In the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen quietly opened an interdimensional gate and sent a floating eye through it.
This was one half of the Omniscient Origin Seed, which had split in two. One of those halves had transformed into a worm.
This was a worm transformed by the Root of Myriad Transformations, possessing the traits of life and capable of growing on its own.
And the best nourishment for the Omniscient Origin Seed was the infinite knowledge scattered throughout the universe.
Through the Book of Fated Creation, the Omniscient Bookworm could access unimaginable knowledge.
As a result, the Omniscient Bookworm had become a regular visitor to the Mysterious Study Room. Every time the spatial mosquito fused with the space and confirmed no one was inside, the Bookworm would rampantly search for information on every Eternal Lifeform still alive across the cosmos.
Rosen himself hadn't been idle either. Through the Heart of the Universe, he constantly searched the stars for relics left behind by Primordial Lifeforms.
At first, he believed that the Sea of Cosmic Origin would certainly contain such relics.
But now he realized he had been wrong. The relics of the Primordial Lifeforms in the Sea of Cosmic Origin had long since been gathered by the Eternal Lifeforms. In the span of several billion years, no matter how vast or perilous the Sea of Origin might be, it had been more than enough time for hundreds of Eternal Lifeforms to scour it clean.
So he couldn't count on the Sea of Origin. He could only search across the broader cosmos like looking for a needle in a haystack.
In the end, Rosen found nothing, but the Omniscient Bookworm discovered a clue.
Primordial relics were hard to find now, but in earlier ages, many Eternal Lifeforms had made gains in the Sea of Origin.
The Eternal Soul-Binding Horn of the Soul-Binding Wolf was one such harvest from the Sea of Origin.
If the Soul-Binding Wolf had been able to retrieve something from there, then other Eternal Lifeforms surely had too.
The Heavenly Sound Holy God was a second-tier Eternal Lifeform among his peers.
He had died at the hands of the Silent Holy God, who now still lived unchallenged within the Holy God Temple.
The Heavenly Sound Holy God's corpse had fallen into the hands of the Silent Holy God and had since been transformed into an Eternal Relic. However, his Eternal World had not been seized. That Eternal World contained a force powerful enough to drag an Eternal Lifeform to the grave along with it.
All cosmic forbidden zones possessed deadly intent strong enough to make Eternal Lifeforms retreat without hesitation.
In contrast, it was the Immortal Gods and Demons—being not powerful enough to threaten an Eternal World—who were relatively safer.
The Soul-Binding Forbidden Zone allowed the Eternal Soul-Binding Wolf to revive briefly. The Frost Forbidden Zone was countered purely by the Ouroboros Twin Ring Bracelet. The Eternal Night Forbidden Zone was passed down to the Son of Eternal Night and posed no real threat. The Immortal Ancient Tree's Eternal World was its true body's reincarnation, so it naturally wouldn't contain any mutual destruction mechanisms.
Rosen's greatest advantage in exploring cosmic forbidden zones was that, as an Immortal God-Demon, he was weak enough.
The interdimensional gate opened, and just beyond it lay the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone, located within the Twelfth Star Ring.
The Twelfth Star Ring had an extremely high energy density, allowing sound to propagate normally through the cosmic starspace.
Before Rosen had even stepped out of the interdimensional gate, he already heard a song filled with boundless sorrow echoing across the stars.
The Heavenly Sound Holy God and the Silent Holy God were one of the few Eternal Lifeform couples—though they ultimately turned on each other and became mortal enemies.
The song drifting from the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone was filled with the Heavenly Sound Holy God's resentment and fury toward the Silent Holy God.
Any Eternal Lifeform who approached would be dragged into death along with him.
Immortal Gods and Demons who came near would feel the song's anguish deep in their soul, as though experiencing the grief themselves—so much so they would wish for death.
To this day, no Immortal God or Demon had entered the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone and returned alive.
As a result, no Immortal Lifeform had taken control of the Heavenly Sound Supercluster, and even the nearby superclusters were considered off-limits.
This was because the song of the Heavenly Sound Holy God could pass through Eternal Worlds and spread into the Sea of Origin Darkness. Even the Origin Beasts there couldn't withstand such singing and kept committing suicide, attracting even stronger Origin Beasts with their corpses.
It was currently estimated that the region of the Sea of Origin Darkness corresponding to the Heavenly Sound Supercluster held at least three Eternal Origin Beasts.
These apex Origin Beasts had already gained the ability to cross infinite voids and reach the cosmic starspace on their own.
As a result, the surrounding superclusters had been destroyed and rebuilt many times.
The eternal release of such high-grade songs over endless eons had consumed an unimaginable amount of Eternal Origin.
Yet the songs from the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone had never weakened. Their source lay in something left behind by the Primordial Lifeforms.
What exactly that object was—even the Book of Fated Creation couldn't clearly see within the fate of the Heavenly Sound Holy God.
But Rosen was certain—it was far more precious and powerful than the Eternal Soul-Binding Horn.
Rosen deployed the Doomsday Ark, sat at the prow, and piloted it toward the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone.
He expanded his Creator's Domain to isolate all sound. Before long, the Doomsday Ark had crossed several light-years and entered deep into the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone.
Even though he had taken every precaution and deployed every type of defense, in that instant, he still lost consciousness.
When he came to, a beautiful, joyful sound danced in his ears.
It was not the song of a sentient being, but a flawless symphony composed entirely of the pure sounds of nature.
Rosen merely heard the singing voice, and instinctively understood—it was the voice of the will of the cosmos.
The will of the cosmos was also the will of nature, dispersed throughout all things, driving their harmonious development. All things responded to this cosmic will, emitting natural sounds in unison, together forming the joyous symphony of nature in the earliest era of the universe.
At that time, the universe was so beautiful that even the most depraved evil gods would shed all wicked thoughts upon hearing that natural symphony of joy.
Could it be that the Forbidden Zone of Celestial Melody used this natural symphony to mesmerize all who intruded?
With that question in mind, Rosen opened his eyes.
It wasn't that he didn't want to perceive the world using the Eternal Will—it was that from the moment he entered the Forbidden Zone of Celestial Melody, lost consciousness, and then awoke again, he found that he had been stripped of all supernatural powers. It was as if he had regressed into an ordinary, mundane human.
Thus, he could only open his eyes to see and perceive his surroundings.
Rosen's pupils contracted slightly. What he saw was not harmony and nature—
Quite the opposite: he saw destruction and despair.
The torn sky was ablaze, the earth had turned to scorched wasteland, and all of nature was being consumed in flames. Golden torrents of rain poured from the shattered heavens, as if the sky itself were weeping—perhaps from agony, or from sorrow that the flames could not be extinguished.
As Rosen witnessed these scenes of annihilation, the natural symphony of joy in his ears faded away.
In its place arose the anguished requiem of nature—a melody of despair and pain. Listening to it, he felt an endless torment and hopelessness. Instinctively, he understood: this was the death knell of the cosmic will, the mourning of all existence as the universe edged toward destruction.
Rosen walked hopelessly toward the burning flames, feeling the world's suffering as it turned to ash.
Yet in the next instant, he revived once more. His eyes closed again, and the melodious natural symphony of joy returned to his ears.
Rosen opened his eyes again. Once more, he beheld the truth of the world and heard the requiem of nature—only to be driven to despair and immolate himself once more.
The situation was clear now:
Either become blind, and forever dwell in darkness listening to the joyful natural symphony...
Or open his eyes, hear the anguished requiem of nature, and be consumed by despair in endless cycles of self-immolation.
He couldn't die even if he wanted to. Couldn't truly live, either. Trapped in the Forbidden Zone of Celestial Melody for all eternity.
Rosen tried everything he could, exhausting all options.
But not a single method could help him recover even the faintest trace of supernatural power. Nothing could break the torturous cycle between the two melodies.
In the end, with no way out, he had no choice but to concede—closing his eyes again.
Immersed in the joyful natural symphony, at least he could avoid the torment of pain and despair.
Rosen thought he'd keep living like an ostrich, burying his head until one day, someone from the outside would destroy the Forbidden Zone of Celestial Melody.
But as time passed, he no longer knew how many years he had spent inside.
Then Rosen gradually realized something—the natural symphony of joy was becoming harder and harder to bear.
It was like a song he had once loved deeply. But after infinite repetition, he grew more and more irritated, found it increasingly grating. The symphony remained as perfect and melodious as ever—it was just that he had heard it too often, until he was numb to it, unable to resonate with its beauty.
Rosen began to ponder—if he could grow tired of the joyful symphony of nature,
Then might the reverse also be true? Might he one day grow numb to the anguished requiem of nature as well?
In the endless cycle of despair, this became his only glimmer of hope.
He began forcing himself to open his eyes. And then he discovered—after being scoured by the requiem of nature, going back to the joyful symphony actually sounded more pleasant again. It was like getting sick of one song, then playing an even worse one—by comparison, the annoying song suddenly sounded good again.
So the options before him were clear. There were three paths.
The first: take the joyful natural symphony as the main melody, cycling between the two—enduring a bit of pain in exchange for longer stretches of bliss in the dark.
The second: persist solely with the joyful symphony and see what happens when one's hatred of it reaches its peak.
The third: endure the requiem of nature, and see whether over time, something might change—whether hope might emerge.
Rosen chose the third. Because he realized that this path could wear down even the Eternal Will.
Though all he had left now was the physical strength and mental faculties of an ordinary human, no sense of spirituality at all, he could feel it: under the torment of the requiem of nature, the time it took before he self-immolated was gradually growing longer.
At first, it had only taken a few seconds. But now, he seemed to be enduring one second more.
Consciousness was the foundation of the Eternal Will. The stronger one's consciousness, the stronger the Eternal Will.
Rosen burned again and again in the destruction of the universe, enduring agony and despair, waiting for hope to arrive.
From the initial unbearable torment of the requiem, to a numbness born of repeated exposure, to the point where he began to empathize—immersing his consciousness within the requiem, feeling the cosmic will's sorrow—until finally, one day, he had a sudden realization.
The cosmic will was not mourning its own death. Hidden within the requiem of nature… was a compassion he had never noticed before.
In the moment that realization dawned, Rosen did not immolate in the sea of fire.
Within the flames, he stood as if from a god's-eye view, watching scenes flash before him like a slideshow.
After the birth of the cosmos, the earliest universe was not a balloon-like expanse of vacuum, but a solid, material realm—just like the ancient gods.
This world was not large; the early universe was only about thirty million miles across.
Yet even a single blade of grass on the land at that time would now be considered an immortal-grade supernatural material.
Though the newborn universe was small, its level and strength as a world were unimaginably high.
At first, the universe had no intelligent life. Until more and more plants emerged, and one day, the faint traces of spirituality from all things gradually converged and gave birth to a world will. The newly born world will was like a blank-slate infant—ignorant and unaware.
No one knew how many years had passed before the world will slowly matured.
At some point, for some unknown reason, the world will began to feel lonely and developed the desire to create life.
Relying on its control over the world and nature, the world will expended its own power to create a batch of living beings.
These were the original, primordial beings. In the beginning, the primordial beings revered the world will as their mother. With a motherly will and filial children, the entire world was filled with laughter and joy. It was during this time that the Natural Hymn of Joy was born.
However, as endless ages passed, the intelligence of the primordial beings grew stronger through their interactions with one another.
The world will remained unchanged, but the ever-growing and ever-strengthening primordial beings gradually began to change.
They set foot in every corner of the world. Even the most beautiful things became dull when seen too often, and the once-delightful Natural Hymn of Joy turned grating. They even grew weary of the world will's affection. Like rebellious children growing up, the primordial beings entered their own stage of defiance.
They longed for a bigger world, yearned for greater freedom, and desired to leave their world to see what lay beyond.
The world will responded to this longing. The world transformed into the primordial universe and began to expand. The world will became the will of the universe, and the primordial beings now had a vast new space to live in. Their once world-shaking power—able to move mountains barehanded—was magnified further by the weakened laws of the expanded universe, now able to tear through the void with ease.
With the expansion of both space and power, the hearts of the primordial beings also swelled with pride.
They began to demand more from the will of the universe—more and more, until even the doting universal will could no longer satisfy their needs. Having become accustomed to having their desires met unconditionally, the primordial beings started to grow discontent.
As the endless years passed, that discontent turned into resentment for some, and eventually into hatred.
What followed was inevitable. When the universal will could no longer meet their demands, the primordial beings began to take by force. Though a very small number stood by the universal will, the vast majority of primordial beings started to hollow out the universe bit by bit.
In the end, the will of the universe was slain, and the universe itself began to fall into ruin.
The burning world Rosen saw was, in fact, the spiritual world of the universal will. A remnant of that spiritual world had been taken away by one of the primordial beings, recording what the primordial universe was once like—along with the Natural Hymn of Joy and the Natural Hymn of Sorrow.
The only way to escape this spiritual world was to empathize with and discover the hidden mercy within the Natural Hymn of Sorrow.
In the moment of its death, what the universal will left behind was not resentment—but mercy.
Rosen vanished within the sea of fire. The Natural Hymn of Joy no longer echoed in his ears. When he opened his eyes again, he was already back at the bow of the Doomsday Ark. Less than a second had passed since he had entered the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone.
Looking around, Rosen saw corpses floating in the void.
There were six corpses of Immortal Godfiends, and even two intact bodies of Eternal Beings.
The moment they entered the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone, their consciousness had been drawn into that spiritual world. If they could not truly empathize and comprehend the mercy hidden within the universal will, then their consciousness would fall into an endless cycle within the hymns—until it was eventually completely assimilated.
Once consciousness was fully lost, even Eternal Wills would be worn away, leaving behind only pristine, untouched bodies.
Rosen was able to perceive and comprehend that hidden mercy—not because he was stronger than those Immortal Godfiends or Eternal Beings, but because a portion of his Eternal Will had fused with the Heart of the Universe, granting his will a trace of the universal will's characteristics.
Whatever the reason, he had survived the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone.
Rosen released the Starsea Ladybugs, which transformed into the Sea of Miracles and dragged away all the corpses of the Immortal Godfiends and Eternal Beings.
Only then did he continue investigating the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone, finding that it had been completely emptied. Everything had been exhausted to sustain the two hymns. It hadn't collapsed only because the hymns had started to consume the world origin of the two dead Eternal Beings instead.
In truth, the Eternal Beings had been frightened by the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone—after all, it had silently killed two Eternal Beings in an instant.
Had any Eternal Being dared to attack the zone from a distance, they would have discovered that it was already a shell—hollow on the inside.
Even so, it was still the shell of an eternal world.
After the Sea of Miracles devoured the Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone, Rosen immediately activated the Transdimensional Gate and fled in time.
Had he delayed for even a moment, he would have been besieged and slaughtered by the Eternal Origin Beasts of the Deep Source Sea.
Rosen returned to the Scorching Heaven Star Palace and entered the Mysterious Study Room to inventory the gains from this expedition.
The Heavenly Sound Forbidden Zone was now nothing but an empty shell, suitable only to be destroyed and refined into cosmic material.
He found no trace of the Heavenly Sound Source Seed, nor any eternal relic belonging to the Heavenly Sound Divine Saint.
The bodies of the Immortal Godfiends were nothing but husks. Not only had their immortal worlds been drained, even the origins of their physical forms had been completely depleted. A light touch could reduce them to dust. The two Eternal Beings were only slightly better—some parts of their bodies still held value.
The greatest harvest was the origin seeds of the Eternal Beings and Immortal Godfiends, as well as two nearly-degraded eternal relics.
Rosen found no trace of either of the two hymns and was puzzled—until the Natural Hymn of Joy suddenly began playing in his ears again.
Following the sound, he discovered it was coming from the Ancient Divine Bell.
At this moment, the Ancient Divine Bell was undergoing a transformation—a metamorphosis so subtle that even miracle-grade source seeds could not detect it.
Rosen accelerated time around it, and the bell's transformation soon completed.
[Bell of Mercy: Miracle Sequence][Rank: Primordial][Miracle Ability: Can perfectly manifest the Natural Hymn of Joy and the Natural Hymn of Mercy][Miracle Trait: Heavenly Sound Source Seed]
There was no missing Heavenly Sound Source Seed—the Heavenly Sound Divine Saint had left it behind, and it had merged with the Ancient Divine Bell.
Now, the Bell of Mercy had fundamentally surpassed the Eternal level.
This was the true greatest harvest of his adventure. Yet he still did not know what effects would result from the Bell of Mercy playing the two hymns. Would it drag consciousness into a hymn-based spiritual world again, or would it have some other unique effect?
(End of Chapter)