That flower seemed to have undergone an anomaly.
After absorbing a portion of the Great Elephant Lord's might, it began to change. The mist of time poured into it, and the fire, formed from the accumulated aspirations of countless beings across unknown eras of time, suddenly surged forth.
The flower began to bloom with a dazzling, piercing radiance that illuminated all the old timelines, plunging the already frenzied Emperor Jiajing into even greater madness.
And he, too, began to melt. Merely bathed in the flower's glow for a short while, he lost a part of his essence. His aura and realm plummeted from the True Realm of Heavenly Dao. Some of the dispersed essence was absorbed by the flower, while another portion scattered into that old timeline, beginning to give rise to the primordial Yin and Yang.
Ji Xiang witnessed this scene and was profoundly shaken.
"Even the old timeline, where nothing existed, could be touched by this flower. It is drawing in essence, refining everything within its petals."
Ji Xiang manifested his Heavenly Venerate form. The Eternal Heavenly Venerate replaced Ji Xiang's appearance, severing the flower's absorption. Meanwhile, Dongfang Shuo and the other alchemists suddenly cried out in shock and laughter:
"Ah! This is, this is! The Undying Immortal Flower has been refined!"
"It's about to be completed!"
As if driven mad and bewitched by the flower, he flew towards it like a moth to a flame. Simultaneously, all the alchemists in the entire mystical realm went into a frenzy, offering themselves as fuel and material, abandoning everything as they rushed towards the flower.
One by one, powerful and weak alchemists alike threw themselves into the flower, refined by time and aspirations, vanishing without a trace, not even their existence leaving a mark.
Then, from within the flower, Ji Xiang saw a sealed shadow.
Ji Xiang saw their karmic threads dissipate, as if they had become "one" with that world and that flower.
The Undying Immortal Flower was named Hun Ran (浑然 - Unity).
The flower created the world, the world tempted cultivators, cultivators fell into the world to become alchemists, living for the flower and remaining immortal alongside it.
This was also a form of longevity.
No matter how many old timelines passed, the alchemists remained, until someone could annihilate that flower.
"Even the Great Elephant Lord can be assimilated, becoming one with it, forgetting his past, and becoming the most powerful alchemist. This is the result for those who are not powerful enough, when they see the flower and are influenced by its might."
"The Great Elephant Lord, who manipulated the essence of a world and gave rise to myriad phenomena, was ultimately defeated by a flower."
"To avoid being influenced by the world's essence, merely manipulating one Great Elephant is far from enough. It requires a second, a third, and even countless more. Not only tangible essence, but also intangible essence must be manipulated. Thus, both the Great Elephant Realm and the Formless Realm are encompassed."
"Does such an existence truly exist in this world?"
From within that shadow, scenery from an unknown place was illuminated.
Countless flowers bloomed in a garden, each possessing incredible might, containing rules unseen in the world. Even Dao itself seemed to derive from these flowers, and these flowers were the origin of Dao.
At the extreme beginning of Dao.
The flower sought to contain everything, while the eternal world had no beginning or end, clashing with Hun Ran. The flower was stimulated and intensified its radiance, but it was continuously absorbed by Ji Xiang, like an endless ocean pouring into a bottomless abyss, with no hope of ever filling it.
Affected by this radiance, Ji Xiang's consciousness also began to drift.
In the depths, a voice resonated. After the fusion of Hun Ran's boundless light and the eternal realm, a phantom seemed to appear at the eternal end.
"The ultimate principle of the myriad phenomena!"
This was like a resounding shout, and that phantom was precisely the Eternal Heavenly Venerate himself. Because of the constant struggle and absorption of the divine might contained within the flower amidst Hun Ran's radiance, both the Heavenly Venerate form and Ji Xiang's own thoughts and heart were elevated by one level.
This was an improvement achieved by borrowing the flower's power!
He was not assimilated by it, but only partially. However, this portion of power remained with the Eternal Heavenly Venerate, thus granting him a mental might close to that of the flower. This did not manifest as magical power, but in matters of profound mystery. The Great Elephant Lord was ultimately different from realms below the True Realm of Heavenly Dao. On the path of primordial beginnings, he had reached the starting point of the ultimate Dao, mastering his own Great Elephant, and would not be easily swayed by external phenomena!
Following the end, the Heavenly Venerate form embodying the ultimate principle of myriad phenomena appeared. Before the beginning, a dark and distant essence emerged.
That essence appeared, suppressing all light, causing the flower to be engulfed by the fire of aspirations!
Within the eternal world manifested by Ji Xiang, the profound essence returned!
From within the flower, a thought emerged. Something residing within it felt shocked at this moment:
"When the subtle profound essence is perceived, how can it be transformed?"
"Someone in that other shore also grasps 'the beginning of all things'."
"Alas, you did not fall into the delusional realm, which would have driven you mad."
Behind the white Heavenly Gate, accompanied by the fluttering of wings, Christ watched coldly as the old timeline was severed. Even all his earthly faith turned to dust, and all his followers and developed doctrines needed to start anew. He did not wish to move to a new timeline.
He saw Yuan Huang lose his identity as Yu Qing, sinking into an unknown, distant past, a past that no longer existed but might still.
He also saw Mr. Gu devour everything, but something unexpected happened at the end of the old timeline. Christ was quite surprised by Ji Xiang's return, and that realm surpassing the True Realm of Heavenly Dao confirmed one thing for him.
The world was incomplete; no one had yet independently derived their own essence.
Someone had to fill this gap.
And the external path he had opened was a way to break free from the derivation of the Great Elephant, incompatible with everything in the world. Relying on ancient sects and reorganizing their doctrines, he had undergone a transformation through a substitution, drawing upon the power of all beings to consecrate and collect their essence to piece together a supreme sovereign. This was still a feasible path.
It was only necessary to transcend the Four Essences within the Great Elephant to take a shortcut, to break free from the past and future, to reach the world outside the Great Elephant from a mysterious place, or to travel to other old timelines and become a residual essence projected there, merging with the essence of that place to create a new path.
"The gates of heaven, what are those?"
Christ, like the Buddha, the Great Sun Tathagata, and the Twelve Yu Qing, entered a mysterious place. However, because he himself was the entire divine kingdom, and the entire divine kingdom was one with him, as soon as he entered, the entire divine kingdom entered with him.
The realm of light.
In their doctrines, believers firmly believed that the beginning of life was a light that was with God from the beginning. All things were created by God, and life was in Him; this life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not accept the light.
Christ emerged from the realm of light and saw a special portal. He was certain that although he had never been to the realm of light before, such a portal should not exist here.
This was a path, not a path that meandered through various old timelines, but it was also not the path to the heavens of heavens!
Christ recalled an action attempted in the World of Illumination. The World of Illumination believed that the world was this world, and beyond this world was the other shore, a world of infinite light. Therefore, based on that concept, all the great Confucian scholars of successive generations simultaneously refined the World of Illumination.
And they had indeed succeeded in separating the might of the other shore from this shore, a feat that even Mr. Gu could not easily overcome, requiring him to seek flaws in the World of Illumination.
Buddhism, on the other hand, believed that those who attained Buddhist principles reached the other shore, which was the torrent of karma, the origin of dependent origination.
"Beyond the world, or beyond the heavens of heavens, is there an even greater other shore?"
Christ was greatly shaken, and a voice suddenly sounded behind him.
"The delusional realm is an other shore, the great historical records are an other shore, the heavens of heavens are also an other shore. There is no difference between this shore and the other shore. From the perspective of the other shore, we are also other other shores."
"It's like going from a pond to a lake, and from a lake to a river. The water in a stream flows, but it's not wide enough. The water in a pond has little movement. Although there are waves on the lake, they are confined to one area. Only by reaching the river can one find the path to the sea."
"And the sea is merely a speck of dust in the universe."