The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

It searched for countless years, traversing countless desolate edges of the universe.

Finally, here, in this remote, desolate corner where there is only one star, I found one who hasn't grown up yet.

The original God who was still an infant.

The kind that's easiest to bully.

It has been eating for tens of thousands of years, since ancient times, bite by bite.

No rush. Take your time. Anyway, this baby can't run away, and we can't beat it.

Until now.

Deep within that black tide, a massive outline moved.

Two eyes opened in the darkness. Cloudy. Greedy. With the patience and vigilance characteristic of a long-time hunter.

It saw Chen Hao.

The expression in those eyes changed, from laziness to focus. And from focus came a certain emotion that Chen Hao couldn't quite decipher.

It was an accident.

It never expected that the infant would do such a thing: sacrifice the opportunity for the birth of sentience, pouring all its essence into an external container.

This kind of behavior is tantamount to suicide; you turn yourself into nourishment for others.

But at the same time...

Its target for consumption remains unchanged.

The original source is still there. It has simply been transferred from the infant's body to Chen Hao's body.

The power of the original true god is still the same power. It's just that now it has a "master".

A novice who has just broken through to the True God Realm and whose power has not yet been consolidated.

Take advantage of the moment.

The Gold-Eating Beast made its judgment.

The Kuroshio Current surged.

The overwhelming blackness accelerated in an instant, like a wall of waves being lifted up and pressing towards Chen Hao.

The density was more than ten times greater than before; this was the Gold-Eating Beast adding fuel to the fire, releasing all the devouring power it had accumulated over tens of thousands of years at once.

They need to eliminate Chen Hao before he gains a foothold.

The front of the Black Tide reached Chen Hao.

Chen Hao watched them come.

His expression was very calm.

He raised his hand. His right fingers were spread out.

The Path of Devouring, one of the three thousand origins, surged from his palm. Its direction was exactly the opposite of the Devouring Beast's devouring.

The two devouring forces collided in the void.

There was no sound. Nothing could be heard in the vacuum. But at the point of impact, space was warping. The laws of motion were in disarray. Matter was annihilating and being reborn.

The Kuroshio Current's advance has slowed down.

stopped.

Then, it started to be pushed back.

The Gold-Eating Beast's eyes narrowed slightly.

The primordial true god was superior to the cultivation-type true god; it knew this fact. But it didn't believe that a newly enlightened novice could...

The Kuroshio was swallowed.

Chen Hao's devouring power swept away a portion of the black tide. Not much, but it did indeed engulf it.

The Gold-Eating Beast let out a deep roar that pierced the void. It wasn't a sound wave, but a projection of its will.

Anger, resentment, and a certain offensive irritability.

It increased the force.

Its entire body surged out from the depths of the black tide. Its outline finally became clear...

A beast. A form that no other creature on Earth can compare to.

It was entirely black, covered with metallic scales. Each scale was engraved with patterns of the Devouring Law.

It opened its mouth—or rather, its mouth—a vortex like a black hole. All the black tide gushed out from that vortex.

Now it aimed the vortex at Chen Hao.

Devour with all its might.

An endless expanse of blackness surged in from all directions, threatening to engulf Chen Hao and everything within him.

Chen Hao raised his other hand as well.

The origins of the three thousand Great Daos were simultaneously circulating within him. Not just one. All of them. Three thousand rivers of law surged forth at once.

His body began to glow.

It wasn't golden-red; that was the color of sacrifices. This time it was silver-white. Pure, cold light, the light of the very essence of the laws.

Devouring on devouring.

The two colossal beasts, separated by a torn void, devoured each other.

This war had no spectators. There were no cheers. Nobody knew it was happening.

The people on Earth only know that the golden-red barrier in the sky is still there. Their decade is still ongoing.

They didn't know that beyond that barrier, deep within the void, at the edge of the universe...

There is a person fighting for a child who has never had time to grow up, a fight the child cannot fight.

This is not a battle that can be ended quickly.

Chen Hao realized this on the very first day. Although the True God Realm cultivation of the Gold Devouring Beast was weaker than that of a Primal True God, it had one advantage: it was incredibly powerful.

Tens of thousands of years of devouring and accumulation. Countless stars and countless star fields have been consumed and transformed into its own power reserves. Its foundation is so profound that it is absurd.

Chen Hao's three thousand sources of origin completely overwhelmed it in quality. But in terms of quantity, it would take time to refine.

the first year.

The two devouring forces formed a clear dividing line in the void.

The line sometimes retreated an inch towards Chen Hao, and sometimes an inch towards the Gold-Eating Beast. It was a tug-of-war, a stalemate.

Chen Hao sat in the void, his hands outstretched, and the three thousand origins continued to circulate.

The Devouring Law is the primary offensive force, while the other 2,999 primal sources serve as backup.

The laws of space are cutting through the structure of the Black Tide, while the laws of time are accelerating its decay.

The law of cause and effect severs the connection between the gold-devouring beast and the matter it has already consumed.

Each of the three thousand rules has its own function, like an army.

And he was the commander.

The tenth year.

The golden-red barrier on the surface of Blue Star still glowed. Chen Hao's sacrificial power was still protecting Blue Star, or more precisely, protecting the Blue Star within his body.

The barrier will last for ten years. Within ten years, Earth will not be eroded by the Black Tide.

This ten-year period was a buffer he gave himself.

The eleventh year. The barrier began to thin. The golden-red veins ceased to pulsate.

It had completed its mission. The light slowly faded, like a thin mist being dispersed by the morning breeze.

The people on Earth looked up and saw the barrier disappear, and panic gripped them for a moment.

But then they realized that the black tide hadn't arrived. The sky was still dark, but the oppressive feeling remained.

The suffocating feeling of being swallowed up at any moment has disappeared.

Because the creators of the Black Tide are being devoured.

It had no energy left to push further towards Earth.

Thirty years.

The dividing line has finally begun to steadily move towards the Gold-Eating Beast. Not quickly.

It only advances a few thousand kilometers a year, which is negligible on a cosmic scale. But the direction has not changed.

The Gold-Eating Beast tried changing its strategy. Instead of pushing head-on, it tried flanking from the flanks.

The black tide split into countless thin streams, attempting to bypass Chen Hao's frontal defenses and encircle him from all sides.

Chen Hao's spatial laws unfolded. Among the three thousand fundamental principles, space ranked first.

That was the first rule he encountered, and it resonated with him the most deeply.

Space folded. All the black currents attempting to bypass it were folded into the same coordinate system. Gathered. Compressed. Then swallowed whole by the law of devouring.

The Gold-Eating Beast is shrinking. The black tide it spewed out can't return.

Every morsel of black tide that Chen Hao swallowed was part of its body. It was getting smaller. It was getting weaker.

The fiftieth year.

The Gold-Eating Beast retreated.