Chapter 23: Half a Great Old One

Chapter 23: Half a Great Old One

Within the astral world—an existence even more abstract than the spirit world, as though it encompassed every authority and symbol in the entire cosmos—everything revealed itself.

Yet the light that illuminated this place was not distributed evenly. It was concentrated mainly in several places, layered and interwoven into patches resembling thick prisms.

There were three such patches, each sealing off a different illusory kingdom.

One of those kingdoms was covered in bright flowers, its sky forever radiant. Another seemed to be made of books, some open and some closed, with different figures shuttling among them, taking pleasure in reading. The last was a boundless sea wreathed in violent winds, torrential rain, and ceaseless thunder and lightning.

The next second, intense changes occurred simultaneously within all three different kingdoms.

In the place where the sky was eternally bright, every flower released light, as though transforming into miniature, blazing suns.

Countless tiny suns interwove, then threw themselves together into an exceptionally dazzling golden sun that shot up from deep within the kingdom. It radiated scorching light that seemed capable of illuminating the entire world, the entire star system.

Yet no matter how much energy this near-real sun poured out, no matter how many ultra-high-temperature flames it created, it could not break through the thick, prism-like patch of light.

Each layer it destroyed was immediately replaced by a new one, and the speed of regeneration was not at all inferior.

Elsewhere in the astral world, across the surface of the marvelous kingdom composed of all kinds of books, faint brass-colored light rapidly wandered over the same prism-like patch of light, sketching one mysterious symbol after another. It seemed to be searching for the critical structural point or effective method that could destroy the barrier in a single strike.

During this process, the faint light even formed a pair of illusory eyes—eyes that could directly see weak points and create weak points.

Yet within the patch of light, a similar faint glow was also wandering, reconstructing itself again and again and altering its critical structural points.

The two sides looked as though they were competing in calculation ability, with no clear victor for the moment.

Deep within the boundless sea shrouded by lightning, storms, and rain, a point of light suddenly flared.

It carried a portion of matter and approached the limit of speed, creating by this means a violent “wave” capable of destroying a planet.

That “wave,” together with the point of light, repeatedly slammed against the thick prism-like patch of light, knocking loose countless motes of brilliance.

At some unknown point, an illusory sea that seemed to contain all colors and all possibilities rippled within the patch of light. It appeared to bring the surrounding environment into a state of solidification, causing the storm-bearing point of light to slow irresistibly. Then the point of light accelerated, slowed, accelerated, slowed again—repeating the cycle endlessly, refusing to give up.

With the Chaos Sea as His source, with Himself and the True Creator as His pillars, Adam had “Envisioned” three Uniquenesses and incorporated them into this system. He seemed to have surpassed the limits of the Sequences and become half a Great Old One. By His own power alone, He forcibly suppressed the Eternal Blazing Sun, the Lord of Storms, and the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, trapping three Sequence 0 true gods inside Their respective divine kingdoms!

At this moment, He seemed to have returned to His peak state, becoming once again the ancient Sun God who had fought and slain one ancient god after another.

He had chosen the Visionary and Hanged Man pathways as the foundation of His rebirth, not only because each possessed special traits related to resurrection, but also because, according to His own research, this was…