Chapter 2330: Dread
Chapter 2330: Dread
Whether they were big shots or insignificant lone cultivators, everyone felt the impact of the destruction of a Major realm, and felt some form of apprehension. A Major realm was deeply connected to the laws of the universe, and was the most stable, energy dense entity in the universe itself.
Not even Eclipse, and not even Dao Lords had access to as much energy as a Major realm, nor could they influence the laws of the universe on the same scale. Maybe if those eight beings above the Dao Lord realm weren’t constrained by the fact that the universe didn’t allow them to use their full power, they might have come close. Heck, they may even be equal to it, or even surpass it.
But they did not live in a ’what if’ situation, they lived in reality, and in reality, even those eight beings could not control such power.
A Major realm was hung in the Void, and due to its very nature, the Void was devoid of almost everything. It was an infinite void of darkness where time and space meant nothing, making it nearly impossible to traverse under ordinary circumstances, and even harder for any kind of physical force to travel from one point to another.
As soon as any kind of energy was introduced into the Void, it would be devoured and transformed into the most potent Chaos energy, which was only suitable for destruction.
Yet there was something else present in the Void as well - the universal laws. Not the laws of realms which ordinary immortals could easily control and manipulate. No, the Void mostly contained universal laws, which were the highest authority and most powerful laws in the universe.
It was like the eight ruling laws, but because of the sheer magnitude of them, even Celestials could not easily control them at their whim.
In this instance, though, that did not matter. While the physical blast from the destruction of a Major realm got lost in the Void, the tremor it caused in the laws of the universe traveled far and wide. An incomprehensible dread and sorrow filled all living beings across the universe, regardless of the level of their life or cultivation level.
A Dao Lord was just as insignificant in front of the death of a Major realm as a mortal, so they all felt it to the exact same extent. Fortunately, they only felt dread, and not something more serious, or all mortal life across the universe might have ceased to exist at that moment.
Most beings in the universe did not understand where such existential dread came from, and retreated to any safeholds they had. Economic activity ceased. Animals went into hibernation prematurely. Storms eased up, and even calamities dared not strike. Empires stopped their expansion, thieves stopped stealing, corruption stopped, but so did policing, patrolling and anything at all that was less than absolutely necessary.
Yet even that was merely the very first, instantaneous response from the universe. What followed it was entirely unexpected - at least for most. Some extremely learned scholars had been able to predict it, and even fewer who had lived from ancient times knew first hand what was to come.
With the laws of the universe as a conduit, the immense energy caused by the destruction of a Major realm traveled all across the universe, enriching it! The energy levels rose across the universe, even if only by a small amount in most places.
Moreover, the laws, instead of being strained by the burden, actually became stronger, firmer and more stable as the strain on the universe suddenly decreased! The strain on the universe was the very thing that allowed the universe to continue existing, but it was also what was limiting its operations.
The universe had existed for too long without ascending to the next phase, and so had created too many Major realms, and birthed too many Dao Lords, causing it to bear an immense strain the likes of which could not be fathomed by most.
In seconds following the destruction of a Major realm, the fallout from it had only just begun, but every major organisation in the universe was holding emergency meetings trying to figure out what it meant.
While all other things had ceased or slowed due to the destruction, the actions of Dao Lords became even more frantic after the initial shock. The war became more destructive, more chaotic, and the search for treasures within the Dream realm became even more frantic.
Whether it was due to the war, the Dream realm or the Gilded Hollow, nearly 99% of all Dao Lords in the universe had become active once more in some capacity, an event that hadn’t happened since the early days of the Enlightenment Age.
Within the conference rooms and meeting halls of the various organisations, they tried to dissect the purpose behind the destruction of a Major realm. It ranged from anywhere between harvesting rare treasures, accumulating countless souls for some heinous ritual, enhancing some forbidden Dao, and more.
One specific conclusion many of them reached, independent of each other, was that someone might be making an attempt at forcing the universe to evolve. Finding Eclipse and forcing her out of her realm was, ironically, more difficult than destroying a Major realm.
Thus, many began to theorise that if enough Major realms were destroyed in a short amount of time, the sudden reduction in Universal Strain could trigger a profound change in the universe. Combined with the strengthening feedback the laws received by the energy released from the destruction of a Mature realm, the universe might begin to transition into the next state even without Eclipse.
This was just a theory, as this was the kind of thing that could not actually be tested. Dao Lords understood laws better than anyone, but even they could not boast complete understanding of all the laws of the universe, and the complex ways in which they might respond to such a series of events. There were too many variables to account for.
This was the kind of nonsense not even a fiction writer would entertain as a real thought. Yet now they were all forced to consider that, among all their other theories, this too might be the goal of whoever plotted the destruction of that realm.
While these meetings were going on, and minutes passed, more and more information started to trickle in. Alongside the Mature realm, over two hundred Dao Lords had been caught in the unexpected blast, and all of them were believed to be dead.
This was confirmed by the massive shift in the rankings in the Cosmic Ascendance Spectrum!