In the Mysterious Study, Rosen's Law Domain had shrunk to the size of a fish tank and was placed on the table.
Looking down from above into the interior of the Law Domain, the Root Tree was already refining the Life Source Seed under a time acceleration of a thousandfold.
That the refinement went so smoothly owed much to the aid of the Undying Tree.
The Undying Tree had already been resurrected in the Eternal Hell through the power of Time Reincarnation. However, after resurrection, it became a game NPC of the Eternal Hell. Under the enslavement of Source Seeds, it ultimately became one of his tools.
However, having lost both the Life Source Seed and its Eternal World, the Undying Tree's power now ranked at the very bottom among the Immortal Godfiends.
On the other hand, once the Root Tree fused with the Life Source Seed, it only needed to open up an Eternal World to ascend to the Immortal Godfiend level.
In this regard, Rosen had no concerns about resources. The Undying Tree, having long sought to return to Eternal Life, had accumulated a vast fortune over the years—now all of that had been handed over to the Root Tree. The only thing still lacking was an appropriate ascension environment.
The edge of the Cosmic Source Sea was the most suitable, but attempting an ascension there came with considerable risk.
Looking back, Rosen felt rather fortunate for the luck he'd had.
It was only after joining the Heavenburning Star Palace that he learned the strongest of the Three Great Powers—the Holy Divine Hall—was located within the Cosmic Source Sea.
No one knew who the members of the Holy Divine Hall were; in fact, no one had even seen its current members.
But every Immortal Godfiend knew of its existence, for the Holy Divine Hall was an organization established by Eternal Lives in the distant past.
Those reincarnations of fallen Eternal Lives were absolutely certain the Holy Divine Hall had never been disbanded.
What exactly the current state of the Holy Divine Hall was, what those surviving Eternal Lives were plotting—even their own reincarnations had no clue. But one thing was certain: these beings, silent for countless ages, were definitely not idly hiding away.
Thus, the Cosmic Source Sea was not a suitable ascension site, as there was a risk of alarming the Eternal Lives of the Holy Divine Hall.
Eliminating that option, only one optimal choice remained.
Origin Beasts, though lacking true intelligence, did possess brains with basic memory functions.
Through the brain of the Origin Beast Sovereign, Rosen discovered the secret of the Origin Beasts' birth.
Origin Beasts were born in the Dark Sea of Origin, but not every part of the Dark Sea could spawn one.
When the cosmic starry sky was damaged, the world's source energy in the Dark Sea would flow toward it to initiate repairs.
This process resembled water flowing to lower ground—energy from all directions converged at a single point, and at that point, an Origin Beast would be born. Origin Beasts gave off the impression of being cosmic repairmen and cleaners, maintaining universal balance.
Though this wasn't the only way they could be born, it was definitely one of the primary methods.
As a result, the half of the universe controlled by the Heavenburning Star Palace had many Origin Beasts in its portion of the Dark Sea.
By contrast, in the Chaos Star Sea, the cosmic starry sky had been so thoroughly devastated that the Dark Sea was constantly repairing it—this continuous diffusion prevented the energy from concentrating, resulting in far fewer Origin Beasts compared to the other half of the universe.
Rosen opened a Gate Across Realms and returned to the half of the universe where the Heavenburning Star Palace resided. Before long, he located an uninhabited super galaxy cluster within the 14th star ring.
Directly destroying such a supercluster would surely provoke the cosmic will's rejection.
Though the repulsion wasn't strong, cumulative rejection could become quite a hassle.
So Rosen didn't plan to act directly—he intended to find a scapegoat.
The Gate Across Realms remained open and continued to grow larger.
The other end of the gate pointed toward the Chaos Star Sea, near the coordinates of his next target.
If he could lure that prey over, he could take the opportunity to eliminate them here.
What he needed now was bait to draw them in.
As the gate expanded, it no longer maintained the shape of a portal but instead swelled into a spatial black hole. Though the Black Hole Source Seed was primarily gravitational in nature, it could still be combined with the Gate Across Realms and the Space Source Seed to form a naturally occurring black hole spanning half the universe.
No matter how one inspected it, this appeared to be a natural black hole—one that allowed stealthy entry from the Chaos Star Sea into the other half of the universe.
Strictly speaking, individuals from the Chaos Star Sea were actually stronger on average than those from the Heavenburning Star Palace.
After all, with countless years of looting and no development of civilization or nurturing of races, resources were all hoarded by individuals, making them stronger overall. However, precisely because they acted without any bottom line, the Immortal Godfiends of the Chaos Star Sea were almost entirely disorganized.
Most critically, the Chaos Star Sea had no concern for sustainable development, treating all resources as targets for plunder.
While they feasted at first, the long-term consequences eventually caught up with them.
As resources grew ever scarcer, they had no choice but to cast their eyes on the Heavenburning Star Palace.
However, the Star Palace was no pushover. Even the Immortal Godfiends of the Chaos Star Sea found it difficult to take advantage of.
More importantly, many Immortal Godfiends had already given up hope of advancing further toward Eternal Life. Their demand for cultivation resources had greatly diminished, and the pursuit of luxurious indulgences didn't consume much.
As a result, only a rare few ambitious Immortal Godfiends still came to raid the territory of the Heavenburning Star Palace.
Overall, this meant that full-scale war between the Chaos Star Sea and the Heavenburning Star Palace was unlikely.
Eternal Night Super Galaxy Cluster – Forbidden Zone of Eternal Night.
This entire supercluster was shrouded in absolute darkness. Even supernatural stars lost all their brilliance here.
All light was swallowed by Eternal Night. No one knew which Immortal Godfiend had claimed the Eternal Night Super Galaxy Cluster.
Rosen didn't know either, but his time-precognition painting pointed directly here.
Although no one had seen the Immortal Godfiend occupying the Evernight Forbidden Zone, this figure hidden in the darkness had a bad reputation even in the Chaos Star Sea, because the Evernight Supercluster was not stationary. It moved across the universe, continuously consuming one supercluster after another.
At this moment, deep within the boundless darkness, a pair of eyes as dark as ink, without the slightest luster, slowly opened.
The slowly moving Evernight Supercluster had actually swallowed a black hole into its darkness.
This black hole was, in fact, a rare spatial black hole.
The Eternal Will spread through the darkness towards the spatial black hole, and the projection formed by the combination of the Eternal Will and the darkness passed through the black hole. Immediately, it saw the stars twinkling in the sea of stars. Although the universe was still mainly dark, the scattered light points were overwhelmingly repellent.
Only Evernight was the true state of the universe; all light was an aberration in the universe.
It confirmed again that the spatial wormhole was naturally formed, and the true body immediately left the Evernight Forbidden Zone to join its projection here.
First, it had to annihilate the stars in the supercluster around the spatial black hole, making this supercluster blend into the dark background of the universe. Then, it had to alter nearby superclusters to set up magic arrays for further concealment. Only then could it truly occupy this spatial black hole.
However, as it passed through the spatial black hole, the black hole behind it suddenly disappeared.
A spatial black hole capable of crossing half the universe could not just vanish like that.
It immediately realized this was a trap—an elaborate trap set specifically for it.
Without hesitation, it decided to use the darkness to retreat.
Engaging in a battle with the enemy in a trap that the enemy had prepared was something no one with a brain would do.
But since it was a trap, of course, escaping wouldn't be so easy.
Rosen, using the combination of the Star Source Seed and the Black Hole Source Seed, seamlessly disguised an artificial spatial black hole as a naturally formed one.
As expected, the prey in Evernight took the bait. The simplest traps were the hardest to detect.
Of course, setting them up was also increasingly difficult, and one had to consider whether the opponent would take the bait.
Now that the prey had fallen into the trap, escaping wouldn't be that simple.
If a normal Immortal Godfiend would take a speed of 1 to expand their Laws domain, and the speed of reincarnated Eternal Life like the Old Fisherman would be 3, Rosen's speed was 1000. He could use the Laws of Time and Space to increase the expansion speed of his Laws domain by a thousand times.
So, even though he acted after, he managed to deploy his Creator's Domain before the prey could escape into the darkness.
Space-time was sealed and isolated, and the darkness inside the domain could not touch the darkness outside.
In this situation, there was no way for the prey to blend into the cosmic darkness and retreat.
As Rosen activated the Creator's Domain, he also simultaneously brought the Hell Reincarnation Map through the Painting World and fused it with the domain.
The prey was trapped in the Eternal Hell, and leaving was now even more difficult.
The death sentence, which had been prepared in advance, almost immediately triggered. Coupled with the acceleration from the Time Law, before the prey's Laws domain could even be activated, their Life Source was already being annihilated layer by layer by the Death Law.
Having seized the initiative, Rosen naturally took the opportunity to deal a crushing blow.
As the Death Sentence unfolded, the Miracle Star Sea that fused with the Eternal Hell turned the Hell into a water world.
The Heavenly Frost Chill erupted along with the Death Sentence, freezing the entire Eternal Hell into blocks of ice.
These blocks of ice were not dark; instead, they radiated starlight from within, enough to dispel the darkness.
The Laws domain that the prey barely activated was frozen by the Heavenly Frost Chill before it could even be fully deployed.
And this wasn't the final attack. Rosen had already layered various stealth skills, holding the Flame Heaven Holy Snake Elemental Armored Sword in his hand, like a ghost, he appeared in the space of the prey's Laws domain and approached its back. He then unleashed the Sword Saint Sequence's most powerful skill, a charging slash, cutting down with a single stroke.
What kind of swordsmanship is the strongest? This had been a topic of debate for a long time.
After countless generations of research by melee professionals, the charging slash became the most recognized and strongest skill among all swordsmen professions.
Killing the enemy didn't require flashy sword energy or light effects; it only required hitting the target, tearing through its defenses, and cutting the prey's body open.
Thus, the strongest Sword Saints, in addition to their terrifying speed, appeared no different from ordinary humans during battle.
The swordsmanship they mastered, aside from various passive enhancements, displacement skills, and defensive techniques, only needed to include charging slash and basic sword techniques like thrusts and cleaves. Extra skills were unnecessary.
The strongest sword Saint Sequence followed this simple, unadorned route of breaking through all techniques with a single sword strike.
Although Rosen was not a professional Sword Saint, he could learn all the skills the Sword Saint mastered through the Creator Scholar.
Skills from other sequences, which Sword Saints couldn't master, he could also use through the Real Creator Sequence.
Finally, he also mastered the Source Seed of Aggregation and Dispersion, allowing him to compress power in ways the Sword Saint Sequence could never achieve.
So, despite being limited to a True God-level Sword Saint Sequence, the destructive power he unleashed was enough to make even Immortal Godfiends tremble.
Rosen's Flame Heaven Holy Sword flashed with golden light, and the Immortal Godfiend before him was decapitated with a single strike.
However, this was just the beginning; it was far from the end.
Under the power of time acceleration and various displacement skills, he only needed one breath to deliver over two thousand strikes, cutting the prey from head to toe into pieces.
His strikes could have been faster. At his maximum attack speed, he could easily deliver two hundred million sword strikes in a single breath.
But chasing sheer attack speed was meaningless, because pure speed couldn't unleash the most extreme damage.
Every one of the two thousand strikes Rosen delivered was fully charged with power. Each blow compressed the terrifying flames of the Sacred Serpent of Burning Heavens—flames potent enough to incinerate an entire supercluster—onto the blade's edge. Without that, he would never have been able to break through all of his prey's defenses and slice up the body of an Undying Godfiend as easily as cutting tofu.
"This is impossible…"
A mental roar filled with disbelief echoed before Rosen—it was the Eternal Will of the prey.
"There's no such thing as impossible."
Rosen snapped his recoil-fractured arm back into place.
The source of eternal life flowed through him, instantly restoring the injury.
For an Undying Godfiend, ordinary wounds meant nothing. Their life source's regenerative ability was so potent that even rebirth from a single drop of blood was trivial. Any wound that could remain on an Undying Godfiend's body must, at the very least, be imbued with Eternal Will. Only the indelible Eternal Will could prevent their self-healing.
So, this minor recoil injury to his arm didn't even count as a scratch, especially with the healing support of the Life Origin Seed. At this point, he struggled to imagine any Undying Godfiend capable of injuring him.
Of course, Rosen clearly understood that his prey's breakdown wasn't due to the damage or his regeneration speed.
It was because—how could he possibly wield so many Origin Seeds at once?
If having more Origin Seeds meant more power, then Undying Godfiends would have gone mad long ago trying to collect them all.
In reality, unless the new Origin Seed was compatible with one's original one, more would only weaken the user instead of strengthening them.
That's because Eternal Will is finite. Refining each Origin Seed placed a tremendous burden on it. One must constantly suppress the remnants of the former owner's Eternal Will inside the seed. If your Eternal Will isn't strong enough, there's even a chance the previous owner could counterattack and kill you.
But Rosen could easily command 24 Origin Seeds—far beyond the limits of any Undying Godfiend.
Early on, when Origin Seeds were scarce, he relied on a foundation far deeper than those at his level.
In the mid-phase, he had to distribute the seeds to spread out the pressure as much as possible.
But now, he didn't even need to do that anymore. The Time Origin Seed alone could thoroughly suppress the others.
Rosen only needed a small amount of Eternal Will to control the power of a single Origin Seed.
If any trace of the previous owner's Eternal Will within a seed tried to resist, he could easily eliminate the threat with a single Time-Space Reincarnation.
On top of that, he also possessed multiple Eternal Artifacts, which further helped ease the pressure.
That said, he could feel himself nearing his limit. It was getting harder to manage more seeds.
In the past, he relied on quantity to beat quality. From now on, since quantity could no longer increase, he would have to shift focus to quality.
Choosing the Life Origin Seed as his prey wasn't just for cultivating the Root-Origin Tree. His true goal was to use it to enhance the power of the Root Origin Seed. Plunder, compatibility, life, and creation—these four Origin Seeds were currently the most suitable to empower the Root Origin Seed.
Rosen didn't answer his prey's question. After catching his breath, he tore open the void.
He dispersed the prey's shredded body across various layers of Eternal Hell and began striking down each scattered piece of flesh and power with the Sacred Sword of Burning Heavens.
Though the sword wasn't particularly effective against life essence, its damage to divine essence was astonishing. Wounding the divine essence would directly weaken the Eternal Will. With several years of relentless dominance, Rosen finally obliterated the prey's Eternal Will.
Even though he thoroughly outclassed his prey, it still took several years to wear down the Eternal Will.
He then used Time-Space Reincarnation to reconstruct the prey's incinerated brain and began extracting its stored memories using the Memory Origin Seed.
It turned out this Undying Godfiend, who had mastered the Darkness Origin Seed, was actually the offspring of the Eternal Night Holy God—an heir known as the Son of Eternal Night. This entity even had ties to the Eternal Serpent Mother.
The Eternal Night Holy God was one of those truly ancient eternal beings who had simply grown tired of life. But before dying, He wanted to leave behind a descendant.
So He found the Eternal Serpent Mother and, using the power of the Creation Origin Seed, left behind a child.
He even fully stripped His own Eternal Will from the Darkness Origin Seed and entrusted it—and the entire Eternal Night World—to His heir, the Son of Eternal Night.
Then the Eternal Night Holy God traveled to the edge of the cosmos, hoping to die out there—somewhere beyond the universe—and see what lay beyond.
Because he inherited the legacy of the Eternal Night Holy God, the Son of Eternal Night was born an Undying Godfiend.
He was naturally drawn to darkness and innately repulsed by all forms of light.
Rosen grasped the struggling, resisting Darkness Origin Seed and tossed it to the Darksun Slime for refinement.
He had thought it would be difficult for the Darksun Slime to refine it independently, but unexpectedly, it went more smoothly than he could have imagined.
The Eternal Will of the Son of Eternal Night inside the Darkness Origin Seed had actually been completely erased by the Darksun Slime.
This outcome stunned Rosen. Even with the Life Origin Seed in his possession and having enslaved the Immortal Tree, the Eternal Will hidden within the Life Origin Seed had not been fully erased. Strictly speaking, the Eternal Will inside the seed was still the true form of the Immortal Tree.
Enslaving the avatar didn't mean he had fully enslaved the Eternal Will that once belonged to the Immortal Tree within the seed.
Normally, one could only completely erase the Eternal Will inside an Origin Seed if the original owner willingly did so themselves—and even then, it had to be an innate Origin Seed. For acquired Origin Seeds, even that wasn't an option.
So how on earth did the Darksun Slime manage to wipe out the Son of Eternal Night's Eternal Will?
After closer examination, Rosen discovered that the Darkness Origin Seed had actually cooperated in erasing the Eternal Will.
It turned out the Darkness Origin Seed instinctively submitted to the Darksun bloodline within the Darksun Slime.
There was only one possibility Rosen could think of: the origin of the Darksun must trace back to the Primordial Lifeform itself. Otherwise, the Old Gods couldn't have relied on the power of Darksun to defeat the World Tree, who had once been stronger than them.
And if it truly originated from the Primordial Lifeform, then that being might have been involved in creating the innate Origin Seeds.
It was entirely possible that the creator of the Darkness Origin Seed was once the same Primordial Lifeform that wielded the power of Darksun.
(End of Chapter)