Within the microcosm of the Holy Temple, Rosen dispelled the concealment cast by Moonlit Veil over the void surrounding the ruined sanctuary.
At that moment, the Eternal Beings of the Holy Temple had no idea what had just transpired.
The current situation had fallen into a stalemate. Until the old universe was completely destroyed, neither side would make a move.
Their forces were too powerful. Continuing the battle would only result in mutual destruction.
Rosen understood very well that when the time came to seize the new universe, a brutal and bloody war was inevitable.
There would be no retreat, perhaps not even a chance to escape.
He had no idea what lay beyond the universe, or whether he could survive outside it with his current strength. So unless all hope within the universe was truly lost, no one would willingly abandon the new universe in search of escape.
Since it would be a final battle, the stronger their side was, the better.
With evil beings no longer capturable, purifiable, or enslaveable, Rosen could only turn his sights to the Eternal Beings.
There were nearly two hundred Eternal Beings in the Holy Temple. He couldn't afford to let them sit on the sidelines during the final battle.
With the power of Divine Radiance of the Mind, the Everchanging Sacred Law, and the Nightfall Parasitic Blossoms, Rosen possessed multiple methods to alter memory. As long as he could capture an Eternal Being alive and rewrite its memories, he could reshape its self-awareness—turning it into a puppet as useful as the Particle God.
However, capturing Eternal Beings couldn't be done recklessly. A rash move would only alert the enemy.
The Chaos God and the Dimensional God had both allowed the Moonshade God to command the Holy Temple.
Surely they knew that nearly two hundred Eternal Beings working together could pose an immense threat.
Of course they knew. Which meant they must have contingency plans of their own.
The microcosm of the Holy Temple had been suppressing the Dimensional Forbidden Zone for so many years. Countless Eternal Beings had entered it.
There was no doubt that many of them had been subdued or enslaved by the Dimensional God. With the Dimensional God's power, it would be impossible for that not to happen.
As for the Chaos God, it went without saying. That one had ruled the Holy Temple for countless years through the likes of the Elemental God and other high-ranking figures. If even top-tier Eternal Beings who controlled Primordial Power could be subdued, how could weaker ones not be?
As for the newly ascended Eternal Beings, fine. But many of the older ones were certainly just lurking agents.
They hadn't exposed themselves yet simply because the time hadn't come for them to take a side.
So, after careful consideration, Rosen decided to target the newly ascended Eternal Beings first.
And his first chosen prey—undoubtedly—was the World Tree.
Years ago, the World Tree had only just regained its Eternal Being status, only to almost be killed by the Dark Sun clone of an Ancient God.
Rosen had saved the World Tree, originally intending to capture and make it serve him.
Unexpectedly, the World Tree had its own trump card. Amidst the chaos of the battle, it managed to escape.
Now, the World Tree held a strong reputation within the Holy Temple. The Stone Realm power it wielded could even petrify and reinforce the boundary of the world, making it extremely valuable for stabilizing the microcosm of the Holy Temple. Even the Moonshade God frequently invited the World Tree to assist in repairing the Primordial Sanctuary.
At this moment, invited by Rosen under the guise of the Moonshade God, the World Tree had no suspicion and quickly arrived at the ruins of the sanctuary.
Before it even stepped onto the ruins, the World Tree already sensed something was off.
It had participated in repairing the Primordial Sanctuary, using a great deal of Stone Realm power to mend its damaged structures.
Even though the sanctuary ruins were now fully under the Moonshade God's control, there should still be some trace of Stone Realm power left behind.
Sensing the anomaly, the World Tree tried to flee, but the illusion of Moonlit Splendor disguised as the sanctuary ruins had already begun to emit a hazy glow, enveloping the World Tree.
Against a newly ascended Eternal Being, a Primordial Artifact like Moonlit Splendor wouldn't even allow a chance to retaliate in a one-on-one confrontation.
Its mirror light reflected and immediately pulled the World Tree into it.
At the same time, countless Nightfall Parasitic Blossoms scattered into the Eternal World that the World Tree maintained in the void. Its previous Eternal World had already merged with the Holy Temple's microcosm, so the current one had been re-established in recent years by conquering forbidden zones.
However, it was utterly incapable of resisting the Nightfall Parasitic Blossoms. Every clone and lifeform within the Eternal World was instantly parasitized.
After cutting off the World Tree's retreat and denying it any chance to alert the other Eternal Beings, Rosen finally transferred the World Tree—trapped inside Moonlit Splendor—to the Sea of Miracles. The moment the World Tree laid eyes on Rosen, it understood everything.
The World Tree was calm, showing no trace of anger or despair.
"So it seems you've come to terms with it."
Rosen spoke with a sigh.
"How could I not?"
The World Tree replied with a bitter smile.
Ever since its death at the hands of the Ancient God, it had dreamed, for countless years, of revenge—of slaying the Ancient God.
But the Dark Sun clone of the Ancient God had shattered its obsession with vengeance.
While it had struggled desperately to survive and revive itself, the Ancient God had only continued to grow, reaching a level of strength utterly beyond its reach. It knew now that relying on its own strength alone, revenge was impossible. So it had joined the Holy Temple, trying to form connections with everyone.
And before even seeing a glimmer of hope for vengeance, it had already fallen into Rosen's hands.
What's more, it appeared even the Moonshade God had been taken down. In this situation, there was nothing it could do except accept its fate. The only small comfort was that Rosen would never let the Ancient God go. Its only remaining hope now was that Rosen would ensure it died after the Ancient God did.
If it could witness the Ancient God fall into the mud with its own eyes, it could die without regret.
The Nightfall Parasitic Blossom Rosen had implanted in the World Tree's eternal will revealed its every thought.
"For the sake of our past connection, the Ancient God will definitely go before you."
Rosen promised.
"Thank you."
The World Tree spoke as it closed its eyes, giving up all resistance.
Rosen didn't kill the World Tree. He didn't even alter its memories. With its cooperation, he simply implanted the Nightfall Parasitic Blossoms and a Rootmother Worm deeply enough to ensure he could erase it with a single thought. Only then did he strip away the Stone Realm Origin Stone it possessed.
Back in the treasure vault space provided by the World Tree, he had once found a Stone Realm Origin Stone.
But that one had been a fake—refining it would only have led straight into the World Tree's trap.
This one, however, was the real thing—an origin stone born from the Primordial Lifeform known as the Stone Ancestor.
Though the World Tree wasn't a reincarnated Primordial Lifeform, it had naturally inherited the Stone Ancestor's power.
As Rosen delved into the World Tree's memories, he discovered a hidden secret.
Despite being called the World Tree, and possessing the Stone Realm Origin Stone and a Compatible Source Seed, the World Tree had long believed it should've held the World Source Seed. After countless years of research, it had come to suspect that something had been done to it at the moment of its birth.
Originally, it should have been born in alignment with the World Source Seed, making it a true World Tree.
But someone had taken that seed and instead used a Compatible Source Seed to embed the Stone Realm Origin Stone into its body. That was why the "world" [shi] in its name—originally meaning "world"—had become the "shi" for "stone." While this made it stronger from birth, it had cut off its potential for growth.
Rosen toyed with the Stone Realm Origin Stone, lost in thought. The World Tree had been born during the early days of the starry cosmos.
At that time, only Primordial Lifeforms could've pulled off such a feat.
But according to what was known, the Primordial Lifeforms had already left the universe by then. So had one stayed behind? And if a living Primordial Lifeform truly had remained, why had it never shown itself after all these years?
With these questions heavy in his mind, Rosen continued luring the newly ascended Eternal Beings to him.
In the blink of a few years, all of them had fallen.
The remaining veteran Eternal Beings were lucky—for now. Rosen didn't want to alert the enemy, so he hadn't touched them yet.
After rewriting the memories of so many Eternal Beings, it was as though he had acquired all of their growth experiences.
To organize this ocean of information, Rosen even controlled the Sea of Miracles to merge with the Main God Computer. Then, through enhancement, he transformed the Main God Computer into a Primordial Artifact, converting thousands of computational, deduction-based Source Seeds to process the boundless memory data.
From this, he distilled the essence of their experiences and began deducing a Primordial Sacred Law of his own.
Back when he last met them, Rosen had already noticed that both the Chaos God and the Dimensional God had regained their Immortal Wills.
Clearly, they had received no special treatment in the memory world. Over the years, his lurking Dark Sun clone had discovered that the Dimensional God's Immortal Will was growing stronger and stronger. Evidently, with the gradual collapse of the old universe, they no longer cared about the universe's rejection of Immortal Wills.
With Immortal Wills in hand, even if they couldn't ascend to Primordial Lifeforms, casting a Primordial Sacred Law would be no problem.
If Rosen didn't have a Sacred Law powerful enough of his own, how could he compete with the Chaos God and the others to seize the ultimate prize?
Immortal Will possessed the trait of indestructibility—any Primordial Sacred Law cast through it would also inherit that trait.
To erase a Primal Sacred Law, one first had to suppress the undying will fused within it.
And to suppress the Immortal Will, one had to target the memories within that will.
Therefore, to kill a wielder of the Immortal Will, one must master a Primal Sacred Law capable of annihilating memories.
In this regard, Rosen had a natural advantage. The Nightfall Parasitic Flower controlled by the Eye of Nightfall could directly influence memory.
However, the strength of the Nightfall Parasitic Flower lay in overpowering the weak. His Nightfall Parasitic Flower could successfully parasitize Eternal Wills, but attempting to parasitize an Immortal Will was exceedingly difficult. This had already been proven by the batch of sinful lives he had recently captured and purified.
Relying on the Nightfall Parasitic Flower to destroy the memories of an Immortal Will in actual combat was unrealistic—unless he ascended to become the Primal Nightfall himself.
Thus, to target memory, Rosen had to develop a specific Primal Sacred Law.
Ultimately, although the core of the Immortal Will was its undying nature, its greatest manifestation lay in what he believed to be truly terrifying willpower.
To address this, Rosen also needed to develop a corresponding Primal Sacred Law.
After years of dissecting the memories of the Moonshade Holy God, he now understood the fundamental gap between the Eternal and the Primal.
First was the mastery of the Immortal Will. If one unit of divine origin could generate one unit of Eternal Will at most, then several hundred units of Eternal Will could barely convert into one unit of Immortal Will—and at least a thousand units of Immortal Will were needed to barely touch the threshold of a Primal Being.
This meant that the weakest Primal Being was a thousand times stronger than the strongest Eternal Lifeform in terms of willpower.
Next was the source. The essence of a Primal Being was not a thousand times more powerful than that of an Eternal Lifeform.
In terms of quantity, the life essence of Primals and Eternals differed very little. But in quality, the difference was immense.
That was because a Primal Being's essence had been fully fused with the Immortal Will. Through continual compression and fusion, the essence took on the undying attribute, and its quality steadily increased. On average, the combination of life essence and divine essence rose to about a hundred times that of an Eternal.
Finally, the greatest difference between a Primal and an Eternal lay in the Primal Microcosm they possessed.
The Cosmic Will did not create Primal Beings at random—it modeled them after itself. In theory, every Primal Being was a child of the Cosmic Will, essentially a juvenile cosmos.
This was why Primal Beings had to slay the Cosmic Will in order to transcend.
Their very nature was that of a miniature cosmos and the will of that cosmos manifested in lifeform form. In this case, nothing could accelerate their growth more effectively than devouring the Cosmic Will itself. Some Primal Beings had indeed killed the Cosmic Will and divided up its corpse.
Rosen had control of five microcosms, each supported by a cosmic seed.
However, these were merely Eternal Microcosms, and they were still a long way from becoming Primal Microcosms.
Because to achieve that, the Immortal Will had to be completely and irreversibly fused with the microcosm—only then could it gain the undying attribute. Ultimately, this would lead to the state where: if the Primal Being is undying, so too is the Primal Microcosm; if the Primal Microcosm is undying, so too is the Primal Being. Only then could one be qualified to transcend the Eternal and ascend to Primal Being.
It sounded simple, but in practice, it was incredibly difficult.
Rosen had tried to transform himself into a world will and fuse the Immortal Will directly into the world. But that kind of fusion was a shortcut—temporary and superficial. After fusing his Immortal Will into the True Realm Microcosm of the Ancient God, the result was still a temporary blend, not a permanent union.
Back in the body of a Primal Incarnation, Rosen had once obtained a fragment of a Primal World.
Other than its much greater world strength compared to an Eternal World, it showed no signs of fusing Immortal Will. Clearly, the Immortal Will originally fused with that Primal Microcosm had been extracted. Otherwise, the Primal Microcosm couldn't possibly have shattered into fragments.
As for how to fuse them properly—Rosen still had no clue.
The Moonshade Holy God knew how to develop a Primal Microcosm but was completely ignorant on how to create one. After all, these things were innate to Primal Beings. No one would bother researching how to artificially upgrade weaker forms.
The road had to be taken step by step. Rosen began spending year after year growing his own Immortal Will.
He directly seized control of six Eternal Microcosms, constantly embodying the will of the world to strengthen his Eternal Will, then continuously compressing and sublimating it into Immortal Will. Thanks to the Nightfall Parasitic Flower's ability to suppress stray thoughts and memories, the difficulty of refining Immortal Will was significantly reduced.
But it wasn't just Rosen who was rushing to grow—everyone was making their final preparations before the ultimate showdown.
In the blink of an eye, a thousand years had passed. The sinful lifeforms had already dismantled the universe down to the Fourteenth Star Ring.
Only a single step remained from reaching the Sea of Cosmic Origin—but this step alone was estimated to take another three thousand years, longer than all previous demolitions combined.
Because as the outer layers of the universe were gradually destroyed, although some of the origin power was absorbed by the sinful lifeforms, more of it flowed like water toward lower ground—ultimately gathering at the inner rings and streaming into the Sea of Cosmic Origin.
Today's Sea of Cosmic Origin was dozens of times larger than it had been before the arrival of the sinful lifeforms.
The power of the Cosmic Heart had similarly increased by several dozen times.
If not for nearly two hundred Eternal Lifeforms and nearly a hundred sinful lifeforms constantly draining the universe's origin, who knew how massive the Sea of Origin would have become? This was the fundamental reason why Rosen and the Chaos Holy God had temporarily agreed to a ceasefire.
Due to the collapse of the Sea of Dark Origin, the source flowed endlessly into the Fourteenth Star Ring.
In addition, this star ring corresponded to Eternal Lifeforms, and its spacetime strength was already staggering. Now, having absorbed endless origin power, the World Origin that previously only existed in the Sea of Dark Origin had surged into the endless void and even into the real starry skies.
Sensing the approaching sinful lifeforms, Rosen immediately maneuvered the microcosm of the Holy God Temple into the Sea of Cosmic Origin.
With around three thousand years left, the first step in ascending to Primal Being had to be completed at the very least.
(End of chapter)