CHAPTER 873: CHAPTER 596: LEGEND OF TIME (MONTHLY TICKET REQUESTED)

The meteor slowly rotated, drawing in dust from all directions, gathering dust into soil, condensing soil into rock; at first, it took the shape of an irregular polyhedron, but under the honing of time and gravity, it became smooth and round, its diameter swelling from several zhang to over a thousand zhang within half a year.

A new minor planet was born.

On this day, the planet’s crust split open, magma spewed forth, transforming into red flames, wrapping the asteroid, making it resemble a fiery bronze furnace.

The rock patterns on the bronze furnace’s surface, carved by nature’s divine hands, told the mythical tales of time.

In the beginning, all things were void.

In the absolute "nothingness" with not even the concept of existence, countless pure white stars were suspended; among them, one pure white star, at a certain moment, exploded—from nothing to being, in the expansion of space, myriad concepts and rules arose as the times called for.

Thereafter, myriad Daos resounded.

With the pure white star as origin, during the accelerated expansion of "space and time," the emergence of material begot innumerable stars, and above the realms exceeding the dimension of matter, the Dao Rules governing the universe reigned above all stars,

Within the Dao, great spirits slumbered.

Next came the wild stampede of ten thousand horses.

No one knows why, nor when; perhaps it was in the Ancient Era, or an even more distant time—yet the great spirits within the Dao suddenly grew weary of the established order.

They warred against one another, flames of battle rising everywhere. In those days, countless powerful beings born of the stars took their stages one after another, dragons soaring, phoenixes dancing.

In the endless wars, there was a headless Demon God who split Heaven and Earth wielding a giant axe; a Golden Robed Emperor who wore three suns atop his head, with sun and moon suspended—driving dragons and riding phoenixes; a candle-bearing dragon whose awakening bade day and sleep brought night, whose breath meant winter, whose call summoned summer; a nine-tailed, human-headed tiger shouldering mountains...and countless more Giant Spirits joined this great war.

After unnumbered ages, the war ended, countless Giant Spirits perished and were buried in the starry sky, returning to dust; only the four headed by the Golden Robed Emperor, Headless Demon God, Candle-Bearing Dragon, and Nine-Tailed Tiger endured, with thirty-six Giant Spirits of the Dao surviving in all. They returned to the Dao, and Heaven and Earth crowned the Golden Robed Emperor as king, establishing forty-nine resplendent Dao Palaces.

The Giant Spirits took dominion in the Dao Palaces, becoming lords of heaven and earth; thirteen Dao Palaces remained without masters. The Golden Robed Emperor granted the two most important palaces to those who had fought beside him across the universe and driven the Divine Chariot—a Red Dragon and a multicolored Phoenix. The remaining eleven he divided among the surviving Star Giant Spirits, and thus the order of the realms was set.

In the end, all things had order.

After that Primordial War, the forty-nine Dao Palace lords rebuilt their dominion in a universe like ruins.

The Nine-Tailed Tiger gathered 108 trillion stars at the site of the pure white star’s explosion, and it was there, which the Giant Spirits called "Heavenly Yuan," that with Supreme Divine Power a continent was raised. In each place a Giant Spirit had fallen, he folded space to form countless "Realm Tombs"; between the folded dimensions arose an endless Void Wasteland, a sea separating the Realm Tombs.

When Heavenly Yuan Continent was formed, its immense gravity, over endless time, pulled in stars ceaselessly, and beneath the continent, a new land was formed. This desolate region the Giant Spirits called the "Great Wilderness."

The Golden Robed Emperor captured ninety-nine thousand fixed stars, forging in the Great Wilderness Sky nine mighty suns.

Nine Suns hung in the sky!

This marked the nine most Supreme among the forty-nine Dao Palaces, with the Emperor at their head.

Through the rise and fall of many epochs, a brand-new structure of the universe was forged in the Ancient Era.

It was called—the Divine Court!

And that boundless starry sky—where war had raged for countless eons, and in which strong beings might have been born—after the advent of the Divine Court, never again birthed a new powerful being.

Some now call it,

The Lost Land.

...

Lu Chenzhou opened his eyes within the core of the minor planet, red flames surging, wind and thunder ever-present, the grandeur of his Qi-Blood and the vastness of his Spiritual Power rubbed together, generating a sapphire-hued lightning in the void, which draped down as a cloak.

Within his body, as if uncounted stars, trillion upon trillion of cells roared, channeling trace after trace of strange energies through his flesh, merging in his meridians, flowing like a Galaxy.

He broke through the flaming bronze furnace condensed from the minor planet, and with a casual punch into the heavens above, that strange energy twisted the space before him, forming a pitch-black, unfathomable vortex that swallowed all light.

Lu Chenzhou felt a resonance in his heart, stepped into the vortex, which then gradually dissipated, leaving only endless Void,

Crossing a dazzling, kaleidoscopic channel, as fleeting as a blink, as protracted as eons, when Lu Chenzhou emerged once more, familiar beams of light appeared before his eyes.

"The Sun..."

Fifteen years he spent, journeying on the Aurora Palace through the stars—now, in a single step, he could arrive.

"Even a Great Power could not do such; it’s not that I am faster, but because my resonance with the starry sky has grown—I have made this my home. Wherever I wish to go, I go, unobstructed by anything."

Lu Chenzhou glanced at the Martial Arts Tree.

[Chaos: Fifth Rank (83%)]

"Well now, World Dao’s increased thirty percent in one leap; after Fifth Rank, even if you refine the Void Stele, it boosts less than ten percent! This time, with the birth of Inner Strength, World Dao benefited most."

Next, he looked to Revolving.

[Mixed Cave: Fifth Rank (3%)]

"After absorbing part of a Demon Saint’s soul, Revolving Dao advanced to Fifth Rank—renaming it Mixed Cave suits it better. Mixed Cave is the counterpoint to Chaos: Chaos is the dawn of creation, Mixed Cave is the end of endings; two sides of the world, of the very universe itself, connected by Withering and Flourishing."

[Withering and Flourishing: Fifth Rank (52%)]

"Withering and Flourishing Dao also increased by a third. The joy of forging Creation Techniques! One Inner Strength boosts all three of my Daos at once."

Lu Chenzhou raised his hand, his fingertip tracing a strange True Gang Energy as dark as ink, threaded with blue light and countless glimmering specks—like he was idly pulling a Galaxy streaming with stars.

He called it "Cosmic True Gang."

How vast is the concept of the Universe?

Ordinary folk would never dare name anything so.

Yet it was not prideful arrogance.

This Enlightenment of Dao, in blending as one with the Will of Xia Realm, granted him a fleeting vision of this universe’s own history of creation, revealing that the Divine Court, the Three Thousand Worlds, the Great Wilderness...were all born of the starry sky of Xia Realm—Xia Realm is the body of the Universe!

In remote ages, the gods birthed by the Dao were not limited to the Divine Court’s forty-nine; there were more.

Even mighty True Spirits such as Dragon and Phoenix were at first special beings birthed within the stars.

That was the wild, primeval mythic era, when the gods of the Dao and the Giant Spirits of the stars waged immortal war in the sky, all vying for dominion over the forty-nine Dao Palaces towering above the Dao itself.

Countless Gods and Demons fell, stars withered and declined.

Only the forty-nine who claimed the Dao Palaces, of whom thirty-six were Spirits of the Dao—the Great Wilderness Gods.

Lu Chenzhou had learned many secrets of the Great Wilderness from his eldest senior brother; much aligned closely with what the Will of Xia Realm had shown—each confirming the other.

"So it is—the Nine Yang of the Great Wilderness are nine Great Gods...Star Lord of Si Yang, Golden Crow Emperor, Lord of the Divine Court—ruler of the Sun and Creation and countless Innate Dao Rules; Star Lord of Punishment, Gan Qi Demon Monarch, mightiest general of the Divine Court, ruler of War, Order, Destruction, and Law; Star Lord of Cosmos, Zhu Jiuyin, keeper of the Chronicles of Time, residing on [Zhong Mountain], above the River of Time; Star Lord of Universe, Lu Wu, holding dominion over Space and Mountains, dwelling at the starting point of endless space—the [Heavenly Yuan]; Star Lord of Destiny, Chi Ji, in charge of Destiny, the Ancestor of the Ancient True Dragon, who achieved divine enthronement and harmony with the Dao; Star Lord of Netherworld, Queen of Ghosts, Ancestor of the Ancient Celestial Phoenix, said to be the wife of the Golden Crow Emperor, ruler of Taiyin, Life and Death, and the Six Paths—so these are the six Great Gods!"

As for the remaining three, Lu Chenzhou knew far less.

He only knew two by name: [Star Lord of Planets, Five Virtues Master], [Star Lord of Spirit, Wa Chiang]. As for the ninth Star Lord, since ancient times few had heard their name; neither the eldest brother nor the Patriarch knew. However powerful, one was not qualified to glimpse the secrets of the universe’s Top Level Nine. Many suspected the ninth did not exist at all.

Among the eight known Star Lords, the Golden Crow Emperor is the strongest in battle, titled Heavenly Emperor, overlord of the Great Wilderness; Gan Qi Demon Monarch is next; as for the other six, it’s hard to say who is stronger or weaker, for their Domains differ greatly.

Lu Chenzhou opened the Travel Star Book.

At the end of the book,

The master of Yuan Mountain had left a line.

[Of the billions of cosmic stars, why is it that only a precious few give birth to Star Oddities? These Oddities possess instinctual Spiritual nature, but not a complete Will. If the star is a chicken egg, and oddity its embryo, then it is as if the Spiritual has been curtailed while still forming. In this starry sky world—desolate, and even Cultivator civilization not yet born—there seems to be some further secret.]

"Those Star Oddities are, most likely, the embryonic forms of Ancient True Spirits born within stars!"

So pondered Lu Chenzhou.

"In the Ancient Era when the Divine Court was founded, apart from a few variants ascending to Ancient True Spirit through Cultivation, no new True Spirit was ever born.

The True Spirit Sect, which studied the True Spirit Technique and hoped to become Dao through True Spirit, perished overnight by strange means."

The answer, half-shrouded, half-revealed.

"Heaven’s Dao Palace holds only forty-nine seats; the universe issues only forty-nine thrones of immortality. If True Spirit birth went unchecked, in time, amid billions of stars, vast numbers of True Spirits would emerge, toppling the Divine Court’s established order and dragging the forty-nine immortals down from their altars. So, after the Divine Court was founded, all True Spirits vanished. Cultivators, though they might rise, are but ephemera; throughout the ages, no new gods have arisen—there are no more seats left!"

Thus analyzed Lu Chenzhou.

This was only his conjecture.

No one knew the truth.

"Had those uninvited guests from the Land of the Stars, wielding outside force, not torn asunder the old pattern of the Divine Court, then even after tens of thousands, millions, or hundreds of millions of years, no matter how many cycles of Cultivator civilization, prosperity would turn to decline—just as in Da Xia’s ancient dynastic cycle, the feudal order’s nature would remain unchanged."

He mulled over something his eldest brother had told him: [Out of Great Destruction, life is born].

Now that the Divine Court had fallen, when he glimpsed the Dao Palace at the moment of his Entering Dao, all were but shattered ruins.

With the divine seats vacated, does this mean that in this age one might become a God? Cultivators no longer bound?

Suddenly, a chilling thought swept his mind: are these Evil Gods of the Land of the Stars self-arriving at the Great Universe, or is it some force in the shadows of history that guides them in?