Against the Gods

The Abyss…

The two words immediately reminded him of the most mysterious and terrifying phenomenon in the world… the Abyss of Nothingness.

As if sensing Yun Che's thoughts, the voice answered, "It is what is commonly known today as the Abyss of Nothingness."

"The Abyss of Nothingness will return everything to nothingness one day," Yun Che muttered. "And the power that does it is the energy of extinction?"

"You are more or less correct," she answered. "In the beginning, the energy of existence and energy of extinction both existed in the same universe. Naturally, the Ancestral God was unable to eliminate herself or create new life."

"One of the biggest modifications the Ancestral God did to the Primal Chaos was to separate the energy of existence and energy of extinction into two distinct bodies and isolate them completely. That is how Primal Chaos became split into two worlds: the current universe, and the Abyss."

"The God Realm of Beginning exists not to connect the two worlds together, but to act as a barrier that pushes them even further apart."

"After the Ancestral God had disappeared, life populated the World of Existence, but nothing was born in the World of Extinction. In the memories the Ancestral God left behind to her descendants, it was mentioned that the World of Extinction and the energy of extinction lies behind the Abyss, and that not even true gods or devils are able to survive it. Anyone or anything that falls into the Abyss will be annihilated completely."

A pause later, the voice sighed. "Was her decision to separate extinction and existence the right one? Had she succeeded in building a new balance for the Primal Chaos, or had she simply torn down its natural balance; the best state it should've been? That wasn't something the Ancestral God herself could say at the time. Looking at the development and prosperity of the current world though, it wasn't a bad decision at the very least."

"Continue," Yun Che tried to urge the voice to get on with it. His heart was burning with the desire to know what all this had to do with Xia Qingyue.

Also, as muddle-headed as he was right now, he had come to realize that the voice speaking to him in his soul sea…

Was none other than the existing will of the Ancestral God herself!

Everything she told him thus far was something only the Ancestral God herself would know.

He never imagined that he would one day interact with the one existence that was loftier than even the Devil Emperors and the Creation Gods; the true highest existence in the entire Primal Chaos.

The reason he could interact with her… was it because he cultivated the World-Defying Heaven Manual, the Ancestral Divine Art she left behind?"

"Space will crumble, power will fade, life will fade, and light will dim… there is no such thing as true permanence in this world. All things, even the powers and laws left behind by the Ancestral God herself will fade away one day."

"The baptism of time and the negative impacts of the great war between gods and devils… the laws bestowed upon the Abyss break down very quickly the moment the first flaw appears, and the Ancestral God's will quickly found that out first hand. When she attempted to check the Abyss, she discovered in surprise that the Abyss had somehow detached itself from her laws."

"Not even her will was able to enter the Abyss anymore."

"Normally, the Ancestral God would never interfere with the happenings of the universe. Everything that happened was the choice of the era, and she is but an indifferent observer to it all. It wasn't like she could interfere anyway. She had eliminated her own existence and left only her will behind after all."

"However, the Abyss is an entirely different story, especially since it has broken free of her laws."

"She was the creator of the Abyss, so she knew better than anyone what it contained. If the energy of extinction within it were to spiral out of control and spill into the World of Existence, anything and everything would be destroyed."

Yun Che: "!!"

The voice's claim stunned him, but he wasn't really too worried. Records dating back to the Era of the Gods were obviously limited, but as far as he knew no one had ever found anything abnormal regarding the Abyss of Nothingness since as the latter stages of the great war between the gods and the devils until now.

Moreover, all records regarding the Abyss of Nothingness basically described the same thing: that it was an impossibly empty, silent pit that seemed almost frozen in time unless someone were to throw something into it. At which point, it would transform into a ruthless maw that devours everything.

"The Ancestral God thought long and hard after detecting that the Abyss had come free from the laws she had bestowed upon it. In the end, she arrived at a decision."

"She decided to rebirth herself into the Primal Chaos."

Yun Che was stunned yet again.

"The Primal Chaos was no longer hers, so she wouldn't have an infinite amount of ancestral origin power to call upon even if her rebirth was a success. That said, she would have enough power to restore the laws on the Abyss and restrict it once more."

"This was the only way to avert that worst outcome. The Ancestral God has developed a deep love for all that is living, and she couldn't bear to see it return to the lifeless state it was in, back at the beginning of the Primal Chaos… even though the very creatures she was trying to protect were conducting an extinction event of their own at that moment."

"Rebirth… of the Ancestral God?" Yun Che muttered the five words that would shock even an ancient True God to speechlessness. "Have you… has she succeeded then?"

"The rebirth of the Ancestral God cannot be easy, of course. Both reforging her essence and restoring her Ancestral Sacred Body required an incredible amount of energy of the primordial universe and… a thousand reincarnations."

A thousand reincarnations… it was yet another set of words that absolutely exceeded anyone's imagination.

"Unbeknownst to everyone, the Ancestral God's rebirth began before the war of the gods and devils had even ended, and whilst the energies of the Primal Chaos were still flowing into the Abyss."

"On her first cycle, she was born to the god race. She gradually awakened as a True God as she grew older, and she should've led a long life if she wasn't born in the middle of a most terrible war. She died when she was just six thousand years old."

"On her second cycle, she was born to the devil race. She only lived four thousand years for the same reason."

"On her third cycle, she was born a princess of the sea race, but she still suffered a similar fate despite belonging to neither the god race nor the devil race. She perished in one of the skirmishes between the Gods and the Devils."

"On her fourth cycle, she was born an Illusory Spirit Many-colored Finch. She saw the world in a completely different manner through a completely different set of eyes… however, she still perished in the war between the gods and devils, and her own race became fully extinct."

……

Yun Che couldn't truly imagine how powerful the True Gods and True Devils were, but he could definitely imagine what a tragedy it was to be stuck in a war that had gone completely out of control as a mortal.

"Every life where she died in accordance to fate's will is considered to be a complete cycle."

"Sometimes, she was a man. Sometimes, she was a dragon. Sometimes, she was a phoenix, an eagle, a butterfly, an insect, grass, a tree, a flower…"

"No matter what she became in her next life, she always inherited the Ancestral God's full memories and will. She witnessed and experienced everything with perfect self-awareness."

"Later on, the cornered devil race unsealed the Evil Infant, caused the Myriad Tribulations, and finally ended their great war in mutual destruction. When there were no more gods or devils in this universe, the mortals who survived traveled to their realms in search of their inheritances and kickstarted a new, godless era."

"That is the era that you know today."

"Meanwhile, the Ancestral God was still continuing her one thousand cycles of reincarnation."

"At this point, the energies of the Primal Chaos were still draining away into the Abyss, but the speed at which they were drained was also growing slower and slower. It looked like it was simply a matter of time before it came to a complete stop. Generations come and go much more quickly in this godless era, and countless events occurred in just the short span of a million years."

"The average lifespan of a living being has also shortened tremendously, though this was a great boon to the Ancestral God. It meant that she would be completing her cycles much faster than she had initially anticipated.."

"Ten cycles… a hundred cycles… six hundred cycles… nine hundred cycles…"

"Finally, she completed her nine hundred and ninety ninth cycle… and it had taken her less than ten percent of her predicted time to reach it."

"The shorter it took for her to be reborn to this world, the lower the chance the Abyss would go out of control before she was ready. This was without a doubt the best possible outcome."

"The Ancestral God began her last but most important cycle of them all."

"If she is able to complete this cycle, her ancestral divine powers and her Ancestral Sacred Body will be fully reborn."

"Moreover, she has borrowed a bit of the current universe's aura to be reborn in this world, meaning that her new self will be nothing like the Ancestral God she used to be. She will become an independent existence who is friendly to the Primal Chaos and will not distort the existing rules and laws in any way."

"Moreover, her final cycle of life must be a true, complete cycle. Unlike her previous nine hundred and ninety nine cycles, she will not be inheriting the Ancestral God's will or memories. She will begin as a whole new individual with her own independent will."

"As for her Ancestral Will and Memories, they will be sealed within her Ancestral Soul. They will only awaken when she has reached the end of her lifetime."

Yun Che listened in silence, but the shock in his heart was comparable to that of a sea storm.

If the Ancestral God completes her final cycle of life, she will become reborn in this world. Until that happens, the Ancestral Will was supposed to be dormant. However, Yun Che had no doubt that the voice speaking to him was the Ancestral Will herself.

Did this mean that the Ancestral God had completed her final cycle of reincarnation already?

Was the reborn Ancestral God existing in this universe right now!?

"On her one thousandth cycle, the Ancestral God was born to a small, average city of a lower realm planet."

"Her mother passed away in depression not long after she was born, so her father had to raise her alone. She had plenty of relatives, but they all looked at her with indifference when she had her back turned toward them."

"Her childhood wasn't bleak in the slightest, however. Her father loved her dearly, and she grew up with a childhood friend."

"He was her nephew. Though, he was actually a year older than her."

"..." Yun Che's soul abruptly tensed.

Wait a second…

"Living together allowed their relationship to develop to the point where they were practically inseparable. However, when they neared the age of cultivation, it was discovered that her nephew had broken profound veins. He became a cripple whom everyone took pity or looked down upon."

"!!!" This time, every string in Yun Che's soul was trembling like a leaf.

"When they were younger, her nephew wouldn't allow her to suffer even the tiniest of grievances. If anyone dared to touch even a hair on her person, he would flail his frail arms and fight them with death in his eyes. At the time, he possessed the brightest eyes in the entire world."

The voice's tone grew gentler without knowing. "However, his eyes were never the same after he learned that he was a cripple."

"That was why she began cultivating even though she wasn't of the right age yet. He had protected her when she was younger, so it was her turn to protect him for the rest of his life… that was what she had sworn to herself. In the norm, she also grew attached to him to the point where she would grow anxious and began searching for him when he left her sight for even a short moment…"

"Deep love wasn't the only reason she wanted to protect him. She had also become so dependent on him that she couldn't imagine living without him."

"Time passed, and they reached adolescence. However, they remained as inseparable as ever. He was sixteen years old, and she fifteen that year. It was the day of his wedding."

"Wait… wait!" Yun Che couldn't maintain his cool any longer. His soul was shaking, and his mind felt as befuddled as it was lost. "The Ancestral God's last cycle… she… she is…"