Chapter 1 Aalbert's Life

"Aalbert's life almost corresponds to every great existence I know."

Above the sky, between the flowing clouds, Su Zhou stood in the heavens, overlooking the shimmering silver light flashing in mid-air.

The armor reflected the light of the midday sun, gathering above the earth into a silver river. Armed clerics from the Central Cathedral, clad in armor and wielding covenants and giant shields, were flying rapidly through the air, heading towards the Far Eastern coastline.

The magical technology of the Firefolk was not low, but because the development time was only a little over three hundred years, they had not built a large-scale production system. Moreover, because they still employed an apprenticeship system, they rarely had civilian transcendents outside of the priests.

Or rather, due to the overly centralized religious system, anyone with transcendent talent would be concentrated in the cathedral to receive education from the start. This made it difficult to develop academy systems and large-scale production workshops. Therefore, even with sufficient technology and population, the Tartarus world had not yet entered the early stages of magi-industrialization. Su Zhou had already informed Elias of these shortcomings, and after resolving the pirates who intended to subvert the order of the era, He would reform in this area.

But even so, relying solely on pure handicraft workshops, each cleric possessed their own magical equipment, even armor.

A team of over fifteen thousand Enlighters, two hundred and twenty Chosen Ones, and three God-blessed, was currently flying in the sky. Every set of armed cleric armor had complete flight technique inscriptions that could support several hours of continuous flight, and could be used again after an hour of rest.

At this time, the Fire Lord Elias was leading this team, flying towards the eastern sea.

At the same time, hundreds of exploration and warships of various sizes were gathering from all directions of the coastal cities of the Holy Fire Continent, preparing for the upcoming expedition.

The shadow of the Central Cathedral behind him grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely. Su Zhou still quite missed the city that had been transformed from the original Old Nesser City. Perhaps after defeating those pirates, he could return to visit this old place again.

But now, as Su Zhou followed this mighty elite cleric team, he suddenly spoke, communicating with Yala in his soul space: "Yala, what do you think? Even without Aalbert, this world is really chaotic."

"Chaotic? Isn't that normal?"

The Serpent Spirit felt nothing about this. His emotions and excitement were high, and after hearing Su Zhou's words, He simply shook his head: "A very typical world caused by the mutual influence of great existences—the Silent Lord has loosened the restrictions on those guys."

"The Silent Lord likes this."

"He likes this?"

Hearing this, Su Zhou couldn't help but raise his head with a strange expression, looking at the high sky and then at the earth. He wasn't sure where the Silent Lord's gray mist incarnation was, but it should be in these two places.

The youth couldn't help but shake his head slightly. He complained: "You also heard Aalbert's dying words, about his life, right? This guy once yearned to freely explore the distance—that's Pioneer. Then he had no choice but to become entangled in the fate of a pirate—that's Destiny. Then, as a pirate, he felt that this brought pain to himself and others, a capricious cycle—that's the Silent Lord."

"If this guy had been determined to explore the distance from the start, he would have become a Pioneer's family member candidate, similar to the Wind God's followers. And if he had wholeheartedly become a pirate, he probably could have followed Destiny and become a Sea Emperor, which wouldn't be strange either."

"And if he intended to break this cycle when in pain, then without a doubt, the Silent Lord would have admired him."

Su Zhou recalled Aalbert's words before his death, and he shook his head slightly: "If this guy hadn't been so hesitant and had chosen a path and walked it to the end without hesitation, perhaps fate wouldn't be so helpless as it is now, a feeling of being played with."

Yala clicked his tongue: "You've got something wrong, Su Zhou. Being able to choose a path and walk it to the end without hesitation is a very high condition in itself. Ordinary family members are not so firm."

Moreover, He said with a hint of playfulness: "Why don't you think that he seemed to be waiting for your appearance? If you had come to this world earlier, wouldn't you have admired someone like that, someone who intended to change their fate and didn't want to be trapped in place?"

"Perhaps you were decades late, so a true believer who might have devoutly believed in you became a confused and helpless pirate."

"...That's also possible."

Su Zhou was silent for a while, and then sighed: "Aalbert must die, he's too evil, but I really hope that this world won't have existences like Aalbert in the future."

"Admitting mistakes, remembering lessons, and not repeating them is part of innovation... but then again, why is the Silent Lord so open-minded, opening his world to the influence of Destiny and Pioneer?"

This wasn't an illusion. From the very beginning, Su Zhou had keenly noticed that the Firefolk's precepts were almost a form of Destiny, and the Windfolk's exploratory positions did indeed conform to the Pioneer's ideals.

The Lord of Judgment was even more obvious. He was simply made according to his own mold.

"Because the Silent Lord is a social butterfly—He really does accept everyone."

As soon as Yala opened his mouth, Su Zhou suspected that the reason He was sealed was because of this mouth. The Serpent Spirit spoke in a light tone: "And you can't just think about this aspect. You should think about whether other worlds are also completely open to the Silent Lord? What kind of world wouldn't have legends of reincarnation and breaking reincarnation?"

"As for Pioneer, that guy who habitually breaks into other people's homes without permission, rummaging through things and calling it exploration and adventure, it wouldn't be strange for them to be anywhere. As for Destiny, that mysterious trash, He's a little worse, but you can't deny that it's also a prototype of some common order."

"In the end, only the God Tree, that hikikomori who doesn't move from his spot, doesn't care."

Saying this, Yala gave a definition: "This is the normal state of the world—multiple great existences influencing each other, with family members or forces intertwined in large worlds... even with parts of great existences manifesting, like the Gray Mist and the Primordial Serpent."

"...I understand."

—Social butterfly, adventurers who habitually break in and rummage through things, mysterious trash, hikikomori who don't move from their spot... Yala could be sealed just for his mouth even if he did nothing else!

Silently complaining about the Serpent Spirit's increasingly unbridled mouth in his heart, Su Zhou wasn't surprised. He recorded this information in his mind and then nodded slightly: "Now, my Heavenly Soul has basically been transformed, and my strength will have an improvement... After resolving the problem of the Reincarnation World, I'll go back to Earth to settle down for a while, and then I'll prepare to go to the Primordial World."

"Oh?"

Yala's tone was somewhat intriguing, and He chuckled: "This world has the influence of Destiny, Pioneer, and the Silent Lord... the situation may be more difficult than you think."

To this, Su Zhou scoffed, and the Serpent Spirit's contractor used a tone that was no less impressive than his: "It's nothing more than breaking the cycle of reincarnation, stepping into the future, and innovating fate."

"Just you wait and see!"

[Teacher, you'll be leading the team next.]

After speaking, Su Zhou heard Elias's voice—because he had obtained intelligence from Lumm, knowing that the pirates had already begun the godhood ceremony, in order to speed up their arrival at the Mingsi Sea (Meditative Sea), where the pirates were holding the ceremony, Elias further accelerated the flight speed of these ten thousand clerics with his power.

This wasn't difficult for a god, but in order to better conserve energy, Su Zhou and Elias agreed to take turns leading the team.

"No problem."

Without hesitation, Su Zhou descended from the clouds, carrying tens of thousands of Lan Seeds (Azure Seeds)—countless Lan Seeds transformed into azure clouds and mist, instantly replacing the light and flames that were originally suspended around the many clerics, and then mimicked, transformed, into...

The shape of a rocket!

"No matter what, I can be considered a Rocket God in a sense." Laughing loudly, wielding the Lan Seeds, Su Zhou snapped his fingers: "Let's go, warriors!"

Boom! Boom boom boom!

Instantly, a loud snap rang out, accompanied by a series of thunderous air explosions. In the astonished gazes and prayers of Elias and all the clerics, the Lan Seed-mimicking rocket launched. Another aspect of the protection of the Zhuzhou Dragon (Candlelight Dragon) finally took effect at this moment!

"Go!"

With a decisive order, tens of thousands of subsonic jets appeared simultaneously. Su Zhou laughed heartily, and under the shocked gaze of the young god, and the murmurs of 'You didn't say you'd lead the team like this...', he transformed into tens of thousands of sonic rockets with everyone, accelerating forward!

Under the golden sunlight, the Lord of Judgment led a subsonic squadron sweeping across the sky and rapidly flew towards the east.

In the vast and boundless Holy Fire Continent, rumbling thunder echoed continuously, even spanning a third of the continent. A vast shadow flashed past, and only fierce winds and dust could be seen sweeping across the sky and earth.

At the same time.

Just as the subsonic squadron set off.

Tartarus World, Seven Seas, Mingsi Sea (Meditative Sea).

Deep in the sea, a pitch-black and silent sea area.

The Mingsi Sea (Meditative Sea) is located directly below the Remote Wind Continent, above the extremely southern Ice Continent. It is a calm sea area that is empty and without any islands. It is not close to any continent, nor does it have any geological fissures. In other words, there are no ocean currents or typhoons here. It is as calm as death, without any biotic circulation. Except for plankton and some algae, there is almost no life here.

When the seafolk who explored the Mingsi Sea (Meditative Sea) in the past entered this windless sea, they were amazed by its tranquility, which was like the still heart of a meditating person, and gave it such a name.

However, on such a silent and lifeless ocean, there was a huge fleet of hundreds of sea vessels anchored.

One could vaguely see that this fleet was divided into about six parts, each part faintly centered around a huge and advanced magic ship as its flagship. Any sailor on the flagship was a well-known figure in the Seven Seas, a notorious pirate.

But even such great pirates now had worried expressions on their faces.

In fact, everyone was anxiously waiting, waiting for the actions of their leaders who had already dived into the deep sea.

Mingsi Sea (Meditative Sea), the deep sea.

Six shadows were swimming in the pitch-black sea water.

According to common sense, the deep sea of the Mingsi Sea (Meditative Sea) would be even quieter than the sea surface. This was a marginal sea area without ocean currents. In the absence of crustal fissures, even deep-sea thermophiles that rely on the hydrothermal vents of undersea chimneys for survival would not exist.

But now, a 'snow' that was impossible was falling in the deep sea.

Azure blue light spots were floating in the sea water. They were crystal clear, and one could vaguely see their natural, almost snowflake-like crystalline structure.

This was a natural water element crystal—the purest essence of water. As long as one had a piece the size of a finger, plus appropriate materials, they could make a bottle of magical ink for writing runes and magic scrolls.

But now, hundreds of millions of points of water essence were scattered in this deep sea, like snowflakes in a northern blizzard.

Six figures passed through large patches of snowflakes. Their bodies were inscribed with various complex magic arrays, and they were even inlaid with a deep blue crystal fragment, releasing more pure elemental magic power than the water fragments.

These six figures were the other six Sea Pirate Kings of the Seven Seas besides Aalbert.

Even the weakest among them was at the peak of the Chosen One realm. The Sea Kings swam like fish in the deep sea. The pressure of thousands of meters was nothing to them. What really affected their actions were the seemingly harmless snowflakes.

A large amount of water element essence from the same source could induce resonance in the Source Water Soul fragments in their bodies, making it difficult for them to control the power within their bodies in a short period of time.

Although this wasn't a hazard, it would slow down their actions.

"Almost there."

The white-haired man at the head used magic power to vibrate the water flow. He was tall and burly, and his body, which was extremely strong due to the ancestral return of the Judgment Blood, was like a giant whale in the sea. Just his movements stirred up large amounts of water.

At this time, the White Whale stared ahead, and joyful light flashed in his deep purple dragon eyes. But even so, he maintained his composure. The man grinned and said, "It's right there."

As the White Whale raised his hand, the other five looked together.

Right in front of them, in the center of the sea of flying snow, large patches of rolling light blue 'clouds' were suspended around the seabed. An icy and cold aura permeated, and large patches of seabed rock were immersed in this almost materialized water element mist. The surface was even covered with a layer of crystal that shimmered with fluorescence.

With the eyesight of a peak Chosen One, one could see through the layers of water mist that behind the water element clouds that could drive all elemental cultivators crazy, there was a 'snow mountain' standing in the sea.

A huge mountain peak completely condensed from water element crystals, composed of countless jagged crystal pillars and crystal blocks!

The snow mountain in the sea was so high that its height exceeded a thousand meters. The surging magic power even formed a turbulent vortex labyrinth around it. This was the power source for all the deep-sea snowflakes. A bright and incomparable magical brilliance was flowing and flashing inside the crystal mountain, illuminating a radius of dozens of miles.

Without a doubt, the thing located in the center of this silent deep-sea spectacle, on the inner side of the towering crystal, in the place with the highest concentration of water elements in the entire world, had only one possibility.

That was the 'Source Water Soul', which was cast into the abyss by the Three Gods since the creation of the New Epoch, and gave rise to the world's Seven Seas!

Seeing this scene, the other five Sea Pirate Kings besides the White Whale breathed heavily, and their eyes flashed with extremely excited light.

This was the Source Water Soul, containing the secret of becoming a god, the cornerstone of the Epoch!

In the past, when the first Seafolk discovered the location of the Source Water Soul, they couldn't even get close to it. Only those who held the fragments of the Source Water Soul could approach—at that time, it wasn't called a fragment of the Source Water Soul, but was called the Heart of the Sea, the Grace of the Sea, but since then, its name has become a fragment of the Source Water Soul.

However, even those who held fragments of the Source Water Soul couldn't get too close to this overly pure elemental holy land, the crystal mountain in the sea.

According to speculation, only those who had swallowed many fragments and had a strength of at least the God-blessed realm could get close to the Source Water Soul.

However, everyone's adaptability to the fragments of the Source Water Soul was different. Some people could take multiple pieces, while others couldn't take even one... Therefore, after decades of research, and with the technical support from a mysterious person, the Seven Sea Kings had developed the dense layers of rune inscriptions on their bodies—those runes could replace their bodies to carry the power of the Source Water Soul, turning it into their power.

But even that wasn't enough. They also needed to hold a Calamity Ceremony to trigger the elemental imbalance and changes in the entire world, induce the surging elemental power from the outside world to form a path to the Source Water Soul, and while activating the still sleeping Water Soul, also provide everyone with the power to 'ascend to godhood'.

This was the advice and corresponding ritual that the one who called himself a Pioneer's Proxy had given.

And now, this path had been opened.

One could see that in the Spirit Realm, six incredibly vast torrents of water elements were gathering from all over the world. They gathered together, merging into a mighty river, rushing all the way and breaking through the vortex labyrinth that originally shrouded the Source Water Soul, opening a path straight into it.

At this time, unlike his extremely excited companions, the White Whale was just staring at the water element mountain in the distance. He stared at the towering peak standing alone in the depths of the ocean, watching the crystal clouds swirling and sweeping across the seabed.

"After more than ten years of planning, is this the end?"

He sighed and shook his head listlessly: "It doesn't feel as interesting as I imagined... Hmm?"

Just as he was sighing, the White Whale suddenly raised his eyebrows slightly. He seemed to have received information from his subordinates on the sea surface and couldn't help but let out a soft exclamation: "The Lord of Judgment and the Fire Lord in a divine war?"

"Aalbert is dead too?"

The Seafolk always had spies on land who would secretly violate the precepts for the sake of profit. What's more, two days had already passed. With the developed communication magic of the Tartarus world, it was already considered slow to receive the news now.

The White Whale turned his head to look at the other five Sea Pirate Kings. It was obvious that they had also received this news, and everyone showed an incomprehensible expression.

"Divine war? Why?"

"Who won?"

"Why would the Lord of Judgment fight the Fire Lord?"

"I heard it was for the Sinners, that is, those who have been convicted..."

"This has nothing to do with us. As for Aalbert, he was unlucky to encounter a god who descended. It's good that he died. At least there's one less person to share the power with us."

The alliance of the Seven Sea Kings was already loose. If it weren't for the threat of the two mainland cathedrals, and the fact that all parties needed to join hands to have enough resources to carry out the ceremony and explore the location of the Source Water Soul, these evildoers would have already started killing each other to compete for territory. How could they have stayed in their own sea areas in peace?

On the contrary, the White Whale sighed for Aalbert from the bottom of his heart.

"What a pity, Aalbert. I can tell that that guy was also a good partner in the pursuit of freedom—compared to those guys who pursue power, pursue authority, and pursue boring immortality, he's really not vulgar."

"And that red beard was really good-looking. It's a pity that I wasn't born with that much beard and it's white. I want to grow a beard too."

Thinking this, the White Whale shook his head. Without hesitation, he took the lead and stepped into the path made of infinite water elements, rapidly swimming towards the crystal where the Source Water Soul was located.

The other five Sea Pirate Kings hurriedly followed, lest the White Whale monopolize this power.

Just as the White Whale approached, he felt that the fragments of the Source Water Soul in his body had begun to slowly dissolve. The scattered structure composed of nearly a hundred fragments in his body had now begun to turn into an almost blood-like fluid, flowing along his blood vessels, and activating the magic arrays in his body step by step.

At the same time, the power that had been stagnating since he advanced to the God-blessed realm, the peak of the Sea Emperor, was taking a further step!

"Ooooh! It's starting!"

At this moment, the five people behind the White Whale also began to exclaim. Feeling the boiling of the power in their bodies, and the rune inscriptions on their bodies that were lighting up step by step and becoming brighter and brighter, they immediately let out ecstatic voices: "My power! My power is soaring!"

More than ten years of planning, more than ten years of preparation, more than ten years of forbearance and waiting, had finally borne fruit at this moment—soon, as they arrived around the Source Water Soul, they would be recognized by the Water Soul as 'existences of the same source'.

At that time, the power of the Water Soul would pour into their bodies, which had long been prepared, and in which both the elemental circulation within the body and the Ascension to Godhood magic arrays on the body surface were extremely complete—and then, take them to the 'Realm of God'!

In fact, it had already begun!

One could see that as they got closer and closer to the Water Element Mountain, the bodies of the Sea Pirate Kings began to bloom with light and began to change drastically.

Huge water element giants, ferocious giant lizard-like beasts, giant whales with long roc-like fins, giant dragon-snakes with nine heads, chaotic demons with octopus-like heads...

The templates originating from the mysterious existence who called himself the Pioneer's Proxy, from the powerful god-level super life forms of another world, were awakening and changing in the Sea Pirate Kings' bodies, sublimating their life essence!

And the tall white-haired man was now serene. This Sea Emperor, who seemed like a madman to others, did not have the slightest excited expression on the eve of his Ascension to Godhood.

The template in his body had also awakened long ago. This god-level template, which the Pioneer's Proxy called the 'strongest', was sublimating step by step, achieving his power and life essence, making his body increasingly huge.

But the White Whale didn't care. The man stared at the Source Water Soul, which was only a few hundred meters away in front of him, almost within reach, pulsating in the center of the crystal. He couldn't help but sigh and asked himself softly.

"Will this lead to freedom?"

Obviously, there was no answer.

And his body also began to light up with a vast and dazzling brilliance.

Deification had begun.