Lin Moyu was, after all, the master. When he got serious, the Primordial Gem became honest instead. But it was stuck; its tiny face twisted into a pretzel for a long while before it shyly answered:
"I can help Master control the Calamity Scepter better and draw out all of its power. But that also depends on Master's power. If your power isn't enough, the scepter's strength can't be activated. And… part of my own ability is sealed. Certain special conditions have to be met before it can be unsealed."
Finally—straight answers. That was more like it. Lin Moyu knew that once he laid down the rules, this little thing would behave much better; even if it stayed cocky and proud, at least in front of him it would toe the line.
He continued, "What level do I need to truly unleash the scepter? And what conditions unseal your abilities?"
"It's not about realm, it's about power—pure power," the Primordial Gem said. "If you must compare by realm, then at least Great Venerable to awaken part of the scepter. To use its full power, you must surpass Great Venerables on the level of power itself. As for unsealing me, I can't say what exact conditions—Master will have to discover them. But it should also relate to power."
So in the end, it was power—not realm, but raw, pure power: strength of body and strength of soul, the two most fundamental forces that don't rely on any dao or on heaven-and-earth—only on oneself. In the face of true power, "realm" loses meaning. Just as he, though only at Minor Attainment of the Chaos Realm, could one-shot Major Attainment experts and suppress ordinary Great Perfection experts—that was power. And the changes brought by his rebirth were changes on the level of pure power, which not only made him stronger but also stirred anomalies in the depths of the Ancient Wilds and transformed his storage space into another heaven-and-earth.
"Got it," Lin Moyu said. "Rest for now. I'll call you if I need you."
Whoosh—the Primordial Gem dove back in; it seemed a bit unhappy, as if Lin had crumpled its pride. Which was exactly the effect Lin wanted: to remind it who the real master was.
"Little Tree, how's it going?"
Little Tree was still busy. Ten thousand roots spread across the void, bringing to light every trace left by space-time passages—sixty-eight in all, scattered like stars.
"Almost done," Little Tree said. "Just one last step to see if I can rebuild the passages."
Best to leave professional work to the professional. Lin didn't micromanage. "You all heard what it said. Whether we go or not—your call."
He hadn't hidden his talk with the Primordial Gem from Little Tree and Chaos Seed; they'd listened in.
"I don't know if we should go," Little Tree admitted, "but I have a feeling we ought to make a trip."
"I think so too," Chaos Seed said. "It's a heaven, after all. Even if only the corpse remains, there'll be good stuff inside."
Greedy thing, Lin thought—men die for wealth fits Chaos Seed perfectly.
In the end, the decision was his. He considered it. "If the passage can be rebuilt, we'll make a trip—see what another heaven looks like. Maybe we really will gain something. But before we go, Little Tree, probe as much as possible. Gauge the danger."
"Will do."
Bang! In the void, one set of space-time traces suddenly shattered into dust and vanished. Little Tree had failed to reconstruct that passage—too ancient, or the far end had changed. These traces were older than old, far beyond the Ancient Chaos Wasteland. Little Tree could only try carefully, find a path, and then rebuild—but success wasn't guaranteed.
Bang, bang, bang—more traces collapsed in quick succession. In a blink, over half were gone. All failures.
Little Tree didn't get discouraged; he stayed steady and kept trying. Lin watched quietly, sensing surges of space-time power. With his own understanding of that power, he could no longer follow what Little Tree was doing.
The traces kept breaking. Fewer than twenty remained. At last, one trace glimmered faintly—a space-time passage successfully rebuilt.
"Finally, one," Lin thought, pleased. One success made the whole effort worthwhile and boosted Little Tree's confidence. He pressed on—but none of the remaining traces worked, until the very last one succeeded. Out of sixty-eight ancient traces, only two became usable passages. It didn't sound like much, but Lin felt it was already excellent—only Little Tree could manage even that.
Next came exploration. Roots became Little Tree's eyes, following both passages to their ends. The two were unlike: one small, a round mouth about five meters wide; the other large and irregular, over a hundred meters at its widest. The opened mouths replayed their original forms—Little Tree hadn't altered them, implying different body sizes once passed through here.
"I'm in," Little Tree reported. His roots reached both ends at once, entering the remnants of two heavens. He gave a sudden grunt; in the round passage, many roots retracted at once—each clearly shorter, the cut faces smooth as if sliced by a keen blade. At his current toughness, even a Great Perfection expert would need a sharp artifact to sever Little Tree's roots.
"Are there beings there?" Lin asked.
"I can't be sure," Little Tree said. "I didn't see any. The moment I probed, the roots were cut."
"No other information?" Chaos Seed asked.
Little Tree shook his head. "No. It was too fast. I'll try again."
He made several attempts. Every time, the roots were severed instantly. It hurt, but only a little; Little Tree didn't stop. Try after try, varying angles and rhythms, he finally gleaned something:
"The rules there differ from the chaos. Once I entered, my power was completely suppressed—even my nature changed. It wasn't that the other side is sharp; it's that I became weak there. And I still didn't see any beings. It doesn't seem like someone cut me. That place is dangerous—extremely dangerous."
Compared to the peril of the round passage, the larger irregular one seemed fine; Little Tree had already sent back images: desolate, unlike the chaos's void—truly barren, dust everywhere. That dust was the former heaven: materials, the flesh and blood of the mighty, everything ground to powder. When a heaven's body was torn apart, tens of trillions perished in an instant. All those Spirit Treasures and heavenly materials that people had fought to the death over, all former fame and power—gone in a breath.
Tears suddenly welled in Little Tree's eyes.
"What's wrong?" Chaos Seed asked.
"I feel… a sadness," Little Tree whispered.
"It's the heaven's lament," Lin said. As Little Tree's master, he could sense what Little Tree felt—not the same, but enough to understand. That heaven was saturated with sorrow—the heaven's own wail, faintly mingled with the cries of innumerable beings.
Little Tree trembled. Even after the fiercest wars and the cruelest deaths, he couldn't withstand the shock of sorrow from an entire heaven and its endless lives. The round passage led to danger; the irregular one led to grief.
Lin decided at once. "We'll go to the sorrowful heaven. Don't probe the other anymore."
Little Tree nodded and stopped. His roots were already regrowing quickly.
Lin took out the Du'e Ark, stepped aboard, and flew into the passage.
The corridor felt both long and short—time here was muddled. Little Tree withdrew his roots; the sorrow was too heavy. Even he couldn't bear it for long—stay, and he felt he'd go mad, drowned in grief.
Lin understood: every emotion is a power. Pushed to the extreme, it becomes terrifying. When sorrow reaches its peak, it can infect others, making them sorrowful too. Little Tree's dao-heart was strong, yet even he struggled. As for Lin—he was confident. Extreme emotion could hone one's dao-heart, making it stronger; that might not be a bad thing.
The Du'e Ark emerged from the passage. A strange breath seeped in, turned into a breeze, and swept through every corner. Cracks popped across the ark; it shuddered violently. Lin immediately put it away. This was another heaven; the ark didn't fit its rules. Here, its defense would plummet; it was no longer an indestructible treasure. The ark belonged to the Ancient Chaos Wasteland; only there was it unbreakable. The laws of a heaven decide everything, and each heaven differs.
Not just the ark—Lin as well. All his daos went silent; he couldn't sense any of them. Along the way he had studied many daos—not deeply, but enough to conjure fire or call down rain. Now—nothing. Different heavens have different rule-sets; even the same dao behaves differently from heaven to heaven. A dao from the Ancient Chaos Wasteland won't just "work" here; it's normal that it doesn't. And this heaven was already shattered; its rules had broken, so of course he couldn't invoke any dao.
Yet to his surprise, his Undying Dao still functioned—suppressed, yes, much like it had been before the Wall of Heaven and Earth, but usable.
"So the Undying Dao really is special," Lin thought. He'd long realized it. That uniqueness had followed his cultivation from the start to now. Even in another heaven, it still provided solid power.
More important than that, though, were body and soul. Both remained unaffected here, as strong as they were in the Ancient Chaos Wasteland. That was power wholly his own, not bound by any dao or heaven. Strength was strength—an absolute value, not a relative one. This was what the Primordial Gem meant by pure power.
"My power is gone," Chaos Seed said. "This is another heaven; power properties differ. We're at less than thirty percent here."
"What a sad world," Little Tree murmured. "I want to cry."
"Cry? At your age? Pull yourself together," Chaos Seed scolded.
They refused to come out of Lin's soul realm; the place was hostile to them—sorrowful and fraught with danger, a threat to the dao-heart. Better to hunker down.
Lin summoned his undead servitors and the Time-Space Soul Python. He could still open his storage world here and call out the undead army. The servitors' strength was also suppressed; like the Undying Dao, they retained about half their usual power. The python fared much worse—less than twenty percent, with only brute flesh still useful.
Then Xiaopeng. The moment he appeared, his body shrank rapidly until he was palm-sized and could not grow larger. The Golden-Winged Roc had truly become a little golden bird. His power came from bloodline; with that suppressed, he was now the weakest.
Perched in Lin's palm, Xiaopeng said uneasily, "Father… this place feels awful," and tears streamed down. Besides the suppression, the heaven's influence made his heart ache—old griefs surged up in his mind, shaking his soul. Stay here much longer, and his dao-heart would be harmed.
Lin had only brought him out to test things; seeing this was enough to judge the suppression here. Everything was within his expectations. He put Xiaopeng away, then began to truly survey the broken heaven.
Sorrow blended with the heaven and its lost beings into an omnipresent wind, swirling ash and powder. A wave of force rose from Lin and held back the dust—but it couldn't ward off the sorrow. His dao-heart was powerful; it affected him, but he could still bear it.
He marked the end of the space-time passage, then flew forward. The dense dust was like a fog, blocking sight. Any of it could once have been mighty treasures—or the bodies of great experts. Now it was all rubble with the heaven.
Lin kept his Undead Eye open and didn't relax. In this unfamiliar heaven, danger could lurk anywhere.
The dust felt endless. He and the countless undead had been flying a long time yet had not cleared its bounds. Time and space seemed distorted—ruin had warped both.
He'd lost track of how long he'd been here, how far he'd flown. Fortunately, he could still sense the marker he'd set—or he might have gotten lost.
He was thinking that when, in the next second, the link to his marker suddenly broke.