Chapter 497: The Great Cycle Realm and the Truth from Candleglow
"Endless deep space can only survive for another 160,000 years..." Rosen was shocked, his face pale, as he sensed the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers in the deepest layers of spacetime through his Eye of Nightfall. He confirmed it repeatedly; this assessment was not wrong.
In at most another 160,000 years, endless deep space would be completely destroyed, burying everything. If endless deep space could be reborn through nirvana, that would be one thing, but if it truly died completely, he wouldn't survive either. Rosen didn't want to be buried with endless deep space, so he had to accelerate his growth.
Only if his strength was sufficient, stronger than the Void Giant God, would he have a chance to survive the destruction of endless deep space. And he also needed to sublimate his Dark Sun Heavenly Eye as quickly as possible. Only when the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye and the Eye of Nightfall were balanced could he fully master the Eye of Nightfall's power, and potentially control higher-level Nightfall Parasitic Flowers.
Since the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers were the culprits behind the destruction of endless deep space, he might be able to find a way to survive through them. Rosen continued his journey to the next cosmic remnant, his mind heavy, but soon breathed a sigh of relief as his Eye of Nightfall perceived something.
Earlier, he felt endless deep space could only exist for 160,000 years, but now he felt it could survive for at least 1.6 billion years. He couldn't have made a mistake in his perception, so there must be some reason for the two different results.
Rosen looked at the cosmic remnant, specifically at the special Dark Sun deep within the remnant, which was emitting a mysterious white light. The Dark Sun and the Nightfall mutually restrained each other. The previously perceived 160,000-year destruction limit was, presumably, due to him destroying that particular cosmic remnant, causing the Dark Sun's power to no longer restrain the Nightfall, which is why that part of endless deep space could only exist for 160,000 years.
Here, there was still an intact cosmic remnant, and the special Dark Sun inside was still continuously emitting mysterious white light. Therefore, the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers in the depths of spacetime here were suppressed, and endless deep space could exist for at least 1.6 billion years. Rosen only then realized that his act of destroying cosmic remnants was actually accelerating the destruction of endless deep space.
So, by that logic, were the mysterious humanoid mummies destroying universes and leaving behind special Dark Suns actually saving endless deep space? Although he realized that destroying cosmic remnants would accelerate the destruction of endless deep space, it was too late to turn back.
Due to the Eye of Nightfall's premature transformation, Rosen didn't continue to integrate the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers generated after the cosmic remnants' destruction into himself during his subsequent consumption of universes. Instead, he sealed these Nightfall Parasitic Flowers and simply consumed the special Dark Suns to accelerate the evolution of his Dark Sun Heavenly Eye.
Under the stimulation and pressure of the Eye of Nightfall, Rosen's Dark Sun Heavenly Eye gradually integrated ten thousand special Dark Suns. This meant that ten thousand cosmic remnants had been destroyed, and the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye finally reached its critical point and successfully transformed. The transformation process was smooth, and the transformed Dark Sun Heavenly Eye completely changed from black to white.
The Dark Sun Radiance also changed from black to a mysterious white light. Both the Eye of Nightfall and the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye, after their transformation, were incredibly powerful beyond imagination. Rosen had to exert all his effort to suppress the Eye of Nightfall, so naturally, he couldn't truly master its power.
The same applied to the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye. However, these two eyes, by opposing and restraining each other, actually gave him a further opportunity to control them. At the very least, he now understood the attributes of these two eyes.
Dark Sun Heavenly Eye: Cycle Organ
Attributes: Can generate and control Cycle Dark Suns
Characteristics: All-knowing Demonic Eye, Infinite Evolution, Indestructible Sacred Radiance
Eye of Nightfall: Cycle Organ
Attributes: Can generate and control Nightfall Parasitic Flowers
Characteristics: Nightfall Moonlight, Nightfall Concealment, Nightfall Cycle
Rosen first attempted to control the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye. The Cycle Dark Suns were the white, special Dark Suns at the center of the cosmic remnants. As for Indestructible Sacred Radiance, it was that imperceptible mysterious white light. If the effect of the black Dark Sun Radiance was pollution, then the effect of Indestructible Sacred Radiance was purification.
It was precisely because of the suppression from Indestructible Sacred Radiance that within the illumination range of the cosmic remnant's Cycle Dark Sun, the Nightfall Parasitic Flowers couldn't quickly drain endless deep space. Overall, the transformation of the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye didn't provide significant combat power.
However, through his two eyes, Rosen finally understood the true realm beyond Primeval Lifeforms. Cycle Lifeform—this must be the true level of the Void Giant God and others.
Rosen continued to try and control the Eye of Nightfall. He could now generate and control Cycle-level Nightfall Parasitic Flowers, and use Nightfall Concealment to modify the memories of Primeval Lifeforms. However, the truly powerful characteristic was Nightfall Cycle. If Nightfall Concealment was about hiding memories, then Nightfall Cycle was about trapping those memories in an endless loop.
Finally, Rosen also discovered that through his Eye of Nightfall, he could perceive the ubiquitous memory world of endless deep space. Endless deep space could show malice towards the Cosmic Clone absorbing Spacetime Origin, and only intelligent life could generate malice. Therefore, he had long suspected that endless deep space might have its own will, just as a universe has a Cosmic Will.
Since it was an intelligent life, it had memories. The will of endless deep space was omnipresent, and naturally, its memories were also omnipresent. The Nightfall Parasitic Flowers spread throughout endless deep space, besides extracting endless Spacetime Origin, were also parasitizing the will of endless deep space, weaving a memory world. This was why the universe transformed from being the darling of endless deep space to its enemy.
Rosen manipulated his Eye of Nightfall to generate a Cycle-level Nightfall Parasitic Flower, then carefully guided it to parasitize the memory world spread throughout endless deep space. As the Nightfall Parasitic Flower integrated into it, he instantly vanished from the Ark of Doom.
Rosen surveyed the memory world. The entire memory world presented endless deep space before the destruction of the Heavens and Myriad Universes. The void was filled with dazzling, multicolored origins, and various types of origin energy were so abundant that they could liquefy in the void. Therefore, one could see seas formed by liquefied origins and rivers formed by liquefied origins.
Between countless seas and rivers, universes were dotted, some near, some far. Logically, given such distances, and with these universes not emitting the Indestructible Sacred Radiance from the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye, it should be impossible to see them with the naked eye. However, no matter how far apart these universes were, one could see them clearly and in real-time at a glance.
Rosen saw the more than ten thousand universes he had destroyed over the years; in the memory world, these universes were not remnants. He approached the nearest universe, the Heaven-Splitting Divine Axe casually tearing spacetime. His Dark Sun Heavenly Eye looked into the universe within the rift and saw the sentient beings of that universe, which had been destroyed 160 billion years ago. This discovery sent Rosen into deep thought.
He had originally thought that the ultimate goal of the mysterious mummy destroying countless universes might be annihilation. But now, it seemed it might not be destruction, but salvation. The reason was simple: while the mysterious mummy destroyed universes, it allowed the memory world to retain the memories of all life, letting all deceased life continue to live in the memory world with their memories. If it were merely for destruction, there would seem to be no need to do so.
Rosen's body instantly swelled indefinitely, quickly reaching a height of several light-years. The Heaven-Splitting Divine Axe synchronously enlarged with him. The moment he raised the Heaven-Splitting Divine Axe, he swung it at a nearby universe, intending to destroy it. In the real world, he couldn't destroy an intact universe with one swing, but in the memory world, he believed he could cleave the entire universe with one blow, and his Eye of Nightfall could elevate his power to the corresponding level.
The Heaven-Splitting Divine Axe destroyed the entire universe, but in the blink of an eye, the universe reappeared, perfectly intact. Rosen saw very clearly that the universe he destroyed had undergone a spacetime cycle. It was a spacetime cycle identical to that of Blue Star, only the spacetime cycle in the memory world was more powerful than Blue Star's.
Rosen continued to probe the memory world by destroying it, yet the memory world showed no abnormal changes due to his presence. The will of endless deep space did not appear in the memory world, nor were there any signs of the mysterious mummy. Rosen tore open spacetime and arrived at the Candleglow Universe, which he had damaged many times, quietly searching for the Cycle Lifeform Candleglow.
The entire Candleglow Universe was composed solely of faith civilizations, as the Candleglow Universe was naturally suited for the development of faith power. Candleglow was not a naturally occurring Cycle Lifeform, but rather one born from faith, gradually acquiring the faith of the entire universe to ultimately become a Cycle Lifeform.
When Rosen found Candleglow, he was making various incense and candles in an incense shop. "Are there still living beings in the Great Cycle Realm?" Candleglow asked, surprised to see Rosen.
"The Great Cycle Realm?" Rosen asked, confused.
"I can answer everything I know," Candleglow smiled, putting down the incense he was holding and closing the shop door. In the tea room on the second floor of the incense shop, Candleglow brewed two pots of tea, then pushed one towards Rosen.
"The Great Cycle Realm is the world where countless universes reside," Candleglow said, his eyes filled with memories. "The Great Cycle Realm has endless origins, endless universes. 'Endless' is just a descriptive term; if it were truly endless, there wouldn't be so many problems."
"Extraordinary lifeforms need to occupy resources to increase their strength, and the stronger the extraordinary lifeform, the more resources they occupy. All universes and all life in the Great Cycle Realm, as more and more extraordinary lifeforms are born, no matter how much origin there is, it will be exhausted by extraordinary lifeforms. Every time the Great Cycle Realm's resources drop to a critical point, the Great Cycle Realm will enter a new round of spacetime cycles."
"Everything, all things, revert back to the very beginning when the countless universes of the Great Cycle Realm were first born. This is how the Cycle Will of the Great Cycle Realm maintains the existence of the world. There's no good or evil, and no one would notice anything unusual.
Until one spacetime cycle, a special extraordinary system emerged in one of the Great Cycle Realm's universes. This extraordinary system allowed for the mastery of indestructible characteristics. If it grew into a Cycle Lifeform, it could even achieve immortality at the memory level. Therefore, when the next spacetime cycle began, the Great Cycle Realm, reborn anew, saw its first Cycle Lifeform retaining memories from the previous spacetime cycle. Do you know what that person was thinking at the time?"
"I imagine their mood wouldn't be very good..." Rosen thought for a moment before replying, "The spacetime cycle reset everything in the Great Cycle Realm. Without memories of the previous spacetime cycle, the result would simply be living a new life. But retaining memories means losing everything from the previous spacetime cycle.
In a new spacetime cycle, everything that happened in the previous spacetime cycle might not reappear. From that person's perspective, all their family and friends, all their enemies, everything they were familiar with no longer existed. And they had to endure the pain of losing everything with each spacetime cycle. I imagine after a few spacetime cycles, what they most wanted to do was end the spacetime cycle."
"You are correct..." Candleglow sighed, "Although that person lost everything in the first spacetime cycle, they still hoped that everything they once cherished would reappear in the new spacetime cycle. However, that person discovered that fate was not constant; every spacetime cycle brought new lives to all beings.
At this point, that person could still remain rational and understood the Great Cycle Realm's unavoidable hardship of spacetime cycles. But that person also didn't want to endure the pain of losing everything again, so they tried to spread the indestructible will extraordinary system, allowing more people to master memory-level indestructibility, so that everyone would be reborn with memories of the previous spacetime cycle.
However, mastering that extraordinary system was extremely difficult, and achieving memory-level indestructibility was even harder. The result of that person spreading the indestructible will extraordinary system was merely that more Cycle Lifeforms appeared in the Great Cycle Realm who retained memories, ultimately losing everything and having to experience spacetime cycles repeatedly. With each spacetime cycle, more and more Cycle Lifeforms wanted to end the spacetime cycles."
"So they wanted to destroy the Great Cycle Realm?" Rosen pressed, looking at Candleglow, who seemed hesitant to speak.
"Yes and no..." Candleglow said with a wry smile, "Some Cycle Lifeforms were emotionally detached and didn't care about anything from the previous spacetime cycle. But some Cycle Lifeforms were deeply emotional and couldn't accept repeatedly losing everything they cherished. These two types of Cycle Lifeforms divided into two factions.
The Nightfall Faction wanted to completely destroy the spacetime cycle, while the Dark Sun Faction wanted to do everything in their power to maintain the status quo. After conflict arose between them, because these Cycle Lifeforms each possessed memories from multiple spacetime cycles, they could easily leverage their first-mover advantage and past accumulated experience to become the most powerful Cycle Lifeforms in a newly reset Great Cycle Realm.
The conflict between the two factions thus grew, eventually even engulfing all universes in the entire Great Cycle Realm. Both sides experienced wins and losses over countless spacetime cycles. Regardless of who won or lost, in a new spacetime cycle, everything started over. After several times gaining the upper hand only to be forced to restart, even those Cycle Lifeforms who wanted to maintain the status quo became uncomfortable.
Finally, for the first time, both sides reached a consensus: to limit the spacetime cycle in a finite way. By dividing the Great Cycle Realm in two, those Cycle Lifeforms who wished to preserve everything they cherished would enter the memory world with their cherished possessions, escaping the spacetime cycle. The remaining Cycle Lifeforms would continue to be ruled by the normal spacetime cycle in their desired new world.
The memory world where you and I are currently located is a special world created by the Nightfall Faction to escape the spacetime cycle. From then on, the two opposing worlds entered a period of peace that lasted for dozens of spacetime cycles.
However, as the spacetime cycles continued, the population of the memory world grew, and the resources consumed to maintain the memory world, unaffected by the spacetime cycles, also increased. As the memory world consumed more resources, the Great Cycle Realm had fewer resources to reset with each spacetime cycle.
The two sides clashed again over resources, though this time it wasn't as hostile as before, where they couldn't coexist. Until a certain spacetime cycle, the Cycle Will of the Great Cycle Realm itself also mastered the indestructible will extraordinary system. It too retained memories of the previous spacetime cycle in the new spacetime cycle. In this situation, from the perspective of the Cycle Will, the memory world was a parasite within its own body.
The Cycle Will destroyed the memory world at all costs, and from then on, the war among the three factions truly began. After an unknown number of spacetime cycles of tug-of-war, the Cycle Will gradually gained the upper hand. Facing the oppression of the Cycle Will, the Nightfall Faction and the Dark Sun Faction chose to cooperate, attempting to jointly bury the Cycle Will. After many failures, they finally succeeded in this spacetime cycle."
"So, this is the truth of how endless deep space became like this." Rosen suppressed his inner shock and fell into contemplation. He had always believed that the Dark Sun and Nightfall were hostile to each other. This understanding was not wrong, but under the oppression of a stronger external enemy, the previously hostile Dark Sun and Nightfall also had a day where they joined forces. That's why they used this memory world to seal the Cycle Will.
However, all of this was merely Candleglow's one-sided account. There was no way to determine whether what he said was true or false. The greatest fear was a mix of nine parts falsehood and one part truth; if he believed it all, he could easily be led astray. To verify its authenticity, it would undoubtedly require cross-referencing from various sources.