Countless inconspicuous Root Mother Worms were constantly shuttling through the void, descending upon one supercluster after another.
They parasitized transcendent beings with at least the strength of a weak True God, silently peering into their memories. Moreover, all the Root Mother Worms connected together to form a main god network that spanned across hundreds of superclusters.
Through the main god computer, Rosen quickly reviewed all the aggregated information.
The Holy Temple had occupied the outermost four-dimensional space of the dimensional forbidden zone for many years. The civilizations in these superclusters were born and raised there, completely unaware that there was a universe beyond the forbidden zone, or even of the Holy Temple's existence.
These civilizations were essentially being raised in captivity within the four-dimensional space, eternally trapped in the infinite dimensional cycle, never able to escape.
So, when living space in the four-dimensional layer became insufficient, they could only send excess population into three-dimensional space. This not only alleviated overpopulation but also allowed them to obtain resources unique to the three-dimensional realm. Through this practice, these civilizations had accumulated vast experience in exploring the dimensional forbidden zone.
Through the main god network, Rosen discovered that behind nearly every supercluster stood an Eternal Being.
These beings never appeared in person, but they secretly controlled everything.
Rosen had originally expected to encounter Eternal Beings in the dimensional forbidden zone, but now he was sure—he absolutely wouldn't.
At most, the Eternal Beings only sent immortal avatars into the zone; their true forms would never set foot there.
That's because this dimensional forbidden zone wasn't merely a spatial dimensional layer as he'd assumed—it was a spacetime dimensional zone.
A source seed of pure space dimension could, at best, be equivalent to a spatial source seed.
But a spacetime dimensional source seed possessed power that completely overwhelmed a spatial one.
Only a complete spacetime source seed could hope to rival a spacetime dimensional source seed.
Rosen had even confirmed that the dimensional forbidden zone was indeed a Primordial World.
Which made the situation clear: either the Dimensional Holy God had transcended Eternity and ascended to the Primordial level long ago, or they had inherited a Primordial World left behind by a primordial lifeform that once controlled the Dimensional Core. Otherwise, there would be no explanation for how they possessed a complete Primordial World.
If Blue Star and the Holy Temple were qualified to form a small universe, then this dimensional forbidden zone was capable of forming a great universe.
One day, when the current universe is destroyed, this dimensional forbidden zone would have the qualifications to integrate everything and become a new universe.
Though it would certainly be much weaker than the old universe, it would still be a fully formed, self-contained new cosmos.
The Holy Temple wasn't consuming the dimensional forbidden zone at all, nor were they trying to drag the Heart of the Universe into the temple. Instead, the Holy Temple acted more like a rope—tenaciously pulling the Heart of the Universe bit by bit into the dimensional forbidden zone.
The Holy Temple would never work for free, yet they didn't dare set foot in the forbidden zone with their true bodies either.
That made things very interesting. It meant the dimensional forbidden zone was enough to strike fear into the Holy Temple, and yet the Holy Temple still had no choice but to work for it. Even the ancient gods couldn't achieve such a feat, yet the dimensional forbidden zone had done so. The Dimensional Holy God, even if not a primordial lifeform, must be almost indistinguishable from one.
Rosen no longer hesitated. He activated the Gate of Spacetime Transcendence and rushed inside at full speed.
If he delayed even a moment longer, even with the Void Core in his grasp, he might've been trapped in the dimensional forbidden zone forever.
Because if the forbidden zone had a true ruler, they would never allow him to come and go freely.
Unless, one day, the Time Source Seed also evolved into the Time Core and fused with the Void Core to form a Spacetime Core, he would never set foot in that place again. It was more treacherous than even the world of the ancient gods—a real dragon's den and tiger's lair.
Though he hadn't obtained the Dimensional Source Seed, just learning the truth of the forbidden zone made the trip worthwhile.
One needn't fear a powerful enemy—what's truly terrifying is not knowing where your enemy is.
There was no chance for Rosen to coexist peacefully with the existence behind the dimensional forbidden zone. No one would ever let the other keep their source seed.
Knowing the enemy ahead of time meant he could prepare accordingly.
Though using the dimensional forbidden zone to break the Heaven-Earth Holy God's self-imposed seal was no longer viable, that didn't mean there weren't other ways to shatter it.
The power of Primordial Space could do it—though the half-finished Spatial Core in the past had an abysmally low efficiency at converting primordial space power.
Now that it had evolved into the Void Core, the speed of converting primordial power had become sufficient.
With a few more years of accumulation, the primordial spatial force would be enough to break the seal.
Rosen hadn't been idle during these years. He had been continuously refining cosmic matter. Although it could automatically merge into the True Realm of the Ancient Gods attached to the Mysterious Study Room, with his active guidance, the integration efficiency would increase greatly.
In the blink of an eye, several years passed. The universe had not calmed down just because Rosen had vanished.
The Celestial Holy God had disappeared—vanished from the Holy Temple along with the Eternal World.
As for the Heaven-Earth Holy God, although his true body was gone, at least some of his avatars had survived.
But the Celestial Holy God? Not only had his true body vanished, but even his avatars had disappeared without a trace.
This directly pushed the Holy Temple to the brink of its tolerance. But after all the chaos, in the end, nothing came of it.
After receiving the news, Rosen's first suspect was the Dimensional Forbidden Zone.
His actions of reclaiming space-type source seeds, and his ability to enter and exit the Dimensional Forbidden Zone unscathed, seemed to have provoked the existence behind it. Whether it was the Dimensional Holy God or someone else, they had made a preemptive move, resulting in the disappearance of the Firmament Holy God.
As for why they hadn't acted before, he interpreted it as: the pig wasn't fat enough yet to be slaughtered.
The power of a source seed was not fixed. A Stellar source seed would grow stronger as more cosmic stars appeared, and weaken as stars dwindled. To enhance the strength of their corresponding source seeds, every source seed holder would try to create a favorable environment.
But personal energy was obviously limited—this was one of the reasons eternal beings didn't pursue multiple source seeds.
The many source seeds under Rosen's control were mostly in a "free-range" state, without proper cultivation.
In his battle with the Heaven and Earth Holy God, he had become acutely aware of his own shortcomings.
Having many source seeds gave him a wide range of methods. He was rarely countered by opponents and could easily suppress them—but the ceiling of power he could draw from any single source seed was far lower than that of the Heaven and Earth Holy God.
Put simply: he was a jack of all trades, master of none—good at crushing the weak, but not at dealing with the strong.
If the Heaven and Earth Holy God hadn't been countered by the space-type source seed, hadn't been trapped in the Primal Fragment World, and hadn't had his greatest advantage of "thick blood" (massive vitality) completely suppressed by the mental power of the Primal Incarnation, defeating him wouldn't have been so easy.
If the Heaven and Earth Holy God had been replaced by the Elemental Holy God instead, Rosen would have only managed to avoid defeat at best.
But soon, the seal on the Heaven and Earth Holy God would be undone, and his strength would once again be significantly enhanced.
Deep within the Miracle Star Sea, a spatial vortex less than a hundred meters in diameter spun at extreme speed.
The spinning space itself carried immense tearing force. If one probed deeper into the vortex, they would find that it was composed of countless densely packed and compressed superclusters. As the vortex rotated, these superclusters were shredded into cosmic matter.
At the core of the vortex, the seal on the statue was already faint and nearly collapsed.
As another sliver of the seal was torn apart, the Heaven and Earth Holy God let out a despairing sigh.
"I want to see the Firmament Holy God... as soon as possible..."
After muttering his last wish, the Heaven and Earth Holy God gave up resisting and was dragged out of the vortex by the liberated Primal Incarnation, gripping him by the throat.
By then, the eternal will of the Heaven and Earth Holy God was extremely weak. His life origin had dropped close to 195, and his divine essence had fallen to under ten units. Divine essence was the foundation of eternal will, and with only this minuscule amount left, the eternal will it generated wasn't enough to trouble even a great True God.
Rosen really did want to fulfill the Heaven and Earth Holy God's dying wish and bring the Firmament Holy God to accompany him.
But the wish had come too late—the Firmament Holy God had probably already died before him.
Rosen swiftly dissected the body of the Heaven and Earth Holy God and tossed it into the Immortal Heavenly Coffin.
For now, the corpse could at most be used to forge a few immortal transcendent artifacts.
The life origin within it was too weak, but the foundation of the Eternal Divine Body remained. Its maximum potential hadn't changed. As long as the corpse slowly absorbed source energy over a long time to replenish its losses, it would eventually return to its peak and serve as material for crafting an Eternal Holy Item.
After taking care of the body, Rosen fused the Heaven and Earth source seed into the Void Primal Core.
The two damaged Eternal Holy Items—the Heaven and Earth Divine Robe and the Heaven and Earth Shield—were kept as spare materials for crafting Eternal Holy Items.
The Heaven-Cleaving Axe wasn't very useful and could be traded when an opportunity arose. As for the Heaven and Earth Wings and Heaven and Earth Placenta: the former was best transformed into an insect-type lifeform, and the latter could be refined and fused into the sea of consciousness. The Heaven and Earth Placenta, as an Eternal Holy Item capable of protecting divine essence, was exceptionally rare.
If not for this Eternal Holy Item's protection, the Primal Incarnation could have crushed the Heaven and Earth Holy God's divine essence even more easily.
After dividing up the Eternal Holy Items, Rosen finally fused the Eternal World into the Mysterious Study Room and let it be devoured by the True Realm of the Old Gods.
The Void Primal Core consumed the Heaven and Earth source seed within a few real-world days.
Although it hadn't evolved into a Space Primal Core, its abilities had greatly improved.
The ability to generate Primal Space Power had been significantly enhanced, and the Primal Space Fragments that were once completely immovable could now be gradually integrated into the Mysterious Study Room and the True Realm of the Old Gods. At this point, the True Realm of the Old Gods had already grown larger than the Old Fisherman's Eternal World.
As the True Realm of the Old Gods expanded day by day, Rosen's eternal will—equivalent to the world will of the True Realm—grew in tandem.
Once the True Realm reached a hundred times the size of the Eternal World, Rosen's eternal will would be able to forcibly elevate his divine essence. Since the Eternal World was equivalent to Rosen's own body, the transformation of his life origin toward eternity was progressing much faster than his divine essence.
As a result, Rosen had already begun deducing the Eternal Divine Laws he would need to master after ascending to eternal life.
On this very day, while he was working on those deductions, a piece of good news came from the True Realm of the Old Gods:
The Goddess of Wisdom had awakened from her long slumber—and upon waking, immediately returned to her peak cultivation as an immortal god-demon.
Her smooth recovery was largely thanks to the unlimited resources Rosen had provided.
This awakening was significant for both the Goddess of Wisdom and Rosen.
The mother deity of the Goddess of Wisdom was the Eternal Lifeform of Wisdom. While Wisdom's strength wasn't considered formidable—her Wisdom Source Seed belonged only to the second tier, capable of splitting into six—she was undoubtedly one of the Eternal Lifeforms in the universe who knew the most secrets.
Because she knew too much, the memories inherited through the Wisdom Source Seed were also terrifyingly vast.
Before the Goddess of Wisdom could recover to the level of an immortal god-demon, she simply couldn't bear the full weight of those memories.
Now that she had mastered them entirely, those memories held immeasurable value.
Since Rosen also possessed a Wisdom Source Seed, the Goddess of Wisdom directly transmitted all the inherited memories from the other five Wisdom Source Seeds into the one in Rosen's possession, then recorded all the inherited memories into the main god-computer for systematic consolidation.
This consolidation process took several years in the real world, during which Rosen also extracted the memories of the Saint of Heaven and Earth.
Through these memories, he gained a profound understanding of the Temple of Saints, of all Eternal Lifeforms, and of the various hidden truths of the universe. Without ever stepping outside, he already possessed insight rivaling that of almost any Eternal Lifeform.
Out of the six Wisdom Source Seeds, Rosen could directly borrow five.
This allowed him to drastically improve the efficiency of deducing Eternal Saint Laws. He had completed all his preparations even before advancing to Eternal.
He even had enough capacity left over to study Eternal Sequences outside of the one belonging to the True Creator.
The Wisdom Sea Sequence of the Saint of Wisdom, the Heaven-and-Earth Warrior Sequence of the Saint of Heaven and Earth, the Void Fisherman Sequence of the Old Fisherman—each Eternal Lifeform had a unique extraordinary system. However, these systems weren't based on sequences.
Rosen had grown used to the sequence system, so he converted all of these extraordinary systems into extraordinary sequences.
He was merely waiting to advance to Eternal. Once he did, he could use the Blazing Sky Sequence he inherited from the Blazing Sky Holy Serpent, along with his prepared materials, to refine his own personal Eternal Sacred Artifact. At that point, even as a newly ascended Eternal Lifeform, he was confident in directly stepping into the first echelon.
On the day he was polishing the essence of his life, Rosen received an invitation from the World Tree.
The World Tree's plan to hunt the Old God had already reached the second stage.
Back when the attempt to slay the Old God's avatar and seize the Plunder Source Seed failed, the World Tree pivoted to a backup plan. It managed to protect the World Will and deceive the Old God, even breaking the delicate balance maintained between the Old God and the Temple of Saints. Now, the Temple of Saints had begun probing the Old God.
Although the veil had been torn and the balance broken, the Temple of Saints still wasn't ready for an all-out war.
That was because in the end, both sides would suffer heavy losses—it was a deal bound to bring ruin, and difficult to commit to.
Even so, the Temple of Saints couldn't sit idle. So, they had decided to publicly announce the impending destruction of the universe.
They then planned to incite the immortal god-demons of the Blazing Sky Star Palace and the Chaotic Star Sea to serve as cannon fodder, sending them into the Old God's world to wreak havoc and weaken the Old God's power through relentless warfare.
The Temple of Saints did not intend to use forceful coercion, as that could lead the immortal god-demons to defect to the Old God.
If the Old God accepted their allegiance, then the Temple of Saints would undoubtedly suffer a major loss.
Thus, the Temple of Saints adopted a carrot-and-stick approach. The destruction of the universe was real—when that time came, even Eternal Lifeforms would struggle to survive, let alone the immortal god-demons, who would all be buried with the universe.
For the vast majority of immortal god-demons, the only known chance to survive the universe's end was to board the ship of the Temple of Saints.
Yet, the ticket to board was to become an Eternal Lifeform. Even reincarnations of Eternal Lifeforms could only fall back on the Society of Dusk.
Normal paths clearly wouldn't allow immortal god-demons to ascend further, but with the omnipresent plunder forces in the Old God's world—along with the power of the Fate Slate bestowed by the Old God—they could earn a chance to ascend to Eternal by hunting each other.
By then, not only ordinary immortal god-demons, even reincarnated Eternal Lifeforms might not be able to resist getting involved.
Although the vast majority of them would ultimately perish, faced with the threat of the universe's destruction and the temptation of ascending to Eternal, the immortal god-demons of the Blazing Sky Star Palace and the Chaotic Star Sea had no better options. They could only follow the Temple of Saints' lead into the Old God's world.
This was a shortcut to becoming Eternal. Naturally, the World Tree wasn't about to miss this opportunity.
What's more, in this upcoming slaughter feast in the Old God's world, even the Old God's true body wouldn't awaken to intervene.
Because the Old God held the Plunder Source Seed, and a universe governed by the law of the jungle—where the strong preyed on the weak—only served to benefit the Plunder Source Seed.
This was a naked stratagem by the Temple of Saints. While probing and weakening the Old God, they were also offering Him a benefit He couldn't refuse.
In the end, whether the losses outweighed the gains or vice versa would depend on the covert contest between the two sides.
(End of chapter