The Primordial Chaos Gem spoke solemnly, with its usual touch of pride. "I've observed more worlds than I can count, and I divide them into three tiers. We can ignore 'dead worlds'—they don't even qualify. I'm only talking about living worlds.
"Worlds that can withstand two great calamities are the lowest tier. Those that can endure three to four rounds are mid-tier. Five to six rounds are high-tier. Likewise, Almighties born from low-tier worlds tend to rank near the bottom among Almighties.
"You're going to ask how I tell how many calamities a world can bear. All I can say is: I've seen enough. One glance and I know. How many rounds a world can carry is innate—fixed from birth. Each calamity wounds the world enormously. If a world is weak and can only carry two rounds, and no Almighty is born during that span, the world heads for ruin—collapsing soon and becoming a world remnant.
"The first calamity is the life-or-death tribulation of the world itself, deciding whether it becomes a living world or a dead one. Every world must face it—no exceptions. So for a weak world, the chance to give birth to an Almighty exists for only that one calamity.
"The length of a calamity varies—sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes long, sometimes short. Roughly speaking, it's between one hundred billion and five hundred billion years. So the shortest-lived living worlds last on the order of a hundred-plus billion years. But note: the weaker the world, the looser its rules and limits, which actually makes birthing an Almighty more likely. Stronger worlds have stronger rule-constraints, so birthing an Almighty is harder."
What it said didn't differ much from Lin Moyu's own thinking. The world he was in—the Chaos–Ancient Wilds—could handle three rounds without issue; a fourth was uncertain. It was a mid-tier world. The third calamity had already begun; if no Almighty appeared this round, time was running short.
"I get it," Lin said. "But you said you've seen a world that survived nine calamities. What's with that?"
"That one was unique—one of a kind," the gem replied. "There are worlds that can endure seven or eight rounds too, but there's no point categorizing them, because none of them produced an Almighty. A world can be too strong—its rules too restrictive—so no one can break through. Those worlds are doomed. In all the worlds I've seen that exceed a certain threshold—able to bear seven rounds—without exception, none produced an Almighty. After all their calamities, they perished and became remnants."
"A pity," Lin said. "Those worlds become ruins—just playgrounds for Almighties to explore."
"Hmph, wishful thinking," the gem sniffed. "Even as remnants, worlds of that level will simply kill ordinary Almighties who enter. Especially that nine-calamity world—even as wreckage, it's inaccessible. Whoever goes, dies. I remember a high-tier world's Almighty—full of himself—went in and fell almost immediately. Quick as that."
Lin clicked his tongue. "So even a starved camel is bigger than a horse."
"Of course," the gem said. "The inherent might of those worlds defies imagination."
"So no one can go in?"
"I can," it said, pointing at itself. "I just don't want to. And that fellow you saw in the Forbidden Zone of Life should be able to as well. If one day you enter the Forbidden Zone, you could probably go too. These days, worlds have largely perished; who knows how many world remnants are piled up inside the Forbidden Zone? The passages are all destroyed, though. If you can enter the Forbidden Zone alive, you could treat those remnants as your back garden—go whenever you please."
To enter the Forbidden Zone alive would require absurd strength; by then Lin would already have surpassed Almighties. What would be the point of rummaging through shattered worlds? He shelved the thought.
"Let's look at this thunder wall," he said.
He bathed in lightning; it didn't harm him, but it trapped the Ferrying-Calamity Boat.
"That's a Thunder Source Stone," said the gem. "It gestated a bit of wit—though not much. It's a world-origin material that fell from the World's Wall and fused with Primordial Dawn Qi. Lacking Chaos's rules, it never fully matured. Usually it just drifts here at the Genesis Point of the Ancient Wilds, unmoving. When a being passes, it wakes and attacks. Its strikes aren't weak—any Chaos-realm being that runs into it here dies without doubt. The deepest Ancient Wilds are a forbidden zone for the Chaos realm, and that's not an empty phrase."
Lin didn't form a soul avatar—he flew out himself. After facing those bubble-born entities last time, he no longer feared the denizens of the deep as much. Besides, they might be his opportunity. He had a premonition the Worldburning Flame would take another leap here.
He faced the lightning head-on. Endless bolts blanketed his sight, pelting his body in a dense storm, trying to blast him to bits. Too bad his flesh was strong enough: the thunder looked terrifying but hardly hurt him—only a faint sting.
Before him stretched a wall of lightning, edge unseen, unfolded across the void. No matter. He flew up to it, placed his hand on the lightning wall, and released the Worldburning Flame. Ignoring the thunder, the flame spilled over the wall, engulfing it. The flame didn't care what the 'body' was—like it had eyes, it slipped along the wall, found the Thunder Source Stone's core—and the wisp of nascent wit hidden inside it. Wit means soul; clever or stupid, a soul is a target.
The flame bored into the core and began to burn the soul. The attacking lightning grew chaotic. Lin faintly heard a scream, muffled by the thunder. From the change in the storm he could tell the Worldburning Flame was doing its work. The lightning weakened and finally guttered out. The whole process took less than an hour. Something strong enough to kill any Chaos-realm entity had been burned to death. However feeble its soul, the result spoke for the flame's power.
He saw the Thunder Source Stone within the fire. A trace of Primordial Dawn Qi remained inside; the flame devoured and refined it without ceremony, leaving only a lump of world-origin material. The Genesis Point of the Ancient Wilds truly was the Worldburning Flame's playground. After consuming that wisp of Primordial Dawn Qi, the flame grew even stronger, then slipped back into Lin's hand and vanished. He felt its elation and blinked—apparently it already had a rudimentary wit, rarely expressed until joy made it show.
He understood: it was telling him it was still hungry. He couldn't help but smile wryly. He'd been thinking of restoring wit to the boat and the Causality-Seeking Ring; now it seemed better to let the Worldburning Flame awaken fully—that would be his greatest aid.
He tossed the Thunder Source Stone into his storage. If such world-origin materials could be used to cultivate domains, how powerful would his inner domains become? Pity this stone bore the mark of the Chaos–Ancient Wilds; it couldn't turn his inner world into a living world. To get a living world, he'd still have to target the World's Wall itself—that mosaic of world-origin materials in all shapes and attributes, endlessly tempting.
With the lightning gone, the void calmed, and the Ferrying-Calamity Boat moved on.
"The Thunder Source Stone isn't much among origin materials," the gem chuckled. "The beings it can evolve aren't that strong either. But if we go deeper, we may hit something nasty. Be careful, Master."
"Didn't we agree I came here to die?" Lin said. "You were even urging me to hurry up. Why the change of heart?" Then, evenly: "Did you discover something?"
"I did," the gem admitted. "Something strange entered the Genesis Point and evolved into oddities. You are here to court death, true—but if things go wrong, you may not die; you might be trapped to death."
"I'm not worried. With you here, I don't have to be."
"If you always think like that, it's not good," the gem said.
"I won't," Lin shook his head. "But you are my confidence."
That line clearly pleased the cheeky, proud little thing. It actually smiled. "Now that I like to hear. Say more."
"If I say it all the time, it gets old," Lin said. "Tell me what that strange thing is."
The Calamity Scepter was his trump card—that wasn't bluster. Besides it, the Worldburning Flame was another, and here it might even outshine the scepter. The flame wasn't as strong now, far beneath the scepter; but in the future—who could say? Its potential was limitless. If he ever entered the Forbidden Zone of Life, those heaps of world remnants would be the flame's best food. How far could it grow? No one knew.
"The world is split into yin/yang, void/solid," said the gem. "Yin corresponds to void; yang to solid. World-origin materials also follow this. Imagine a void-type, extreme-yin origin material comes here, absorbs Primordial Dawn Qi, but never fully gestates—what would it become? The extreme of void. The extreme of yin."
Lin pictured it and felt his scalp prickle. Taken to extremes, things get ridiculous. Some 'ridiculous' is only astonishing; some is terrifying.
A bad feeling flickered—his soul warned of danger. A roaring wind howled; the Ferrying-Calamity Boat shattered in the gale. Then countless phantoms filled his vision.
Demons—he recognized them—demons from the small world. They'd long since been annihilated; how could they be here? A dragon's roar; the small world's dragon clan appeared. Lilian and the Dragon Emperor arrived together, leading demon-dragon armies to charge him. Wind surged behind—Lin turned to see Antares, eyes full of killing intent, breathing dragonfire.
"An illusion?" Lin shut his eyes. His soul power surged, sweeping out like twin great palms, scattering every phantom. When he opened them again, all was clear.
Pale light fell into his gaze. The boat had halted before an ancient castle. He'd seen it before—back in the Great World, when the mysterious garden manifested, he'd entered a castle. In the Great World, that castle had been very mysterious; much about it still defied explanation. After study, he'd set it aside as a piece of sealed history within that world. Later he learned more and guessed the mysterious garden had been born from collisions between the Great World and others—back when it devoured many worlds upon the Sea of Realms. That belonged to the Great World's history; after he reached the Source Continent, he hadn't chased it further. He hadn't expected it to appear again now.
The earlier figures—the small-world folk, even Antares—were illusions. But the castle before him was not.
"When void reaches the extreme, it becomes real," the gem said. "This is the extreme of void—and the beginning of real. This castle sits in the deepest layer of your memory, a riddle you never solved. Clearly you experienced quite a bit inside back then. Do you want to go in again? The unsolved may be solvable now."
Lin shook his head. "No. I'm not interested in riddles. I am who I am; my path has nothing to do with anyone else."
As he spoke, he stepped out from the boat and punched toward the castle. He used over ninety percent of his strength. A colossal fist manifested in the void and swallowed the castle. The blow swept through; half the castle collapsed. Sirens blared. Arrays flared as if the castle had awakened. A dark figure shot out, armored, sword leveled at Lin. "How dare you!"
Armies poured out and formed ranks. A skeletal throne rose into the air, flames roaring upon it. A man sat on the throne, looking at Lin. "Lin Moyu, you dare lay hands on me?"
The heavy voice shook Lin's heart—the mysterious master! When void reaches the extreme, it becomes true—this illusion had even sketched that existence.
Lin made no further move. He looked at the apparition and thought, If you truly are that kind of being, this illusion should shatter now.