The secret technique laid upon the Time–Space Corridor was exquisitely constructed.
Even for an ordinary Universe Lord, dismantling it would require patience, repeated deductions, and a fair amount of trial and error. Forcefully breaking through was possible, but doing so would inevitably disturb the structure of the corridor and alert the one who had arranged it.
Bai Yue had no intention of doing that.
With his current attainments in time–space fusion laws, even this avatar alone was sufficient. The moment his perception brushed against the secret technique, its structure unfolded clearly in his mind—layer upon layer of spatial anchoring, time-delay folds, and misdirection nodes designed to trap intruders in endless loops.
It was clever.
But not clever enough.
Without using violence, Bai Yue calmly derived a complete traversal scheme. His law comprehension was already high enough to allow him to slip through the corridor while leaving the original structure entirely intact, as if no one had ever passed through at all.
After finalizing the path in his mind, he stepped out from the sea of flames and entered the region covered by the secret technique.
With each step he took, the surrounding spatial nodes subtly shifted. He neither rushed nor hesitated, constantly adjusting minute spatial coordinates to ensure he was always walking along the single correct path.
From the outside, his movements appeared erratic—advancing, retreating, turning sharply at odd angles—but in reality, every step followed a precise law trajectory.
After several breaths, his figure vanished completely from Burning Breath Valley.
Bai Yue emerged within a multicolored passage.
Time and space overlapped here in layers, flowing like ribbons of light. He flew forward cautiously, traversing tens of millions of kilometers within the corridor before finally approaching its end.
From afar, the air ahead visibly twisted, space folding inward as if something were breathing on the other side.
Just as Bai Yue crossed the final threshold—
Buzz.
A spatial vortex nearly ten thousand kilometers in diameter erupted without warning, sealing him at its center. The compressive force was immense, like a fragile fishing boat caught in the heart of a cosmic hurricane.
For most beings, this would have meant certain confinement.
Bai Yue remained calm.
"Break."
His voice was steady.
The vortex, isolated from the outside world and immune to teleportation, was forcibly smoothed flat. Complex spatial layers were peeled apart one by one until the violent turbulence vanished, revealing its true form.
A natural wormhole.
Bai Yue's eyes narrowed slightly.
"A wormhole… here?"
Wormholes were not rare in the vast universe, but encountering one within a secret realm—especially at the end of the Time–Space Corridor—was unexpected.
Without hesitation, Bai Yue stepped forward.
Two seconds later, he emerged from the other side.
He paused briefly, surprised by how short the passage had been.
"This is still within the secret realm," he confirmed after locating himself through the Virtual Universe. "But it feels… sealed."
The land around him stretched endlessly, blanketed in multicolored flowers, grasses, and towering trees. The air carried a faint fragrance, calm and refreshing.
In the distance, a mountain range blocked his line of sight.
Yet the law fluctuations—strange, profound, unmistakable—were clearly emanating from beyond those mountains.
Above, the sky was covered by thick gray currents. Spatial fluctuations were completely isolated; Bai Yue could neither sense the outside nor project awareness beyond that layer.
After a few steps, he arrived atop the highest peak of the mountain range.
His gaze sharpened.
Beyond the mountains lay a vast basin. At its center rested a lake more than ten million kilometers wide, and above that lake hovered a mountain-shaped island, suspended unnaturally in midair.
The island was roughly one hundred thousand kilometers tall—tiny compared to the lake beneath it, yet unmistakably the core of this place.
Time and space twisted violently around it. Blind flight would make approaching it virtually impossible.
To Bai Yue, however, this was merely a matter of calculation.
He mapped the safest route instantly. Where unavoidable distortions existed, he directly unraveled them, forcibly constructing a stable passage through chaotic space.
Moments later, he set foot upon the floating island.
He flew directly toward the base of the mountain peak.
As his Chaos Domain swept across it, Bai Yue detected 10,081 caves, each only a few dozen meters tall—utterly insignificant against a mountain tens of thousands of kilometers high.
He selected the cave with the densest law aura and entered without hesitation.
After traveling several thousand kilometers inside, he reached the mountain's heart.
The interior was hollow.
At its center lay a vast pool—yet not one pool, but eight.
Each pool shimmered with a distinct color and radiated a unique aura: blazing fire, razor-sharp metal, surging lightning, annihilating wind, and more.
Above the pools, countless spatial cracks flickered in and out of existence. Time itself was distorted—sometimes accelerating, sometimes slowing—forming a chaotic yet strangely harmonious rhythm.
Together, the distorted time and fractured space resembled a beating heart.
At the core of this chaos hovered a spherical crystal entwined with gray airflow.
It possessed 10,081 facets, each reflecting shifting hues of light. Fire, lightning, wood, water, metal—all flowed across its surface in constant transformation.
The "pools" were not water at all.
They were eight time–space conduits, directly connected to the universe origin, continuously drawing in the power of the eight lower laws to nurture a single treasure.
This was the legendary—
The Universe Heart
A naturally born origin-type treasure.
It could dramatically accelerate divine body recovery and serve as an unparalleled material for refining peak-level origin treasures.
Such an environment could only form after an unimaginably long span of time.
When first born, the Universe Heart appeared as a spherical crystal with 10,081 facets. During maturation, secret patterns of the ten great origin laws gradually emerged upon its surface.
Only once fully solidified would the surrounding time–space chaos subside, marking its true completion.
This process could not be interrupted.
If disrupted midway, the Universe Heart would be permanently flawed.
And the one before Bai Yue's eyes—
Was at the final stage.
At the earliest, it could mature in the next instant. At the latest, within ten years.
Bai Yue slowly lifted his gaze.
"Aren't you coming out?" he said calmly.
"Our so-called Genesis God."
An invisible fluctuation passed through the mountain's core.
It did not disturb the chaotic time–space at all, yet reached Bai Yue's ears instantly.
"Greetings, stranger."
The voice was ancient.
A majestic figure stepped out from the opposite cavern.
He wore archaic robes. His exposed body resembled crystal, shimmering faintly. His head was bald, smooth, and dominated by a single enormous eye that fixed itself upon Bai Yue.
There was no doubt.
This was Arceus.
"You are not from the Nebula World," Arceus said calmly.
"Oh?" Bai Yue smiled faintly. "And how can you tell?"
Arceus did not answer. His gaze shifted to the Universe Heart below.
"I have waited countless ages for this treasure. It is nearly complete. If you do not compete for it, I will treat you as a guest—and ask you to leave afterward."
It was a test.
Bai Yue laughed softly.
"A naturally formed treasure belongs to the fated. You waited endlessly without success. I arrive just as it nears completion. Wouldn't you call that fate?"
Arceus's eye darkened.
"Then we cannot part peacefully. Still… I do not wish to disrupt the final formation. Let us settle this after it completes."
"Very well," Bai Yue agreed without hesitation.
Yet inwardly, he felt unease.
Arceus was too calm.
If Bai Yue himself had guarded a treasure for ages only for an intruder to appear at the final moment, he would have struck without hesitation.
This patience meant only one thing.
Arceus was absolutely confident.
Confident that once the Universe Heart formed, everything would be under his control.
Bai Yue reexamined the surroundings carefully.
Nothing here seemed capable of threatening him.
Which made Arceus's confidence all the more troubling.
Still, Bai Yue chose to wait.
If force was needed—he would simply break everything with strength.
Time passed.
Outside, Universe Exalts continued harvesting the Nebula World. Treasures appeared in abundance as the secret realm matured.
By the third year, the first Universe Exalt fell.
It would not be the last.
The lesson sobered everyone.
Exploration slowed. Caution replaced recklessness.
Within the mountain, Bai Yue and Arceus waited in silence.
One waited to harvest.
The other waited to seize.
And at the heart of it all, the Universe Heart pulsed steadily—
closer and closer to completion.