During the fourth round of courting death, just as Lin Moyu had expected, after fewer than five thousand deaths his body and soul both reached the Calamity Supreme limit. One more step and he would be at the True Supreme level; once there, he could face Dao head-on—even without the Heaven's Calamity Scepter. Of course, that would only be the strength of body and soul; within a world there are also the world-Dao and the world's power. And that next step is exceedingly hard—breaking the Calamity Supreme limit is not easy.
Lin Moyu felt that the power from the Forbidden Zone of Life within the Primordial Dawn Vortices was insufficient to push him past the Calamity Supreme limit. After his body and soul reached that limit, his survival time clearly lengthened; the Zone's power began to weaken against him. In subsequent rebirths he clearly felt his body and soul were still growing stronger—just as the Primordial Chaos Gem had said—laying the groundwork to enter the Forbidden Zone of Life. This strengthening is an essential change, an absorption and accommodation of the Zone's power; it does not simply raise his combat power.
After another couple thousand deaths, rebirth stopped again. A ten-thousand-meter vortex could no longer meet his needs. Lin Moyu knew he had to enter an even stronger vortex—another step up the staircase toward the Forbidden Zone of Life—and he was climbing faster now.
The Primordial Chaos Gem delivered, quickly finding a stronger vortex: its diameter increased to one hundred thousand meters, another tenfold rise. Lin Moyu entered to keep courting death. Across these attempts he noticed a change: from ten meters to one hundred meters, the Forbidden Zone power inside each vortex scaled proportionally with size. Later, although the diameter kept growing by the same multiple, the Zone power increased less. For example, jumping from a ten-thousand-meter to a hundred-thousand-meter vortex (ten times bigger) increased the Zone power by only about double.
The gem explained: a world cannot absorb the Forbidden Zone's power without limit—or it would rupture. Thus, the world-rules cap it. As vortices get larger, the incremental Zone power grows smaller. The largest vortices—nearly a hundred thousand li across (over a hundred million meters)—hold a Zone-power concentration less than thirty percent higher than the tier below (the ten-million-meter class). That's the world's limit: it cannot absorb the Zone's power endlessly, or it must collapse.
Lin Moyu now felt this firsthand. In the hundred-thousand-meter vortex he needed only five thousand rebirths to fully adapt. Then he moved on to a million-meter vortex to continue adapting. He tallied his remaining rebirths—more than enough, with buffer to spare.
Step by step, each time he switched vortices he proceeded solidly, never rushing. At last he entered the largest Primordial Dawn Vortex and fully adapted to the Zone power within. Only then did his body and soul truly reach the Calamity Supreme limit. One more step and he might truly surpass Calamity Supreme and step into True Supreme. Even if he failed, he could stand as an equal to Dao.
But now he truly couldn't find a suitable environment. The Primordial Dawn Vortices are the only places within a world that contain power from the Forbidden Zone of Life. To go further, Lin Moyu would need to actually enter the Forbidden Zone—far too dangerous, with a ninety-nine percent chance of no return. He wasn't afraid of risk, but he wasn't reckless.
"Maybe there's a place…" He thought of the Wall of Heaven and Earth—the space-time tunnel there that connects to a realm-ruin. That ruin has overt, destructive dangers.
"That might work," said the gem, "but most likely still not enough. Your body and soul are already very strong; that strength will tug your realm upward. Because we're at the Beginning of Heaven and Earth, that ascent is suppressed; once you leave, the world-rules will fall into place and your realm will rise immediately. You won't jump to Calamity Supreme, but you'll likely reach Chaos Realm consummation. Conveniently, you also possess realm-domains, which fits the world-rules."
Lin Moyu shook his head. "I'm not ready for Chaos Realm consummation. My realm-domains aren't ready."
"Then take a look," said the gem. "See how far your domains have evolved. Time is chaotic here—a long time has likely passed in your world."
He had indeed lost track of time. The area around the vortices made him ignore time, and at the Beginning of Heaven and Earth time is inherently chaotic. He reached out to his storage-world and at once felt the anomaly—ages had passed. The Five-World Domain was already perfected; unsurprising, since it had been near perfection before they came. Unexpectedly, the Great Thousand World, the Kedao Realm, and the Myriad Wonders Realm had also reached perfection. The remaining realm seeds had already sprouted into full realms and were racing toward perfection. At this rate, they would not take long to perfect as well.
Looking at his world felt like watching a movie at hundred-fold fast-forward—a time-differential illusion telling him that time here raced, so that a single day here meant hundreds of days in the storage-world. The Ancient Wilds were likewise affected.
"How's the Great Calamity?" he asked.
"Because your strength has risen, the calamity's progress keeps accelerating," said the gem. "And time here is skewed. I can't see the exact details, only that the calamity is nearly primed—not far from full eruption. Be careful when you return; there may be surprises. I've seen many calamities—and the calamity-bearers within them…"
Lin Moyu knew what it meant: during a Great Calamity, the world-rules interfere and alter many people's minds. Enemies grow more hostile; friends can, for many reasons, become enemies. Such changes come from the world, not from human will.
A voice inside urged him: bring your wives into the storage-world to keep them away from the calamity. With his goal here achieved, Lin Moyu turned to head back. "Let's go—we're returning." He took out the Ferry Calamity Boat, left the vortex, and chose a random direction; any way out would return to the Ancient Wilds. He also needed to acclimate to his newfound strength.
"While you were courting death," said the gem, "I accidentally picked up something." It produced a dust-flea from a Time Essence Stone and handed it to him. "Guess what this is."
The speck settled on Lin Moyu's fingertip; he instantly knew it wasn't ordinary dust. His keen soul sensed distorted time around it. "A Time Essence Stone," he said, then murmured, "There's someone else's aura on it—faint but familiar. It's him."
The gem clapped its little hands. "Correct. The Calamity Supreme once obtained a Time Essence Stone—and crushed it into four pieces. This speck flaked off in the shattering."
Lin Moyu knew the scepter could rewind time without relying on the world-Dao—defying heaven. If the gem said so, it must be right. "What would he do with a Time Essence Stone?"
"So many things," said the gem. "Make duplicates; kill across time; or extract people or objects from a specific time node…" It explained the most common uses it had seen in other worlds: with the stone's rewind ability, if you lock onto a time node, you can pull someone or something from that node into the present. You can also attack someone at a chosen node; the harm then propagates along time to the present. The Calamity Supreme could lock onto Lin Moyu's weakest era and strike him there to injure or even kill the present him. He could also pull himself from some node to create duplicates.
"I don't get one thing," the gem mused. "The larger the stone, the better the effect. He split a whole Time Essence Stone into four; the effect would weaken."
A flash lit Lin Moyu's eyes. "I think I understand what I couldn't before. Why did the Calamity Supreme take the small world where I was born? Because it bears my imprint. He can use that imprint to trace me to my weakest time and strike me there to injure the present me. He knew I would take the small world away once I grew strong, so he moved first. With the small world in hand, he holds a trump card against me."
Looking back at his experiences in the small world, obtaining the Heaven's Calamity Scepter seemed accidental—but it was inevitable; someone had arranged it. That someone was the Calamity Supreme. He had set the board and made Lin Moyu the key piece. But why choose Lin Moyu? Remembering what the Calamity Supreme once said, and the Heaven-Void Land's era-by-era realm evolutions, it seemed he was waiting for Lin Moyu in particular. Only the Calamity Supreme could answer that.
"No," Lin Moyu corrected himself. "There's someone else who might know—my elder sister, Lin Mohan—once the Great Sword Supreme, strongest among the quasi-Calamity Supremes. Her becoming my sister wasn't chance; it was inevitable."
"As for rewinding the small world's time," the gem added, "even a small piece of Time Essence Stone is more than enough. Anything else?"
"Yes," said Lin Moyu. "How did the Calamity Supreme cheat death under Dao's nose? He may have pulled a past version of himself from a time node. The one who died wasn't the present him, but an earlier time-node self. He really died, which is why he fooled Dao—and why his scheme could succeed."
"That reminds me of another use," the gem said. "If you pair a Time Essence Stone with World-Origin Essence, there's a special way to break through the Calamity Supreme realm." It then explained: World-Origin Essence forms when the first wisp of Primordial Dawn Qi fuses with the first piece of world-origin material to enter a newborn world. That first wisp is the purest; the first material likewise. Combined, they become World-Origin Essence, which can fuse anything. Pair it with a Time Essence Stone to pull a past you, then fuse the two selves with World-Origin Essence. You won't get one plus one equals two, but your strength can rise by fifty percent. A top Calamity Supreme gaining fifty percent—or fusing more than once—can naturally break past Calamity Supreme. Fusing with other Calamity Supremes is risky—different Daos and wills conflict—but fusing with yourself has no such issue. World-Origin Essence can be used multiple times—as long as you have enough Time Essence Stone. The Calamity Supreme could fuse with earlier selves again and again. That explains why he split one complete Time Essence Stone into four—likely the limit. If he could, he would have split it even more.
"Then everything makes sense," Lin Moyu said. "He likely used this method to break past Calamity Supreme to his current tier." He wanted to name that tier; he first thought "half-step True Supreme," but the gem disagreed. A half-step True Supreme should have half a step actually taken; these people haven't. They're failures—if they don't become True Supremes in this Great Calamity, they'll all die.
"Hence he could break through outside a Great Calamity," the gem said. "But the attempt is doomed—True Supremes aren't so easily made."
"Is there any chance to become a True Supreme outside a calamity?" Lin Moyu asked.
"There is," the gem said, "but the chance is vanishingly small. Even among True Supremes, those who seize it are peerless. Clearly the Calamity Supreme isn't one of them. He found a way to exceed Calamity Supreme, but—like Dao—didn't truly succeed."
"Dao waits for the calamity," Lin Moyu said. "The Calamity Supreme laid a grand kill-Dao setup and also waits. And there's a third figure, hidden deepest, also waiting. This world is getting lively. Who knows how many beings will die in the calamity, how many realm-domains be destroyed?"
"In truth," the gem said, "the purpose of worlds is to incubate True Supremes. All other beings are, to the world, expendable. Their life and death don't matter to the world."
"The world is merciless," Lin Moyu sighed. "It cares only for rules—rules that demand the world birth a True Supreme. That's the world's sole purpose."
He drew a breath. "Come on—time to pick them up."