Chapter 361: Mystery – The Summoning of the Heavenly Map

“Is it that urgent?”
Shui Miao frowned deeply. The end of the cycle seemed to be approaching soon. By then, everything would be destroyed, not even the Immortal Lords who understood the laws of life and death were an exception.
No one wanted to face death, especially when they knew their own death date—the fear of death grew infinitely larger. The moment of death itself wasn’t terrifying; what was terrifying was the seemingly endless wait.
Even these seemingly immortal Immortal Lords had their fears.
“My strength can be restored at any time, but now isn’t the right time,” Shui Miao said after pondering for a moment.
Before the end of the cycle arrived, their only chance was to lure out that being with blood-red eyes and destroy it together.
“But we must act quickly. If Chen Xiao can’t become an Immortal Lord by then, we’ll have to rely on the strength of eight people to fight one last time.”
Both of them fell silent afterward.
In those three thousand worlds depicted in the map, Immortal Lords had once fought against that being, but they all perished.
Only nine Immortal Lords could exist at once. As for why, even the Immortal Lords themselves couldn’t explain it—it simply wasn’t possible.
“Does Chen Xiao know about these things now?” Kanrelas suddenly asked.
“Maybe he does, maybe not,” Shui Miao shook her head. “It’s better not to let him know. Let things take their course.”
Kanrelas nodded.
After that, Kanrelas discussed things in detail with Shui Miao for a while before slowly dissipating. What remained in the Main God Space was merely a copy of her.
…
“To break through life and death, yet still be constrained by rules…”
Everything in the Main God Space was visible to Chen Xiao. Every word of Shui Miao and Kanrelas’ conversation fell into Chen Xiao’s mind without missing a bit.
At this moment, Chen Xiao was in a state of floating. His soul remained in his sea of consciousness, and he hadn’t even released his divine thoughts. Yet, he could clearly perceive everything in the Main God Space.
This was a realm of mystery.
A blend of reality and illusion, where two laws drew extremely close, and the repulsive forces between them gave rise to a completely new concept.
“What is that map then? It records the rise and fall of the three thousand worlds. What kind of being is it? At the end of the cycle, everything is destroyed, but that map still records everything.”
At this point, such questions arose in Chen Xiao’s mind.
“Can only nine Immortal Lords exist? Shui Miao is one of them, and I’ve nurtured her with all my efforts. But what if there’s a tenth?”
Chen Xiao’s thoughts slowly turned. In this realm of mystery, his mind was even stronger than that of an Immortal Lord.
When laws repel each other, it’s called mystery; when rules repel each other, it’s called seconds.
Now, Chen Xiao had only grasped a superficial understanding of mystery, yet he could already observe changes among the Immortal Lords. What would happen if his laws transformed into rules, and he understood the realm of seconds through the repulsion of rules?

“Nine is the ultimate limit of numbers—how ridiculous. This is clearly governed by some unseen rule. The Immortal Lords cannot surpass nine. You have the confidence to break through life and death, yet you dare not touch such rules?”
Chen Xiao sneered inwardly. But the next moment, his brows furrowed slightly as an overwhelming sense of disgust arose in his heart.
He had always thought he had broken free from fate, that he controlled his own destiny. Yet he never expected that even at this point, he was still within the schemes of those Immortal Lords, whose actions had even paved the way for him.
How could he be content with this? He wouldn’t want such a life, even if it meant eternal existence.
“The path I’m on now belongs to the Divine Immortal Lords. The rules of water and life and death coexist here…”
“Then I’ll overthrow this path…”
Chen Xiao knew clearly that at present, he could only bring the two laws closer together indefinitely, but not truly merge them. Yet merging the two laws wasn’t the only way.
As for that mysterious realm, though powerful, Chen Xiao was convinced that there were many Immortal Lords who had grasped it.
Whoosh!
The flame of laws in Chen Xiao’s mental sea suddenly flared up. The blazing flames became his soul, and the celestial map hidden within his body slowly emerged.
“The celestial map… the master behind it is merely a Heavenly Venerable, one rank below an Immortal Lord.”
Under the influence of that mystery, Chen Xiao obtained vast amounts of information from across the universe. Aside from the Immortal Lords, even the information of the Heavenly Venerables appeared in his mind.
The rulers of the heavens—the Nine Heavenly Venerables:
The Venerable of Freedom, the Venerable of Great Luo, the Venerable of Separation, the Venerable of the Netherworld, the Venerable of Desire, the Venerable of Purple Sky, the Venerable of Great Destruction, the Venerable of Transforming Dampness, the Venerable of Langya.
The nine shadows in the celestial map were the remnants left after these Nine Heavenly Venerables perished. Though they had died, their powers remained in the void, waiting to be fully awakened. Once the celestial map was activated, their powers could be drawn down.
However, as Chen Xiao and his group had deduced earlier, it was impossible for the Nine Heavenly Venerables to be revived.
They had died completely in their struggle against those mysterious beings from another world. Even if an Immortal Lord died, they couldn’t be revived, let alone a Heavenly Venerable.
This celestial map, though laid out by the powerful beings of the heavens in an attempt to unlock the heavens and rule the universe once again, had inadvertently made those beings pawns of the Heavenly Lord.
The celestial map ignited the primordial spiritual fire, which in turn burned the Two Principles to create the Spiritual Fire of the Two Principles. Using this fire, the laws of life and death were evolved, leading to the rules of life and death.
But once the celestial map was fully activated, it would also be sensed by the powerful beings of the heavens, who would come to seize it. By doing so, they could gain the powers of the Nine Heavenly Venerables. Though they might not be able to comprehend life and death and become Immortal Lords, they would surely be the strongest beings below them.
The strength of an Immortal Lord lay not in brute force, but in their mastery of rules.
Under the rules of life and death, even the Heavenly Venerables had no control over their own fates.
Now, as Chen Xiao merged the two laws, the celestial map slowly unfolded in his mental sea.
Boom!

Around Chen Xiao’s body, invisible ripples emerged, along with an invisible summons that radiated from the consciousness of the Heavenly Map. It spread instantly throughout the heavens and even to every corner of the universe. Although Chen Xiao’s power was not extremely strong at the moment, having grasped the essence of mystery and even a trace of its profound meaning, even the avatar of the Immortal Lord could not detect his surveillance. Using this to activate the summons of the Heavenly Map amplified its power countless times over. In an instant, the scattered fragments of the Heavenly Map across the universe vanished from their original locations almost simultaneously and gathered above the main Heavenly Map. Within the Heavenly Map, the nine major maps formed a circle, but the center was missing—the very heart of the Heavenly Map that should have been there.