Heavenly Dao is an Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent entity. It is said that, in the beginning, there was only boundless nothingness. In this boundless nothingness, there was no concept of time, no concept of space, no concept of light, no concept of darkness—just emptiness.
Then, Heavenly Dao's embryo came into existence. Being the only Spiritual Existence, Heavenly Dao instantly gained Omnipotence and Omnipresence.
However, it was still in its embryo form. There was still no concept of time where it existed, but, for Heavenly Dao, time existed. It grew over time, despite the absence of time.
It doesn't make sense, right?
How would it? Since even logic didn't exist at that time.
Heavenly Dao dreamt of countless worlds.
Every dream became reality, forming countless logical and illogical universes. An embryo's dream couldn't always be logical.
Time passed—years, hundreds of years, millions, billions, and so on.
Infinite time passed, yet it was just a momentary feeling for Heavenly Dao.
It grew slowly and steadily, gaining Omniscience as well.
Countless eras later, it created a perfect righteous being.
This being possessed the purest form of soul, and he later became known as the Supreme God of Creation.
However, wherever perfection exists, imperfection appears automatically. Wherever light exists, shadow appears automatically. They are two sides of the same coin.
From the shadow of the Supreme God of Creation, the Supreme Devil was born. In a sense, as an Omniscient entity, Heavenly Dao knew all along that the Supreme Devil would be born. In fact, he chose to allow the Supreme Devil to be born. He created both of them at the same time.
Thus, the Supreme God of Creation and Supreme God of Destruction came into existence.
Because of the vile deeds of the God of Destruction, his name later changed to Supreme Devil.
Supreme God created the three Heavens and named them the God Realm.
He possessed the Supreme Dao of Creation and the Absolute Dao of Yang.
Supreme Devil possessed the Supreme Dao of Destruction and the Absolute Dao of Yin. He directly conquered one of the three Heavens and named it the Heaven of Destruction. He was far stronger than Supreme God; however, despite being stronger, he was helpless against him if Supreme God truly became a life-and-death nemesis.
Both Supreme God and Supreme Devil were Immortals in the truest sense. They could not be killed by any means.
Supreme God directly controlled the Dao of Life, while Supreme Devil controlled the Dao of Death. Neither of them wished to get engaged in a battle lasting countless eras and epochs which would ultimately have no result.
The entire God Realm, the God Race, the Devil Race, and the Immortal Race—they were all the creation of Supreme God. Not just that, all the laws of the world, whether the Law of Time, Law of Balance, Law of Space, and so on, were all created by Supreme God.
Even though Supreme God was the one who created the Devil Race, they followed Supreme Devil and resided in the Heaven of Destruction because their mindset aligned.
The God Race and Devil Race often had conflicts with each other.
The Immortal Race was completely neutral. They took control of the Heaven connecting the Heaven of Creation and the Heaven of Destruction. They wanted peace, and this way both the God Race and Devil Race would no longer have to clash directly, since the Heaven of Creation and the Heaven of Destruction were no longer neighbors.
Until one day!
One day, a Wanderer appeared in the Immortal Race. It was the meddling of Heavenly Dao.
The Immortal Race often meditated in their Heaven and rarely interacted with others.
However, when this Wanderer rose to power at an extremely fast pace, everything changed. He visited the God Race and became one of the Angels under the Supreme God.
He was known as the God of War and the Angel of Carnage.
Era after era, epoch after epoch, he fought countless battles, but time had no effect on him.
His battle style remained the same—equally brutal, equally devastating, immutable.
He was very ambitious. He cultivated hard and became stronger and stronger, until he mastered the Law of Balance, one of the three supreme laws!
With this law and his sheer will, he cultivated and slowly became a Supreme! A Supreme is a title that cannot be taken unless one passes the Six Heavenly Trials. However, no one knew about it. Even his Supreme title was granted to him because of how strong he was compared to his peers, not because he passed those trials. He became so strong that no one knew his limits.
Thus, he became the third God of the God Realm—the Timeless Demon God.
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Two years more passed.
3rd April, 38th Year of Great Emperor Era
Many incidents happened during this time, but nothing major. However, the tension in the Western Continent had reached its peak.
Kong Xuan, the leader of the Shadow Sect, sent various Rank 6 Warriors to the Inheritance.
Among them was his personal disciple, Ding Wei. Ding Wei was originally an ordinary Warrior with tremendous mental fortitude and commitment to train continuously and consistently. He overcame his lack of talent with sheer hard work. At the same time, he was helped by his teacher whenever he faced an unsurpassable barrier.
When the journey of Li Gang began, he encountered Ding Wei during the Monarch Inheritance. Besides Wang Xueyao and Li Gang, Ding Wei possessed the highest mental fortitude.
Seeing his capabilities, Kong Xuan enlisted him among the top 10 most potent Warriors.
He relentlessly trained and achieved Rank 6 peak cultivation.
Kong Xuan also used various death warriors to spar with him in order to stimulate his potential through life-and-death battles. This not only enhanced his battle strength, but also improved his mentality amidst danger.
During this period, the Warriors found the hidden Soul Emperor's Inheritance.
However, they didn't enter immediately, but sent their own Warriors to thoroughly research the area.
After understanding the hidden mechanisms and confirming safety issues, they decided to prepare themselves before entering. It must be noted that in such Inheritances, it is quite common that they wouldn't open unless a certain number of Warriors entered together.
The Inheritance test wasn't something extraordinary. It was not even unique!
There are only two people in this Small World who know about the content of the test: Ji Changchen and Meng Xian.
Ji Changchen got his information from the System, and Meng Xian from his past life.
It is simple.
They all will be sent to different Isolated Spaces and have one-on-one battles with each other.
The top three will get the corresponding rewards.
What is the battle?
They would have to play three games of Go. However, here is the catch: both you and your opponent can read each other's mind! Whatever move you are going to play and for whatever reasons, your opponent will know in advance.
Ji Changchen even prepared the best plan to win. He was already aware why Ye Fan was able to win in the future he saw.
In that future, Li Gang faced a random opponent and understood what the Inheritance was about beforehand. He prepared accordingly and defeated every opponent one by one, before losing to Ye Fan.
Ye Fan possessed a special treasure, which he luckily found in this Inheritance. This treasure allowed him to hide his thoughts during the battle and defeat his opponents easily.
Ji Changchen thought confidently: "All I have to do is understand the Array's mechanism and become Li Gang's first opponent. I will then use the System's ability to hide my own thoughts and not let him realize I can read his memories while playing the game."
Did Ji Changchen not think of this strategy in the future he foresaw? Of course, he did. But why did he fail?
It was because, shockingly, he was defeated by an unknown, unnamed Warrior. He knew how he looked and even sent his people to search for him, but failed to locate him. So, he gave up, and then started planning the same strategy again. This time, he would consider that "unknown" person's involvement as well. Using the System to find loopholes, it wasn't impossible for him to manipulate matchups to a certain extent. He couldn't manipulate all matchups as he wished, but changing one or two was still possible.
Coming back to his strategy, Ji Changchen didn't think about using the System to "change" his own thoughts and give Li Gang false memories, just like the System does to Immortals.
The reason being, not only would it allow Li Gang to discover the fact that they could read each other's memories, he could also discover Ji Changchen's thoughts were wrong in the very first game, partially giving away his advantage. He had no intention of giving Li Gang slightest chance of victory.
He intended to eliminate Li Gang in the very first battle and make sure his future journey was smooth, since he would no longer have any competition.
There was an implicit understanding between all Warriors. They would enter the Competition tomorrow morning as the first ray of light appeared!
During this time, Meng Xian, Ye Fan, and Wang Xiaoyan's friendship also grew distant. This was all due to Ji Changchen's seed of distrust planted in their hearts.
Long ago, Ji Changchen had said: "Some people fight to bury their past, while others... fight to bury the truth."
This had planted a seed of doubt in their hearts, which made Meng Xian entirely helpless. He couldn't resolve it no matter how he wished, because it was said at the moment when their subconscious attention was at its peak. There are certain moments when words said to you get imprinted in your memory, and no matter how much time passes, you can't forget them.
Wang Xiaoyan and Ye Fan, both being Rank 6 Warriors, weren't stupid. They gradually understood that Meng Xian was trying to defend Li Gang for some reason. They also realized he had his own agenda for using them.
At this time, Li Gang also had a guest.
It was none other than Wang Xiaoyan.
He looked at the young woman and asked lightly, "Why are you here?"
She had immense hatred for him, but she still came just to hand over something.
She gave him the letter and said softly, "This was the letter elder sister left for you."
Li Gang glanced at the letter and nodded.
Wang Xiaoyan didn't speak anymore and left.
He looked at the letter and opened it. As soon as he read it, he felt a strange premonition in his heart. There was just a single sentence, but it was enough to make Li Gang serious:
"BEWARE OF ELEMENTAL EMPEROR!"