At present, Theresia wanted to see whether he could truly use the complete Wind Laws to touch the spatial elements.
Seeing Theresia like this, Locke remained silent.
Although becoming a Paragon was the prerequisite for comprehending Laws above the elemental Laws or Edicts, that didn't mean that simply becoming a Paragon guaranteed one could comprehend higher-level Laws.
Among the countless material planes, there were many people with elemental or Edict affinity, but how many ultimately absorbed elemental or Edictal power and refined it into their own magical power or battle-qi?
Among those who cultivated magical power or battle-qi and reached the Saint-level, beginning to touch the Laws, how many were there?
Reaching the Paragon realm merely granted one the qualifications to come into contact with the Spatial Laws.
Whether one could ultimately absorb spatial elements and comprehend the Spatial Laws remained an unknown.
"My apologies, Lord Locke."
After a long while, Theresia opened his eyes and shook his head.
"I tried, but I couldn't sense anything of a higher level."
"Hahaha, isn't that only natural?"
Hearing Theresia's words, Locke laughed.
If the Spatial Laws were so easy to comprehend, then after more than a thousand kalpas, those later Paragons wouldn't have made no progress whatsoever.
Locke simply didn't believe that those who had reached the end of the path of Laws and Edicts wouldn't have tried to pioneer new cultivation methods to extend their roads further.
Of course, trying to create a new cultivation path without any direction was unimaginably difficult.
Even now, though Locke had already told Theresia that complete Wind Laws were the foundation for comprehending the Spatial Laws, it would still be extraordinarily difficult for Theresia to come into contact with them.
Within the Coiling Dragon Universe, both the Temporal Laws and the Spatial Laws had been concealed by Hongmeng. Without using certain special methods, how could anyone possibly come into contact with them?
Just as when Locke himself had cultivated the Spatial Laws, he had needed the blood essence of a divine beast possessing an innate spatial ability as a catalyst before he could touch the Spatial Laws.
Only because Locke's original body had become the spatial divine beast Dijiang, raising his affinity with the Spatial Laws to a very high level and bypassing Hongmeng's concealment, had he been able to come into contact with and cultivate the Spatial Laws.
Theresia didn't even possess the blood essence of a divine beast connected to the Spatial Laws. How could he possibly come into contact with them?
"Theresia, I have already told you everything I should tell you."
"As for whether you can ultimately comprehend the Spatial Laws and keep pace with me, that depends on your own fortune."
Telling Theresia about the Spatial Laws was Locke's repayment for the complete Wind Paragon Laws that Theresia had brought him.
As for anything more, Locke had no intention of saying further.
What he wanted were companions capable of solving the problem of the road ahead in cultivation, not juniors who needed his constant care and guidance.
Hadn't Locke refrained from telling Death Chief Sovereign Lilia, even after she had become a Paragon of the Death Edicts, that the higher Laws above the Death Edicts might be concealed by Hongmeng in the same manner as the Temporal and Spatial Laws?
On one hand, the concealment of the Temporal and Spatial Laws within the Coiling Dragon Universe was a decision personally made by Hongmeng. Since no one else knew about it, why would Locke know?
On the other hand, cultivating higher Laws was vastly more difficult than cultivating lower Laws.
If they wished to attain greater achievements, these "seekers of the Dao" had to possess independent ways of thinking.
If they merely followed Locke's path step by step, then in Locke's eyes, their value would become negligible.
"Yes, Lord Locke."
After respectfully thanking Locke, Theresia flew toward the Wind Divine Plane.
Now that he had obtained the method of cultivation beyond the Paragon realm from Lord Locke, his heart was finally at ease.
Beyond the Paragon realm, there was still a road ahead!
Lord Locke had already pointed out the direction of his next stage of cultivation. What remained was merely a matter of when he would sense the "Spatial" Laws.
Before that, he would first return to the Wind Divine Plane and properly inquire about matters concerning the Sovereigns from the other Sovereigns.
This time, when he tore open the space of the Wind Divine Plane, no Sovereign reacted.
As a Wind Sovereign himself, Theresia returning to the Wind Divine Plane was no different from returning home and would not be regarded as a provocation toward Wind Chief Sovereign Bayer.
As for Bayer, although he paid some attention to Theresia, it wasn't much.
Perhaps in the eyes of others, Wind Paragon Theresia was an extraordinary figure.
But to Bayer, no matter how strong Theresia was, he was merely someone with Intermediate Sovereign-level strength.
Anything that couldn't threaten him was merely an ant in Bayer's eyes.
In truth, although Bayer was mocked by the Sovereigns as the "Weakest Chief Sovereign," that didn't mean he was actually the weakest among the elemental Chief Sovereigns.
The other elemental Chief Sovereigns simply looked down upon him because of some things he had done and used that title to ridicule him.
Including Theresia, there were now five Sovereigns in the Wind Divine Plane.
Therefore, Theresia easily obtained the authority to govern a continent.
This continent had formerly belonged to the late Lesser Sovereign Qingya. After Qingya's death, the Qingya Army had been reduced to only a few survivors.
If no Sovereign established contact with the Qingya Army again, then within ten million years, the Qingya Army would likely disappear into the history of the Wind Divine Plane just like the other thirty-odd Sovereign Armies.
Fortunately for them, the territory Theresia chose happened to be the Qingya Continent.
After accepting the loyalty of the remaining Qingya Army soldiers, Theresia had no intention of changing either the continent's name or the army's name.
He merely left behind some Sovereign's Might, instructed the commander to rebuild the Qingya Army, and paid no further attention to either the Qingya Army or Qingya Continent.
After entering the former Qingya Sovereign's palace, Theresia sat upon the throne and spread out his divine sense.
As a newly ascended Sovereign, he desperately wished to understand the rules among Sovereigns.
He didn't want to experience what had happened today a second time.
Facing Theresia's inquiries, the Sovereigns of the Wind Divine Plane—aside from Wind Chief Sovereign Bayer—were all very willing to answer his questions.
After all, although Theresia had refined only a wind-element Lesser Sovereign spark, because he was a Wind Paragon, he had already escaped the bottom rung of the Sovereign hierarchy and advanced to the level of Intermediate Sovereigns.
At present, within the Wind Divine Plane, only Wind Chief Sovereign Bayer was stronger than him.
As for the other wind-element Intermediate Sovereign, at most he was only comparable to Theresia.
Without actually fighting, no one knew what hidden trump cards the other side might possess.
Very quickly, after explanations from two Lesser Sovereigns and one Intermediate Sovereign, Theresia gained a clear understanding of the current Sovereign situation.
After Chief Sovereign of Fate Orloff had spread the news that refining Sovereign sparks with divine clones could increase one's strength, all Sovereigns had become fearful, worried that they themselves would become prey for other Sovereigns who possessed divine clones.
At that critical moment, Death Chief Sovereign stepped forward with overwhelming force, killed Hu Erlei—the Lightning Chief Sovereign who had already ambushed and slain a Greater Sovereign—and established the Sovereign Pact.
The Sovereign Pact classified Sovereigns according to strength and prohibited higher-ranked Sovereigns from attacking lower-ranked Sovereigns without cause.
Anyone who violated it would certainly be hunted down by the Death Chief Sovereign.
This decision received the support of the other three Edict Chief Sovereigns.
It was also during that Sovereign Assembly that everyone learned how terrifying complete mastery over an entire set of Laws truly was.
Each of the Four Edict Chief Sovereigns possessed strength thousands of times greater than ordinary elemental Chief Sovereigns.
From that point onward, the era of the Four Edict Chief Sovereigns began.
As for Chief Sovereign Locke...
Opening his eyes, Theresia could not conceal the shock within them.
Before becoming a Sovereign—no, even before becoming a Paragon—Theresia had already known that Lord Locke was a Water Paragon Sovereign.
After becoming a Sovereign, from the attitudes of the other Sovereigns toward Lord Locke, Theresia had learned that Lord Locke's status was faintly half a step above even the Edict Chief Sovereigns.
Only now, after obtaining information from the other Sovereigns, did Theresia finally understand just how heaven-defying Chief Sovereign Locke truly was.
Not only was Chief Sovereign Locke a Water Paragon, he was also a Paragon of the Edicts of Fate.
Furthermore, what shocked Theresia even more was that Chief Sovereign Locke had refined only a Fate-element Lesser Sovereign spark, yet through the power of fusing different Laws and Edicts, he had forcefully stepped into the level of the Edict Chief Sovereigns.
Moreover, judging from his two battles against Chief Sovereign of Fate Orloff and Chief Sovereign of Destruction Wordred, Lord Locke's strength had already surpassed the Edict Chief Sovereigns by far.
Among the current Sovereigns, perhaps only the Death Chief Sovereign could contend against Lord Locke's Fate Sovereign clone.
As for Lord Locke's Water divine clone, although it had not refined a Sovereign spark, it had still entered the ranks of the elemental Chief Sovereigns through sheer strength.
The three Wind Sovereigns even speculated that Lord Locke's Water divine clone might already possess power comparable to the Edict Chief Sovereigns.
After all, when Lord Locke redeemed a captain from within Lesser Sovereign Luoxue's Sovereign Army, he had displayed a terrifying technique capable of increasing his power by a hundredfold.
The information provided by these three Wind Sovereigns had already shocked Theresia beyond words.
But having only recently parted from Lord Locke's Fate Sovereign clone, Theresia clearly knew that Lord Locke's true strength was far more terrifying than what those three Wind Sovereigns had described.
Everything they had spoken of concerned only the power resulting from Lord Locke's fusion of different Laws and Edicts.
(End of Chapter)
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