Reviewing the entire 8,000-year civilization history of this realm.
Even during the ancient era when martial arts underwent explosive development, blossoming into a magnificent, hyper-prosperous golden age spanning a full three thousand years, barely a hundred individuals had successfully ascended.
Averaging out that data:
Across the entire world, encompassing all major and minor nations, nearly thirty years had to elapse before a single void-shattering ascender could manifest.
Thus, Calamitas deduced that this exact historical average was likely why the Godforge Guild, stationed in the Caelum-Arcanum realm, had hardcoded a logical threshold into their seal's operating system: [Simultaneous Ascenders from this world must never exceed one hundred].
Perhaps setting that threshold numerical value any higher would exponentially drive up the Godforge Guild's maintenance operational costs?
Otherwise, why wouldn't they just set the limit to [Simultaneous Ascenders must never exceed one million]?
No matter, none of those details mattered.
Today, that rule was destined to be smashed to pieces by Calamitas.
She was bound for the Caelum-Arcanum realm, and she was going to slap the Godforge Guild right across the face.
"Whether it's ten thousand ascending together, or a million... both are far too boring."
Calamitas stroked her sharp chin and chuckled aloud. "I want... to ascend the entire realm at once."
Mid-laugh, the titanic, surging tens-of-millions-tier true energy within her body swept outward like a cosmic tsunami, engulfing every corner of the world.
WHOOSH!
In a flash, Calamitas's true energy blanketed the heavens, the earth, and the Eight Desolations.
Every mountain, river, lake, and sea fell within the grasp of her palm in a split second.
Then, obeying Calamitas's iron will.
Following the mountains transforming into gales, the rivers and seas igniting into crimson flames, and the sun and moon rising together while dimming to obsidian...
This world ushered in a secondary cataclysm of consecutive, continent-shaking earthquakes that left the hundreds of millions of living beings across every nation shivering in existential terror.
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!
Accompanied by a sudden, violent convulsion shaking every corner of the world, it felt as though the planetary heartbeat had been brutally jump-started.
Jagged, monstrous fissures of varying depths and widths violently ripped open, crisscrossing across the towns, cities, and vast rural countrysides of every major and minor nation.
Countless buildings, houses, bridges, and lofty towers were ruthlessly torn apart by the merciless, undulating chasms. Under the relentless, compounding shockwaves of the violently heaving earth, they teetered precariously before collapsing into total ruin.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Billions of dust clouds and pulverised soil billowed into the atmosphere, instantly shrouding the boundless sky and obscuring everyone's vision, plunging the entire world into an instantaneous state of boundless gloom.
In a heartbeat, the world was buried in an overwhelming shroud of ruin and chaos.
Panic and sheer terror instantly consumed the common masses.
Everyone shrieked as they bolted, fighting tooth and nail to find shelters and escape routes.
Yet the relentless, continuous tremors felt like heavy sledgehammers pounding against the hearts of all living beings, deepening their panic and despair with every beat.
The masses prayed to the heavens, begging solely for deliverance from this catastrophe.
Yet, bizarrely, even though every single city and structure had collapsed into massive expanses of heavy debris...
Not a single one of the billions of souls trapped and buried beneath the rubble died, nor did a single person suffer even a scratch.
It was as though an invisible, benevolent force was shielding the masses.
Indeed, the entity protecting them was none other than the fiercely merciful Calamitas.
The sole reason she did this was simple: if everyone wound up dead, what on earth was there left to "ascend" with the realm?
WHOOSH!
Invisible, intangible yet overwhelmingly vast torrents of true energy, obeying Calamitas's iron will, slithered across the entire world like tens of thousands of serpentine dragons, surging and weaving relentlessly between the boundless firmament and the heavy earth.
Under the influence of this true energy, countless blocks of jade, alongside astronomical quantities of gold, silver, copper, and iron, suddenly erupted in a roaring flood from deep within the millions of chasms crisscrossing the mortal realm.
Furthermore, upon bursting out onto the shattered surface, these mountains of jade and metallic ores instantly came alive, slithering and flying autonomously like interlocking wooden blocks, snapping and piecing themselves together in mid-air.
CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!
Thus, amidst earth-shattering roars, those countless jade and metallic blocks rapidly assembled and constructed row upon row of massive, orderly mountain ranges, each averaging ten thousand meters in height and standing tall like colossal world-barriers.
The surfaces of these titanic mountains were impeccably smooth, gleaming and flashing like jade-green silver mirrors. Moreover, they were intricately carved across their vast expanses with hyper-complex, indecipherable arcane patterns, diagrams, and warding talismans.
Furthermore, if one were to gaze down from the absolute apex of the distant firmament, a staggering revelation would unfold.
Across the surface of this sprawling continent, millions of colossal mountain ranges, straight, curved, angular, and winding like a colossal integrated circuit board, spanned and blanketed the vast geographic regions of the world before ultimately converging at a single point deep within a boundless wasteland.
That focal point happened to be the exact spot where Calamitas sat cross-legged.
And these millions of towering mirror-mountains were none other than the [Myriad Spirit-Infusion Grand Array], forged and cast by Calamitas through her subversion of the Five Elements, her inversion of Yin and Yang, and her fusion of countless heterodox arts.
That's right: Calamitas intended to utilize this grand array to instantly infuse every single living soul in this realm, regardless of gender or age, straight into the Innate Zenith realm.
Following that, she would force countless Innate Zeniths to simultaneously shatter the void, triggering a theoretical yet physically impossible cascade of... Resonance Shattering.
Using this massive chain reaction to tug upon the vast macro-world itself, and finally driving it forward with her "Heaven-Ascending Dragon Momentum", forcing the entirety of this realm to Ascend together...
No, rather, to smash headfirst into the Caelum-Arcanum universe.
"Hmm~ The array is complete, so..."
Calamitas slowly opened her eyes. "Let's begin."
CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!
In a single heartbeat, obeying a split-second thought, countless metallic tentacles, each over ten feet thick, sprouted furiously across the surfaces of those millions of mirror-mountain ranges.
The moment these bizarrely rigid yet flexible tentacles manifested, they extended wildly, ten feet, a hundred feet, a thousand feet, ten thousand feet... stretching endlessly like thrashing demonic vines as they lunged outward toward every corner of the vast continent.
SWISH, SWISH, SWISH, SWISH!
Amidst an unbroken, deafening shriek of air-tearing velocity, those countless tentacles rapidly propagated across the eight directions.
In a matter of mere moments, they plunged deep into the ruined houses, shattered towers, rubble-strewn wastes, and blighted forests scattered across every domain of the world, snatching up and pulling forth countless mortals of every age, gender, and physical condition, whether young, elderly, robust, or frail.
Upon securing their targets, this incalculably massive cluster of metallic tentacles retracted with blinding speed, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, tearing through the air as they whipped back toward those mirror-mountain ranges.
Then, amidst bizarre, shifting mechanical echoes, they enveloped the countless mortals and rapidly morphed into rows of floating jade-stone chambers suspended mid-air against the sheer faces of the mountains.
Had anyone peered through the jade walls of these chambers, they would have seen that every single captive mortal inside was securely bound from head to toe by sturdy stone straps.
Furthermore, whether they were young children, frail elders, or robust youths, all were rendered utterly immobile by an invisible suppression, forced to lie flat upon heavy stone beds.
Instantly, from all four walls and the ceilings within the chambers, a dense thicket of ox-hair-thin metallic needles, numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands, sprouted out of nowhere, driving mercilessly into the heads, torsos, and limbs of the captive mortals.
Evidently, these bizarre and intimidating metallic needles possessed no anesthetic properties.
Consequently, every single mortal trapped within these stone chambers was forced to passively experience an intense, all-over itching and stabbing pain.
As the physical discomfort and terror mounted, their hearts sank deeper into bottomless despair.
No one understood what on earth was happening.
Everything had simply transpired far too fast.
"The total population of this world, men, women, the elderly, the sick, the crippled, and the simple-minded, amounts precisely to 847,326,912 individuals, all present and accounted for."
Calamitas furrowed her brow slightly. "Hmm... If you factor in the two nations that were previously wiped out, the true total population of this realm should actually exceed a billion.
Tch, blame my hand slipping; I accidentally slaughtered over ten percent of them.
Sigh ~ Oh well, well. Over eight hundred million people shattering the void should be more than enough to beat the count."
With a soft sigh, she channeled her tens of millions of years of true energy straight into the millions of mountains, unhesitatingly activating the [Myriad Spirit-Infusion Grand Array].
In an instant, the world shuddered.
HUM, HUM, HUM, HUM!
Simultaneously, the boundless Ether saturated throughout the mortal realm rushed madly into the millions of mirror-mountain ranges under the pull of the Grand Array.
It was partitioned, channeled, and directed toward the 847,470,000+ floating jade-stone chambers suspended across the four seas and eight desolate.
Through the dense thicket of metallic needles inside each chamber, the energy was forcibly injected into the bodies of every single mortal in this world.
Accompanying this flood of Ether were hundreds of millions of True Qi seeds forged by Calamitas at the cost of massive true energy reserves, alongside a temporarily improvised "Blank Slate Scripture", complete with all the necessary martial insights required to progress step-by-step from the lowest tiers upward.
True to its name, the Blank Slate Scripture was completely blank.
It was a technique devoid of forms, stances, or specialized effects, incapable of enhancing physical strength, bolstering combat prowess, or prolonging lifespan.
It possessed only a single function:
It allowed any cultivator to bypass all barriers, talents, bone-structures, and prerequisites. The moment they received an external True Qi seed, they would instantly step into the Innate realm, seamlessly optimizing cultivation and accumulating True Qi.
Furthermore, the Martial True Intent embedded within the scripture had been meticulously custom-designed by Calamitas.
That True Intent was... I want to Ascend!
HUM, HUM, HUM, HUM!
Though it was merely crafting over 840 million True Qi seeds, the process completely drained Calamitas's massive true energy reserves.
Because the structural intricacy of these seeds was simply too high, their creation demanded an absurd amount of power.
Fortunately, under the effect of the [Infinite Cultivation] system, her completely hollowed-out true energy replenished in a split second, restoring her to absolute peak condition.
As time ticked away, the 847 million-plus common folk securely bound within the jade-stone chambers trembled violently as their cultivation realms surged tier by tier at a breakneck pace, their True Qi visibly swelling by the moment.
Amusingly, every single one of them, regardless of gender, age, illness, or disability, underwent a radical metamorphosis, transforming into muscle-bound youths, muscular lasses, ripped uncles, shredded matrifolks, buff grandpas, brawny grandmas, muscular toddlers, and ripped disabled folks.
If unchained and let out of those chambers, every last one of them would undoubtedly boast a terrifying, vascular physique radiating raw, explosive power.
Simultaneously, however, this hyper-accelerated cultivation process subjected them to unimaginable agony.
Their minds were constantly bombarded by chaotic, exploding waves of information, while their physical vessels writhed under the searing heat of internal Qi, enduring pain akin to flesh being sliced and bones being drilled.
Naturally, Calamitas gave zero heed to their suffering.
Instead, she beamed with delight, clapping her hands repeatedly:
"Looking at it now, I've genuinely done a wonderful deed. Every single one of them has an incredible physique, strong enough to shoulder cauldrons and gallop on horseback. Splendid, truly splendid."
...
Swiftly, a full three hours flew by in a blur.
Under the terrifying influence of the Myriad Spirit-Infusion Grand Array, those 847 million mortals were passively elevated straight to the Innate Zenith realm, one and all.
Well... technically the weakest Innate Zeniths in history.
They probably couldn't even defeat a standard early Innate cultivator.
"Absolute perfection."
Calamitas, seated dead-center within the colossal Myriad Spirit-Infusion Grand Array, broke into a tiger-like grin. "Thus, today, I shall lead hundreds of millions of living beings alongside this entire realm to Ascend together into the Caelum-Arcanum universe."
Following that, she let out a low, commanding shout: "Initiate the Shattering!"
HUM!
In a sudden, murderous instant, the 847 million souls lying quietly within their jade chambers abruptly snapped their eyes open, violently discharging visible flashes of light.
This was the manifestation of Martial True Intent nearing materialization.
The next moment, this horde of hundreds of millions of muscle-bound cultivators parted their lips in unison and roared:
"I! WANT! TO! ASCEND!"
BOOM!!!
In the blink of an eye, 847 million distinct pulses of the exact same Martial True Intent, alongside tens of thousands of years' worth of blank True Qi saturated with that identical intent, erupted simultaneously.
They fused into an invisible, intangible yet boundlessly vast, heavy, and majestic shockwave, rippling outward to blanket the entire hundred-thousand-mile realm.
This was the collective martial will of hundreds of millions of living beings, harmonizing with the macro-world itself.
Once that synchronization was complete, the void could be shattered.
With so many individuals shattering space simultaneously, even the Upper Realm's forbidden spell sealing this world collapsed into a catastrophic crash in that exact split second.
Right at that juncture, Calamitas's dense true energy, brimming with the momentum of the heaven-ascending dragon, utilized the Myriad Spirit-Infusion Grand Array's complex recursive translation to arrive belatedly and merge seamlessly into the surging sea of hundreds of millions of martial True Intents.
Instantly staging a hostile takeover, it blanketed and subsumed the vague, hazy cosmic will lingering deep within the world.
Ultimately, replacing it entirely.
"Begin..."
With all creation frozen still, Calamitas alone kept her eyes open, whispering softly, "...Ascension!"
BOOM!!!
...
Abruptly.
At the very summit of the boundless, hazy firmament, tens of thousands of miles deep, a blinding gateway measuring a mere hundred meters in length was blown wide open out of nowhere.
That was the Gate of Ascension, leading directly to the grand macro-world of Caelum-Arcanum.
At a glance, this space-time portal was unequivocally diminutive.
Yet relative to its actual dimensions, any human, demon, ghost, or monster dwelling within this realm should have been able to pass through it with ease and ascend into the Upper Realm.
However, measured against a colossal, sprawling realm spanning a hundred thousand miles, bearing hundreds of millions of living souls and countless eons of accumulated matter...
This single door was quite simply too pocket-sized.
Pocket-sized to the point that, no matter how hard this world tried, it could never possibly squeeze itself through it.
Let alone pass through it to reach Caelum-Arcanum.
Yet even so, because the phenomenon of [Shattering the Void to Ascend to the Upper Realm] was a vital, foundational pillar of this Desolate Ancient Swarm realm, a natural product of the endless cosmic laws interacting across space-time, rules dictated its function.
Consequently, after Calamitas bypassed the system by usurping the realm's will, submitting an Ascension application to the Heavenly Dao, Great Dao, or cosmic consciousness...
And because this application rigidly complied with all technical criteria, the Heavenly Dao had no choice but to process it.
In short... You never specified that an entire world couldn't shatter the void; my Ascension application has been filed, so the Heavenly Dao can figure out how to process it itself.
If it refused to process it, the countless auxiliary rules tied to the foundational phenomenon of [Shattering the Void] would face imminent systemic collapse.
The resulting cataclysms from such a widespread rule collapse were simply immeasurable.
Much like how 1+1 must equal 2.
If 1+1 suddenly ceased to equal 2 and instead equaled 0...
The resulting state of the universe would simply defy imagination.
Therefore, the moment this Ascension portal materialized, its physical dimensions uncontrollably skyrocketed under the compulsory execution of the Heavenly Dao's rules.
Simultaneously, beneath the boundless dome of the sky, that entire hundred-thousand-mile realm began to violently quake, collapsing and condensing frantically as it sought to gather itself into a single mass.
This blatant absurdity clearly demonstrated that the aloof Heavenly Dao, left with zero alternatives, had ultimately decided to foot the bill for Calamitas's reality-breaking stunt.
Because it had to guarantee that this realm could smoothly and successfully Ascend into the Caelum-Arcanum universe.
Otherwise, the catastrophic fallout would be utterly incalculable.
"Ah ~ I see. One gets bigger, the other gets smaller."
Seated dead-center within the Myriad Spirits Spirit-Infusion Grand Array, Calamitas mused thoughtfully. "So this is the instinctive countermeasure cooked up by this universe's Heavenly Dao Intent under extreme stress. Not bad, wonderfully straightforward."
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!
As she spoke, the realm rapidly collapsed and condensed dozens to a hundred times over.
Its overall volume was quickly shrinking down to rival that of the old Earth.
The Great Sun, manifested from condensed solar auras, and the waning moon, formed from lunar essence, grew increasingly hazy and illusory as the world continually collapsed and contracted, hovering on the brink of dissolution.
Simultaneously, through her heightened perception, Calamitas detected that the world's contraction wasn't merely folding tectonic plates; it was akin to crumpling a flat sheet of paper into a tight ball.
The mechanism of its condensation fundamentally inverted the Yin, Yang, and Five Elements, compressing space-time itself at a fundamental level through violent, catastrophic collapse.
It was precisely amidst this cataclysmic planetary metamorphosis that Calamitas finally laid eyes on the true face of this mortal realm.
It was nothing like the simplistic, flat or spherical landmasses floating in the boundless void typical of traditional fantasy novels.
Its intrinsic essence was, in reality, a finite yet boundless... 3D hyperspherical space-time taking the outward guise of a square continent.
As for being finite yet boundless...
To the average mind, "finite" equated directly to "having boundaries."
The two concepts were treated as identical.
Take a square table, for instance; anyone could touch its four edges and corners.
Even if that table were to extend infinitely in all directions, it would merely yield an infinite, boundless 2D plane.
If you factored in the table's four legs stretching infinitely upward and downward, you'd get an infinite, boundless 3D solid, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of being finite yet boundless.
So how should one comprehend the finite yet boundless nature of this mortal realm?
It was quite simple: one merely needed to picture the surface of a gigantic soccer ball.
The overall surface area of a spherical ball is strictly finite, yet it is utterly boundless.
A tiny 2D organism crawling across the surface of that soccer ball would wander forever without ever encountering a single boundary or edge.
That was a 2D-based finite yet boundless space-time.
If one stretched their imagination into the 3D domain, elevating the surface of that soccer ball into a volumetric, 3D finite yet boundless space-time...
It would perfectly mirror this mortal realm.
Similarly, it strongly resembled the Static 3D Great Boundary found within the String Swarm.
Though the internal spatial volume of the realm was a Finite Count, it possessed no physical edges or borders.
Strolling in a straight line along any given direction would merely loop you around the entire world, eventually returning you to your exact starting point without ever reaching a so-called boundary.
It functioned somewhat like a Klein bottle.
In short, even if you dug a shaft straight down for fifty thousand miles, you would merely find the surrounding matter growing increasingly hazy and ethereal.
Ultimately, you would emerge at the outer limits of the opposite firmament, rather than breaking through into any sort of extra-dimensional void.
It was just that the scale of a single Mortal Realm was far too tiny. The diametric distance across every axis, up, down, left, right, front, and back, totaled roughly a hundred thousand miles.
Compared to the Static 3D Great Boundary, whose diameter spanned an astronomical 10^132 light-years, the disparity was simply too vast.
Placing the two side-by-side for comparison felt almost absurd.
Even so, this mortal realm could still be classified as a nearly self-contained, fully sealed independent space-time system.
The heavens, the earth, the sun, and the moon, everything was contained within it.
In other words, it could be treated as a universe, a pitifully tiny, microscopic hyper-universe.
Upon perceiving all of this, Calamitas's comprehension of the Desolate Ancient Swarm's Source Rule advanced yet another step.
Granted, compared to the vast ocean of other Swarms, this incremental progress was merely a drop in the ocean.
Yet it granted Calamitas certain space-time manipulation abilities far exceeding her current realm.
For instance: scale compression, coordinate shifting, and space-time labyrinths, among others.
And at this very moment, after undergoing yet another phase of rapid collapse, this "Hyper-Micro Universe" had shrunk down to a mere hundred miles in span.
Everything contained within it, including the 847 million Innate Zeniths, the millions of mirror-mountain ranges forming the Myriad Spirit-Infusion Grand Array, and Calamitas herself, shrank proportionally by a factor of billions.
Note that this scaling was relative to external frames of reference.
The myriad phenomena and objects within retained their original sizes and scales.
Only its overall space-time architecture was inevitably compressed to an extreme degree of tautness, taut to the point where it felt as though it might shatter violently at any given microsecond.
"This world..."
Calamitas smiled quietly, her lips curling. "...has turned into an oversized bomb."
Indeed, the moment this world returned to a standard space-time environment upon reaching Caelum-Arcanum, it would instantly expand billions of times over in a split second.
Calamitas was keenly anticipating whatever chaos would ensue.
She could be certain of only one thing: this world would inevitably undergo a hyper-extreme, cataclysmic detonation, blasting itself into cosmic dust.
Furthermore, the blast radius would unquestionably far exceed a mere hundred thousand miles.
As for the adjacent regions and entities bordering its arrival point, they would undoubtedly be obliterated in the blink of an eye.
Simultaneously, the space-time boundary gate hovering above the firmament had expended every ounce of its strength, expanding to a span of a hundred miles just to accommodate this world's passage.
A hundred miles matched against a hundred miles.
The physical dimensions finally aligned in perfect symmetry.
And so, in the very next heartbeat.
This hyper-compressed, minuscule world, carrying its raw matter, energy, and a heavily compressed, hair-trigger space-time volume primed for detonation, spiraled forward.
Viewed through the lens of structural topology, it smoothly rotated and squeezed itself directly into the boundary gate. That very portal was now stretched to its absolute limits, trembling and groaning in agony as though it were about to be forcefully blown wide open from the inside out.
Following an agonizingly arduous transit, the hundred-mile world finally slipped completely into the boundary tunnel, which was now packed to absolute saturation and hovering on the brink of blowing apart, surging toward the distant, uncharted expanses of the Caelum-Arcanum universe for its ultimate Ascension.
In its wake, the original location was left utterly desolate and void.
...
The Caelum-Arcanum.
A vast, ancient, high-tier space-time whose sheer scale and age defied all imagination.
Within a quiet, inconspicuous corner of this colossal world, the southwest of the Archaic Blade Dominion, lay a desolate ocean spanning several quintillion kilometers across.
This sprawling ocean was known as the Profether Sea.
Along its endless, winding coastline forged from ancient, eternal black ice, stood a massive island situated billions of miles offshore, Cloud-Mist Island.
This island was gargantuan, boasting a surface area spanning hundreds of trillions of kilometers.
Unlike the bitter, bone-chilling cold of the Profether Sea beyond its shores, where even ten-thousand-year malevolent ghosts would be frozen into shards of ice.
Its climate remained spring-like year-round. Across the island, peach blossoms bloomed beside weeping willows amidst the songs of birds and fragrant flora; it featured rolling peaks, serene ravines, azure waters, blue skies, and boundless greenery.
Compared to the vast, freezing Profether Sea outside, and the endless, barren gray wastelands hugging the distant coastlines, it was infinitely more comfortable and hospitable.
Thus, this colossal island naturally evolved over time into a permanent haven for countless living beings scattered across the surrounding regions.
Consequently, after surviving the relentless erosion of tens of millions, hundreds of millions of years of time, Cloud-Mist Island gradually swelled from sparse to dense, from small to large, eventually giving rise to a renowned, legendary artifact-crafting grand sect spanning the entire Archaic Blade Dominion, the Godforge Guild.
This sect was situated dead-center within Cloud-Mist Island, occupying nearly 60% of the island's territory.
Thus, the Godforge Guild itself resembled a colossal world in its own right.
Within its governed domain, the inner seas alone numbered a full eighteen.
The largest spanned trillions of miles, while the smallest boasted a radius of over a million miles.
Connecting these vast oceans were countless mountain ranges and winding streams.
Amidst the rolling peaks stood mountains piercing the clouds, bottomless abysses, roaring torrents of mountain springwater, dense, secluded primeval forests, and mysterious, ethereal immortal dwellings.
Rinsing and cycling through these areas were inexhaustible, dense concentrations of Wood- and Earth-element Ether.
Beyond the mountain ranges lay millions of gurgling, pristine streams brimming with dense Water-element Ether.
Spanning across these winding, intersecting waterways were thousands of towering, mountain-sized yet intricate pavilions constructed entirely from colossal bamboo poles stretching a thousand feet in length.
From afar, these tranquil pavilions resembled cascading bamboo mountains brimming with fresh vitality.
These bamboo towers served as quarters for the disciples of the Godforge Guild.
Connecting these picturesque pavilions was a vast expanse of lush green plains stretching across billions of acres.
The rolling turf resembled a plush ocean of vibrant flora, exuding faint, aromatic waves of Wood-element Ether.
At a glance, it was overflowing with natural beauty and boundless scale.
Furthermore, deep within this verdant plain stood hundreds of exquisite, delicate, and intricately crafted balconies and pavilions.
These structures were shrouded in swirling wisps of Ether mist, radiating an immortal and illusory aura.
Surrounding them on all four sides were towering emerald peaks embraced by winding turquoise waters.
It looked precisely like a magnificent, natural ink-wash painting come to life.
In truth, vast and breathtakingly gorgeous though this plain was, it was the private property of a top-tier Primordial Soul elder within the Godforge Guild, Mirage Sovereign.
It served as her personal back-garden and private cultivation sanctuary.
If one gazed past this fragrant, verdant garden all the way toward the horizon, sprawling vistas of densely packed yet majestic, soul-stirring architectural complexes came into view.
That zone was the true, official headquarters of the Godforge Guild.
Among them, towering towers and palaces rising ten million meters high featured jade walls, carved eaves, and glazed roofs, massive yet exquisitely ornate, radiating an ancient, solemn dignity that clearly bespoke tens of thousands of years of history.
At the absolute center of this sprawling, billion-kilometer ancient architectural cluster, surrounded by countless palaces like stars guarding the moon, stood a colossal grand hall towering nearly several million to ten million meters high, perpetually radiating an aura of supreme antiquity.
This was the Grand Patriarch Hall of the Godforge Guild, which, through generations of continuous expansion, had grown to rival the scale of a star.
Compared to it, every other structure appeared dwarfed by comparison.
Roughly over a million miles away from that Grand Patriarch Hall sat a sprawling, stark grey stone plaza spanning just a few million meters across.
Across this archaic square, a thousand-meter-wide jade archway stood proudly every thousand miles, flashing with a brilliant, perpetual luster.
Indeed, these archways were the space-time boundary gates leading directly to those respective lower-realm worlds.
Every void-shattering ascender rising from those mortal minor realms would emerge straight out of these boundary gates.
And this vast grey stone plaza served as the grand Ascension Square linking over a million mortal worlds.
This plaza, bridging a million minor worlds, constituted a major foundational resource for the Godforge Guild.
Consequently, at any given second, hundreds or thousands of elite Qi Refiners akin to Lady Serenitas would streak sword-trails across the air, patrolling back and forth solely to guarantee zero operational hiccups in this sector.
Yet, since its construction tens of thousands of years ago, this plaza had never encountered a single glitch.
At most, a stray rabble from the lower realms might occasionally slip through during the irregular maintenance windows of the Sealing Barrier, only to be effortlessly apprehended by the patrol squads upon reaching Caelum-Arcanum.
Aside from that, not a single accident had ever occurred.
Yet today, a cataclysmic anomaly shattered the peace.