Star Odyssey

Chapter 4420: Successful Breakthrough

"I'll go bring Big Thug and the others over as well," Ancestor Lu Yuan said as he prepared to leave, only to be stopped by Lu Yin.

"I'll go. It'll be faster." With that, Lu Yin vanished.

Soon, Chu Yi, Wu Tian, Hongyan Mavis, Wilderness God, and Garan Zhiluo all arrived. One by one, they turned to stare at the distant megaverse and proceeded to wait in silence.

A breakthrough to the Immortal realm that used the resetting a megaverse required an individual to use Immortal matter to personally experience the cycle of a megaverse’s start and decline. Their realm would transform as their body accepted and fused with Immortal matter. This would allow the Lifeforce within their body to increase on its own, creating an endless supply. Only after all of those steps were accomplished could one become an Immortal.

In the Aevum Inch, this was the most common breakthrough method for the Immortal realm.

Previously, the Immortal eagle-beast had used this exact same method, guided by Mountain Sword Sect's ancestor.

Ancient God had cultivated for a very long time. For a long time, because the Origin Progenitor had prevented his disciples from entering the Origin realm, Ancient God’s cultivation had stagnated. Later on, the Heavens Sect had collapsed, and he had joined Aeternus. He had then endured countless years of suffering. While his cultivation had only recently improved, his mental state had long since reached the required level.

As their human civilization climbed upward step by step, Ancient God was finally able to fully let go of his attachments. It had taken him just a few hundred years to advance from a normal Dukkhan to a peak Dukkhan and start preparing to advance towards Immortality.

Even so, this still felt too rushed. After all, how long had Ancient God really been a peak Dukkhan for? It was far less than Qing Xing or any of the others, but not even they were in a hurry to attempt a breakthrough.

"Breaking through by relying on the reset of a megaverse and breaking through directly are two entirely different concepts. I tried to persuade Musclehead to endure a little longer, but he couldn't hold back," Chu Yi said with a sigh.

Ancestor Lu Yuan spoke up as well. "As if he'd ever listen to you. If he did, he would have never brought all that suffering on himself back then."

Garan Zhiluo's voice was cool. "Musclehead won't tell us what he's thinking, but it's easy enough to guess. He thinks that our human civilization has too few Immortals."

"That’s not entirely it." Hongyan Mavis stared into the distance. "The injuries that he suffered many years ago were too severe, and although he has since recovered, he still has no confidence in breaking through to the Immortal realm on his own. You all know how difficult Mister Mu's breakthrough was. He was able to endure a direct breakthrough, but not on his own. His difficulty was such that he needed to return to his own megaverse. On the other hand, Musclehead can’t bear such a burden on his own."

Lu Yin peered into the distance. It was true that Ancient God had been severely wounded by Qing Cao and then nearly stomped to death by Yong Heng. If not for the temporal reversion, Ancient God would have already died. Even if the hidden dangers caused by such grave injuries had nearly faded away entirely with the passing of time, they had still left their mark behind.

Besides, not everyone could become an Immortal through a direct breakthrough. Neither Awe Gate nor Blood Tower had used such a method. A direct breakthrough was far harder, and it was not possible to see the end of such a path.

As regrettable as it was, for Ancient God, breaking through by relying on the reset of a megaverse was the most suitable option.

The megaverse roared as it split apart. One parallel universe after another collapsed, and countless specks of Immortal matter appeared within the spatial fissures formed by the collisions of the various universes.

Ancient God leaped up and seized the Immortal matter.

Time passed slowly. The man’s aura grew weaker and weaker as he started experiencing the cycle of a megaverse.

Lu Yin had witnessed this exact process more than once before. The one that had left the deepest impression on him was Venerable Lan Ye’s breakthrough attempt. Even though the man had been perfectly suited to the Orchid Megaverse, he had still ultimately failed.

Lu Yin could only hope that Ancient God would succeed.

Every time a megaverse was reset, it was both the megaverse’s most brilliant and its quietest moment.

Life consisted of both birth and death, and a megaverse was no different. A person could view life as having both length and breadth, but how did a megaverse view its own life?

A megaverse’s life depended on the living creatures within it. Though it was the megaverse that sustained those countless creatures, in the end, it could only allow those creatures to determine whether the megaverse lived or died.

If that’s true for a megaverse, then what about the Aevum Inch?

Time continued to pass. Three years went by as Ancient God continuously attempted to comprehend the cycle of origin and decay. As he did so, he was very quick to seize the Immortal matter.

As Lu Yin watched Ancient God try yet again, a sense of unease rose within his heart. Many years ago, Lei Gong had been the first person that Lu Yin had watched die during an attempt to break through to the Immortal realm. Lei Gong's body had attempted to endure through the cycle of decay, but he had never been able to return to the origin. He had simply been reduced to ashes while letting out roars of frustration until the moment of his death.

After that had been Venerable Lan Ye, who had also died during his breakthrough attempt.

There had been far too many. Many people from the Nine Odysseys Megaverse had died in that exact same way.

"Should we stop Senior Ancient God?"

Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others said nothing. They simply stared into the distance.

Stop him? What would become of Musclehead's dignity? What would become of their own? Ever since they had come into contact with the Aevum Inch, their generation had gradually retreated from standing at the center of history. Despite being among the first cultivators in the Tianyuan, all of them could only watch on as Lu Yin risked his life outside, while those capable of standing beside him were people from the Nine Odysseys Megaverse or even members of Obscura.

What about the Three Realms and Six Daos? Again and again, they had been forced to stay within their own megaverse, waiting for word in humiliation.

Who could understand their frustration?

There was another reason why Musclehead wanted to break into the Immortal realm, and all of his peers understood it. He wanted to restore the honor of their entire generation.

He wanted to tell the Trio that they had once led the Tianyuan and that they were still able to walk before everyone else. Whether they walked towards glory or disaster, they could bear it all.

That would be better than relying on a single child.

How many brushes with death had that child already survived? The fact that they were becoming more and more incapable of keeping up with him was something that none of them could bear.

Even if it meant dying, they were determined to carve a path forward.

Very soon, Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others' expressions changed drastically as they stared into the distance. Ancient God's body was collapsing. He was falling completely into the cycle of decay.

Lu Yin's pupils shrank. Not good!

If this cycle of decline continued, he would have no possibility of returning to the origin. Ancient God would turn to ash and die.

Lu Yin looked over at Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others. Their expressions remained calm, though uneasy. They still did not step forward.

Ancient God was merely the first of them. If he died, the rest of them would proceed, one after another, until one of them blazed a trail to the Immortal realm.

They did not fear death.

"Ancestor!" Lu Yin could not help calling out.

Ancestor Lu Yuan gritted his teeth. "Watch."

Lu Yin looked back at Ancient God. His body was already on the verge of collapsing.

"Pillar." Chu Yi's voice came.

Lu Yin turned to look, and found Chu Yi’s eyes on him. The man smiled. "Your determination to protect humanity is the same as our determination to protect you. There is no fear of death."

A quiver ran through Lu Yin's body, but he said nothing more. He proceeded to wait in silence. His heart grew calm.

Everyone had their own path. He could not force others, nor could he change their desire to protect him. He did not fear death, and others could be the same.

As long as Ancient God did not give up, all they could do was watch. Even if he died, they needed to grant him his final dignity.

Ancient God's aura was nearly gone. Lu Yin grew increasingly tense, though Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others were even more tense.

At the very moment that Lu Yin thought that Ancient God would surely die, threads of vitality emerged from within him. Then, like an old tree sprouting anew, Lifeforce burst forth and shot straight up into outer space.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief. He had succeeded.

Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others started breathing heavily. Only at this moment were they finally able to relax.

Lu Yin stared at Ancient God's body. That Lifeforce had not come from the cycle of origin and decay, but rather from battle force that had reached the Wielder - God level. This was the exact same way that Lu Yin himself had obtained Lifeforce.

Battle force at the Wielder - God level could transform into Lifeforce. Lu Yin had actually forgotten about that, only to see it reappear in Ancient God’s breakthrough.

Without that, Ancient God would have certainly failed, and his body would have been reduced to ash.

It was fortunate.

Within the megaverse, Ancient God opened his eyes. He had used Wielder - God battle force to ignite his Lifeforce and merge it with the cycle of origin and decay within his body. As a result, his Lifeforce became endless and turned into the key to stepping into the Immortal realm. With his Lifeforce taken care of, the next step was to comprehend a cosmic law to resonate with.

The Immortal realm was merely a threshold. How far he could go depended on Ancient God's own understanding of the cosmos. Simply put, it depended on his realm.

When breaking into Immortality, there were two aspects of the realm. One was the realm that allowed a being to step into Immortality. In other words, one’s realm no longer served as an obstacle to becoming an Immortal.

The second aspect was how high and how far that individual had the potential to reach in the future. The deeper one's understanding of the cosmos, the broader their road.

Even if one became an Immortal by relying on the reset of a megaverse, it was not impossible for them to reach the same height as those who had succeeded with a direct breakthrough, though their path would be far more difficult and the chances of success were exceedingly slim.

One example was how Awe Gate had merged with Mi Jin's cultivated spirit seed to achieve her current level of combat power.

In fact, throughout the Aevum Inch, two-law Immortals were almost entirely creatures who had achieved a direct breakthrough to the Immortal realm. At the moment of their breakthrough, they had already stood at the peak of one-law Immortals, and being able to do that proved their extraordinary talent.

But there were no absolutes in the cosmos.

Lu Yin did not believe that every Plume Immortal had succeeded via direct breakthrough. Fishing civilizations were only able to accumulate so many Immortals because many of them relied on their civilization’s absolute means.

Ancient God's greatest advantage was that he had experienced far too much. His life could not be called brilliant, but it had absolutely been full of twists and struggles that surpassed ordinary imagination.

Roughly 1,500 years had passed since Jiang Feng’s breakthrough to the Immortal realm when Ancient God became the next being from the Tianyuan to succeed.

Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others burst into laughter and started chatting among themselves.

Lu Yin’s gaze withdrew from the megaverse to look at Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others. "Ancestor, Senior Ancient God's breakthrough has just handed many people the key to the Immortal realm. Breaking into Immortality should now be more certain."

"Battle force?" Ancestor Lu Yuan asked.

Lu Yin nodded. What he could see, Ancestor Lu Yuan and the others could see as well.

Chu Yi shook his head. "It isn't that simple. First of all, cultivating battle force to the level that you and Musclehead have achieved is already extremely difficult. Battle force is not a cultivation realm. It cannot be achieved step by step like normal cultivation. It requires extraordinary toughness and perseverance, as well as an integrity that aligns with one's true heart.

"To some extent, battle force is even harder to improve than cultivating to improve one’s realm. If two out of ten people can cultivate to the Origin Realm, then perhaps only one can raise their battle force to the Wielder - God level.

"On top of that, even if their battle force does reach that level, it does not necessarily mean that they will be able to transform it into Lifeforce. Pillar, do you still remember how yours transformed back then?"

Of course Lu Yin remembered. He had held one breath in his chest and dared to strike at Immortals, challenging those above him from a place of weakness. He had demonstrated utter defiance and true force of will.

Battle force was force of will made manifest. It was a person's heroic determination. Without that heroic will, how could one’s battle force transform?

Ancient God's determination came from his faith in the Tianyuan and from his genuine lack of fear of death. Thus, after breaking through, it was only natural that he had achieved Wielder - God battle force.

Though Ancient God usually said little, the truth was that he possessed greater determination and will than anyone. People could lie, but power could not. Whether someone could cultivate battle force to the Wielder - God level could not be necessarily seen from their outward appearance; it depended on their heart.

In that respect, it was similar to an inner state.

"No matter what, we should at least try it. With so many cultivators, at least someone is bound to succeed. Even if this method only brings about one more Immortal, it will still be worthwhile," Hongyan Mavis said.

That was indeed true.

Chu Yi's expression grew complicated. "Battle force certainly needs to be promoted. Hopefully, more people will succeed."