"No wonder the Void Source Seed exists…"
Rosen fell into deep thought.
Is there a difference between space and the void? There is, but not by much.
Most of the time, "space" and "void" mean nearly the same thing.
So if the Space Source Seed already exists, why is there another nearly identical Void Source Seed?
He now understood the reason. When the Primordial Lifeform created the Space Source Seed, it must have been somewhat wary of its power. After all, in theory, the Space Source Seed could command the spatial forces of the entire universe. At its full potential, not even the Primordial Force could rival it.
Precisely because the Space Source Seed was too powerful, the Primordial Lifeform split off a portion of its power.
That's likely how the Void Source Seed came into being. Now, the Space Source Seed was able to devour the Void Source Seed and utterly destroy it.
This was the first time Rosen had ever witnessed the destruction of a Source Seed—yet again proving that all so-called eternal and indestructible things were only relative.
After successfully devouring the Void Source Seed, the Space Source Seed began undergoing an unusual metamorphosis.
Source Seeds don't have fixed forms. One of the possible forms of the Miracle Source Seed is the Miracle Sequence itself. The original Spark Source Seed was the Miracle Spark. As for the Space Source Seed, its vessel was a constantly shifting, thumb-sized multidimensional spatial structure.
Now, however, a unique layer of pure white crystal had begun forming on its surface.
This crystal adhered to different dimensional structures, materializing what was originally composed of pure energy into tangible substance.
With a continuous influx of world origin flowing into the Space Source Seed, faint traces of primordial spatial force began to manifest within it.
At this point, the Space Source Seed was functioning much like a spiritual core.
Still, it was clearly incomplete. Rosen only had one out of ten Space Source Seeds. If it weren't for the fact that all nine Void Source Seeds remained intact, it likely wouldn't have been enough to trigger such a transformation in this one.
Though the generation of spatial force was slow, the Space Source Seed had a major advantage:
It didn't require him to supply life origin or divine essence. It could absorb power directly from the Heart of the Universe to generate spatial force on its own. Bit by bit, this would accumulate—next time he encountered an Elemental Deity, they could forget about trying to seal off his space-time teleportation gate.
Now that he realized the Time and Space Source Seeds were both incomplete, Rosen's first thought was how to fully restore them.
Aside from the Void Source Seed, were there other Source Seeds that shared the same origin as the Space Source Seed?
And as for the Time Source Seed—what other related Source Seeds might exist?
Inside the Book of Destiny's chamber, the all-knowing Bookworm was still poring over the Destiny and Providence Codex. Upon receiving Rosen's command, it immediately began searching for relevant records.
To Rosen's surprise, there were more Source Seeds related to space than he had imagined.
There was the Firmament Source Seed, the Heaven-and-Earth Source Seed, and even the Dimension Source Seed—potentially just as powerful as the Space Source Seed.
These three were only the ones the Destiny and Providence Codex could divine through fate. If others, like the Old Fisherman, carried Cause-and-Effect Source Seeds that could interfere with the Codex's fate-sensing ability, then who's to say there weren't more space-related Source Seeds hidden away?
At least the Space Source Seed had some leads, but the Time Source Seed had none at all.
That was because time-related Source Seeds could inherently interfere with the Destiny and Providence Codex.
Even so, Rosen made a rough estimate: time-related Source Seeds might include variants like Chronos, Epoch, Moment, or Timeflow. By this measure, the branches of time were even more numerous than those of space—and far trickier to trace due to the complete lack of clues.
Rosen shook his head helplessly. It seemed he could only start with the spatial side for now.
If the Space Source Seed could be further restored, perhaps it would rival the nine Space Source Seeds controlled by the Ancient Gods.
The Firmament Source Seed was in the hands of the Firmament Deity. The Heaven-and-Earth Source Seed belonged to the Heaven-and-Earth Deity. The Dimension Source Seed, however, wasn't controlled by any Eternal Lifeform. It had transformed into a unique Forbidden Zone of the universe.
Among the three, each was harder to obtain than the last.
Rosen immediately ruled out prioritizing the Dimension Source Seed—it was no secret where that Forbidden Zone was located.
Even the Temple of Holy Deities had access to spatial force. There was no reason they couldn't locate a Forbidden Zone in the cosmic domain.
But the fact that they had made no move thus far meant only one thing: that particular Forbidden Zone had rendered even the hundreds of Eternal Lifeforms in the Temple of Holy Deities helpless.
As his Eternal Will continued to fuse with the Heart of the Universe, Rosen's understanding of the cosmos deepened.
Why hadn't the surviving Eternal Lifeforms claimed those Forbidden Zones scattered throughout the universe?
At first, he had thought the dead Eternal Lifeforms had left traps behind.
That wasn't wrong—but they were already dead. They were the losers. If they couldn't defeat the victors of the Temple of Holy Deities while alive, what threat could they pose now? Even if their traps could cause mutual destruction, that was only plausible in a one-on-one scenario.
If all the Temple's Eternal Lifeforms acted together, what Eternal World besides the Ancient God Realm could they not conquer?
The real reason the Temple of Holy Deities hadn't taken those Forbidden Zones… was that they served another purpose.
First, it was important to understand: Eternal Lifeforms didn't need as many resources as one might think.
There was virtually no hope of advancing from Eternal Lifeform to Primordial Lifeform.
To progress further as an Eternal Lifeform, what they needed was stronger Source Seeds. That wasn't something more resources alone could achieve. The main purpose of collecting resources was for forging Eternal Sacred Artifacts.
But the number of Eternal Sacred Artifacts an Eternal Lifeform could wield simultaneously was limited—just a few at most.
Even the Old Fisherman, a so-called "loser," had managed to gather three. The victors of the Temple of Holy Deities had likely long since reached their limit. In that case, unless a Forbidden Zone or its inner Source Seed could benefit their current Source Seeds, there was no need to bother seizing it.
There was also another reason: the Temple was deliberately dispersing the power of the Heart of the Universe.
Forbidden Zones stretched across the Sea of Primordial Origin and the cosmic starry sky. At the gateways where they intersected with the starry sky, they constantly disrupted its stability. To repair it, the Heart of the Universe had to redirect more of its strength.
As the Heart of the Universe weakened, the Sea of Origin would naturally be affected as well.
This allowed the Temple of Holy Deities to use fragments of a world that surpassed Eternity to slowly siphon away the Heart of the Universe.
Their true goal, it seemed, was to peel away the Heart of the Universe and merge it with that world fragment—to create, in the truest sense, a new miniature cosmos.
Rosen couldn't help but think of the great true gods of the Ancient God Realm when faced with the actions of the Holy Temple.
Back then, those great true gods fled the Ancient God Realm aboard the Doomsday Ark. Could it be that the Holy Temple was also trying to build a Doomsday Ark to escape the universe? Based on current discoveries, the way the Primordial Lifeform reshaped the universe hardly seemed well-intentioned.
That would explain why certain forbidden zones of the universe could exist for countless years without attracting the covetous gaze of Eternal Lives.
Having ruled out the dimensional forbidden zones, his remaining options were the Holy God of the Firmament and the Holy God of Heaven and Earth.
He definitely couldn't barge into the Holy Temple and seek death. He had to find a way to lure the snake from its hole.
Since the Holy Temple wanted to build a microcosm, and intended to take the Heart of the Universe with them, they couldn't afford to see the universe suffer irreversible destruction. That was why, when the power of the Dark Sun began wreaking havoc on the cosmos, the Holy Temple—dormant for countless years—was finally stirred into action.
Therefore, he needed to damage the universe—ideally to the point where even the Heart of the Universe couldn't easily recover.
At that point, there would be a considerable chance that the two Holy Gods would leave the Holy Temple and attempt to repair the universe using their respective Source Seeds.
If both appeared, then luck was on their side. But if only one showed up, he was as good as dead.
Even if it meant using his Primordial Avatar, he would seize the opportunity to eliminate a prey.
With the mutated Space Source Seed in his grasp, Rosen could easily inflict wounds on the universe that were nearly impossible to heal.
The scope of destruction had to be limited to the half of the universe where the Sea of Chaos Stars was located.
That side of the universe had already suffered damage, and it was likely that the Holy Temple had been manipulating events from behind the scenes—using the Sea of Chaos Stars to steadily erode the Heart of the Universe. But if the erosion went too far, it would also compromise the Holy Temple's ability to seize the Heart of the Universe.
Rosen opened the Gate of Time and Space and stepped into the Sea of Chaos Stars, continuing on to the outermost Third Star Ring.
The moment he unleashed his Primordial Avatar, a terrifying mass that transcended Eternity crushed hundreds of super galaxy clusters nearby.
The world source of the Origin Dark Sea began to flow into the cosmic starry sky to repair the universe. However, the power of Primordial Space fused into the endless void, triggering a void storm that swept away all the world source from the Origin Dark Sea, preventing the cosmic wound from healing and instead causing it to spread further.
As more and more of the cosmic starry sky began to collapse, the Origin Dark Sea had no choice but to inject even more world source.
When the source near the wound wasn't enough, world source from other areas began to flow in.
This directly impacted the entire universe. The Heart of the Universe—previously as dormant as death—was affected and instinctively began to awaken, gradually breaking free from the microcosm of the Holy Temple, which in turn alarmed all the Eternal Lives within the Holy Temple.
In that instant, over a dozen gazes descended upon the edge of the Sea of Chaos Stars using their respective methods.
Though they found no trace of any deliberate sabotage, they did detect the rampaging power of Primordial Space within the void.
Primordial power in the universe was exceedingly rare. Aside from deep within the Heart of the Universe, where a large quantity resided, only a few ancient Primordial ruins contained small amounts. Occasionally, a bit might emerge in the universe due to rare coincidences.
The primordial power at the Heart of the Universe could be seen but not touched, and the primordial power from ancient ruins was always hotly contested.
Such a naturally occurring source of primordial power was enough to make even Eternal Lives descend to compete for it.
However, aside from the Holy God of the Firmament and the Holy God of Heaven and Earth, the other Eternal Lives withdrew their gazes unwillingly.
Because when it came to vying for Primordial Space power, none of them could rival those two.
Sensing the Eternal Wills circling beyond the Eternal World, the Holy God of the Firmament gave up on trying to seize the Primordial Space power.
Not long ago, the Holy God of Heaven and Earth had borrowed some Primordial Space power from the Elemental Holy God—and had even lost some permanently. In that situation, the other Eternal Lives would naturally side with the Holy God of Heaven and Earth.
All the Eternal Lives within the Holy Temple feared both him and the Holy God of Heaven and Earth.
Only by maintaining their mutual rivalry and balance could the others rest easy.
So this time, the Holy God of Heaven and Earth reaped the reward alone.
With no competitors, he quickly folded space and arrived at the edge of the universe.
He unfurled his Heaven and Earth Domain to envelop the void storm, beginning to suppress and refine the threads of Primordial Space power.
Suppressing and refining such power with Eternal Will was no easy task. It required his full concentration.
Within the Heaven and Earth Domain, all things were under his absolute control. So he wasn't concerned about anyone silently breaching his domain—until he felt a sharp pain at the back of his head. Shocked, he realized he had been attacked.
Only then did his Eternal Will sense the presence of a palm-sized mosquito on the back of his head, its proboscis piercing into his brain.
The Holy God of Heaven and Earth attempted to wield the power of space to separate himself from the mosquito.
But the mosquito's proboscis erupted with terrifying spatial laws and Primordial Space power, utterly wrecking his control over the laws of Heaven and Earth. With no other choice, he slashed off his own head to survive.
As his Eternal Sacred Body retreated instantly—near yet unreachable—his severed neck began to regenerate a new head.
At that moment, a hand suddenly burst through his back, piercing his heart and crushing it. In that instant, both his life origin and divinity origin suffered heavy damage.
Helpless, the Holy God of Heaven and Earth was forced to use his Eternal Divine Dharma Body to merge with Heaven and Earth.
Unlike the Primordial Gods' Eternal Sacred Body, which transformed into all things, his fusion meant integrating his Eternal Body into the external Heaven and Earth.
He took the Origin Dark Sea as the land and the cosmic starry sky as the heavens.
A stretch of the universe spanning billions of light-years fused with his Eternal Body and fell under his absolute control. Under his will, this realm of Heaven and Earth began to shrink and compress, increasing his control by the moment.
In the blink of an eye, that realm of Heaven and Earth had compressed to the size of a marble.
The endless matter of Heaven and Earth was condensed to the extreme—so much so that even Eternal Lives trapped inside would be crushed to death.
Yet within that marble-sized realm, the Primordial Avatar stood with one foot on the land and one hand holding up the heavens. No matter how the realm continued to compress, it could shrink no further. Terrifying spiritual power manifested as countless soul-butterflies that clung to all things within.
Any object that came into contact with these soul-butterflies was instantly reversed through spacetime into the life and divinity origin of the Holy God of Heaven and Earth.
And these two sources were immediately drained by the power of the Primordial Spirit.
Only now did the Holy God of Heaven and Earth truly realize just how terrifying an existence he was facing.
He tried to undo his fusion with Heaven and Earth and escape—but outside, a fist-sized ladybug shimmering with starlight suddenly appeared and swallowed the marble-sized realm whole. From inside and out, it sealed and suppressed the Holy God of Heaven and Earth bit by bit.
Had this been a third-tier Eternal Life, one whose innate Source Seed could only split three to five times—
Then there would be absolutely no path to survival by now.
But the Holy God of Heaven and Earth was first-tier, capable of splitting nine Heaven and Earth Source Seeds, and he even wielded Primordial Space power. Though caught off guard, wounded, and at a disadvantage, such means were still not enough to completely suppress him.
(End of Chapter)