Against the Gods (Web Novel)

Chapter 1872 - The Mirror of Enigma

“He Ling, what is this ‘Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm’?” Yun Che asked using his soul voice.

The devil race must’ve been furious after Mo E exiled the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor and the nine hundred Devil Gods, but they didn’t wage war right away because the devil race was already weaker than the god race even when they were whole. After losing Heaven Smiting and the nine hundred Devil Gods, their chances of defeating the god race in a direct confrontation could only be described as abysmal.

However, after the pillar of the god race, the Heaven Punishing God Emperor had passed away, and the powerful Creation God of Elements had gone into seclusion, the only Creation Gods left on the god race’s side was Xi Ke—the Creation God of Order who was infamous for his loner personality, independent actions, and complete lack of any authority or command—and Li Suo, the weakest Creation God in terms of combat strength.

Naturally, the simmering devil race wasn’t going to miss out on such a golden opportunity.

So the great war between gods and devils broke out with the Heaven Punishing Ancestral Sword as the trigger.

However, looking at the Ancient Records of the Dragon God, the ancient devil race had still underestimated the god race’s strength. Mo E might’ve passed away, but his Heaven Punishing God Clan and the other divine clans who served as his protectors were still incredibly powerful. The fact that most of the king realm inheritances that existed today could be traced directly to Mo E’s protector clans was proof of that.

It also proved that Mo E had been preparing to go to war against the devil race for a very, very long time.

There was also one more critical factor that contributed to the horrible defeat of the devil race. During the latter half of the great war, the three cores of the devil race; the strongest dark profound practitioners of them all—the Original Darkness Devil Emperor, the Nirvana Devil Emperor and the Nine Fiend Devil Emperor—had all been lured into the “Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm” and trapped. It wasn’t until the Evil Infant had unwittingly destroyed the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm with Myriad Tribulations that they were finally freed, but by then it was already too late.

The outcome had been inevitable from the moment the devil race lost their leaders and their greatest combat strength. After losing again and again and being driven to a dead end, and their Devil Emperors looking nowhere close to returning, the devil race ultimately decided to unseal the Evil Infant’s Wheel of Myriad Tribulations.

The Eternal Heaven Pearl was ranked fourth of the seven great Heavenly Profound Treasures, inferior only to the Heaven Punishing Ancestral Sword, the Evil Infant’s Wheel of Myriad Tribulations, and the Primordial Seal of Life and Death. This placement had actually puzzled Yun Che for a very long time. While the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm was pretty special, he couldn’t imagine that it was more special than the Sky Poison Pearl or the World Piercer.

That was no longer the case. After learning that this never-before-heard “Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm” had been powerful enough to stall three Devil Emperors until the end of the war, he couldn’t help but ask He Ling about it.

He Ling replied, “The Eternal Heaven Pearl’s time manipulating function isn’t limited to just time expansion. It could both expand and compress time. The latter is far harder to achieve than the former.”

Yun Che understood her meaning immediately. “You’re saying that the Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm can accelerate time as well?”

“Mn!” He Ling replied affirmatively. “The inner world of the Eternal Heaven Pearl can be ‘unfolded’ into the time-expanding Eternal Heaven Divine Realm. On the other hand, it can also be compressed and ‘folded’ by ten, a hundred, or a thousand levels.”

“With the current universe’s limitations, the Eternal Heaven Pearl can barely achieve the Ten Level Realm, much less twenty. As for the Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm… the ancient Creation God of Order was the only person who could’ve done it.”

“A person who was trapped at the heart of the Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm must break through a total of a thousand mini worlds to escape. However, it is also incredibly easy to lose one’s way while escaping. The possibility that the escaper might sink deeper into the Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm instead of escaping is very real.”

“Even worse, the time inside the Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm flows a thousand times faster than normal.”

“...” Yun Che couldn’t help but be shocked by what he just heard.

The power of these Heavenly Profound Treasures—especially when they were at their full strength during the ancient era—was truly beyond the understanding of the current universe.

To be locked behind a thousand mini worlds while time passed a thousand times faster than normal… the experience could only be described as an absolute nightmare. To give an example, the three Devil Emperors could’ve struggled for just a century inside the Eternal Heaven Thousand Level Realm, but a hundred thousand years would’ve passed in the real world.

This was the true might and terror of the Eternal Heaven Pearl. It was almost a shame that it would never return to its former glory.

That being said, the main function of the Eternal Heaven Pearl was still its ability to expand time. It was best used as a way to achieve a miraculous leap in power in a short real-world time and overcome certain obstacles that should’ve been insurmountable before.

Barring extremely unique circumstances, there was practically no one who would want to accelerate time while being inside the Eternal Heaven Pearl. It would’ve been a complete waste of one’s life and time in the outside world… or so Yun Che thought.

[Fifth Heavenly Profound Treasure: Sky Poison Pearl]

[Birthed from the bottom of the primal abyss of the devil race, it was absolutely yin and poisonous, but also absolutely pure and clean at the same time. Its inner space was infinite, and it possessed the vast power to both poison and purify. It could be used to bury both gods and devils in an abyss of poison, or it could be used to purify all evils in but a flash. It was held by the devil race’s Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor.]

[Its strongest poison was called the ‘Heaven Wounding Thought Severing Poison’. After the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor shared its breath with the devil race, the latter used it as a template to create many more terrible devilish poisons such as the Eternally Severed Samsara, Nine Fiend God Destroyer, Absolute God Slaying Poison, Sleep of Eternal Darkness…]

Judging from the many records about the great war of gods and devils, one of the devil race’s strongest and most terrible weapons was its devilish poison.

The Sword Spirit God Clan Hong’er was living with had been destroyed by devilish poisons. Even the Creation Goddess of Life had died to a devilish poison.

To date, the scars left behind by the many ancient devilish poisons of that war still survived until today’s Southern Divine Region.

It was only now that Yun Che realized that the powerful devilish poisons had come from the power of the Sky Poison Pearl… even the deadly Absolute God Slaying Poison Jasmine suffered from had originated from the Sky Poison Pearl!

The more he read the Ancient Records of the Dragon God, the more he thought that a Heavenly Profound Treasure at its complete state was absolutely terrifying. Even in ancient times, it could single-handedly change the tides of a war.

[... somehow, the Eternal Night Devil Clan produced the Sky Poison Pearl that should’ve vanished together with the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor for eternity. When it glowed a horrific blue… the only good news amidst all the bad news was that the Sky Poison Pearl hadn’t accepted a new master, so the Eternal Night Devil Clan was unable to unleash the Heaven Wounding Thought Severing Poison. The consequences would’ve been unimaginable otherwise…]

[... When the Evil Infant's Wheel of Myriad Tribulations hijacked the Sky Poison Pearl, it actually managed to manifest the “Myriad Tribulations” recorded in the Ancestral Devil Canon. The gods, the devils, the heavens. In that moment, everything fell into an inescapable tribulation of despair…]

[Naturally, the poison spirit of the Sky Poison Pearl didn’t survive the hijacking of the Evil Infant.]

[Why hadn’t the Sky Poison Pearl left with the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor? How did this myriad tribulations of despair happen…]

Even Yun Che couldn’t help but feel for the ancients when he read the final line under the Sky Poison Pearl.

Had the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor or the Heretic God been in possession of the Sky Poison Pearl at the time, the Evil Infant's Wheel of Myriad Tribulations would never have been able to hijack it. And without it, no matter how powerful the Evil Infant had been, the calamity it wrought shouldn’t have been enough to end an entire era...

No matter how you looked at it, the Heaven Punishing God Emperor was the root cause of all these disasters.

[Sixth Heavenly Profound Treasure: World Piercer]

[Birthed from the very first spatial gap of the primordial universe, the World Piercer was the Heavenly Profound Treasure with the greatest divine power of space. It enabled creation, relocation, and instant penetration of space. It could also interfere with, disrupt and destroy any spatial laws including the Walls of Primal Chaos, or so the legends claimed.]

[It was held by the Creation God of Elements, Ni Xuan. The “World Dragon City” gifted to our tribe by the Creation God of Elements himself was also marked with the power of the World Piercer.]

...

[... According to the Ancestral God Canon, the World Piercer and the World Piecer’s needle spirit had been birthed side-by-side from the primordial universe. Therefore, if the owner of the World Piercer possessed a power that also originated from the primordial universe, they could channel their own energy through the medium that was the World Piercer’s needle spirit, and use its spatial divine powers by force. However, this method of usage would greatly damage the World Piercer’s needle spirit and especially the user, so it shouldn’t be considered unless there was literally no other choice.]

“...” Yun Che frowned a bit when he read this.

He was recalling what Shui Meiyin said when introducing the World Piercer to him:

“Senior Devil Emperor did not want the World Piercer to accompany her into her eternal exile from the Primal Chaos. So, she handed it over to me before she left… The World Piercer was born in the core of the primordial universe. So she said these words to me. ‘Only your Stainless Divine Soul, birthed by the primordial energies of this universe, can nurture and temporarily awaken the needle spirit that slumbers within the World Piercer’...”

“The Stainless Divine Soul was then used as a medium to connect to the needle spirit which had been roused from its slumber for a little while, and I would then proceed to use my own strength to forcibly activate the World Piercer’s dimensional powers.”

Shui Meiyin’s words both matched and contradicted some parts of this record.

According to Shui Meiyin, her Stainless Divine Soul was the only thing in the current universe that could temporarily awaken the needle spirit from its slumber. After the needle spirit was awakened, she could then empower the Heavenly Profound Treasure with her own energy and execute its spatial divine power by force. It was why the Heaven Smiting Devil Emperor had purposely left it behind for her.

However, according to this passage, anyone with a “power that originates from the primordial universe” could pull it off.

In the current world, as far as he knew, there were three people who were blessed with the power of the primordial universe:

Yue Wugou with the “Divine Stainless Body”; Xia Qingyue with the “Heart of Snow Glazed Glass”; and Shui Meiyin with the “Divine Stainless Soul”.

However, both Yue Wugou and Xia Qingyue had passed away. Shui Meiyin was the only one left who could still use the World Piercer.

It was perfectly normal for present knowledge to deviate from what was known during the ancient times. Also, records weren’t necessarily one hundred percent accurate just because they were ancient. In fact, it had been proven many times over that certain ancient records contained distorted facts or complete lies. Therefore, Yun Che didn’t dwell on it for too long before moving onto the seventh and last record regarding the Heavenly Profound Treasures.

[Seventh Heavenly Profound Treasure: Mirror of Samsara]

[The Mirror of Samsara’s origin is unknown. As far as the world is aware, this Heavenly Profound Treasure has never appeared. If its name wasn’t etched in the Ancestral God Canon itself, no one would even believe that it was real.]

[It is rumored that the reason the Mirror of Samsara hasn’t appeared to the world is because it was inside the Well of Samsara itself. It was the source of the Well of Samsara’s divine power of rebirth.]

[It is rumored that the core power of the Mirror of Samsara was even greater than the Well of Samsara, that it allowed someone to travel the cycle of rebirth and tamper with cause and effect itself.]

[It is rumored that the Mirror of Samsara would fall into slumber for twenty years every time its powers were activated, because the Well of Samsara also could only perform one reincarnation per twenty years.]

[It is rumored that the Mirror of Samsara was birthed together with the Ancestral God, and that the Ancestral God was its one true master even before the other six Heavenly Profound Treasures.]

[The Dragon God once said that none of the four Creation Gods had ever known or come into contact with the Mirror of Samsara.]

…...

[... The Well of Samsara is dead, both gods and devils have perished, the universe itself is dying, and still the Mirror of Samsara is nowhere to be seen…]

[If there truly is no cycle of rebirth left in this world, then does that mean… we are about to meet... an eternal end…]

Afraid to miss even the slightest detail regarding the Mirror of Samsara, Yun Che read the passages extraordinarily slowly and carefully.

It was because the turning point of his fate had begun from a most unusual “Samsara”.

He wanted to know exactly how he had “reincarnated” from the Profound Sky Continent to the Azure Cloud Continent, then from the Azure Cloud Continent back to the Profound Sky Continent.

Was it his two deaths that triggered the Mirror of Samsara’s power of rebirth, just as Jasmine had speculated a long time ago?

According to this record, the Mirror of Samsara had never appeared in ancient times. The ancients guessed that it sat at the core of the Well of Samsara, but no one had ever been able to confirm the authenticity of the rumors. So, why had it suddenly appeared in the current world?

The Sky Poison Pearl was left behind on Blue Pole Star by the Heretic God, but the Mirror of Samsara obviously wasn’t related to him.

Moreover, he was one hundred percent certain that he had never been the master of the Mirror of Samsara, now or before. Throughout the years, he had tried everything to elicit a response from the Mirror of Samsara to no avail. He couldn’t even slip his consciousness into its inner world.

So why had his deaths triggered its power of rebirth… when such a thing had never happened in the past?

Suddenly, an odd idea entered his mind. Maybe… his death hadn’t been the reason the Mirror of Samsara came active at all. Maybe… an actual person or power had been behind his rebirths all this time!?

That frightening thought squeezed Yun Che’s heart for a second before he chased it away.

“You’re blanking out again!” Qianye Ying’er bent forward and trapped Yun Che’s palm between her smooth thighs, refusing to let go. “The Mirror of Samsara? It once appeared in the God Realm for a short while before vanishing without a trace… since the ancient records mentioned it too, I supposed that it wasn’t just a rumor after all.”

“...” Jasmine had mentioned the Mirror of Samsara’s sudden appearance in the God Realm as well.

He just couldn’t understand what was going on here. Why did the Mirror of Samsara suddenly manifest in the God Realm? And why did it vanish seemingly without reason and appear in the Illusory Demon Realm of the Blue Pole Star of all places?

The Mirror of Samsara might be ranked last among the seven Heavenly Profound Treasures, but everything about it, be it in the past or the present, was shrouded in a thick fog of mystery.

The page after the Mirror of Samsara was about the long history of the Dragon God Tribe, the core races of both the gods and the devils, and certain significant events pertaining to the two realms.

By the time he finished reading the entire record, seven days had passed by in a flash.