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

It wasn't a defeat. It was a strategic retreat. It pulled back most of the Kuroshio Current, shrinking back into its own body, curling itself into a tight sphere.

The devouring patterns on the surface of the scales lit up, indicating that it was adopting a defensive posture to reduce energy consumption.

Let's stop fighting. Let's just wait and see.

It's betting that Chen Hao will be the first to give up. After all, Chen Hao's True God Realm breakthrough was recent, and his foundation is not yet stable. The longer it drags on, the more likely things will change.

Chen Hao did not pursue.

He also needs time. The fusion of the three thousand origins was too fast; they were poured in rather than he comprehended them one by one on his own.

The coordination, interplay, and synergy between those rules all need to be gradually refined through practical experience.

Fifty years of intense exchanges have been the best training ground.

He sat cross-legged in the void, with his eyes closed.

The three thousand Great Daos within the body began to shift from "operating independently" to "interconnecting with each other".

Space and time intertwine. Cause and effect are interwoven. Life and death are linked end to end. The five elements circulate endlessly. Yin and Yang transform into each other.

From three thousand rivers, it became a vast ocean.

The seventieth year.

The Gold-Eating Beast sensed something was wrong.

The aura emanating from the person sitting motionless in the void with their eyes closed grew stronger day by day. So strong that their defensive, spherical posture began to be distorted by the pressure.

Can't wait any longer.

It must launch its final offensive before Chen Hao completely integrates the three thousand origins; otherwise, it won't even be able to escape.

The Gold-Eating Beast unfurled its scales. All the black tide poured out of its body at once.

It wasn't a slow erosion; it was a catastrophic collapse. It poured all the power accumulated over tens of thousands of years into this one blow.

The entire void was dyed pure black.

Chen Hao opened his eyes.

He looked at the black wave that covered his entire field of vision.

Then he stood up.

For the first time, he took the initiative to step forward.

The law of devouring surged from every pore of his body. It wasn't resistance. It was envelopment. It was engulfment.

The sea of ​​laws formed from the origins of the Three Thousand Great Daos spread out around him, heading towards the black wave.

The silvery light collided with the pitch-black tide.

There was no stalemate.

Silvery white devoured black. An inch. A foot. A zhang (approximately 3.3 meters). A li (approximately 5 kilometers).

Unstoppable momentum.

For the first time, genuine fear appeared in the eyes of the Gold-Eating Beast.

It fled. Retracting its black tide, it turned and vanished into the depths of space...

Space folding.

The void before it was folded up by Chen Hao. The front became the back, and the back became the front.

It turned and fled for ten thousand miles, only to find Chen Hao standing right in front of it when it looked back.

Can't run away.

The silvery-white devouring power converged from all directions, enveloping the Gold-Eating Beast in the very center.

It struggled. Its scales burst open, spewing out a final surge of black mist, which was immediately swallowed up by the silvery-white liquid.

Like fire meeting seawater.

Its volume is shrinking rapidly.

The first hundred years.

Chen Hao was left alone in the void, while the Gold-Eating Beast cut off its tail and fled into deep space to survive.

Chen Hao did not give chase; it was too difficult to completely kill a True God Realm expert.

There was nothing beneath their feet. There was nothing above their heads. The Gold-Eating Beast had vanished. The Black Tide had vanished.

That boundless darkness that had shrouded the solar system for tens of thousands of years—has dissipated.

Instead, there is light.

The light of the stars. The sun shone brightly again. The sun, having lost its outer plasma, slowly recovered over a century.

The life force within Chen Hao's body was silently repairing it.

Sunlight pierced through the void and fell upon the blue planet.

Real sunlight.

For the first time in a hundred years.

Chen Hao hovered in the center of the solar system, his eyes closed. The three thousand primal energies flowed peacefully within his body. The battle was over.

He lowered his head and looked at the blue star inside his body.

Some of the lights were still on on that marble.

Chen Hao opened his palms and looked down.

During that silent battle that lasted for a century, his hands remained in a slightly clenched position.

It looked like it was still holding a chubby little hand.

He let go.

The five fingers were spread out, but there was nothing in the palm. Empty. The warmth of that chubby little hand from a hundred years ago could not be retained.

Chen Hao was suspended in the very center of the solar system. Sunlight shone from behind him, casting a long shadow that stretched into deep space.

Deep space.

That area, once filled with the Black Tide, is now empty, leaving only the original state of the universe: cold, dark, and vast.

The sparse points of starlight are scattered across the endless black curtain, like someone casually sprinkling a handful of fine salt.

Chen Hao's gaze pierced through the points of light, across immeasurable distances of the void, and landed in one direction.

Northwest by north, if we take the solar system as the origin of the coordinate system.

There is a line in that direction.

The lines, so fine they cannot be thinned, are not lines on the material level, but anchor points connecting the laws of space.

The mark he left on his sister before.

The fundamental laws of space circulated within him. The silvery-white river that led the Three Thousand Great Daos surged.

Chen Hao's divine sense, no, his divine essence, extended out along the anchor point connecting line.

fast.

Faster than light.

The fundamental law of space has absolute dominion over space itself. His divine consciousness is not "moving," but "folding." Folding the distance between two coordinates to zero.

Sectoral regions swept across his senses, one by one. Dark nebulae. The remains of dead stars.

Occasionally, there are still burning star systems, surrounded by a few planets.

barren.

It's so desolate. The matter density in this edge of the universe is pitifully low; no wonder that baby hasn't grown up even after billions of years.

The divine sense continued to extend, traversing a distance of countless light-years.

Then... it stopped.

We've reached the anchor point.

A wisp of Chen Hao's divine essence condensed in this star field.

At first glance... he saw a star. Yellow, slightly larger than the sun.

Eight planets revolve around it at a constant speed. The outermost one is a gas giant with a huge storm belt on its orange-red surface.

Its structure is very similar to that of the solar system.

Astronomers on Earth call it Kepler 90. It is 2,500 light-years from the solar system.

But Chen Hao saw more than just that.

His divine eye pierced through the material realm. Behind the stars and planets, he saw a colossal silhouette—a body.

Existing in the same way as that infant.

The stellar system was encased in a body. But this was no longer an infant.

It is an adult form, with long limbs and a stretched-out body, sitting cross-legged in the void, like a person in meditation.

There were no wounds on its surface, no black corrosive patches. The light of the fundamental law flowed steadily within it, abundant, orderly, and powerful.

A primordial, true God who has grown up.

Its eyes are closed.

But the moment Chen Hao's divine avatar arrived—its eyelids twitched.