The middle-tier world seemed laughably small before the giant dragon and the black sun.
Sensing the immense power of the two supreme beings, the worlds hidden in the void concealed themselves even deeper.
As the dragon roared, its massive maw and claws tore ferociously at the sun burning with black fire.
With a sizzling sound, scales and flesh scattered in the void!
The seemingly ferocious dragon was, at this moment, subtly at a disadvantage.
A drop of dragon blood, tinged with black, plummeted directly into a hidden middle-tier world.
From within the black sun, a detached voice slowly spoke:
"Cause and effect reversed! The Great Lord's everything was long ago decided!"
To purify the residual blackness on the dragon blood, that world exhausted nearly all its Great Origin power, forcing it into slumber.
Meanwhile, a weeping ape-like youth began his flight from the desolate land where his parents had been devoured by primal beasts.
The black sun and the golden dragon continued their deadly battle. Under the influence of these two supreme existences, space and time constantly collapsed and reshaped. This was the void world of countless years ago! xxs1
And the world struck by the dragon blood was once the primeval wilderness.
Just as Yuan Shi, transformed into the black sun, had said, the cause of all tragedy in this world was merely the beginning he had written for his own birth after achieving the status of Great Lord!
Causality was but the plaything of the Great Lord!
Chen Luo, transformed into the golden dragon, remained silent, only increasing the ferocity of his attacks on the black sun's power!
Yuan Shi mockingly looked at Chen Luo:
"My name is Yuan Shi, I wield eternity! Time is my authority!"
"When you were dragged into the past by me! The cause of your defeat was already sealed!"
The golden dragon and the black sun were merely manifestations of Chen Luo and Yuan Shi's avatars, their Dharma forms.
Upon stepping into the river of time within the void, their battle had transformed into a clash of concepts.
From the ancient era of Taigu, the warring black sun and golden dragon, to every subsequent era,
The figures of the youth and the Taoist manifested as immortals and demons, as civilizations, or as celestial bodies.
Collisions, wars, destruction!
Yet, after each battle, the wounds on Chen Luo's body grew more numerous!
That distant primeval world, under the onslaught of the two existences, gradually began to warp.
The river of time within it was further torn apart by an unknown power.
Yuan Shi's authority was time itself; he repeatedly dragged Chen Luo into the ancient past.
Here, he strengthened the causality of his own birth again and again,
And corrected every possible outcome that could have suppressed Chen Luo!
Reloading? No! He was altering history! Altering time! Deciding his own future!
The black sun grew ever more fierce!
From that distant Taigu, it seemed poised to shine all the way to the distant future!
This was Yuan Shi's ambition: eternal existence!
"Haha! Eternal like me! You are too weak!!!"
"Kid, I can feel it, there is a deeper void, and in it, many eyes are watching us!"
"Come! Let me use your blood to establish my position in eternity!!!"
The black sun exploded with a roar, and a young Taoist wielding a black sword pierced through time, slashing at the golden dragon with a single strike!
"Roar!!!"
Amidst the golden dragon's enraged roar and the Taoist's wild laughter, the dragon's head was severed with a mighty blow!
Watching the golden dragon being gradually consumed by the void, the Taoist felt an immense joy and freedom surge within him!
The eternity he had pursued for countless years was finally achieved today!
All the sacrifices, all the efforts, had finally paid off!!
"Haha! My Dao is achieved!!!"
And the gazes cast from the depths of the void also watched the unfolding outcome with astonishment:
"Interesting. This Great Lord, appearing as a Taoist, wields the authority of time. Upon liberating his true name, he can suppress the eternal nature of a Great Lord."
The void could be rewritten at the whim of a Great Lord, especially the more fundamental layers of the void.
However, this involved the issue of interference between entities of the same tier.
Theoretically, if a Great Lord wished to rewrite a fact that involved another Great Lord, it would become extremely difficult, even impossible to establish.
But Yuan Shi, after liberating the true name of time, was able to draw Chen Luo, another Great Lord, into his temporal cycle.
Upon realizing this, the Great Lords' eyes could not help but show a trace of apprehension:
"To think we would witness the fall of a Great Lord today. However, it is only temporary. Who knows when that loser will be reborn."
Great Lords, in a sense, possessed a conceptual immortality. Their true names were the basis of their indestructibility.
Even if completely annihilated, as long as the corresponding concept existed, there would always be a day of resurrection.
However, whether the resurrected Great Lord would still be themselves was another matter entirely.
"But why was that dragon killed so weakly? Did any of you discern its true name?"
The Great Lords, looking at the gradually dissipating golden dragon, furrowed their brows in thought and then shook their heads one after another:
"No. But this is a Void Dragon, isn't it? Dragon Nine, did you see anything?"
Great Lord Long Jiu looked disdainfully at the slain golden dragon: "I didn't see anything. Perhaps its authority was too weak. But to be killed so feebly right after its birth is a disgrace to our dragon race!"
Wa, with her human head and snake body, looked somewhat uncertainly at Zhulong: "Zhulong, I have a feeling something is not right. Did you discern anything?"
Zhulong, however, remained silent, his gaze fixed intently on the battlefield above the void.
But what he seemed to be watching was neither the dissipating golden dragon nor the triumphant Taoist.
Within the middle-tier void,
As time rippled, the phantom of the river of time slowly took shape between the two worlds, encircled by black and white.
This was not a small river of time within a world, but a grand river that traversed the entire middle-tier void.
Only Great Lords possessed the ability to manipulate the time within the void.
At this moment, as the river manifested,
A dissipating dragon corpse and a triumphant Taoist transitioned from ethereal to solid, revealing themselves.
"Haha! This is eternity! This is freedom!!"
"All sacrifices were worth it! After my Dao is achieved, I shall be the noblest existence in the world!!!"
The Taoist no longer looked at the dissipating dragon corpse he had casually grabbed below, devouring its Great Origin power.
Beings of the third tier were born from worlds, transcended worlds, and were constituted by the omnipotent Great Origin power.
Enjoying his spoils, Yuan Shi looked with malice towards the pure white world in the distance.
The Taoist Yuan Shi took a step forward, arriving outside Chen Luo's domain world. He looked at the slowly rotating world and sneered:
"This is another excellent source of sustenance!"
Yuan Shi reached out, intending to devour Chen Luo's world of attainment as well.
But as he reached out, he found a white barrier suddenly appearing before his eyes.
Yuan Shi was startled and instinctively unleashed his absolute domain, attempting to erode everything around him.
However, beneath the white barrier, he discovered that his absolute domain could not extend even an inch.
In his horror, Yuan Shi instinctively activated his authority.
"True Name Liberation! Time!!!"
But the time that should have obeyed him willingly had also lost its control.
This truly made Yuan Shi panic.
But in the next moment, a voice echoed from above Yuan Shi:
"I am Chen Luo! The one who wields the Infinite!"
Yuan Shi looked up in terror and saw, in the boundless void, a pure white humanoid figure seated immeasurably far.
And Yuan Shi, along with the two symmetrically encircling worlds, were merely spinning in his hand.
"True Name Liberation! Infinite!"