"It can't be mistaken. This is Lord Locke's aura!"
When the Sovereigns sensed the aura emanating from those enormous hands formed from the spatial turbulence, every one of them was utterly astonished.
Ever since Locke had entered the Elemental Planes to comprehend the fundamental nature of the universe, he had not appeared before the other Sovereigns for several hundred calendrical eras.
Everyone knew that Chief Sovereign Locke had entered seclusion, and they all envied him.
To still have a path forward...
To still be able to continue cultivating and growing stronger...
What an enviable thing that was.
"Just how powerful is Lord Locke now?"
This was the second thought that crossed everyone's mind after sensing those colossal spatial hands.
"So this... is Lord Locke?"
From the exchanges between the Sovereigns' divine senses, Beirut also learned the identity of the owner of the gigantic hands cradling the Yulan Plane.
Simply from the aura radiating from those hands, Beirut could sense how terrifying Lord Locke was.
Previously, after hearing Bloodridge Sovereign Pash say that Lord Locke could directly pull a Sovereign out of a Material Plane, Beirut hadn't had any concrete understanding of what that meant.
Now...
The appearance of these giant hands had given him a vivid picture.
However...
Beirut was also puzzled.
No...
Not just Beirut.
Every Sovereign paying attention to the scene was puzzled.
What exactly was Lord Locke trying to do?
Although none of them knew what Lord Locke intended to accomplish, one thing was certain.
Since both of Lord Locke's hands had appeared around the Yulan Plane...
He was undoubtedly about to do something to the Yulan Continent.
One Sovereign cautiously extended his divine sense into the Yulan Plane and found that he wasn't expelled by Chief Sovereign Locke.
The next moment...
More than sixty Sovereigns simultaneously spread their divine senses into the Yulan Plane.
They also wished to judge just how much Chief Sovereign Locke's strength had increased through whatever he was about to do to the Yulan Continent.
Although...
No matter how powerful Chief Sovereign Locke had become, it had nothing to do with them.
After all...
Even if his strength hadn't improved much compared to over a thousand calendrical eras ago...
That was still a realm none of them could ever hope to reach.
However...
If Chief Sovereign Locke had truly transcended the level of a Sovereign and reached the realm of an Overgod...
Then they, as Sovereigns, would also share in that glory.
It was much like when Chief Sovereign Locke had first become a Sovereign.
Back then, the Sovereign spark he refined had merely been a Lesser Sovereign spark of Fate.
Yet he had stepped directly into the realm of a Law Chief Sovereign.
That meant that even without a Sovereign spark...
Lord Locke had already reached the level of a Sovereign while still only a Deity.
If news like that had spread among ordinary Deities...
It would have ignited tremendous passion within all of them, elevating Locke to the highest pedestal.
Because...
Locke had shown them that Sovereigns were not truly unreachable.
The reason they couldn't rival Sovereigns...
Was simply because they themselves were too weak.
Now...
After several hundred calendrical eras of seclusion...
Had Chief Sovereign Locke finally broken through the barrier separating Sovereigns from Overgods...
And become a Sovereign capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with the Overgods?
Beneath the observation of the gathered Sovereigns...
Locke finally began.
...
Within the Yulan Continent...
Ever since news that the Four Divine Beast Sovereigns had fallen there spread throughout the Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Planes...
The interplanar teleportation array had never enjoyed a single day's rest.
Almost every few moments...
Several more experts from the Divine Planes and Higher Planes would arrive upon the Yulan Continent.
Many of these experts already bore grudges against one another.
Ordinarily...
Because they were separated by vast distances, neither side could be bothered with the other.
But now...
With everyone gathered within the same Material Plane...
Even the slightest friction...
Was enough to force a battle, whether to establish dominance or simply to preserve one's reputation.
Experts at the Asura Prefect level were considered among the absolute strongest beings even within the Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Planes.
In a Divine Plane or Higher Plane...
Their attacks could tear open spatial rifts stretching over a hundred meters.
The spatial stability of a Material Plane, however...
Was over a hundred times weaker than that of a Divine Plane.
Thus...
Whenever these Asura Prefect-level experts fought...
Every casual strike produced spatial rifts extending for more than ten thousand meters.
To experts of their level...
Spatial rifts within a Material Plane posed little danger as long as the spatial turbulence wasn't drawn in.
Even allowing those rifts to slash across their bodies...
Wouldn't leave the slightest injury.
But...
To the native inhabitants of the Yulan Continent...
This was an apocalyptic catastrophe.
If the battles remained in the sky, things were still manageable.
But once fighting broke out upon the ground...
It truly became a world-shattering disaster.
Countless living beings either died from the shockwaves...
Were dragged into the spatial rifts by their tremendous suction...
Or were buried beneath shattered landmasses.
In only a hundred short years...
The continent of the Yulan Plane had been smashed into five major landmasses and several hundred smaller fragments.
Soon afterward...
Two of those five major landmasses were completely destroyed.
Most of the remaining three were likewise shattered.
The countless battles fought throughout the Yulan Continent left behind innumerable regions where the Laws had fallen into disorder.
Even Beirut found himself unable to restore them all.
He could only temporarily seal those regions, turning them into forbidden lands and forbidding ordinary creatures from approaching them.
Then...
One day...
The Deities still engaged in battle suddenly noticed something strange about the space within the Yulan Continent.
Whenever they unleashed power exceeding that of a Highgod...
They felt themselves being drawn into another space.
Within that space...
They could still clearly see everything happening on the Yulan Continent.
They could continue fighting normally.
However...
The aftershocks of their battles could no longer cause even the slightest harm to the land or living beings of the Yulan Continent.
Likewise...
The inhabitants of the Yulan Continent could also witness the battles taking place within that separate space.
As for those experts who had previously destroyed their homeland...
The surviving natives of the Yulan Continent each responded in their own way.
Some regarded these Deities as true gods...
Offering up their faith in hopes of receiving divine protection.
Others regarded them as devils...
Swearing to cultivate diligently so that one day they could slay those devils and seek justice for the countless innocent lives that had perished.
The natives of the Yulan Continent had no idea what had happened.
Even the experts who had arrived from the Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Planes merely guessed that a Sovereign had intervened after sensing the changes to the plane's space.
At the same time...
Their reverence toward the power of Sovereigns deepened even further.
Because...
No matter how vividly they stretched their imaginations...
None of them had ever conceived that Sovereigns could possess such incredible abilities.
If these Deities merely revered the abilities of the Sovereigns...
Then what Locke had done to the Yulan Continent completely stunned every Sovereign whose divine sense was observing the plane.
The Deities didn't truly understand how powerful Sovereigns were.
Thus...
They naturally believed such feats were perfectly normal for Sovereigns.
But...
The Sovereigns knew the limits of their own power.
Precisely because they knew those limits...
They were even more shocked by the power Chief Sovereign Locke had displayed.
Chief Sovereign Locke...
Had actually constructed an entirely new layer of space within the Yulan Plane.
Moreover...
The stability of this newly created space vastly surpassed that of the Divine Planes.
Even the Higher Planes possessed slightly weaker spatial stability.
The Seven Divine Planes had been created jointly by the seven Sovereigns of each elemental affinity through the combined power of their Sovereign sparks.
The Four Higher Planes, meanwhile...
Had each been independently opened by one of the Four Overgods.
Now...
Chief Sovereign Locke had actually created, within a Material Plane, a separate space whose stability was in no way inferior to that of a Higher Plane.
Every Sovereign understood exactly what that represented.
Aside from gathering all seven Sovereigns of a single element to create a Divine Plane...
Each Sovereign had also independently created a personal Divine Plane under the guidance of their Sovereign spark.
However...
A Divine Plane created by a single Sovereign was actually slightly inferior even to a Material Plane.
Other than containing a higher concentration of its corresponding elemental essence...
Its spatial stability wasn't even comparable to that of a Material Plane.
Because of this...
Every Sovereign understood exactly what it meant to create a space with stability comparable to a Higher Plane.
It meant...
That if Chief Sovereign Locke gathered enough Sovereign power...
He could completely create an entirely new Higher Plane.
Only an Overgod...
Could create a Higher Plane.
In a sense...
Within the hearts of the assembled Sovereigns...
Chief Sovereign Locke had already surpassed the level of a Sovereign...
And stepped into the realm of an Overgod.
Although every Sovereign had already anticipated something after Chief Sovereign Locke reappeared...
When they truly realized that Locke now stood on equal footing with the Overgods...
Every one of them fell silent.
Was this...
A dream becoming reality?
...
"Tsk. These Sovereigns really are inexperienced."
"It's only an Overgod."
"Is it really worth being so shocked?"
Within Mount Nether, Veer naturally sensed the divine senses of the Sovereigns focused upon the Yulan Plane.
Likewise...
After Grandpa Locke created that separate space...
The shock emanating from the Sovereigns' divine senses had practically become tangible.
At this moment...
Although Veer was merely a Lesser Sovereign...
He nevertheless displayed a sense of superiority that even surpassed that of the Rule Chief Sovereigns.
He had already known, back when he became a Paragon, that Grandpa wasn't merely someone who had completely comprehended the Space Laws.
He had already become a "God King" standing on the same level as the Overgods.
He also knew that Father had advanced his own bloodline into the supreme space divine beast, Emperor Jiang.
By relying solely upon the power of his bloodline...
Father had stepped into the realm of the Overgods.
Grandpa's physical body...
Was no weaker than Grandma's Overgod artifact.
And the reason they had all successfully comprehended the Space Laws and become "Heavenly Gods"...
Was inseparable from Grandpa's supreme divine beast blood essence.
Even though he himself was Grandpa's direct third-generation descendant...
He still couldn't describe the power contained within Grandpa's blood essence.
In any case...
Whether it was the spatial divine power he personally condensed...
Or the Sovereign power he exchanged from other Sovereigns...
Before Grandpa's blood essence...
Their might was as insignificant as a toddler who couldn't yet walk standing before a three-meter-tall giant.
Hearing Veer's words...
Loran rolled his eyes.
Still...
He had to admit that Veer's words carried considerable style.
Loran looked toward the summit of Mount Nether, and a trace of longing flashed through his eyes.
Ever since he was born...
He had always admired his father, Locke.
Even after venturing out to temper himself...
He had never once believed he had surpassed his father.
It seemed that...
The stronger he became...
The more powerful beings he encountered...
The more clearly he realized that Father was still waiting farther ahead.
As Father Locke's only child...
Loran was the person closest to his father.
The same dual-soul mutation.
One elemental Law.
One Supreme Edict.
Father cultivated Water and Fate.
Loran cultivated Water and Death.
Yet...
Father Locke had become a dual-system Paragon.
More than a thousand calendrical eras ago, his fused Laws had already achieved complete fusion.
His strength had long since surpassed anything that the title of "Sovereign" could possibly describe.
Even if Father had never discovered the Laws of Time or the Laws of Space...
Even if he had never obtained the Fate Sovereign spark...
He still would have stood at the very pinnacle of all Sovereigns.
But what about himself?
Only his Water Laws had reached the Paragon level.
Although his Death Edicts had reached ninety-nine percent completion...
That final one-tenth of one percent remained forever beyond his grasp.
As for his dual-system fused Laws...
He hadn't even fully fused the two Water Profound Mysteries with the Death Edicts.
Fortunately...
Loran possessed some talent in cultivating the "Water-Space" fusion of Laws and Profound Mysteries.
That alone had elevated his strength into the ranks of the Law Chief Sovereigns, making him the third strongest member of Locke's lineage.
The more his cultivation stagnated...
The more deeply Loran understood the enormous gap separating himself from Father.
From Mother, the Death Chief Sovereign...
Loran knew that Father Locke had originally been nothing more than an ordinary creature from a Material Plane.
Yet...
By relying solely upon his astonishing talent...
He had become a dual-system Paragon.
Afterward...
He had embarked upon the path of transforming his own bloodline, successfully creating the bloodline of the space divine beast Emperor Jiang and earning the recognition of the universal Laws of the Magic Universe.
More than a thousand calendrical eras ago...
Loran had already known that Father had advanced the Emperor Jiang bloodline into the level of a supreme divine beast of Space...
One capable of rivaling an Overgod.
As for Father's current realm...
Loran didn't even dare imagine it.
"Creating an entirely new divine beast bloodline..."
Watching Father effortlessly manipulate everything around the Yulan Plane from Mount Nether in the Netherworld...
A thought gradually arose in Loran's heart.
Since his cultivation of the Laws and Profound Mysteries had reached a bottleneck...
Perhaps...
He could follow Father's example...
And forge his own path through the power of bloodlines.
...
"Beirut actually hasn't used the Four Divine Beast Sovereigns' blood essence to create living beings?"
Since Locke had already noticed the problems facing the Yulan Continent and had personally created a new layer of space within the Yulan Plane...
He naturally also discovered that, up until this point...
Beirut had never once used the Four Divine Beast Sovereigns' blood essence to create new life.
(End of Chapter)
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