A little past noon.
After having lunch with Su Zhuo, Yu Xian first dropped her off at her company.
Next, he teleported outside Earth's atmosphere using a spatial bubble. On his way to Mars, he had placed many spatial bubbles—some atop meteorites, others upon drifting space debris.
As a result, he had no need to pass through the Huaxia grotto-heaven's solitary teapot to enter or exit.
He was still completely free to go wherever he pleased.
"Auntie, was your home world that beautiful?"
Sitting inside a spatial bubble and looking down at Earth, Yu Xian asked Zhenwo Changjing beside him.
Although a massive chunk of Earth was missing after Huaxia turned into a grotto-heaven, the planet remained gorgeous. Viewed from space, the azure oceans were still breathtaking.
Gazing down at Earth, Zhenwo Changjing said placidly, "My home was Earth as well. In fact, one percent of humanity across the Tree Universe originates from Earths in different parallel worlds."
"Tree Universe?" Yu Xian immediately caught on to the fact that Zhenwo Changjing had dropped another term he had never heard before.
Looking at Earth, Zhenwo Changjing traced her finger across Yu Xian's bubble, drawing a lightning sphere densely packed with branches. "This is the Tree Universe," she said.
"It clearly looks like a sphere, so why call it a Tree Universe?" Yu Xian asked, puzzled as he looked at the design she had drawn.
Zhenwo Changjing continuously magnified the pattern. What had initially been a tiny, tiny streak of branch-filled lightning gradually expanded into immense proportions, looking like a leafless tree spreading countless branches.
She looked at Yu Xian and asked, "How about now?"
"I get it now. Then how large is the Tree Universe?" Yu Xian nodded at the pattern, then asked.
Zhenwo Changjing did not avoid answering such questions. She continued to zoom in on that slender streak of lightning, which branched again and again, and then branched yet again.
After an untold number of bifurcations, she pointed to one slender tip of a branch and said, "The world you live in is roughly around here."
"The Tree Universe... is absurdly massive," Yu Xian murmured to himself, drawing a circle over the pattern.
Zhenwo Changjing shook her head and wiped away the circle he had drawn. Continuing to magnify the branch, she placed a tiny dot inside it. "This is your world. And within this single branch, there are also 5640586505641245642126224515263546 worlds similar to it."
Whenever he looked up at the starry sky, Yu Xian had always deeply felt his own insignificance and the vastness of the cosmos. But only now did he realize that the universe didn't actually seem that large after all.
When he was a boy, he had watched a science program explaining that the Sun's mass was 330,000 times that of Earth. Back then, he had felt the Sun was unimaginably huge.
Later, the program showed a star far larger than the Sun, and behind that one came an even more colossal star, one after another, until the Sun he had thought was so mind-bogglingly huge shrank into sheer insignificance before them.
Back then, he had realized just how vast the universe was, capable of accommodating so many gigantic celestial bodies.
Now, Zhenwo Changjing's words opened his eyes to an even more gargantuan world, and he suddenly began to understand why the force values of the universal ranks exploded exponentially.
In the Tree Universe, perhaps ten million trillion trillion trillion wasn't really that large of a number. Even if a powerhouse possessed the might to destroy worlds, how many could he destroy?
To the Tree Universe, obliterating a thousand or ten thousand worlds wouldn't even amount to a drop in the ocean, a single hair from nine oxen.
"Auntie, can you tell me just how strong Zhenwo Changle really is?" Yu Xian swallowed hard and asked.
Zhenwo Changjing fell silent for a moment, then wiped away the branches drawn on the bubble and said, "He can easily do this."
"..."
Yu Xian stared at the bubble, a bead of cold sweat forming on his brow.
In other words, Zhenwo Changle could instantly obliterate 5640586505641245642126224515263547 worlds. What kind of monster was he?
Previously, when listening to Zhenwo Changjing discuss the universal ranks of the Myriad Realms and their corresponding force values, he had found it hard to truly imagine how strong Zhenwo Changle was. But now he finally had a crystal-clear concept.
He was utterly a monster among monsters.
If their strength were somewhat comparable, Yu Xian would have had the confidence to surpass him. But with the gap this absurd, he couldn't even fathom comparing himself.
If he truly ran into Zhenwo Changle, he would probably only need to think about two things: first, how to kneel in the most pleasing posture possible in hopes that Zhenwo Changle spared his life; second, what pose would make his death look a little more dignified.
After a long moment, Yu Xian wiped his sweat, looked at Zhenwo Changjing, and asked with an expression that said he had been sorely shortchanged, "Auntie, considering the risks I'm taking, was I asking for too little?"
Zhenwo Changjing smiled at him. After circling around for so long, he had finally revealed his fox tail.
"Auntie, can you really not tell me? Where is Edward hiding?" Knowing his trick had been seen through, Yu Xian still shamelessly pressed on.
The shock just now had been genuine, and he was still reeling from it, but that didn't stop him from pursuing his original goal.
One had to live in the present. Zhenwo Changjing was only slightly weaker than Zhenwo Changle, and Zhenwo Changle might not necessarily find where she was, so the 5640586505641245642126224515263547 worlds on this branch of the Tree Universe should be safe for now.
Just when Yu Xian assumed Zhenwo Changjing wouldn't answer, she spoke up: "I can tell you now. Edward Vlad Stoker is hiding on the Moon. By successfully forging a Star Divine Artifact, he has advanced to Star Rank."
"..."
Yu Xian had initially felt a surge of excitement, but upon hearing that the Blood Clan Progenitor had advanced to Star Rank, all the wind was instantly knocked out of his sails.
If the Blood Clan Progenitor were Dragon-rank, he would still have had the confidence to fight him. But facing a Star Rank Progenitor was nothing short of a suicide mission.
"In other words, Earth is doomed."
Yu Xian sighed, gazing at the azure Earth.
The next moment, he returned to the Huaxia grotto-heaven world—mainly because staying outside gave him no sense of security anymore.
Arriving home, he flopped onto the sofa. Watching the television that was still on, he suddenly asked, "Auntie, what is this Star Divine Artifact you mentioned?"
"Your world itself is only a Level 1 world—a world devoid of supernatural power.
"All supernatural power in this world stems from the Abyss, so your powers are chaotic and unsystematic. The consequence is that, barring anomalies, God rank—or Heaven Rank—is your limit.
"Your bodies and souls lack the necessary strength, making it impossible to ever break through to Star Rank.
"Edward Vlad Stoker used a method of cheating very popular across the Myriad Realms: forging a Star Divine Artifact to bear the burden of Star Rank power in place of himself. The Star Divine Artifact is bound to his life; the moment it was successfully forged, he effectively advanced to Star Rank," Zhenwo Changjing explained in detail.
Yu Xian narrowed his eyes. "In other words, as long as I find a way to destroy Edward's Star Divine Artifact, he dies too?"
An idea struck him: for instance, what if he used a spatial bubble to teleport Edward's Star Divine Artifact into some extremely perilous place? Wouldn't Edward be finished?
However, seeing Zhenwo Changjing looking at him with a silent smile, a sudden chill ran down the back of his neck, and he quickly discarded the idea.
Through this month of accumulation, his force value had risen to 0.08, but the problem was that Edward's force value was 100.
Besides, he knew nothing about Star Divine Artifacts or what abilities they possessed.
Before he could even make a move, Edward might just use the Star Divine Artifact to instantly obliterate him.
Chapter 169