Chapter 496: 160 Billion Years Ago and the Annihilation of All Realms
In the vast expanse of endless deep space, Rosen pushed open a Gate of Space-Time and stepped from the New Universe onto the deck. Successfully refining the New Universe into a clone meant he had gained a clone significantly more powerful than his true self. As long as he remained within the New Universe, he could unleash power comparable to the Void Giant God at its peak.
Did the Cosmic Will of the original Primeval Universe truly perish at the hands of a group of Primeval Lifeforms simply because of compassion? The more he understood the New Universe's current power, the more Rosen doubted the true cause of the Cosmic Will's death back then.
First, one point was very strange: how did they transcend Primeval Lifeforms? Ever since gaining complete control of the New Universe, Rosen had continuously tried to use it to help his true self achieve a breakthrough. But it was impossible. He had no direction at all regarding the conditions for a Primeval Lifeform within the Indestructible Will system to successfully transcend. Therefore, something special must have happened in the original Primeval Universe.
Flashes of memory appeared before Rosen's eyes; these were fragments of the Chaos Saint God's incomplete memories, organized by the Main God Computer. The Chaos Saint God had self-destructed back then, and despite his best efforts, he had only managed to preserve a few memory fragments. From these scattered memories, the demise of the Chaos Saint God and the Dimensional Saint God seemed odd. As two of the five strongest Primeval Lifeforms, logically, they should have been among the last to fall. After all, mastering spatial power meant one of their greatest strengths was escape.
Furthermore, within the Chaos Saint God's memories, there were no clues about the last of the five great Primeval Lifeforms. He only knew such a person existed, but all related memories were absent. Rosen even wondered if the fifth great Primeval Lifeform truly existed? The best way to unravel this mystery was to use the History Camera to see what happened then!
But the difficulty was considerable, as recording past history in the New Universe was even harder than in a cosmic remnant. This was because the New Universe had undergone two destructions and rebirths, each time a complete renewal. Everything from the past was wiped clean during the cosmic rebirth. Only because the History Camera had fused with special Time Essence was it even possible to recreate history.
Rosen was now just waiting to destroy more cosmic remnants and acquire more Time Essence. Although the power of the cosmic clone was difficult to use outside the cosmic barrier, it didn't mean it provided no benefit to his true self. At least, with the cosmic clone, he had already deduced a Primeval Sacred Law more powerful than the Dimensional Saint God's Universe in Palm.
Due to the cosmic clone continuously fusing with Space Essence, it could now shrink to the size of a fist. Even without using the Life Space to carry it, he could easily take it with him. With the Life Space freed up, and combined with the newly created Primeval Sacred Law, he could further shorten his journey.
Rosen expanded his Life Space, and the immense Life Magnetic Field immediately radiated tens of thousands of light-years away into endless deep space. As the Life Magnetic Field covered the area, the Life Space expanded synchronously. Rosen integrated into the Life Space and in one step arrived at the edge of the Life Magnetic Field, tens of thousands of light-years away. At this point, he re-contracted the Life Magnetic Field and Life Space, then re-radiated the Life Magnetic Field. In this way, he could easily traverse tens of thousands of light-years every second.
What once took thousands of years could now be compressed to a few hundred years. Although this would be a bit more arduous for his true self, where there was hope, there was motivation. With the greatly increased travel speed, the time it took to devour one cosmic remnant could now be used to devour ten.
More and more Void Essence and Time Essence were acquired, along with a large quantity of special essences whose purpose was unknown. Rosen's cosmic clone had already devoured over a hundred cosmic remnants. Aside from Void and Time Essence, he hadn't encountered a third usable extraordinary essence. This confirmed to him that among the cosmic remnants in endless deep space, perhaps only Void Essence and Time Essence were still normal.
As for other extraordinary essences that should have normally existed, they had all undergone special changes, making them unusable. Rosen's faster travel speed meant he acquired more Void Essence, and more Void Essence meant his travel speed became even faster.
This was a positive cycle, accelerating from a hundred thousand years to explore the first cosmic remnant to eventually fifty years to explore one cosmic remnant. He had reached the maximum speed for traveling between different cosmic remnants because the Life Space, once strengthened to a certain extent, could no longer be reinforced.
Rosen had only so much Indestructible Will, and thus only so much Life Magnetic Field he could perfectly control. If he couldn't maintain perfect control, it would only become nourishment for the Void Giant God's Life Origin. Therefore, he chose to integrate the surplus Void Essence into the Heaven-Splitting Divine Axe and several micro-universes, not even sparing the Chaos Micro-Universe. He only discovered this when he tried to create micro-universes for his clones and pets: he could create space, but he simply couldn't create a micro-universe.
All known micro-universes, except for the Blue Star Micro-Universe, originated from the Cosmic Source Seeds of cosmic clones. There were a total of ten Cosmic Source Seeds; the most core one couldn't be separated, but the remaining nine could form up to nine micro-universes. Time in endless deep space had lost its meaning. After perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of years, when the nine micro-universes could no longer absorb more Void Essence, he had no choice but to store the surplus Void Essence.
On this particular day, he again acquired a portion of Time Essence, and Rosen eagerly headed towards the next cosmic remnant. Every time he gained Time Essence, he hoped the History Camera would be able to capture the history before the cosmic remnant's destruction. Although each time the result was disappointment, this was his only remaining hope in endless deep space.
Fifty years later, Rosen arrived at the next cosmic remnant, piloting the Ark of Doom directly into it. He was no longer as cautious as he once was. Aside from unconsciously letting his guard down due to never encountering danger, it was also because he carried his cosmic clone with him. He was confident in confronting the Void Giant God, and if an even more powerful entity appeared, caution would be meaningless anyway.
The moment the History Camera powered on, the captured images began to reverse infinitely in time. Roughly estimated at 160 billion years backward, the empty scene finally changed for the first time. It was a universe where the cosmic barrier had not yet fragmented and the Cosmic Origin had not yet drained. Within, it was also a starry sky universe, with countless magnificent mechanical civilizations and creations spread throughout. The entire universe was prosperous and powerful, showing no signs of destruction.
Accelerating the recording slightly, one could see that the entire universe was torn apart in an instant. Rosen continuously changed the filming position within the cosmic remnant, finally capturing the true culprit of the universe's destruction in the depths of the void. In the depths of the void, several Transcendent mechanical lifeforms were being overwhelmingly slaughtered by someone.
Even just by viewing it through the History Camera, Rosen felt an instinctive dread from these mechanical lifeforms. Yet, these powerful beings, whose peak strength was no less than the Feathered God's, were being slaughtered by a monster. Just as in the Feathered God's memories, this monster was a humanoid, mummy-like being.
All the damage from the Transcendent mechanical lifeforms couldn't even budge the humanoid mummy in the slightest. Forget causing damage, it couldn't even make the monster take a step back. After only a few seconds of engagement, the Transcendent mechanical lifeforms were torn apart barehanded. Then, a black-hole-like vortex appeared in the depths of the void, and subsequently, everything in the entire universe was swallowed by the black hole.
How could this mummy be so powerful and terrifying, yet the Void Giant God somehow survived? Furthermore, the first cosmic remnant Rosen encountered happened to be the only known living Void Giant God. If this was a coincidence, it was far too coincidental. If it wasn't a coincidence, then someone must have foreseen the future countless years ago, knowing that he would be the first to go to the Void Universe. This meant that the Void Giant God itself was left for him, serving as a tool to aid his exploration in endless deep space.
Rosen continuously changed positions and angles, meticulously filming the mysterious humanoid mummy. There should be more than one of these monsters. Although the entity that killed the Feathered God was also a humanoid mummy, there were subtle differences upon closer inspection. Besides, with so many cosmic remnants in endless deep space, even if one mummy killed them quickly, countless universes would be enough to exhaust it to death.
Just as Rosen filmed the mummy's front, the mummy suddenly moved its head. Through the History Camera, Rosen saw the mummy turn its head and meet his gaze. Separated by 160 billion years, the mummy actually looked at him from the past across spacetime. Rosen instinctively felt an unprecedented terror, and only after stopping the recording did he feel the danger gradually fade.
But it only faded gradually; it didn't completely disappear. Not far in front of him, at the spot where the mummy stood 160 billion years ago, a petal of a Nightfall Parasitic Flower appeared out of thin air. It struck the History Camera with a crack, and in a blink of an eye, the History Camera had collapsed. Rosen's head also disintegrated into ash.
He regenerated and recovered through Indestructible Will, and after reforming his Primeval Sacred Body, Rosen was horrified. His ten thousand points of Indestructible Will that formed his Primeval Sacred Body, and the ten thousand units of Indestructible Will centered in his consciousness sea's self-awareness, both suddenly had less than three thousand units remaining. The remaining over fourteen thousand units of Indestructible Will were completely annihilated.
This wasn't a temporary severance like with the Heaven-Splitting Divine Axe; it was truly destroyed in the proper sense. After consuming this mechanical cosmic remnant, Rosen assigned the task of traveling to his Yinglong Clone.
He needed to continue refining the Void Giant God's Life Origin to recover his lost Indestructible Will, and simultaneously repair the History Camera. For now, he didn't have the strength to confront that mysterious mummy. Even if he were to use the History Camera to record, he would have to do so covertly.
Though the losses this time were significant, Rosen's gains were equally substantial. In the Ark of Doom's captain's quarters, Rosen took out a fingernail-sized petal of the Nightfall Parasitic Flower. He could now at most create a Primeval-level Nightfall Parasitic Flower; this was the limit of his own Eye of Nightfall's capability.
Although destroying universes yielded many Transcendent-level Nightfall Parasitic Flowers, these had all integrated into his Eye of Nightfall. Due to the mutual entanglement and struggle between the Eye of Nightfall and the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye, the Eye of Nightfall had yet to complete its transformation.
Primeval and Transcendent were already the upper limits of the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers Rosen had encountered in the past. But the petal in his hand felt even stronger than Transcendent. An entity capable of destroying countless universes would, naturally, wield power beyond the Transcendent realm.
Rosen suddenly had a feeling: was the mysterious mummy truly trying to harm him by reaching across 160 billion years? How did he get the feeling that the mysterious mummy was actually giving him this petal?
At this moment, the Eye of Nightfall in Rosen's eye socket seemed ready to leap out, frantically wanting to absorb the petal in his hand. If the Eye of Nightfall truly absorbed it, it would inevitably disrupt the balance between the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye and the Eye of Nightfall once again.
After layering seals on the petal, Rosen continued his journey. As cosmic remnants were devoured by his cosmic clone, he also refined the Void Giant God's Life Origin to recover from his injuries.
However, he didn't continue to integrate the Time Essence obtained during this period into the History Camera. Being able to record the history before a cosmic remnant's destruction was already enough. To record the Primeval Universe era, the History Camera would need to be more than ten times stronger.
So, Rosen prepared to allocate some Time Essence and combine it with Void Essence to strengthen his own Primeval Sacred Law. If his Spacetime Reincarnation could integrate enough Spacetime Essence, the power of this Primeval Sacred Law would definitely not disappoint him.
Coupled with the power of his cosmic clone, even if the Eye of Nightfall wanted to rebel after successfully transforming with the petal, he would have enough confidence to suppress it. Thus, all the Spacetime Essence acquired over the next tens of thousands of years was integrated into Spacetime Reincarnation.
At the 2619th cosmic remnant, Rosen integrated the remaining Time Essence into Spacetime Reincarnation. Spacetime Reincarnation, now completely unable to accommodate more Spacetime Essence, was now no less powerful than his Life Space.
While his Yinglong Clone piloted the Ark of Doom, Rosen, in the New Universe's Primeval Plane, took out the treasured petal. The moment the petal touched his Eye of Nightfall, the Eye of Nightfall overpowered the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye and began its transformation first.
Within Rosen's right eyeball, a Nightfall Parasitic Flower grew as the eye transformed. The Nightfall Parasitic Flower's petals integrated into his pupil, opening and closing as if breathing. At the same time, the Nightfall Parasitic Flower's stem grew along the eyeball into his brain, with countless rootlets at its base attempting to take root in his brain. It was at this moment that Spacetime Reincarnation enveloped his right eye, continuously reversing spacetime to suppress the uncontrolled Eye of Nightfall.
Spacetime Reincarnation alone certainly couldn't suppress it, but there were also Life Space and the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye. Coupled with the full suppression from his cosmic clone, he gradually managed to control the Eye of Nightfall. After all, the Indestructible Source Seed had already deeply fused with the Eye of Nightfall, and the Eye of Nightfall's transformation spurred the Indestructible Source Seed's growth. Full suppression was enough to significantly reduce the difficulty of control.
Rosen appeared on the Ark of Doom's deck. At this moment, endless deep space felt like his natural habitat. He was the fish, and the boundless darkness was the water.
Rosen could directly sense that countless Nightfall Parasitic Flowers were rooted in the deepest parts of spacetime, continuously absorbing the Spacetime Origin of endless deep space and continuously growing more Nightfall Parasitic Flowers. Endless deep space was being devoured by the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers.
Under these circumstances, endless deep space should have resisted, but it was actually actively cooperating. Endless deep space actively offered its Spacetime Origin for the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers to consume, while the universe itself, upon absorbing a little Spacetime Origin, drew malice from the endless deep space. This felt ridiculous, as if the universe was a tumor in endless deep space, and the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers were its true offspring.
Rosen clearly understood from the Feathered God's memories that, at that time, the universe was the child of endless deep space. Universes didn't even need to move; fixed in one place, endless deep space would provide endless Spacetime Origin. The universe transforming from a beloved child to an enemy was clearly the work of those mummies and Nightfall Parasitic Flowers. They were destroying everything in the entire endless deep space.