Chapter 891
The Path of Defying Heaven and Transcending Rules
“The Eighth Origin River… the Path of Transcending Rules?”
Zhu Tang nodded, closed his eyes, and murmured in the Primordial language.
In the Taichu Empire, the Transcendent Path was known as the Path of Transcending Rules. While it was the same path, the different names carried different psychological implications. This was a peculiar aspect that one could only truly appreciate after leaving their own country.
He nodded again, quickly comprehending, “That makes sense. This Sky-Piercing Tower was built by those like us, who defy fate and disrespect the will of heaven. The very words ‘Sky-Piercing’ imply the thought of ‘equaling heaven.’
‘These ancient sages performed acts of defying heaven and transcending rules, thus angering the heavens and summoning lightning strikes… is that the story?'”
However, Zhu Tang soon had other questions and switched to the Star Antimony Language, “But if that were the case, shouldn’t these mages have pursued the Transcendent Path?”
“—They might not have abandoned it.”
Eivass shook his head and replied softly, “We now delineate the paths so clearly because we know that walking multiple paths simultaneously can easily lead to loss of control, and because a ‘profession’ requires a single path to be powerful enough for ascension.
The Professional System is more stable, safer, and allows people to obtain Extraordinary Power more conveniently. However, this is achieved by guiding people’s energies in a single direction—it is an ascension model unique to the lifespan of ‘short-lived races.'”
In the absence of the guidance of a professional system, the long-lived races explored the powers of various paths according to their own will. This was akin to an open-world game, or even a sandbox game. Each person had their own playstyle, and thus developed different powers. This was the “inheritance.”
But in reality, the number of characters ruined in this process far outnumbered those successfully developed. It was just that over the long passage of time, through the crucible of survival of the fittest, only these sufficiently excellent inheritances survived, forming one “optimal route plan” after another. People understood that following these paths guaranteed a powerful inheritance, yielding far greater returns than self-exploration. Yet, at that time, people were not forbidden from exploring freely.
Later, the Great Sage and the Hourglass jointly developed the professional system.
It was essentially like taking each of these “optimal routes” and extracting them, simplifying them into a linear game. This game only contained content along this single line, with added guidance and auto-pathfinding, and fragmented plotlines organized into cohesive narratives. This made it understandable even for players with much lower skill levels.
Just as an Extraordinary without any lineage would gain corresponding skills after obtaining a profession, an Extraordinary who obtained corresponding skills would automatically enter the corresponding professional system, thus preventing new techniques that could form new “inheritances” where someone with skills from another profession entered this profession to gain stronger combined abilities.
—This automatic job-selection mode was not for convenience, but for “balance.”
Eivass said softly, “But in ancient times, people may not have had the concept that ‘abilities from different paths are separate.’ Although the sources of power were different, their usage might have been intertwined. The powers of different paths were woven into a single rope in their hands, exerting greater strength. Or rather…
…they possessed a skill that could combine the powers of different Origin Rivers.”
At that moment, Eivass thought of the “Sacred Number Eleven.”
He immediately frowned, recalling many things.
“—Ah, I understand.”
After a brief silence, Zhu Tang repeatedly nodded, breaking the stillness, “It’s like stewing soft-shelled turtles. The furnace needs fire, the soup needs water, and the turtle itself is an animal that eats algae and fish in the river. When stewing the soup, wine is also needed to add fragrance and remove any gamey odor, and wine is brewed from grains, which grow from the earth…
When the exquisite soup is finally stewed, its wonderful essence is all within the soup. The soup can be as clear as water, and foolish people will think that it came from water and will return to water. They might believe that clear soup is tasteless, and that firing the pot was a waste of effort. They don’t realize that the essence from all over heaven and earth has been stewed into the soup…”
When it came to gourmet food, Zhu Tang would become quite talkative.
He turned his head slightly. Although his eyes were closed, he seemed to see Eivass’s somewhat helpless expression.
So, he just chuckled, speaking in a serious yet lighthearted tone, “There’s no need to be too nervous, Your Holiness the Pope. In my hometown, there have long been similar theories.
The ancient sages said that ‘One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, and Three gives birth to all things.’ The First Origin River, as the original Origin River, has creation as its root. And Miss ‘Puppet’ once said that the essence of the Second Origin River is the difference between all things.
‘One’ created everything from nothingness, until all things developed ‘differences’ from each other.
‘The creation of difference’ then gave rise to ‘civilization.’ Civilization then gave rise to everything that followed. The birth of new Origin Rivers from the stacking of Origin Rivers may not be a secret. Of course, deducing the theories of the ancient sages from these fragmented remnants of ancient lore, you are indeed an admirable person.”
“…There’s such a saying?”
Eivass was suddenly enlightened.
He had actually touched upon this point briefly before—but he had subconsciously calculated it using “addition and subtraction,” leading him to the erroneous theory of “civilization minus difference equals inheritance,” which was mistaking cause and effect.
But if the opening of the Origin Rivers themselves had an order… and at least the order of opening the first three Origin Rivers was one, two, three, then he understood!
So this was how the Sacred Number of the Origin Rivers came about!
“…If you put it that way, I think I understand why the coverage of this device is seven layers.”
The Sacred Number was seven, which was coincidentally the Sacred Number of the Path of Power. It symbolized the “power of unity.”
But Eivass forgot the sequence of events—
It wasn’t that the Sacred Number was chosen as seven “to match the number of power,” but rather that the Path of Power arose *after* the Sacred Number seven was chosen!
When the Sky-Piercing Tower was struck by lightning, both the Great Sage and Supreme Heaven had already ascended to godhood!
Eivass still remembered… in the “second painting” of the Ascension Ritual, the Great Sage was at the summit of the Sky-Piercing Tower, using its power to tear apart the Material Realm and the Dream Realm, thus ascending into the Dream Realm!
He didn’t drift into an Origin River as a soul after death; instead, his physical body directly entered the Dream Realm and was subsequently severed into the Great Sage and Supreme Heaven by the Hourglass. Supreme Heaven took over the Seventh Origin River of the Sky-Devouring Giant Beast, while the Great Sage stepped into the unmanaged Fourth Origin River.
The “severing of the Wing Heavenly Envoy” was a secret, and there were no precedents before it. People could not have known in advance. Therefore, when the Sky-Piercing Tower sent the Wing Heavenly Envoy up, it did not know whether he would choose the Fourth Origin River or the Seventh Origin River. Nor could it have known that he would choose “I want them all.”
Hence, this place was filled with the “Sacred Number of Seven” precisely because the ritual required it—this was the ritual to open the Sky-Piercing Path and allow the Wing Heavenly Envoy to master the power of the Seventh Origin River!
And after the Wing Heavenly Envoy split into two, mastering the Fourth and Seventh Origin Rivers respectively, the purpose of the Sky-Piercing Tower choosing to connect to the Eighth Origin River became self-evident.
—After the Sky-Piercing Tower sent up two Pillar Gods, they wanted to create new Pillar Gods or Heavenly Envoys!
However, the Wing Heavenly Envoy’s situation was different from theirs. The Wing Heavenly Envoy had already killed the Sky-Devouring Giant Beast, consumed its divine corpse, completed the ritual, and obtained the position of Pillar God. He only needed to die to become the purest Pillar God of the Seventh Origin River.
It was just that he insisted on entering the Dream Realm with his physical body, thus requiring the power of the Sky-Piercing Tower.
And according to the information Eivass obtained from the Ascension Ritual… the reason he wanted to enter the Dream Realm with his physical body was because he desired the Origin River of Truth.
…But this time was different.
The person they sent up this time clearly could not be someone who had killed a Pillar God in the Material Realm and obtained a key!
Moreover, Eivass heard clearly—they succeeded.
Although the Sky-Piercing Tower was smashed by lightning almost immediately after their success… for at least an instant, they had successfully connected to the Origin River.
At that moment, these ancient people had likely forcibly sent someone up!
And before the era of the Fool arrived, Heavenly Envoys and Pillar Gods were both “gods,” merely the distinction between a “god” and a “main god.” The apostles of the main gods were subordinate gods of the same divine lineage.
—In other words, this was a forced ascension technique!
Disregarding the choice of “main god,” disregarding the basic principle of reincarnation of the soul after death… or rather, they wanted to become the “main god of the Material Realm” and directly determine the qualification to become a god after death!
This was indeed an untouchable taboo, equivalent to stealing, or even usurping, the authority of a Pillar God!
…But from another perspective, it was indeed an act of transcendence. Thus, Father Snake would most likely let them succeed, or rather… it was for this very reason that they chose the Eighth Origin River. It was to have a fallback.
In other words, there should indeed have been a Heavenly Envoy who ascended at that time.
Let’s count the numbers.
The current Ring Heavenly Envoy was not on the Transcendent Path before the [Cicada Molting] incident—Ai Shiping was still the Samsara Heavenly Envoy, serving as a save-scumming tool in the Path of Balance.
And apart from the Ring Heavenly Envoy, there were only two Heavenly Envoys on the Transcendent Path.
The Defiant Heavenly Envoy was a Giant. Giants were born after Elves, so this was impossible at this time.
…Then there was only one person left.
“Fallen Heavenly Envoy… Mark of Sin… Sin of Arrogance… ancient people who could connect through the ‘sin’… I see now.”
Eivass murmured to himself, in a voice only he could hear, “No wonder this is the Path of Defying Heaven and Transcending Rules. That’s why this history could be solidified and preserved for so long… and why after the Ouroboros Ring ritual began, this dungeon could no longer be accessed, and the overlapping other dungeon manifested…
“It’s not because the person who cast the Preservation Technique was powerful enough, but because this period of history itself is an immense [taboo]!”
With the body of a mortal, to steal the power of the Origin River—
To fabricate divine will and create true gods!
(End of Chapter)
