Lin Mohan's aura kept rising. She was a quasi–Calamity Supreme, not yet a true Calamity Supreme—a quasi–Calamity Supreme is also called an "imperfect" Calamity Supreme. Her sword-path had reached the extreme, surpassing any Calamity Supreme; with ultimate sword-intent, her battle power was astonishing. Even against a Calamity Supreme she was no weaker—in fact, she had once defeated the West Extremity Calamity Supreme by the sword (that was an exchange of blows, not a life-and-death struggle; if it came to the latter, the outcome would be uncertain).
Quasi–Calamity Supremes and Calamity Supremes share the same tier, but they walk different roads. Now Lin Mohan pressed forward along the quasi–Calamity Supreme path, hacking through thorns, climbing higher.
Sword-intent condensed; a colossal sword appeared beneath her feet. A treasured sword formed in her hand—her life-bound sword, an unsurpassed blade she had forged at enlightenment by gathering the heaven-and-earth sword-path with her own power. With sword in hand, her momentum peaked. A clear shout rang through the void:
"Break the realm!"
A crystalline sword-cry answered; sword-light swept across heaven and earth, piercing the Ancient Wilds. Vortices in the deepest layer of space shattered one after another. A terrifying aura rose with the sword-light, smashing the bottleneck barrier and breaking through the Calamity Supreme realm. Heaven and earth resonated—as if celebrating Lin Mohan. Across an unknowable distance, sword-qi danced and lingered, sweeping every layer of space. Lin Mohan seemed to become a sword—a god-blade that cleaves sky and sunders earth.
The Hidden Spirit Pearl nearly failed to suppress her aura—thankfully, the Calamity Scepter's Balance Gem burst with radiance, forcibly balancing her presence and pressing the chance of discovery to the lowest possible point. If even that couldn't hide her, so be it—Lin Moyu wasn't afraid; whoever came, he would fight.
The Primal Chaos Gem watched the surroundings and confirmed no one had noticed. This was a fairly deep region of the Ancient Wilds, at the lowest layer of space; with the Hidden Spirit Pearl and Balance Gem, the chance of discovery was indeed small.
At last Lin Mohan completed her breakthrough, surpassed the Calamity Supreme realm, and stepped into another tier. Her aura gradually drew in; peace returned.
Lin Moyu smiled. "Congratulations, Sis—success."
Lin Mohan shook her head. "Only a sliver of success. Still far from true success."
He heard the undertone. "Did you obtain some information?"
Lin Mohan tapped a finger to her brow; a small blade of light gathered at her fingertip. "I gleaned some things from the Divine Lotus Lord's consciousness. It's all in here—read it slowly." She didn't feel like explaining line by line; better to let Lin Moyu see for himself. She added, "I also understand the road I must walk. The Great Calamity is upon us. Little Yu, you're the calamity-bearer; heaven and earth will target you next. Be careful in all things."
Lin Moyu was unconcerned. "Relax. Heaven and earth can't touch me. If they go too far, I'll burn them." It sounded like a joke—only those who knew him understood it wasn't. If truly enraged, he would do exactly that.
Now that Lin Mohan had surpassed Calamity Supreme, though the Great Calamity raged, heaven-earth could no longer sway her thoughts. There was no need to move her into the storage-world. She had her own Dao, and a chance to become a Transcendent within the Calamity.
Lin Moyu condensed a jade plaque and handed over ten Life Pills. "Sis, you have your own path. Keep these Life Pills for emergencies. Everything I know is recorded in this plaque—you can read it. In the Lower Domain there seems to be a legacy you left; if you're interested, take a look. Their path has gone crooked—you can set it right, or simply put it down."
Lin Mohan stowed the items, glanced at Ning Yiyi and the others, and grinned. "Little Yu's all grown up. They say short partings outshine new weddings—you haven't seen your sisters-in-law for years. Work hard when you get back. Next time we meet, I expect to hold my little nephew."
"I'll work hard," Lin Moyu said.
Lin Mohan laughed, stretched lazily with infinite grace, and her figure faded away—she had left.
Ning Yiyi and the others were finally fully healed. Their cheeks flushed; they'd heard the sibling banter. What do you mean, "I'll work hard"? At their realm, some things aren't just about hard work—opportunity matters.
"Let's go home," Lin Moyu said. With a wave, a gate opened; a gentle power wrapped the eight women, and he led them into his storage-world.
Inside, Primordial Dawn Qi rolled like mighty rivers, turning into countless silver galaxies flowing across the sky. The eight stared, dumbfounded. In the Divine Lotus World, they had risked their lives for a single wisp of Primordial Dawn Qi, day after day—yet here it was endless. All their years of struggle weren't even a billionth of what this world held. That lump of Primordial Dawn Qi he'd gifted Purple Star suddenly felt… stingy.
"Welcome home," Lin Moyu smiled.
As the eldest, Ning Yiyi spoke for them all. "Husband… this is our home."
"This is my world," Lin Moyu said—a heaven and earth different from the Ancient Wilds. "Naturally, it's our home."
They blinked. By his words, they had arrived in another heaven and earth—unlike the Divine Lotus remnant, this was a complete world. Indeed, they felt rules distinctly different from those of the Ancient Wilds. Though they had largely abandoned the Dao to focus on body and soul under Purple Star's tutelage, they still understood heaven-earth principles—especially An Yuyan, once an Eternal who had cultivated the Dao for countless years. Even after abandoning it, she knew it well.
An Yuyan sensed for a while. "I feel the rules, but not the Dao."
"It's a newborn world," Lin Moyu said. "It hasn't even undergone its first life-and-death cycle. Naturally there's no Dao yet—only the purest heaven-earth rules. Here, you can use Primordial Dawn Qi to comprehend the rules. It's better than cultivating the Dao—straight to the source."
Ning Yiyi frowned slightly. "Why bring us here, Husband—did something happen in the Ancient Wilds?"
Lin Moyu nodded. "Indeed. The Ancient Wilds are entering a Great Calamity. I'm the calamity-bearer; heaven-earth will target me. Once it fully erupts, many will be influenced and see me as an enemy. If I leave you there, you might be affected as well."
He explained the situation. They grasped the severity. Under heaven-earth influence, even with their current strength, none could guarantee to hold their true hearts. Heaven-earth would create all sorts of conditions and causal snares to target him—so his choice was the best one.
As he walked them through the storage-world, he made a small request: name this world. He had been lazy about it; for one person it didn't matter, but with many, they couldn't keep calling it the "storage-world." It sounded awkward, and it was inconvenient in conversation.
While the Ancient Wilds' Great Calamity opened its curtain, this world remained as peaceful as a hidden paradise. Lin Moyu left a clone in the Ancient Wilds, imbued with his soul, to deceive heaven-earth into believing he was still there. His true body entered this world to accompany Ning Yiyi and the others. The Calamity would be long—not urgent. Even "wasting" decades or centuries didn't matter. After so many years apart, it was time to be with them.
They soon embraced their new world. After some discussion, they named it Yushen Heaven & Earth. Lin Moyu had no objections and accepted it. When he branded his will into the world, it thundered; all nascent beings within knew the world's name. The four characters "Yushen Heaven & Earth" merged into its rules, never to change.
Lin Moyu accompanied them across every corner of Yushen Heaven & Earth, watching the unborn lives within. He took them to meet Xiao Wu and the others; the women adored the four, and Xiao Wu's cheerful "Master-Madam!" delighted them. An Yuyan returned to her domain to visit old friends; Gu Hanyu went back to the Origin Continent to see her sect and met Gu Hanjing; Yuzhu revisited the Great World to see family and friends. Many years had passed; some people were gone, but the memories remained. Lin Moyu went with them all. Only Ning Yiyi, Mu Qinggan, Mo Yun, and Shu Han had nowhere to return to—their small worlds had been taken by the Calamity Sovereign of Disasters. They felt a bit of loss and could only accept it in the end. Recovering those small worlds would not be easy; Lin Moyu made no empty promises.
One of Lin Moyu's clones came to the domains. Of the nine domains, four had already reached perfection; the other five were closing in—almost there. His gaze fell on the Kedao Domain. It, too, had reached perfection.
"The one domain among the nine I can't see through is this one," he murmured.
Beside him, the Primal Chaos Gem took the form of a little figure. "It is strange. This domain has only one Dao, and that Dao's rules are utterly different from the Ancient Wilds."
"In principle, this Dao shouldn't exist," Lin Moyu said. "Yet it does—and it supports a domain alone, without evolving any new Dao. Generally, a powerful Dao evolves many lesser ones; that's almost universal. But the Physical Dao in the Kedao Domain doesn't. It holds ultimate principle yet doesn't evolve. It gives me a sense of extreme rigor."
"When you first sensed it, how did it feel?" the Gem asked.
"No feeling," Lin Moyu said. "And that is the strangest part. Later I considered it—it may relate to my previous life."
"What was your previous life like, Master?"
"A very peculiar world. There seemed to be no cultivators. There were steel towers, steel airplanes, cars—but they weren't artifacts, just tools; no refining, only operating; anyone could use them. That world was called Huaxia. Lifespans were short—at most around a hundred years—and disease was common. But they had infinite creativity, unlike the unchanging nature of other domains. When I first arrived, I thought it was merely a special world. Later, I saw a projection in the Great World and thought I'd glimpsed that prior world—but it wasn't. It only had similarities; those planes and cars were actually artifacts, and there were cultivators.
"There's more. In my small world I obtained a secret art from the Origin Bird—the Origin Arts. Later I learned the Origin Bird is a type of chaos lifeform; Boyang Calamity Supreme refined its bloodline into the Origin Arts and spread them across my domain. In truth, I realized he prepared the Origin Arts for me; spreading them that way avoided causal entanglement and made them seem more 'reasonable.' I even saw 'Huaxia' writing—but later understood it wasn't Huaxia writing, merely similar. Boyang obtained it by chance."
As Lin Moyu grew stronger, he'd solved many puzzles—but he hadn't found a single thread pointing to the Huaxia world. His past seemed a mystery. He was certain, however, that his prior life had nothing to do with the Calamity Sovereign's layout; all of that began the moment he crossed into the small world. Now the closest link to Huaxia was likely the Physical Dao in the Kedao Domain, because Huaxia also had physical laws.
"Could a domain's Dao have mutated, evolving a Huaxia-like world?" the Gem asked.
Lin Moyu shook his head. "I've probed carefully; the heaven-earth rules say no. With sufficient strength and a soul at the Calamity Supreme limit, many things need no investigation—one can sense them through the rules."
"That is… strange," the Gem mused.
"I'm baffled too—that's why I'm asking you. With your experience, maybe you have an answer."
"Let me think… I might recall a legend," the Gem said at last, uncertain. "It came from several extremely powerful Transcendents. They once discussed a question—the origin of all heavens and worlds. I pondered it as well, but never found an answer. There's no way to verify it; treat it as a legend."
The Primal Chaos Gem organized its thoughts and continued slowly:
"At the Transcendent tier, there are few secrets left within a world, so they fixed their eyes outside the world. Outside, there are only two things: the Wall of Worlds, from which all world-origin materials derive—this is the source that determines whether a world can become a living heaven and earth—and the Life-Forbidden Zone. But they cannot cross the Forbidden Zone, so it's of little use to discuss. In the end, they focused on the Wall of Worlds. After much research, they concluded that within the Wall there should exist a mysterious passage, and at its end lies the secret of the origin of worlds."