Chapter 760: Chapter 758: The World is Declining
“`
Time flowed on.
Qin Changqing’s ascendancy created a brand-new situation for this era.
All remaining “Great Terrors” deeply concealed themselves.
They didn’t dare to even let a single thought peek through, let alone show their faces.
This era began to move towards prosperity.
In the blink of an eye, another ten billion years had passed.
On this day, the number of Saints in the Qin family, excluding him and the Ancient Emperor, had also broken through to more than ten.
On this day, someone within the Immortal World finally certified the Great Dao.
It was too difficult to go from Saint to Great Dao Saint.
The Ancient Emperor, once an Immortal Emperor, took more than a hundred million years to return to that status.
In her era, it had taken her tens of billions of years to become an Immortal Emperor.
The one who certified as a Great Dao Saint this time was still a woman of Qin Changqing’s.
She was Ling Yuyan, the first person Qin Changqing brought out from the Small Spirit Realm.
Ling Yuyan had surpassed everyone else.
After becoming a Saint, it became even harder to grow; who could certify the Great Dao depended on many factors.
Many Saints couldn’t certify the Great Dao throughout an entire era.
Ling Yuyan’s Sword Dao was indeed powerful; even during her Deifying stage, she could split the heavens with a single strike.
Even though she split the heavens of the Small Spirit Realm, it was enough to showcase her exceptional genius.
Otherwise, why would Qin Changqing choose to bring her out first?
“It’s becoming more and more monstrous.”
Within the Chaos Sea, a Great Terror of Immortal Emperor level sensed it but was powerless to do anything and could only hide deeper.
In the Devil Immortal Realm, Youyue finally became a Saint as well.
The whole world was thriving.
Qin Changqing’s footprints became even more distant.
One by one, worlds kept appearing in the Chaos Sea, and with the guidance of Qin Changqing, they grew stronger.
Unsurprisingly, the most outstanding women from these worlds all became Qin Changqing’s women.
His offspring were spread throughout the heavens.
Interactions between the various worlds in the entire Chaos Sea became more frequent.
Many worlds essentially had Teleportation Arrays leading to the Immortal World.
Of course, these Teleportation Arrays were generally too expensive for ordinary people to use due to the long distances involved.
Within the Chaos Sea, the footholds of the Immortals also became deeper.
Some regular Immortals even dared to venture into the Chaos Sea for exploration.
And so time went by, year after year, incessantly flowing by.
Soon, several billions of years had passed.
On this day, Qin Changqing once again stood before the World Tree.
After billions of years, this World Tree had fully grown.
The World Tree was so tall, so large, that it nurtured boundless worlds within it.
The most magnificent of these worlds was now comparable to an entire universe.
It could even support beings of Semi-Saint level.
The entire Chaos Tree continued to draw energy from the Chaos Sea unceasingly, growing ever larger.
Only the Chaos Tree could draw energy like this.
After a few more hundred million years, on this day, in the Divine Spirit World, the Goddess of Life finally became a Saint.
The Divine Spirit World had also become mighty enough to give birth to Saints.
If given time, the entire Divine Spirit World would continue to expand, catching up with the Immortal World might be impossible, but growing to match the Immortal World of several billion years ago was plausible.
Qin Changqing’s gaze drifted to the distance.
“If every world is comparable to the Immortal World, how would this era ever decline?” Qin Changqing murmured.
The transition of eras, if it were a replacement of worlds, the reason many Saints chose to become “Great Terrors” after the past era’s transition was probably because there were no other worlds left in the Chaos Sea.
Worlds were consumed to nothing, leaving only a sole survivor.
But if every world is comparable to the Immortal World, if one world withers, there’s still another world.
Although power is not so easily transferred, what if the cycle of another world is perfected? What if one is reincarnated into another world?
Considering the grand scheme of the entire Chaos Sea, of the Myriad Realms of the Heavens, such an era should indeed never wither.
If that were the case, even if the Immortal World declined, Qin Changqing could let his women and descendants enter other worlds.
Of course, this is not the best option.
During these hundred billion years, Qin Changqing had already been making multiple preparations.
He had already begun to create his own realm—not a common one, but an Eternal Realm.
The Eternal Realm, with his power as its source, would never wither so long as he lived.
This could provide a haven for those among Qin Changqing’s women and descendants who could not step into heaven.
Creating such a realm was not difficult; the real challenge lay in extracting the marks of his women and descendants from the Immortal World.
But for now, Qin Changqing was not in a hurry.
He would first let them grow.
If they really couldn’t improve and the world began to decay again, he’d consider it then.
“Decay has come.”
Several billion years later, on this day, the decay of the world arrived.
For cultivators or even ordinary Immortals, this decay would go unnoticed, being extremely gradual.
But Qin Changqing distinctly felt it.
It didn’t require a time scale of a hundred million years; even looking on the scale of ten million years,
a Spirit Domain saw a continuous decline in the number of cultivators who ascended.
It was a very smooth downward trend.
And if looked at from a time scale of a billion years, this decline became even more alarming.
The spiritual Qi of the entire world was also in continuous decline.
Although the current Immortal World now had four Great Dao Saints and nearly a hundred Saints,
the world’s origin was incredibly robust, but the whole world was decaying.
“Where does the problem lie?”
After observing for a billion years, Qin Changqing murmured softly,
“I don’t know.”
The answer from the Ancient Emperor was very simple.
“Sovereign, what’s going on?”
“Yes, the world’s origin has not dried up; in fact, it’s becoming increasingly robust. Yet, the entire world is in unceasing decay.”
In the Immortal World, all the Saints had gathered together.
Over the past hundred-plus billion years, thanks to the strengthening of the Immortal World, aside from the multitude of Saints born to the Qin family, many Saints had also emerged from the Immortals of the Immortal World itself.
The number of Saints native to the Immortal World had reached 15.
Every Saint was somewhat bewildered.
Besides them, the Demon Saints had also come. They were concerned as well because the decay affected them all together.
The Three Realms were an entirety.
But the other worlds were not decaying yet.
Worlds like the Divine Spirit World were still doing well and in their ascending phases.
The decay of the Three Realms was also quite strange.
From a layman’s understanding, the decline might be due to not enough spiritual Qi to sustain the abundant number of Immortals and Saints in the Three Realms—this wasn’t the case.
In fact, as the Three Realms prospered and strengthened, the spiritual Qi within them became even richer and the origin even more robust.
Regarding where that energy came from, and why the spiritual Qi didn’t diminish but increased despite the immense consumption by the Immortals, these questions involve the complex principles of the operation of heaven and earth.
The root cause lies with the Chaos Sea.
The Chaos Sea was full of chaos that Immortals simply couldn’t utilize.
However, this chaos also represented a form of energy, but only Passage Lands could harness it.
Take the World Tree, for instance, which draws energy from the Chaos Sea to continuously grow and bear worlds.
There’s also a type of life, like that huge serpent that turned into the Chaos Snake, that can make use of it.
So, under normal logic, it would stand to reason that the stronger and more prosperous a world becomes, the more energy it would draw from the Chaos Sea.
The entire world would then become further strengthened.
But now, after the Immortal World reached an unprecedented peak of prosperity, it unexpectedly began to decline!
This defies common sense.
“Things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme, prosperity will lead to decline, but why is this happening?”
A Saint murmured to himself,
He, too, was at a loss.