"A lot of things that were once forbidden or impossible can now be done without scruples..."
Rosen familiarized himself with the All-Transforming Sacred Law that had fused with his Eternal Divinity, feeling an unprecedented sense of ease and freedom.
With a mere thought, the Yinglong avatar that had ascended to an Immortal God-Demon appeared before him.
Bathed in the All-Transforming Sacred Law, the Yinglong avatar instantly transformed into the Old Fisherman.
He now possessed all the Old Fisherman's power, and even all of the Old Fisherman's memories.
After opening a spatial gateway and sending off the Old Fisherman, the transformed Yinglong avatar instantly contacted the Twilight Syndicate and sensed the divine avatar of the Old Fisherman still lingering on within it, barely clinging to existence.
The avatar nearly lost its mind—because to it, the main body that had supposedly been killed by Rosen had somehow returned.
Rosen immediately relayed the truth to the avatar through their identical eternal wills, explaining that the original body had never died—he had merely imprisoned it.
The wise submit to the circumstances, and after years of captivity, the original body had chosen to surrender.
Though the avatar couldn't understand why someone as proud as the Old Fisherman would surrender, the facts were indisputable. The life essence, divine origin, eternal will, and memories were all authentic. The absolute suppression and control the original body had over the avatar was real as well—the original could obliterate this avatar and replace it with a new one at any moment.
Given all this, the avatar didn't doubt the authenticity of the original. It simply assumed the years of imprisonment had broken his will through torture or enticement.
Rosen had successfully infiltrated the Twilight Syndicate by planting the Yinglong avatar disguised as the Old Fisherman—driving a nail deep into their midst.
Next, he used the All-Transforming Sacred Law again—this time transforming himself into the Heaven and Earth Divine God.
No one would be able to see through the disguise, because all the Heaven and Earth Divine God's avatars would believe he was the true original.
Though this identity might draw the attention of the Dimension Divine God or the Chaos Divine God, Rosen was confident that—even if they attacked—he had the means to escape.
His Root Source Seed could transform into a complete Time-Space Seed, enabling escape in any scenario. It could also become a complete Fate Seed, warning him of impending threats. In the current universe, only a Primordial Lifeform could truly threaten him.
Rosen took out the damaged Heaven and Earth Shield and Heaven and Earth Robe, and locked onto these two Eternal Sacred Artifacts to perform Time-Space Reincarnation.
Empowered by his Root Source Seed, now a perfected Time-Space Seed, his Reincarnation effect was terrifyingly potent.
At the same time, he used the All-Transforming Sacred Law to obtain the Burning Heaven sequence of the Burning Heaven Sacred Serpent, and manipulated the Burning Heaven Sacred Flame to assist in restoring the artifacts. Before long, the damaged Eternal Sacred Artifacts were fully repaired.
Rosen then donned the transformed Heaven and Earth Robe, embedded the Heaven and Earth Shield into his hand, and fused the Heaven and Earth Wings into the back of his robe. Finally, he embedded the Heaven-Cleaving Axe into his right hand.
He didn't immediately return to the Sanctuary of the Divine, as he was still missing the Heaven and Earth Divine God's memories.
Although the Heaven and Earth Divine God had been captured alive, it was nearly impossible to extract a complete set of memories.
Because, at the moment of his final demise, the Eternal Will had obliterated all memory carriers.
This included the brain; all brain-stored memories had been completely erased.
Although Rosen's Time-Space Reincarnation could now reverse time and reconstruct a brain, the Heaven and Earth Divine God likely hadn't stored all his memories there. The brain was the most fallible memory medium. True complete memory resided in the Eternal Will.
The only Eternal Will fragment of the Heaven and Earth Divine God in Rosen's possession was the one fused into the Heaven and Earth Seed during his lifetime.
Since the seed was eternal, so was its will—but the Heaven and Earth Seed had long been absorbed back into the Root Source Seed and become part of the Void Primal Core, and its eternal will had been stripped and sealed into a painting.
Before his ascension, Rosen had no way of extracting memories from that Eternal Will.
But now, it was different. The Root Source Seed had transformed into a perfected Memory Seed—capable of splitting into ten copies.
Furthermore, Rosen had become the Heaven and Earth Divine God. Their Eternal Wills were identical in all aspects except memory. Thus, he easily gained the recognition of the remnant Eternal Will and fully duplicated all stored memories.
Rosen carefully examined the memory set, quickly gaining a thorough understanding of the Heaven and Earth Divine God's relationships.
He then focused on every memory related to the Sanctuary of the Divine, committing them to heart.
The Sanctuary of the Divine was built on the principle of equality among all Eternal Lifeforms, but as a faction, it still required a leadership structure.
Unless they abused their power, all Eternal Lifeforms were expected to abide by the rules.
The leadership consisted of the first echelon—those who wielded Primordial Power—and they numbered no more than ten in total.
The Heaven and Earth Divine God was one of them, primarily responsible for maintaining stability in the Sanctuary's microcosm.
Though at the top, Rosen could confirm that the Heaven and Earth Divine God had never accessed the Sanctuary's core secrets.
He had no knowledge of the true nature of the Dimensional Forbidden Zone, nor the Sanctuary's intent behind dragging the Heart of the Universe into it. He was also aware of being subtly excluded—and the same fate had befallen the Vault Divine God.
The Heaven and Earth Divine God had tried to investigate, but even to his death, never discovered why he had been marginalized.
Rosen speculated that the other high-level figures of the Sanctuary had likely pledged allegiance to the Chaos Divine God long ago.
Once all preparations were complete, Rosen folded space and traveled toward the Sanctuary.
Near the Ancient Gods World, he broke directly into a void within the Origin Dark Sea where the Sanctuary was located.
The moment he intruded, a Taisu Di-Ting responsible for security detected him.
Though only a third-tier Eternal Lifeform, Taisu Di-Ting possessed one of the top three perception abilities in the universe—it could hear all cosmic events and extract information, surviving solely on its ability to avoid disaster.
It scrutinized Rosen, confirming again and again that this was indeed the Heaven and Earth Divine God.
Hadn't he already died? And now he had returned alive?
Though unbelievable, Taisu Di-Ting didn't intend to dig too deep. If there was no issue, fine—but if even it couldn't sense an anomaly, then the danger was far too great. Best to let the first-tier deal with it.
Remaining hidden in the void, Taisu Di-Ting sent a message to the other Eternal Lifeforms: the Heaven and Earth Divine God had returned.
As Rosen folded space back into the Sanctuary's microcosm, he almost immediately received a summons from the Sanctuary's leadership.
At the ruins of the Sanctuary, Rosen met three top-level figures along with an avatar of the Heaven and Earth Divine God.
The avatar looked at Rosen in disbelief—it had already begun transitioning into the main body, and now the real one had come back alive and well? In that case, its fate was sealed.
No main body would allow a rogue avatar to live. It simply wouldn't be tolerated.
Rosen, ignoring the three other Eternal Lifeforms present, locked onto the Heaven and Earth Divine God's avatar and struck without hesitation.
He unfolded the Heaven and Earth Domain, easily suppressing and immobilizing the avatar.
Then, the avatar's Immortal Divine Body was crushed into powder and reduced to life essence. Its soul and divine origin were cleansed and absorbed into the Heaven and Earth Domain, and its Eternal Will was purified, stripped of all memory, and finally reclaimed.
The difference between a main body and an avatar in transcendent lifeforms went far beyond mere strength.
Memory and ideology were the true distinctions. Main bodies rarely infused avatars with much memory—only if the main body fell would the avatar be allowed to inherit them. Furthermore, the emotional and conscious aspects of avatars were always tightly regulated—they were created to be mere tools.
This avatar, due to the fall of the main body, had inherited full memories and developed its own consciousness and emotions.
Such avatars couldn't be allowed to exist. Once a sentient being gains self-awareness, it develops selfish desires. And with that, avatars would seek to replace their main bodies.
Throughout cosmic history, there had been countless cases of avatars gaining sentience and murdering their main bodies to take their place.
Because of this, while avatars were extremely useful—especially for resurrection—every transcendent lifeform imposed strict limitations on them.
By absorbing the Eternal Will left behind by the avatar, Rosen deepened his understanding of the All-Transforming Sacred Law.
There were few ways to strengthen Eternal Will—usually through the growth of divine essence or self-awareness.
Divine essence was easy to understand. But the growth of self-awareness depended on many things: long life and rich memories, emotional resonance, or unwavering obsession and resolve could all contribute.
Aside from these, the only growth path was through mastering and expanding Eternal Worlds.
But Rosen, through the All-Transforming Sacred Law, developed a fourth method. His divine essence could be transformed into that of other Eternal Lifeforms, and his Eternal Will could likewise convert and synchronize—meaning he could fuse his will with that of another.
After fusion, all he needed to do was erase the self-awareness of the foreign will, and he could make it his own.
"Didn't expect you to actually come back alive."
The Elemental Divine God spoke with emotion upon seeing Rosen reclaim the avatar.
"That was almost the end of me."
Rosen spoke with lingering fear and resentment.
"Would you mind sharing your experiences during the years you were missing?"
The Elemental Holy God asked directly without any attempt to conceal their curiosity.
"I nearly got trapped to death inside a fragment of Rosen's Primordial World..."
Rosen couldn't help but smile as he said this. "He actually managed to control the primordial remains of a Primordial Lifeform deep within that ruin. I nearly died at Rosen's hands. But in the end, he was still just an Immortal Godfiend. Controlling the remains of a Primordial Lifeform consumes a massive amount of Eternal Will.
So I played along with his plan and used Heaven and Earth's Shared Sorrow to seal both myself and the remains together.
By doing so, I cut off his control over the remains within the seal, and while inside, I forcibly refined the unrestrained remains. In the end, I actually turned misfortune into blessing—not only did I survive, but I managed to refine the Primordial Lifeform's remains and gained an Eternal-level avatar."
As he explained, Rosen released his Primordial Incarnation to stand beside him as proof.
The Elemental Holy God's eyes turned red with envy. They had doubted whether this was truly the Heavenly Earth Holy God—worried he might have been enslaved by Rosen or forced to submit under threat of death—but now, those suspicions were completely erased.
First of all, his explanation was clear and reasonable. The idea that Rosen had managed to kill the Heavenly Earth Holy God had always been hard to believe.
Even though Rosen possessed some method to explosively expand his life origin to terrifying levels...
The Elemental Holy God had personally faced Rosen and knew very well that in that state, Rosen was nearly mindless and couldn't maintain it for long. If Rosen hadn't mastered the Spatial Origin Seed allowing him to come and go freely, he would have died in their trap.
So when the Heavenly Earth Holy God disappeared, all Eternal Lives within the Holy Temple found it incomprehensible.
None of them understood how Rosen could possibly make the Heavenly Earth Holy God vanish.
Many even suspected that it wasn't Rosen at all, but the mysterious figure responsible for the disappearance of the Vault of Heaven Holy God. No matter how strong Rosen was, he was still just an Immortal Godfiend. He might be able to fight third-tier Eternal Lives, but defeating a first-tier one was impossible.
Turns out, it was because Rosen had manipulated the remains of a Primordial Lifeform to push the Heavenly Earth Holy God into a desperate situation.
But in the end, an Immortal Godfiend was still just that—he couldn't maintain control over those remains for long.
Which gave the Heavenly Earth Holy God the chance to turn the tables and gain another huge power boost.
Now, with control over this special incarnation, the Heavenly Earth Holy God was likely the strongest Eternal Life within the Holy Temple—at least on the surface.
With a complicated expression, the Elemental Holy God left. The other high-level members of the Holy Temple, though envious and jealous, followed suit.
Despite their envy, none of them bore hatred.
Because they understood very clearly—the stronger the Heavenly Earth Holy God became, the closer he came to death.
The tragedy lay in the fact that he had obtained an Origin Seed that he was never meant to touch.
From then on, Rosen began moving through the Holy Temple non-stop, meeting with every Eternal Life who was willing to talk to him.
Although the Heavenly Earth Holy God was technically one of the top leaders, he had always been a figurehead with no real power.
Everyone knew—it was far more advantageous to befriend the other high-level members than just him alone.
No one was foolish enough to risk offending the likes of the Elemental Holy God just for his sake.
But things were different now. Every time Rosen met with an Eternal Life, he would display an overwhelming power that left a lasting impression. Many Eternal Lives began to believe that the Heavenly Earth Holy God had already surpassed the first tier and could now be compared to an Ancient God.
With this shift in perception, more and more Eternal Lives became willing to align themselves with him.
Rosen even subtly hinted that the Elemental Holy God and the others were being backed by someone else.
That all the Eternal Lives of the Holy Temple were nothing more than clueless pawns being used as cannon fodder.
If the original Heavenly Earth Holy God had said this without any proof, they would have dismissed it as slander.
But now, with his terrifying strength beyond first-tier, anything he said carried far more weight. Even if they didn't believe him outright, they couldn't help but grow cautious and start observing things more closely.
After all, no matter how much someone else says, nothing compares to what one sees with their own eyes.
If the Elemental Holy God and the others truly had nothing to hide, no one would notice anything suspicious.
But the truth was—they did have secrets. Many of the Holy Temple's actions clearly didn't align with the interests of all Eternal Lives, and on the surface, they didn't seem to benefit the Elemental Holy God and the others either. It was hard to believe the high-level members were too stupid to recognize what helped or hurt them.
If they had no gain and still insisted on doing it, then perhaps there really was some mysterious entity behind the scenes who did benefit.
Unnoticed by all, the Holy Temple had already begun to fracture. More and more Eternal Lives began to believe that the Heavenly Earth Holy God hadn't lied.
(End of Chapter)