Chapter 1 Trial of the Dao

Su Zhou sheathed his blade, shouldered his spear, and the phantom of the great bow that surrounded him slowly dissipated.

The battle was over, and the result of the trial was obvious: the Primordial Candle Dragon had defeated five Sovereigns in a row, achieving a great victory.

At this moment, the young man had a considerable understanding of his current strength.

In fact, none of the five Sovereigns, not even Heracles, who appeared to have been the most severely beaten, could be considered weak. They were all elites of their respective divine systems, having comprehended a supreme inheritance. If they were in other small worlds, in universes outside the Primordial World, they would have been powerful enough to become world kings and masters of divine systems.

Even in the entire multiverse, among the眷属 *juàn shǔ* (attendants/followers) of the great existences, those who could comprehend a supreme inheritance were considered the most core lineage.

However, Su Zhou was even stronger than them—stronger even when all of them were combined.

This was not surprising at all.

Leaving aside everything else, Su Zhou currently possessed quite a few blessings from great existences: Yala, the Silent Lord, the Twin Divine Trees, Perfection, and Twilight. Moreover, he had even more supreme inheritances. In this aspect alone, he had already completely surpassed many others.

Furthermore, although Su Zhou had cultivated for a short time, many fortuitous encounters in various worlds had made his foundation no weaker than those powerhouses who had cultivated for a long time.

And Su Zhou's enemies had always been the strongest among the strong, the most outstanding among the many attendants, and even monsters.

His realm might not have yet reached the peak among the Heavenly Venerates, that is, the Heavenly Emperor realm, but his combat power was far higher than that of ordinary Great Heavenly Venerates. Moreover, when dealing with the attendants of great existences, he even had special attacks that allowed him to easily defeat them in various ways.

At least, in the World of Creation, he was truly the number one person below the Hedao realm!

At this moment, the area around the stellar port in the Lightforged Starfield was a mess. The giant port orbiting the star had already been mostly shattered, and debris scattered in the vacuum like snowflakes, shimmering in the sunlight.

If the Bureau of Balance had not dispersed many people in preparation for attacking the ambassadors of the Four Heavenly Divine Systems, and if there were no civilian ships operating nearby, it was likely that even the aftershock of any Sovereign's attack could have doomed all the surrounding ships.

Fortunately, this was Su Zhou's trial, which interrupted the Bureau of Balance's plan. Otherwise, the great battle between the five Sovereigns, excluding Su Zhou, would have truly annihilated the entire Lightforged Starfield, including the star and planets, leaving nothing but dust.

At this moment, the Sovereigns' Machine God Aspects gradually dissipated. Compared to the Spirit Machine God Body, the Sovereigns who had reached the realm of creation each had their own methods to store their huge bodies. However, just like Su Zhou forcibly storing his true form, which resulted in many abnormal phenomena, these created Machine Gods did indeed have many unusual cosmic phenomena around them, causing surging spiritual energy ripples.

It was said that the more unusual phenomena there were, the stronger the 'Machine God Aspect' created by the god was.

And the appearance of Hedao weaponry and Hedao powerhouses would even cause a certain degree of shock throughout the observable universe, as was the case with the previous Truth Arbiter's attack.

Su Zhou was quite curious about this. He also wanted to know what the result would be if he, who had already made achievements in the aspect of true form dharma, were to cultivate the Machine God Aspect.

The young man stood in the vacuum of space. In front of him, with the exception of Sovereign Beran'er of the Bureau of Balance, who had been blasted into the gap between the real universe and the sub-space, the other Sovereigns of the Four Heavenly Divine Systems mostly bowed to Su Zhou.

They had been defeated in a fair and square manner, so naturally they had no reason to be dissatisfied or even resentful.

Moreover, they had already cultivated to become transcendent, even becoming gods. Being challenged was a matter of course, and they should accept it as a matter of course.

——The summit is there for people to climb, the limit is waiting for people to break it, and the empty and barren world is waiting for people to create it.

This was the maxim of the World of Creation.

[You have won, Primordial Candle Dragon]

Facing Su Zhou, who had already walked up to him, Sovereign Gatt bowed slightly—although there was no real battle, he knew very well that even if he displayed his full power, he would only be able to block one of Su Zhou's sword or arrow strikes against the others.

And that was only one-fifth of Su Zhou's power.

Not to mention the aura of the Myriad Manifestations Burial Ground that Su Zhou displayed, as well as the combination of many supreme inheritances, which was simply an terrifying load-bearing capacity that no normal life form could possess… How was this possible? How could the power of the Myriad Manifestations Burial Ground be mixed with the power of other divine system inheritances? This was clearly impossible…

That's right!

Thinking of this, the Sovereign couldn't help but raise his head and look at Su Zhou in surprise—the ability that the young man displayed was the very reason why the Creation Dao was hunting the Dragon of the Carrying Dao!

And now it seemed… even Xing Ying, who used to be a Dao-born life, seemed to be inferior to this Primordial Candle Dragon in this regard?

Rather, the fact that Dao-born life could carry multiple divine system supreme inheritances was currently just a guess and had not yet been put into practice.

But right before his eyes, this Primordial Candle Dragon had truly displayed the terrifying attainments in supernatural powers through the combination of many supreme inheritances!

"That's enough."

Su Zhou walked through the air and arrived above the star. The feet of the two Sovereigns were surrounded by rising solar flares. The young man examined the Creation Dao Sovereign in front of him who quickly retreated when faced with difficulty, and frowned slightly.

Su Zhou could see that the way Gatt gazed at him was abnormal. The look of surprise, as if he had found hope, and the faint desire to regard him as a 'target', obviously reminded him of Xing Ying's past experience of being regarded as prey.

Therefore, he shook his head and said directly: "Gatt of the Creation Dao… I know what you have done. You hunt the Dragon of the Carrying Dao and put a warrant out for the Candle Dragon throughout the universe, just for some plans related to Dao-born life."

"I came here this time to find out these messages from the Bureau of Balance—of course, that guy is still lost in the cracks of space-time, so I'll just ask you now."

"First question, Sovereign Gatt, what exactly is the 'Final Calamity'?"

Su Zhou's question was simple and direct. Just standing in front of Sovereign Gatt made this powerhouse of the Creation Dao feel a tangible pressure—an extremely terrifying sense of danger constantly came from in front of him, causing the Machine God, who appeared to be a middle-aged man, to instinctively want to retreat a few steps.

Of course, he suppressed this instinct. After hearing Su Zhou's question, Gatt couldn't help but frown, and said sternly: [You actually know this much? Clearly you are a powerhouse from another world… This question can be answered.]

The dignity of a Sovereign made Gatt unwilling to refuse to answer Su Zhou's question after failing the trial, but he also didn't want to reveal the secrets of the Creation Dao.

Su Zhou's question, although subtly touched upon quite important information, was not something that could not be answered.

So after nodding, Sovereign Gatt readily said: [The Final Calamity… In history, it has many names, and it also caused the shattering of the Ring of Creation, cutting off our universe's most prosperous Golden Age. Many people say that it was a natural disaster descended by the universe itself, or an incredibly powerful invasion by foreign enemies… They are all partly correct.]

[The Final Calamity, in essence, is actually just the backlash of the universe—because the power of the great universe was extracted by the ancestral powerhouses of the Ten Heavenly Divine Systems to create ten small universes, causing the World of Creation itself to suffer considerable trauma.]

[Originally, this trauma would be gradually repaired over a long period of time, and the universe itself would not have a self-awareness to sense the pain, let alone retaliate… However, a strong and unmatched life aura originating from the outer void overflowed, causing the universe to give birth to a trace of self-will.]

[And that was the prelude to the Final Calamity.]

Sovereign Gatt spoke eloquently. He narrated a rather long history, from the prelude to the Golden Age at the end of the Ring of Creation to the heyday that was abruptly ended by the Final Calamity. He narrated some not-so-key details of that great battle, and described its formation and cause.

He was a participant in that war, so what he said naturally had a sense of credibility that others could not possess, and Su Zhou could also confirm that the other party was only concealing something, but not lying.

The Final Calamity, although its name was terrifying, was essentially just the first instinctive counterattack of the entire World of Creation universe against the lives that had harmed it after sensing that it had been hurt.

It was just that the scope of this counterattack was all life in the entire universe.

The Motion-Stillness Abyss Court was a unique space-time structure that existed in a spiral form around the 'source of the universe', and the 'Motion Abyss' was the motherland of all stars in the World of Creation. Everything emerged from it and was then given momentum.

The 'Stillness Court' was the opposite. It was the graveyard and recycling station of the entire universe. All the extinguished star cores and cosmic debris would gather here and eventually be transformed back into resources for creation.

At the time of the Final Calamity, an incredible number of star beasts emerged from the Motion Abyss. The endless異獸 *yì shòu* (strange beasts) devoured all the surrounding starfields, and their purpose was not specifically to destroy civilizations or trample on intelligent life.

The task of all star beasts was simply to act to recover all the energy in the universe—especially the mass of small universes that were independent of the great universe.

And extinguishing a star was the most convenient and quick way to recover energy… As for how many civilizations would perish as a result, it was not in the thinking logic of these mindless star beasts.

In contrast, as the Motion Abyss continued to recover the light of the stars, the Stillness Court also began to gradually expand, swallowing countless stars and planets into its silent domain.

In order to stop the endless star beasts and the constantly expanding Stillness Court, the Dao Lord at the peak of the Hedao realm of that generation of the Ring of Creation could only personally step forward, suppressing the star beasts with one hand and suppressing the Stillness Court with the other, eventually dying from exhaustion, leading to the complete collapse of the Ring of Creation.

This was indeed a history full of love, courage, sacrifice, and dedication, a light in the darkness.

But for Su Zhou, the more he listened, the more familiar it sounded.

——A living universe? The will of the universe?

Wasn't this the same as the current situation of the Sealed Universe!

Su Zhou frowned. He couldn't forget those memories contained in the evil souls of the Void Sect Leader recently.

——Because of the war of the Ancestral Civilization, three pieces of the universe fragment and the debris of the Great Seal fell from the Sealed Universe, and the stimulation caused by the battle of many powerhouses in the Hedao realm was too strong, which in turn allowed the consciousness of the Sealed Universe to condense a little.

In theory, after experiencing such a catastrophe, the Sealed Universe should also have a 'Final Calamity', and even the intensity should be greater than that of the World of Creation.

However, the power of the Finalizing Universe Seal suppressed the gradually recovering and condensing will of the universe—since the passage leading to the Finalizing Universe Seal, that huge star that simultaneously connected to multiple worlds, also appeared in the Beginning Light Heaven, then Su Zhou had no reason not to take a look.

This was also why he came to the World of Creation.

Back to the topic—the Sealed Universe had also suffered from cosmic turmoil, and if it was not handled well now, it could easily cause a Final Calamity version of the Sealed Universe.

In that case, Su Zhou became even more curious about how the powerhouses of the World of Creation planned to deal with this second Final Calamity.

[And recently, according to the prophecies of the Heavenly Revelation Dao and our observations, the second Final Calamity may already be brewing.]

In the vacuum of space, Sovereign Gatt and Su Zhou walked on the surface of the star together. His tone was sincere: [Sovereign Su Zhou, Primordial Candle Dragon, we have done many things in order to hunt down the Dragon of the Carrying Dao and achieve our goals, but no matter what, our ultimate goal is still to act to resist the Final Calamity.]

[We are sorry, but if there is no other choice, we will continue our actions.]

Saying this, the created Machine God stopped and bowed very seriously to Su Zhou to express his apology.

He even had the courage to extend an olive branch to Su Zhou: [However, Your Excellency Primordial Candle Dragon, if you are willing to cooperate with us… then not only the truth of the universe, but also the news of the Final Calamity, we are also willing to make every effort to help you learn our lineage's supreme inheritance.]

[Not to mention, the Candle Dragon will no longer be regarded as a target to be captured by us. On the contrary, you will become our honored guest!]

"Apologies are meaningless, but after knowing the reasons for the actions of you people, I probably understand some things."

Su Zhou nodded. He understood very well that Sovereign Gatt's meaning was basically 'I'm sorry, I dare to do it again next time!', As for those promises… haha, whoever believes them is a fool.

But Su Zhou was too lazy to make things difficult for this group of defeated opponents.

Moreover, without Gatt's careful concealment, he had already completely understood the real purpose behind the Creation Dao's many actions.

So, the young man smiled lightly: "I see, the beings created by the universe are fighting against the universe itself… such a situation is indeed very much in line with the correctness of creation."

"However, I have a question."

Su Zhou also stopped and looked at Sovereign Gatt beside him.

After the other party answered 'Please speak', the young man slowly said: "Your Creation Dao's goal is to create a 'Unique God', right?"

In the shocked gaze of Sovereign Gatt beside him, who suddenly widened his eyes, he continued in a calm tone: "To put it in an easier-to-understand term—you want to create an individual that can carry the Dao of all great existences, and then shape it into a unique god… or rather."

Speaking up to this point, Su Zhou narrowed his eyes.

He said softly: "Monster."