There is a force which exists in all people. In some, it can be abundant without limit. In others, it can be scarce to the extreme. It can propel some people to the point of shaking heaven and earth, and in other people, it can weaken them to the point of collapsing forever.
It can give rise to endless determination, or it can remove it in an instant.
That force comes from focus.
Bai Xiaochun’s focus, his obsession, was to extract the Eternal Immortal Domains from the River of Time and Space. It was a focus that bordered on insanity, and instantly became the most important aspect of his life.
“If there is no Eternal, then I will create it!
“If there is no Essence, then I will create it!
“If there is no life, then I will create it!”
As he looked in the direction where the Eternal Immortal Domains had once existed, his eyes shone with profound light.
Eventually, he closed his eyes, and settled down cross-legged in the middle of the starry sky.
In the past, it had never occurred to him to wonder why there had been sunlight within the body of the Arch-Ancestor.
Nor had he considered why the Eternal Immortal Domains had a sun and a moon, even though the starry sky was pitch black.
He hadn’t even thought about such things after becoming an archaean. Upon becoming a sovereign, he qualified to understand such matters, but because of the fight with the Mortal Renegade, he had never had the time. But now, here in the middle of the starry sky, he began to ponder the subject.
Whether it was the Heavenspan Realm or the Eternal Immortal Domains, it was all the same. All suns and moons inside of the Eternal Flower were provided by the Eternal Mother. And that was because….
“Life requires sunlight!” he murmured. His eyes opened, and his left eye began to shine with brilliant light that quickly came to resemble that of a sun.
That light, of course, came from the Forefather Transformation that he had cultivated many years ago. Now that he had reached the Sovereign Realm, it was boundlessly bright. First, it spread out through the starry sky to touch all of the 1,080,000 worlds, where the light then formed into numerous glowing spheres. They were suns!
There were now 1,080,000 suns, all of which were also Bai Xiaochun’s left eye!
The presence of the suns completely changed the starry sky, and caused all of the 1,080,000 sets of ruins to tremble physically. And yet, things weren’t over yet. Bai Xiaochun’s right eye now began to glow, but this time with something much softer… moonlight!
If the 1,080,000 worlds had suns, how could they go without moons? 1,080,000 moons formed, and the combination of the suns and moons gave night and day to the starry sky!
The sun and moon in the Eternal Immortal Domains were illusory constructions provided by the Eternal Mother. As for these suns and moons, they were not illusory; they were real, and they were Bai Xiaochun’s eyes!
“With suns and moons, with night and day, all that is needed now are seeds… the seeds of life….” Bai Xiaochun didn’t move, but the life force within him formed into seeds that began to drift out of him and fly toward the 1,080,000 worlds.
Bai Xiaochun remained in place, cross-legged. He would not rise to his feet again, but instead, would stay there guarding the spot where his home had vanished. However, his ‘eyes’ filled the starry sky. And if he wanted, he could appear anywhere.
Years passed. The suns and moons in the myriad of worlds in the starry sky continued their dance. Eventually, the various ruins began to show signs of life. The seeds that Bai Xiaochun had planted were already beginning to grow.
100,000 years passed.
Blue seas turned into mulberry fields. Suns rose, and moons set. The battle of years past was nothing but ancient history. And no one had been alive to witness it, making it nearly unreal. In fact, no one even knew about Bai Xiaochun. His name was a thing of the past.
The 1,080,000 sets of ruins in the Eternal Spirit World were changing. Rains and winds touched them, and because of Bai Xiaochun’s abundant life force, the crumbled buildings and structures had long since collapsed into dust, and disappeared into nothing.
One day, on one of those former ruined worlds… the first living things appeared!
They were small, so small that they were invisible to the naked eye. They would even be difficult to detect with divine sense.
They were not conscious, and were extremely small and weak. But they were abundant. Apparently, they had come to exist because of the sunlight itself, and before long, they were not just on one world. One by one, living things appeared in all of the 1,080,000 worlds.
They did not have any specific shape, and in fact, were difficult to describe with words. But they were there. Even in the former location of the Eternal Immortal Domains, where Bai Xiaochun sat cross-legged in meditation, those living things came to be.
Because of the birth of these living things, the starry sky changed. It was no longer dead and still. Instead, life force began to build. The suns and moons that were Bai Xiaochun’s eyes took note of them, and watched for tens of thousands of years… as they changed the 1,080,000 sets of ruins.
At this point, they weren’t really ruins anymore. Life had returned to the 1,080,000 worlds, and there was no trace of any wreckage or rubble. In fact, because of the rain that had long since begun to fall, many of the worlds had seas and oceans.
Some of the worlds even had hills, and areas where dust had congealed into mud.
One day, tiny bacteria appeared within the depths of one of those oceans, which began to grow and spread through the water. In different worlds, the living things bore different appearances. For example, there were some worlds with no oceans, with the only water existing in deep mud. It was from that mud that the living beings emerged.
**
When the first living things came to exist, Bai Xiaochun appeared. He looked down into the water, then waved his hand to pull up some of the bacteria. After examining them, he closed his eyes.
“Soon… very soon….” He vanished, and the bacteria he had picked up floated back down into the ocean.
Bacteria continued to thrive in the following years. The oceans changed, the lands changed, and the worlds changed. Soon, all of the 1,080,000 worlds pulsed with life force.
In some worlds, the sky was azure, and the sun and moon shone dazzlingly. The clouds which rolled across the skies of such worlds would entrance anyone who could have seen them.
In some worlds, lightning crashed, and black clouds filled the skies. Although it was an awe-inspiring sight, it was the perfect environment for the living things there!
Some worlds were parched and hot, but at the same time, were perfect places for living things to thrive.
Within the 1,080,000 worlds were all sorts of living creatures, and all sorts of natural laws. Countless Essences came into being, all of which conformed to the magical laws that governed life in general.
Bai Xiaochun watched the worlds, and studied the living beings that were multiplying there. Several tens of thousands of years passed. Eventually, new types of beings came to exist within the various worlds. These beings had no bones, and were soft-bodied. Some had shells, others did not, and they looked strange and bizarre. Some of them were aggressive, while others were completely passive.
There were some who would vanish if they were simply touched….
However, the existence of these new beings brought a splash of color to what had once been a very monotonous starry sky. More years passed, until finally, plants appeared in one of the worlds!
The first plant was tiny, and bore a passing semblance to grass. It was about the size of a human fingernail, and if one could have looked closely at it, they would have seen tiny veins spreading out to fill its interior….
Bai Xiaochun appeared near the plant, knelt down, and looked at it. It was weak, but tenacious, and when he sensed the life flowing through it, he smiled for the first time in a long time.
“Soon…. Very, very soon….”
