At the Evernight Supercluster, Rosen hurled the Dark Sun Slime toward the Evernight World from a distance.
Having already refined the Darkness Origin Seed, the Dark Sun Slime seamlessly took control of the Evernight World using the seed.
As the Evernight World gradually shrank, it fused into the Dark Sun Slime's abdomen and merged with the Dark Sun Heavenly Realm.
It had completely crossed the boundary and begun its transformation into an Immortal Godfiend.
First came the breakthrough of its Life Origin and Divinity Origin, which then drove its Bloodline Godhood to evolve toward that of an Immortal Godfiend.
At the very moment the Dark Sun Slime easily advanced to Immortal Godfiend, an Origin Seed suddenly appeared inside its body.
It turned out to be the Dark Sun Origin Seed, a seed that innately commanded the Eternal Dark Sun's Origin.
The Darkness Origin Seed it had just gained control over instantly became subordinate to the Dark Sun Origin Seed.
Within its Bloodline Godhood, Eternal-grade Dark Sun True Blood also began to form at that moment.
Dark Sun Slime: Eternal Vassal
Level: Immortal Godfiend
Sequence: Dark Sun
Heavenly Realm: Eternal Dark Sun World
Law: Dark Sun Law
Godhood: Bloodline Godhood (195)
Origin Seed: Eternal Dark Sun Origin Seed
Talents: Dark Sun Brand, Eternal Shapeshifting
Skill: Eternal Dark Sun
Rosen looked at the Dark Sun Slime, now shrunk to the size of a ball and deep in slumber, and instinctively felt a sense of threat.
It wasn't the threat of hostility, but rather a threat to the essence of life itself.
This kind of threat was like a mouse seeing a cat.
And he had seen an avatar of an Old God before—even that didn't evoke this kind of feeling.
Through the Creator's Shackles contract, Rosen carefully sensed the Dark Sun Slime's condition.
First, there was the Eternal World inside its body. That world could no longer be released externally—it had become a typical internal world. The drawback of such a world was reduced efficiency in drawing external energy, but the advantage was greatly enhanced strength after being compressed within the body.
Almost all beings with internal worlds inherently possessed powerful devouring-type abilities.
The Dark Sun Slime had once possessed the unique skill Infinite Gluttony.
Everything it consumed could be reshaped using its Eternal Shapeshifting talent to gain corresponding abilities.
But now, while Eternal Shapeshifting remained, Infinite Gluttony had transformed into Eternal Dark Sun.
Once that skill was activated, the Dark Sun Slime could transform into a blazing Dark Sun.
In that state, everything covered by its Dark Sun radiance would be corrupted into Dark Sun Vassals. The strength of that corruption ability was terrifying—so much so that even Immortal Godfiends couldn't escape it.
In its Eternal Dark Sun state, the Dark Sun Slime was virtually invincible beneath the Eternal tier.
Such was the fearsome power brought by the Dark Sun Origin Seed—and the one in the Dark Sun Slime's body was only one of them.
Just like the Time Origin Seed, there were ten Dark Sun Origin Seeds in total.
Rosen discovered that eight of them were in the Old God World, and the last one was actually inside his Eye of the Creator.
More precisely, it existed within the Dark Sun Celestial Eye that had merged into the Eye of the Creator.
Apparently, back when he was hunting Dark Sun Vassals in the old world, two Dark Sun Origin Seeds had already entered his and the Dark Sun Slime's bodies.
It was only when the Dark Sun Slime advanced to Immortal Godfiend that the hidden Origin Seed inside it was awakened.
As for why the Dark Sun Origin Seed inside the Dark Sun Celestial Eye hadn't activated, it was probably because he hadn't fulfilled the activation conditions.
Rosen attempted to use the Dark Sun Slime's Dark Sun Origin Seed to awaken the one inside the Dark Sun Celestial Eye.
Sure enough, there was a response, and he also learned the conditions for awakening a Dark Sun Origin Seed.
He had thought that if there were any conditions, it would involve absorbing darkness-type power. After all, the Dark Sun Slime had activated its Origin Seed using the Darkness Origin Seed and the power of the Evernight World. But unexpectedly, the Dark Sun Celestial Eye required the use of Transcendent Stars?
He needed to project the Dark Sun Celestial Eye onto Transcendent Stars in the universe.
Then, he had to transform those Transcendent Stars into Dark Sun satellites, gradually allowing the Dark Sun's radiance to envelop entire swaths of the universe.
The more subordinate Dark Suns he created, the stronger the power of the Dark Sun Celestial Eye became.
If anyone else had tried to wield the Dark Sun Celestial Eye, this would have been an impossible task.
Because while regular stars were easy to find, Transcendent Stars were a completely different story.
Especially since the number required for the Dark Sun Celestial Eye wasn't just one or two, not even hundreds of thousands. It needed billions of Transcendent Stars at the very least—he might have to convert nearly half the universe's Transcendent Stars into subordinate Dark Suns just to truly mature the Dark Sun Celestial Eye.
Even with the Spatial Origin Seed in hand, Rosen could never have accomplished something like that.
Because the vast majority of Transcendent Stars were already claimed. Snatching them from the hands of the Transcendent beings who ruled over half the universe was easier said than done.
Rosen pondered for a long time—and he really did manage to come up with a good idea.
Except for a very small number of beings, most did not live directly on Transcendent Stars.
Transcendent Stars mainly served to provide light and heat to their surrounding Transcendent star systems.
Since there wasn't direct contact, then deception became possible.
Rosen split off countless Eternal Avatars. Using the combined power of the Star Origin Seed and the Spatial Origin Seed, he sensed the Transcendent Stars scattered throughout the universe. He didn't target Immortal Godfiends directly, and even spared the Great True Gods, locking onto the star systems controlled by the most powerful True Gods.
Then, he opened portal after portal, sending each Eternal Avatar to infiltrate a different Transcendent star system.
Next, every Eternal Avatar took out paper and brush and began to draw.
They painted the Transcendent Stars. Once finished, Rosen froze time across the entire Transcendent star system. Then he merged projections of the Dark Sun Celestial Veil into the Transcendent Stars, overlaying each with the painted version using the Painter pathway's Skin Art technique.
In the short term, unless someone directly entered a Transcendent Star, even a mere True God wouldn't be able to tell real from fake.
In this way, Rosen quietly commanded his countless Eternal Avatars to roam the universe. He even painted a Transcendent Star on the level of a Great True God, and used the Creator's Essence to manifest a universal printer that could mass-produce these forged paintings capable of briefly deceiving even a True God.
Just like that, he silently transformed nearly half the universe's Transcendent Stars into Dark Suns.
Two years passed in the blink of an eye. Rosen dismissed the universal printer and exhaled in exhaustion.
The earliest batch of Transcendent Stars disguised with Skin Art were beginning to run out of power.
There was no point in replenishing them anymore. With billions of printed paintings in play, the amount of essence contained in each one was unimaginable. Lasting two years was already the limit, and gradually, people were beginning to notice problems with the Transcendent Stars in their star systems.
To avoid alarming anyone, Rosen had to dispatch Eternal Avatars to suppress them by force.
But now things were getting out of hand—it was finally time to turn off the lights of the universe.
Rosen recalled all his Eternal Avatars and adjusted his state to its peak.
Then he snapped his fingers, igniting all the printed paintings in that instant.
At the same time, a black solar pattern shaped like a vertical pupil opened wide on his forehead, revealing a vertical eye that devoured light.
In the Pegasus System, there lived the Pegasus Race, capable of running freely through the void.
Their favorite pastime was galloping in orbit around their star, absorbing sunlight through their shimmering fur. When golden sunlit feathers grew along their backs, it meant a Pegasus had come of age.
At that moment, countless colts were frolicking around the Transcendent Star.
Suddenly, the sunlight intensified several times over. Countless young pegasi looked toward the Transcendent Star in confusion.
They saw it brighten dramatically, then its light slowly faded away. The once radiant Transcendent Star burned to ash in the void, leaving behind a black sun that emitted dark light, gradually devouring the last rays of the original star.
The colts closest to the star were instantly branded with the Dark Sun Mark on their foreheads when bathed in the black sunlight.
Their consciousness was instantly wiped out, and they were transformed into Dark Sun Vassals without any resistance.
The Pegasus System was just a minuscule fragment of the cosmos. Countless Transcendent star systems were transformed in that same moment—from sunlit worlds to realms of eternal night. The intelligent life forms of half the universe were, in that instant, converted into Dark Sun Vassals.
The Dark Sun Celestial Eye on Rosen's forehead had become so hot that it burned his head black.
He had no choice but to rely on the Wheel of Time and Space, continuously reversing his injuries to gradually gain control over the increasingly powerful Dark Sun Celestial Eye.
The power was far too immense. Though both were Eternal Organs, it utterly outclassed the Eternal Soulbinding Horn.
It was clear that even though they both originated from a Primordial Lifeform, the master of the Dark Sun Celestial Eye was far stronger than that of the Eternal Soulbinding Horn.
Once the Dark Sun Celestial Eye's heat reached its peak, it began to stabilize and gradually cool down.
Inside it, the Dark Sun Origin Seed had already formed, successfully fusing with Rosen's Eternal Will.
He even discovered that the Dark Sun Origin Seed within the Celestial Eye wasn't just another split entity like that of the Dark Sun Slime—it was the core seed itself. And through the Dark Sun Celestial Eye, he finally understood why he had received it in the first place.
Back then, the Old God obtained the power of the Dark Sun, but within the Dark Sun still lingered the will of the Primordial Lifeform.So although the Old God wielded the power of the Dark Sun, he also suffered its backlash.
The outcome was obvious—after killing the World Tree, the Old God himself was severely wounded and had no choice but to fall into slumber.
At that point, the Old God no longer had the strength to continue controlling the Dark Sun.
This was what gave the World Tree the opportunity to reincarnate, and ultimately led to the destruction of the Old World.
However, although the Old God lost the Old World this time, he also recovered part of his injuries and began forcibly seizing control of the Dark Sun.
Relying on the power of the Plunder Seed and the Compatibility Seed, one could easily guess that the Old God had seized absolute advantage.
He even treated the Dark Sun's true body as a breeding ground for creating avatars, fully mastering the Dark Sun's power.
Yet the Dark Sun was not so easily subdued. On the surface, its power was under the Old God's control, but in truth, it secretly hid its most essential Dark Sun Source Seed. It scattered both the Core Source Seed and another Source Seed, merging them into the bodies of countless Dark Sun followers within the Old World.
As long as someone slaughtered the followers of the Dark Sun in the Old World, the Dark Sun Source Seed would eventually be reassembled.
Rosen, as a highly intelligent being, obtained the Dark Sun's Eye. The Dark Sun Slime, lacking intelligence, became a follower of the Dark Sun.
However, the remnant will of the Primordial Lifeform inside the Dark Sun had already weakened to its absolute limit by then.
It no longer had the strength to pass on a fully developed Dark Sun's Eye.
Therefore, Rosen could only rely on "turning off the lights" of the universe to gather enough Dark Sun power to awaken the embryonic form of the Dark Sun's Eye into its true form. From then on, so long as he opened the Dark Sun's Eye, everything within its gaze would instantly fall into darkness.
The awakened Dark Sun's Eye was immensely powerful—powerful enough to threaten even eternal lifeforms.
But Rosen had no time to savor this power. He was worried that shutting down half the universe's lights would provoke rejection from the universe.
Yet the rejection he feared never came. Instead, an unimaginably terrifying wave of fate descended from the heavens.
Endless fate energy was absorbed by the Eternal Spark. This ember, originally at the Immortal Godfiend level, rapidly grew into an Eternal-level existence.
Even the Spark Source Seed was sublimated, transforming from an acquired seed into an innate seed.
Rosen wasn't met with punishment—instead, he received the universe's favor and reward.
This made him realize that, perhaps in the universe's view, all intelligent lifeforms were just parasites.
Intelligent beings parasitized upon the universe, constantly draining its lifeblood and plundering its essence.
So by wiping out the intelligent life of half the universe, he had inadvertently earned the universe's instinctive blessing.
At the same time, Rosen vaguely sensed that the universe had given him a mission.
But it wasn't to continue exterminating intelligent life—it was to do everything in his power to kill the universe.
Upon tracing the source of this feeling, he discovered it wasn't the current universe assigning him the mission, but rather that the mission had originally been given to the Dark Sun's Eye. Now that he had inherited it, through this eternal organ, he had inherited the mission assigned to the Dark Sun's Eye countless ages ago by the universe.
The current universe no longer had even a vestige of cosmic will left—only the instincts to seek benefit and avoid harm.
Such a universe clearly couldn't have issued a mission like this to the Dark Sun's Eye.
It was evident: the universe once had a will.
Combining this with what he had already learned, Rosen could perhaps deduce what had happened in the distant past.
The universe was not always shrouded in darkness, nor was it always a hollow shell with only scattered stars remaining.
In the distant past, the universe could give birth to countless Primordial Lifeforms, and even had enough foundation to allow some of them to transcend the universe itself.
The universe gave birth to these Primordial Lifeforms, but instead of gratitude, what it received was plunder.
Of course, not all Primordial Lifeforms were like this—if some chose to exploit the universe, others must have sided with it. As children of the universe, where there are unfilial ones, there must also be filial sons.
Therefore, it's highly likely that the universe resisted, and those filial ones were the main force of its resistance.
The result was clear: the universe's resistance failed, and the Primordial Lifeforms succeeded in transcending it.
The defeated universe was left in ruins. It was as if a person's body had been completely hollowed out. One could imagine the despair and agony of the cosmic will in such a state. Thus, the final task it gave its loyal children was to kill it, to grant it release.
In the end, the cosmic will perhaps died—or maybe it is merely hidden, still in slumber.
As the victors, the Primordial Lifeforms created the Innate Source Seeds and successfully transcended.
The innate Source Seed governed the essence of the old universe and had the potential to create a new one.
Rosen didn't know what was on the mind of the Primordial Lifeform—perhaps it was guilt that drove it to create a new universe, perhaps it was trying to leave itself a way back after transcendence, or perhaps it intended to plant the seed of a new universe and return to harvest it once it matured.
No matter the reason, it laid bare the law of the jungle in its most brutal form.
The universe had every reason to exterminate parasites, and the intelligent lifeforms within it were just as justified in their desire to survive.
It was simply that both sides could not coexist, so the only outcome was survival of the fittest, a fight to the death.
This was the cosmic truth Rosen had learned from the ancient gods, and that was why he had no hesitation in wiping out half the intelligent life in the universe.
The fact that the task left by the universe still remained showed that the previous wielder of the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye hadn't completed the mission—maybe only part of it, enough to destroy the universe's will, otherwise the task shouldn't still exist.
Rosen immediately went to the half of the universe where the Heaven-Burning Star Palace was located, arriving at a supercluster devoid of intelligent life.
The moment the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye opened on his brow, the radiance of the dark sun extinguished every star in the entire supercluster.
His Eternal Will extended instantly through his gaze, sweeping across the whole supercluster.
As the Eternal Will descended, the Creator Domain also enveloped the supercluster in sync. The Eternal Will transformed into the Creator's Will, becoming the World Will of this stretch of space. Finally, the laws of space twisted, and the entire supercluster was instantly torn away and sealed as a dimensional scroll.
There were countless superclusters in the universe. When an immortal god-demon destroyed one, the universe didn't repel it too severely.
But that kind of destruction was just smashing it apart—not severing it from the universe and taking it away.
If you simply shattered a supercluster, the matter remained within the universe and only needed to be repaired.
If you took it away, you'd need to recreate that matter to reconstruct the supercluster.
The repulsion for the former was level one. For the latter, it was at least a hundred times stronger.
That was why, even for immortal god-demons, tearing an entire supercluster away to claim as their own was a step too far.
Usually, to expand their immortal worlds, they would peel away small patches of space from various parts of the universe to integrate into their own.
The others were like mosquitoes sucking blood. What Rosen just did was rip out a chunk of flesh.
In the past, he wouldn't have dared to attempt this either. But now, not only was he not repelled for tearing away a piece of the universe, the Source Seed he controlled even accelerated its absorption of the universe's essence. There was no punishment—only reward.
The reason for this preferential treatment was simple: the other god-demons were burglars breaking in, while he was conducting legal annexation.
Of course, his legal annexation only applied when using the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye to sever parts of the universe.
To Rosen, this drastically lowered the difficulty of advancing to Eternal Lifeform.
There had never been a precedent for an acquired being ascending to Eternal Lifeform.
All the immortal god-demons were trying everything to ascend to Eternity—some of them even being reincarnations of Eternal Lifeforms themselves.
Over the countless years, five conditions had been summarized for becoming an Eternal Lifeform.
A transformation of the origin of life, a transformation of the origin of divinity, a quantitative change in Eternal Will, an evolution of an Immortal World into an Eternal World, and finally, mastery of an Innate Source Seed. Among these five, mastering a Source Seed was the easiest.
Transforming the origin of life was difficult, but still feasible with the help of an Eternal Lifeform's corpse.
However, the transformation of divine origin and Eternal Will was far more difficult.
The known method was to first obtain an Eternal World, then transform Eternal Will into World Will, and continuously expand the Eternal World to grow the Eternal Will in parallel. Eventually, the Eternal Will would nourish and transform the divine origin.
It sounded simple, but in practice it was as hard as reaching heaven.
For an Eternal World to cause a quantitative change in Eternal Will, it would need to expand a hundredfold, requiring the fusion of at least a hundred Eternal Worlds. The problem was that even acquiring a single Eternal World was nearly impossible. What basis was there to make it grow a hundredfold?
The only option was to peel away the universe. But doing so invited repulsion.
No matter how weak the universe had become, its scale was still beyond what immortal god-demons—or even Eternal Lifeforms—could casually provoke.
That was why, to this day, no newly born Eternal Lifeform had emerged.
Every Eternal Lifeform had been born innately, relying on the legacy left by the Primordial Lifeform.
Now that Rosen could legally sever parts of the universe and integrate them into his own Immortal World, the expansion of his Immortal World to a scale a hundred times that of an Eternal World was only a matter of time. He had already set foot on a heavenly path toward becoming an Eternal Lifeform.
( End of Chapter)