Inside the Heart of the Universe, Rosen silently stepped out of the Space-Time Traversal Gate.
The current Heart of the Universe had grown dozens of times stronger due to the vast expansion of the Sea of Cosmic Origins. As a result, its power had also multiplied many times over—but this immense strength came at the cost of the universe's gradual destruction. One could say that the Heart of the Universe's current power was like a dying flare before collapse.
As such, it had become violently unstable. Even those wielding Universe Source Seeds were repelled in this place.
Rosen released the power of the Origin Source Seed and merged it into his Creator Domain. Only then did the Heart of the Universe's rejection ease significantly. After all, the Origin Source Seed was once the vessel chosen by the Heart of the Universe to birth a new Heart. Sometimes, Rosen regretted destroying the Book of Fate back then.
If he hadn't, perhaps he would already possess a new Heart of the Universe formed from the Origin Fruit.
But the Book of Fate had been too sinister to keep around—leaving it might have caused even greater trouble.
Rosen controlled his Creator Domain, fused with the Miracle Star Sea, and used its assimilation and fusion abilities to merge partially with the Heart of the Universe.
Through this fusion, he cautiously sensed how the Heart of the Universe exerted control over the cosmos.
No matter how much he tried in secluded cultivation, he had been unable to resolve the conflict between parsing power and concentration.
After much thought, Rosen turned his attention to the infinite Origin Beasts scattered across the universe.
These Origin Beasts, born of the Sea of Origin Darkness, were in a sense tools wielded by the Heart of the Universe.
They guarded the Sea of Origin Darkness, preventing life from the starry skies from recklessly occupying and plundering its energy.
Origin Beasts were not born or bred—they were directly created from the world's essence, emerging spontaneously from nothing. This method of unintentionally creating powerful, mindless beings bore a striking resemblance to the I Ponder, Therefore I Am power of the Immortal Will.
That was what led Rosen to study how the Heart of the Universe brought Origin Beasts into being from nothingness.
By learning from nature itself, he might be able to shape his own Primordial Holy Law.
Days passed. Rosen withdrew his Creator Domain.
His instincts had been right. The birth of Origin Beasts was indeed related to the I Ponder power, but it wasn't based on Immortal Will—it was grounded in an Immortal World. The entire Sea of Cosmic Origins had been transformed by Primordial Beings into a unique Immortal World.
Through the Heart of the Universe and the perception granted by his Immortal Will, Rosen sensed the Sea of Cosmic Origins.
That was when he discovered something startling—the Sea of Cosmic Origins contained many fused Immortal Wills.
Though their memories had been erased, the Primordial Holy Laws formed by these Immortal Wills were still operating. At least several dozen such laws overlapped—controlling parts of the Sea of Cosmic Origins and simultaneously sealing the Heart of the Universe.
This was clearly the hidden hand left by transcendent Primordial Beings. The moment a new universe was born, these laws would likely refine it instantly.
Even the appearance of Origin Beasts might not have been the Heart of the Universe's intention, but rather the creation of several specific Primordial Holy Laws.
Although this discovery differed from his expectations, Rosen was even more excited.
Because now, dozens of Primordial Holy Laws lay before him. Though his Eye of the Creator could not completely decipher the essence of these laws, even partial parsing would be immensely helpful in constructing his own.
Rosen withdrew the Creator Domain not because he had nothing more to gain—
—but because the Heart of the Universe's rejection had grown too fierce. It instinctively rejected Immortal Will, yet Rosen had forcibly infused his Immortal Will into it. Without the Origin Source Seed to suppress the rejection, he'd have been annihilated by the Heart of the Universe in an instant.
Now, he had to wait for the backlash to subside before he could seize another chance to glimpse those laws.
Decades flew by. Every month, Rosen would return to the Heart of the Universe to peer into its depths for a few days.
The intervals grew longer. His glimpses became shorter.
Each time, the Origin Source Seed resisted the Heart's backlash, but their affinity gradually wore thin. It was clear that no matter how high one's favorability, dancing on someone's grave day after day would eventually burn all bridges.
Rosen had sacrificed a great deal of goodwill, but what he gained was more than worth it.
He now knew how to perfect his Primordial Holy Law that strengthened the Immortal Will's I Ponder power.
His previous path had been misguided—driven by excessive greed.
The Immortal Will can govern anything through the I Ponder power. This ability is almost equivalent to a strengthened version of the Myriad Transformation Law.
Since all Primordial Beings possess the Immortal Will and can use the I Ponder power to freely alter themselves, if one Primordial Being believes it controls the power of the Primordial Nightfall, does that mean it can truly rival the Primordial Nightfall?
The answer is definitely no. Even if the Primordial Dark Sun used the I Ponder power to become the Primordial Nightfall, it would still not be a match for the real Primordial Nightfall.
The reason is simple: the same game character, when controlled by different players, can exhibit a world of difference in combat power.
Between the Primordial Dark Sun and the Primordial Nightfall, it is certain that the latter understands its own power far better.
Even if the Primordial Dark Sun wields the power of the Nightfall Moonlight, its performance would still fall far short of its own Dark Sun power.
Therefore, Rosen's desire to create a Primordial Holy Law that could parse all things was actually a fundamentally flawed choice.
Before reaching the Primordial Being level, the more powers one possessed, the greater the advantage in overcoming others.
But at the Primordial Being level, since everyone possesses the Immortal Will and can freely wield all powers through the I Ponder force, holding many powers no longer provides an advantage. The optimal path for Primordial Beings is one of extreme specialization.
The reason the Supreme Moon Saint is much weaker than the Primordial Sun is that the Supreme Moon Saint follows a route based on imitation.
Through the brilliance of moonlight, the Supreme Moon Saint excels at reflecting and copying enemy techniques.
Rosen himself mastered the Myriad Transformation Law, but after being misled by the Supreme Moon Saint, he nearly went down the wrong path.
Hence, parsing power is not the core of a Primordial Holy Law—only concentration power is. Of course, this doesn't mean parsing power is worthless. Extreme specialization is not about narrowing one's path, but about taking strengths from others to broaden it like a vast ocean.
In his Origin Microcosm, Rosen accelerated time in the Memory World to about a million times normal speed.
Under the Time Source Seed's enhancement, the time law can accelerate the time of eternal life by up to a thousand times. The Memory World's time distortion further accelerates it by another thousand times. Stacked together, that's a million times the speed of real time, which is his greatest leverage for deducing the Primordial Holy Law.
Nearly two thousand years had passed since the invasion of the Fourteenth Star Ring by the Sinful Lifeforms.
The starry skies of the Fourteenth Star Ring still resisted. The Sea of Origin Darkness continuously fed the world's essence, constantly repairing the endlessly damaged starry skies. The eternal Origin Beasts that appeared one after another fiercely battled the Sinful Lifeforms in an unending stalemate.
The Sinful Lifeforms were neither dead nor destroyed; the eternal Origin Beasts kept emerging without end.
But as time passed, the rate of Origin Beast birth slowed down.
If the Heart of the Universe possessed cosmic will and wisdom, solving the Sinful Lifeforms with Origin Beasts wouldn't be difficult.
Even if the Sinful Lifeforms were immortal, if they couldn't be killed, couldn't they at least be sealed?
Or if the Heart of the Universe gave up on endlessly creating Origin Beasts and instead attacked the memory layer of the Sinful Lifeforms' Immortal Will, it would be easy to deal with a group of equally mindless Sinful Lifeforms.
But it was impossible. The dozens of Primordial Holy Laws in the Sea of Cosmic Origins jointly restricted the Heart of the Universe.
The endlessly emerging Origin Beasts seemed to be preventing the Sinful Lifeforms, but in reality, they were gradually draining the Heart of the Universe. This bleeding wasn't a weakening of the cosmic origin itself, but a diminishing of the Heart of the Universe's control over the cosmic origin.
The Heart of the Universe had no will, only instinct—and its instinct to control the universe relied on laws.
As the laws of cosmic collapse disintegrated, the Heart of the Universe's control over the cosmic origin weakened.
When the Heart of the Universe could no longer control more and more cosmic origin in the Sea of Cosmic Origins, it would absorb all cosmic origin, collapse the old universe, and open a new one.
While Rosen remained secluded, deducing the Primordial Holy Law, the Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint had already begun to act.
No more deliberation. Dozens of veteran eternal lives in the Saint Temple immediately left their microcosm.
The Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint split into two forces, commanding eternal lives to exterminate the Origin Beasts.
At this moment, exterminating the Origin Beasts was equivalent to being accomplices to the universe's destruction.
Naturally, these eternal lives were instinctively despised and rejected by the Heart of the Universe.
Basically, these eternal lives severed their inheritance of the new universe—and also cut off their own escape routes.
The Elemental Saints knew this too, but faced with the cosmic trend, they had no choice.
Having witnessed the terrifying power of the Immortal Will in contention with the Chaos Saints, they understood their chances to inherit the new universe were slim. In such a situation, clinging to a slim hope was just as unlikely to let them survive.
So they chose to surrender early, even taking orders to hunt down the Origin Beasts and cut off their own escape routes. After the new universe is born, no matter whether the Chaos Saint or the Dimension Saint obtains it, some people will still be needed to manage the new universe. This is far better than clinging to a slim chance and being wiped out in the end.
Everyone had their own thoughts. While some gave up, naturally others refused to let go.
They were all eternal lives, unwilling to abandon the chance to compete for the new universe.
Almost all of the veteran eternal lives still in the Saint Temple had secretly contacted the Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint, but none of them chose to defect. Their reasoning was simple: if one person can't obtain the new universe, then surely a group banding together can?
Though their chances of success were slim, they preferred to be the head of a chicken rather than the tail of a phoenix.
If they couldn't even be the head of a chicken, they'd rather perish along the way than be trampled underfoot, manipulated by others.
The remaining one hundred fifty or so eternal lives in the Saint Temple began to mobilize, preparing to side with the Heart of the Universe and help the Origin Beasts resist the Sinful Lifeforms. Of course, they weren't prepared for a fight to the death—only to gain some goodwill while retreating as they fought.
The ruins of the temple, illusions born of the brilliant moonlight, saw the Supreme Moon Saint rise from an avatar to their true eternal self again.
Under the Supreme Moon Saint's leadership, the Saint Temple quickly halted the Sinful Lifeforms' progress in dismantling the universe.
So strong was their united strength that they even began to push back, bit by bit.
This immediately unsettled the Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint.
The destruction of the universe was an inevitable trend. They could tolerate the Supreme Moon Saint and the Saint Temple gaining some favor from the Heart of the Universe, but they could never agree to letting them repel the Sinful Lifeforms and stop the universe's destruction.
Seizing the opportunity, the Immortal Will projections of the Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint infiltrated the Saint Temple's microcosm.
"Supreme Moon Saint, are you forcing us to kill you?" the Chaos Saint challenged.
"Don't worry, I have no intention of stopping the universe's destruction," the Supreme Moon Saint shook their head threateningly. "But I have the power to ruin your plans along with the Saint Temple. If you want me to give up targeting the Sinful Lifeforms, I need you to tell me the truth behind three things. Otherwise, there's nothing to discuss."
"What do you want to know?" the Chaos Saint asked, restraining his murderous intent.
"How did the Primordial Sun become the Primordial Dark Sun?"
"How will the Primordial Holy Laws of the Cosmic Origin Sea be resolved?"
"What's the deal with the Fate Bookshelf?"
The Supreme Moon Saint asked bluntly.
"The Primordial Holy Laws of the Cosmic Origin Sea are a last resort left by the Primordial Beings..." The Chaos Saint thought for a moment before answering. "Those transcendent Primordial Beings once left the universe as a fallback, even creating the starry cosmos, but they could not control it, because the resentment of the cosmic will before its death fused into the Heart of the Universe and rejected them.
The main purpose of destroying the old universe and birthing the new one is to erase that cosmic will's resentment.
The newly born universe will be refined by these Primordial Holy Laws and jointly controlled by all the transcendent beings.
The Fate Bookshelf is actually quite simple: they feared that eternal lives born during the old universe's long existence would escape control, so they left the Fate Bookshelf to lock the destinies of all eternal lives, ensuring the new universe's birth never escapes their grasp.
Even if no one destroys the Fate Bookshelf, Dimension Saint and I will.
As for how the Primordial Sun became the Primordial Dark Sun, I don't know either. I only suspect the Primordial Sun came into contact with power outside the universe. Although Dimension Saint and I have been reincarnated, our memories were damaged, and we only know this much."
Having gotten the answers they wanted, the Supreme Moon Saint led the Saint Temple to slow their assault on the Sinful Lifeforms.
But they also resolutely held their ground, stubbornly preventing the collapse of the Fourteenth Star Ring.
Rosen's intention was simple: to buy more time for his true self to deduce and create Primordial Holy Laws to enhance his power.
He also aimed to accumulate goodwill and continuously test the limits of the Chaos Saint and others.
The Fourteenth Star Ring, which should have collapsed after three thousand years, stubbornly endured for four or five thousand, even gradually approaching ten thousand years. Although ten thousand years is short for eternal lives, the patience of the Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint was gradually wearing thin.
Finally, on this day, the Chaos Saint and Dimension Saint could no longer endure.
They decided to join forces to kill the chicken as a warning to the monkeys—to force the Saint Temple to withdraw from the Fourteenth Star Ring's battlefield. The target of this warning was the most active Eternal World Tree of the Saint Temple over the years. If the warning failed, they were willing to pay some price to eradicate the Saint Temple.
(End of chapter)