it has happened, it should be accepted, not denied... as long as the inheritance reflected is truly visible..."

Wang Qi employed the Visualization Method, letting the light of wisdom cleanse his spirit and immediately felt much lighter. He bowed to Feng Luoyi, "Thank you, Teacher."

"No need," sighed Feng Luoyi, "In the short term, do not activate that True Intent. The information you've obtained is enough. I still miscalculated. You are too far from the Great Power who left behind the True Intent Inheritance, and it's difficult to resist the erosion from two billion years ago."

Wang Qi caught a keyword, "Two billion years ago?"

Feng Luoyi nodded, "I roughly understand when that 'Universal Calamity' came from now."

"How did you figure it out?"

Wang Qi was puzzled. Two billion years ago, weren't human ancestors just primitive mammals? Some kind of geological discovery?

Feng Luoyi brought up another matter, "Do you remember the Immortal Alliance sealed off most of the Xuanxing Temple's records?"

Wang Qi nodded, "I remember the reason being... was it because the space outside the gravity rings is too chaotic? Or was it to conceal the presence of the Banished Immortal?"

Feng Luoyi shook her head, "Those were only secondary reasons. The primary reason was to hide the star observations Xuanxing Temple made in the past thousand years."

"The past thousand years? How does that relate to two billion years ago..." Wang Qi had a thought, "Could it be that the stars about two billion light-years away from us are exhibiting some anomalies?"

"About half of the stars roughly two billion light-years away from us are turning red," Feng Luoyi stated succinctly, "You understand what this means, right?"

Wang Qi nodded.

The speed of light has an upper limit. Light from two billion light-years away takes two billion years to reach us, informing us about what happened in that region two billion years ago.

"It was probably the year when the Heavenly Element Group of the Heavenly Song set the light speed limit that the Modern Immortal Path began to recognize the appearance of the universe. Then, Xuanxing Temple discovered an incredible fact—the stars approximately two billion light-years away have a general redshift in their spectrum. Stars further away are still very bright, and closer ones do not exhibit this phenomenon."

"In more distant places, the light has not yet reached us; Shenzhou is still outside the light cone of the event," Wang Qi understood, "While the closer stars have already changed."

"The redshifting stars aren't just one or two, but nearly half. And the other half are gradually turning red as well. Later on, we discovered that the redshift phenomenon in the star spectra is not permanent. It lasts for millennia at most, and at the shortest, merely decades."

Wang Qi said, "I understand now. The light coming from those stars two billion light-years away is telling us what happened two billion years ago. If we make a big enough observatory instrument, we might even witness a real cosmic war!"

Feng Luoyi smiled, "That observatory would have to be a light-year in size to see the truth clearly."

Wang Qi patted his chest, "Luckily for me, even cultivators can't use the naked eye to observe stars two billion light-years away. Without a large observatory, the stars two billion light-years away are basically invisible."

What does two billion light-years mean?

Take Earth, for example. The radius of the Galaxy System that Earth resides in is 26,000 light-years. The Galaxy System is on the edge of the Laniakea Supercluster, and at its center, the Giant Attraction Source is also about two billion light-years away. The Laniakea Supercluster contains over a hundred thousand galaxies about the same size as the Galaxy System.

Human eyes are clearly not evolved to observe objects beyond tens of thousands of galaxies.

But fortunately, that's the case. If that Universal Calamity had occurred a few hundred thousand years ago, then such strange phenomena would not have eluded ordinary people.

Feng Luoyi asked again, "Two billion years ago, this timing, don't you find it very coincidental?"

Wang Qi was shocked, "The Dragon Clan!"

The extinction of the Dragon Clan civilization happened precisely two billion years ago!

It was that Universal Calamity that erased the vestiges of the civilization, forcing the dragons to huddle in the Holy Dragon Abyss.

To call them the number one race of Shenzhou, or the overlords of the sea for millions of years, is now an insult to the once glorious race. They had thrived amongst stars and seas, yet because of a calamity that swept across the entire universe, they erased their glory, merely striving for a feeble survival.

"That old dragon in the Holy Dragon Abyss must know something!" (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to support by voting for it at QiDian [qidian.com]. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)