All of Heaven and Its Thousand Worlds, the Vast Seas of Life—All a Play; The Truth of the Great War Against Heaven
All of Heaven and Its Thousand Worlds, the Vast Seas of Life—All a Play; The Truth of the Great War Against Heaven
Vast and ancient memories, at this moment, burst forth like a dam breaking across mountains and seas, surging madly within Changge’s mind.
Within his calm and silent Spiritual Sea, winds rose and clouds churned, all manner of mottled and terrifying auras erupting there.
If one looked closely at this moment, they would discover that within Changge’s Spiritual Sea, five- and six-colored dreadful shackles had emerged—and these shackles were continuously breaking apart.
Every single shackle carried a bizarre aura that inspired dread.
Immortal light surged in waves, the Great Dao resonated in contention, and radiance of every color sprayed forth, impossible to suppress.
“What’s happening?”
The Big Red Bird watched all of this in shock, not knowing what kind of change was occurring within Changge.
It only felt that his expression seemed far colder than ever before, and deep within his gaze was an utterly unconcealed regard for all living beings as ants.
Not just all living beings—it was as if All of Heaven and Its Thousand Worlds, the boundless and infinite vast worlds, were all like ants in his eyes.
The sky beyond the Celestial Ancient Continent went completely dark at this moment. Stars and moon hid away, dark clouds billowed, and the world was filled with a terrifying aura that was oppressive and heart-chilling.
The whole of the heavens seemed unable to bear this aura, about to collapse entirely. The Great Dao rumbled, the World’s Will trembled, and every cultivator and living being felt, from the depths of their hearts, that emotion of being as lowly as an ant.
It was as if some unknowable, unspeakable existence had awakened between heaven and earth.
However, this disturbance lasted only an instant before vanishing. Soon the sky brightened again, the dark clouds dispersed, sunlight shone down, and the Celestial Ancient Continent was once more brimming with vitality.
The Big Red Bird almost suspected it had seen wrong, but it absolutely could not have been mistaken.
At that moment, some unimaginable change had indeed occurred within Changge—though now Gu Changge appeared to have returned to normal, with nothing amiss.
“Since Xianer is in her third life in this world, then you must have been by her side since her first life.”
Changge’s expression returned to tranquil stillness as he glanced at the Big Red Bird and asked.
He had actually been puzzled before—the so-called memories of the Demon Lord were too jumbled and hazy, some parts even more ancient and remote, filled with primordial vastness.
But back then, Gu Changge had not thought deeply about it. Now, with so many memories awakened, he understood—they were all his own handiwork.
To be precise, even the identity of the Demon Lord was a casual alias he had spoken into being.
All of Heaven and Its Thousand Worlds, and even many epochs and eras further in the past, had been destroyed because of a single thought of his.
The difference was that the identity of the Demon Lord was merely the identity he used to walk that era—nothing more.
“I am the Artifact Spirit of Xianer’s Heaven-Slashing Sword.”
“However, after the Forbidden Epoch, I became the Artifact Spirit of the gateway on the road where the Celestial Domain and the Beyond severed heaven from earth.”
“Later, after awakening my memories of my past life, I separated from my main body, came to the Beyond, and found Xianer in Peach Village.”
Hearing this, the Big Red Bird’s eyes held a trace of vicissitude as it shook its head and explained.
It did not know what had just happened to Gu Changge either.
To it, whether the Demon Lord or Gu Changge, both were as if shrouded in layers of mist—impossible to see clearly, impossible to fathom.
The Demon Lord’s origins were an eternally unsolvable mystery.
Before the Forbidden Epoch, immortals and gods shone brilliantly. Then came the Immortal Burial Era, with a long blank stretch in between, and only in later ages did the so-called Forbidden Epoch arise.
And the Demon Lord was a peerless powerhouse who emerged during the Forbidden Epoch. Even the Immortal Palace that ruled all the heavens at the time feared him, not daring to set foot in the Devil Mountain where the Demon Lord resided.
As for his origins, the Big Red Bird speculated that perhaps they were connected to the Immortal Burial Era—maybe he was a powerhouse who had fallen and reincarnated during that era, or one who had hidden away from the world.
“The Heaven-Slashing Sword...”
Hearing this name, Gu Changge’s heart stirred slightly.
It was indeed hard to connect the Gu Xianer he now knew with that figure who had wielded the Heaven-Slashing Sword and slaughtered her way up to the Nine Heavens.
The Great War Against Heaven—that was indeed far too long ago.
...Reincarnation.
This True World had indeed not yet been eroded; reincarnation had not been reshaped. The Six Paths still stood, laws circulated, and life continued endlessly.
But this was of no use.
The world where the Beyond resided was merely one world within the vast True World. And beyond the True World, there was the Source Realm.
However, after countless ages of vicissitudes, how many True Worlds still remained was unknowable. Only the Source Realm stood supreme above all, immortal and indestructible.
The three Original True Ancestors the Big Red Bird spoke of were the supreme rulers of the Source Realm, controlling all the rules of this world, all Sources, all matter. Time and space, the years, causality—all were products of their thoughts.
To be precise, the three Original True Ancestors were the Heavenly Dao itself. They were the embodiment of the will born of the true supreme Heavenly Dao—truly indestructible as concepts.
The Heavenly Dao had no form, yet in the unseen it ruled all things. But such a formless existence could never make all living beings hold it in awe.
And so, at some unknown point, the Heavenly Dao gave birth to selfish desires, gained emotions—and thus the three supreme Original True Ancestors appeared.
The three Original True Ancestors, to all living beings, were existences tantamount to the Heavenly Dao—and it was precisely for this reason that they were born.
All things in this world, so long as they possessed thought and awareness, would have desires. Even the Heavenly Dao itself was not exempt.
The three Original True Ancestors joined forces to create the Source True World, sitting high in the depths of the supreme void, seemingly without emotion or desire.
But each time the Great Purge arrived, they would harvest the Sources of all True Worlds across the heavens, annihilating everything in a great cleansing, lest any heaven-defying existence arise that could threaten them.
It was also to further their transcendence and power—to completely separate from the Heavenly Dao.
And so, whenever the Great Purge arrived, it was the moment the Source Realm destroyed worlds—everything would be destroyed, including cultivators, living beings, rules, and the Six Paths. All would be annihilated.
After the Great Purge, in those True Worlds, reincarnation would cease, heaven would collapse and earth would sink. The powerhouses who had died miserably in the past could never again enter the cycle of reincarnation, nor could there be new life. It was equivalent to true death.
Thus, after the Great Purge, heaven and earth withered. All the harvested True Worlds returned to chaos, once more awaiting evolution and the opening of the heavens, nurturing new life—round and round in cycles.
This cycle had repeated who knew how many times.
But in this process, unknowable things would still occur—unavoidable.
That was the Anomalies.
Even the three Original True Ancestors could not see through Anomalies through deduction.
And so, those powerhouses who survived the great cleansings and great purges began to plot the Great War Against Heaven. Across endless Great Purges, the Great War Against Heaven had already been waged countless times.
Only, in the eyes of the three Original True Ancestors, this process merely allowed them to clean out those Anomalies more easily—it could not pose them the slightest threat.
And the Great War Against Heaven actually delayed the arrival of the Great Purge, because in that war, too many powerhouses fell and were lost. This also became a method for many True Worlds to evade the descent of the Great Purge.
“All of Heaven and Its Thousand Worlds, the vast seas of life—all of it is a play.”
The corners of Changge’s mouth held a trace of self-understanding.
Before awakening his memories, he had always taken growing stronger as his goal. As for why he needed to become stronger, it could only be said to be to survive in this world—and, incidentally, to comprehend his own origins and identity.
Now the mist had blown away, the past had surfaced, yet everything seemed like the vast seas of life—ethereal, unreal.
But looking at it this way, it seemed not to matter much after all.
Because even he himself was now one of those undeducible Anomalies.
As for the purpose of all his scheming and plotting all this time, the reason for walking the world under the identity of the Demon Lord—it was actually even simpler.
Because Gu Changge intended to devour and replace the other two Original True Ancestors, to erase them completely.
The identity of the Demon Lord was merely one of the aliases he had used when participating in the Great War Against Heaven.
The identity of a Transmigrator was also just a piece in his scheming, crafted to better fit this Anomaly.
“Gu Qingyi—she is actually the Original Soul of this True World. During this world’s first Great War Against Heaven, she was schemed against by my Demon Lord alias of that time, and was saved by coincidence. That was also when we met.”
“The second Great War Against Heaven was before the Forbidden Epoch.”
Changge’s gaze gradually grew deep and distant.