Chapter 517: Three Questions - Life and Death

The dark red lava deep within the Earth suddenly became completely still. Not even a wisp of smoke rose from it anymore.

The empty space felt as though it had been filled with mercury, so heavy that it was hard to breathe.

The third Law Breathing Cycle finally arrived, moving with an almost frozen slowness.

The ripples of law on the golden door were no longer as violent and chaotic as before. Instead, they had fallen into a strange silence, like still, dead water.

Cheryl felt as if an invisible hand had grabbed her Inner Spirit tightly. Even her thoughts became painfully slow.

Buzz.

The two golden lines that had stood side by side on the door suddenly withdrew all their light.

In their place, dark red words slowly appeared across its surface. They did not look like divine writing. They looked more like they had been written in the blood of countless fallen gods.

"If opening this door cannot coexist with Earth’s survival..."

"If you open the door, Earth will be destroyed."

"Will you still open it?"

Boom!

The moment those lines appeared, an indescribable feeling of death and destruction swept through the entire space at the Earth’s core like a flood.

Cheryl’s face turned pale. Her body shook violently, and she nearly fell from the air.

This was a question of life and death.

It was also the final paradox that the Lord of the Primordial had placed before everyone who reached this door over the countless years.

Yves, unmatched in his time, had faced it before.

So had countless brilliant pioneers of the past.

If the answer was "No," it meant giving up the only path beyond this world. They could only watch as Earth was slowly eaten away by the Abyss and dragged toward a long, gradual death in the coLeon Great Destruction.

But if the answer was "Yes," it meant trading the death of ten billion people on their home planet for one person’s rise on the path of godhood.

How would that be any different from the Evil Demons Guild, those traitors to humanity who wanted to destroy the Seven Pillars and open a passage to the Abyss?

It was an impossible choice. A dead end with no answer.

Aiden stood quietly before the dark red words, thunder and the Law of Light clashing wildly within his double-pupiled eyes.

Images flashed through his mind: the vast mountains and rivers of the Great Shaw Empire; the fall and rise of the White City; the faces of John, Vespera, and the others.

"Aiden..."

Cheryl’s voice trembled. She could not even bring herself to look into his eyes.

No matter which choice he made, something would be destroyed.

But Aiden suddenly smiled.

There was no struggle or pain in that smile. There was only the calm confidence of someone who had seen through everything, along with a fierce pride.

He slowly took a step forward.

Boom!

As his foot came down, a visible ripple of law spread through the space that had been completely still.

Aiden raised his head and looked straight at the huge, ancient golden door. His voice was calm, yet sharp.

"Before I answer, I have one question."

Silence.

The golden door gave no response. The blood-red words only flickered faintly, as if urging him to make his choice.

Aiden stood with his hands behind his back. A cold smile touched his lips as he spoke each word clearly.

"Is this door itself part of Earth?"

Rumble!

Deep within the Earth, the silent space that had remained still for countless years suddenly shook violently the moment Aiden asked that question.

The ripples of law across the golden door twisted slightly. The change was tiny, but completely chaotic.

Very few people had ever asked such a question in Earth’s long history.

Every genius who came before this door had tried to find a compromise within this simple choice: yes or no, open it or refuse it.

No one had cared who the door truly belonged to.

A blazing light burst from Aiden’s double-pupiled eyes. The destiny of the Great Shaw Empire and the Force of Laws around him erupted at once, taking the form of nine golden dragons roaring through the empty space.

"If this door belongs to Earth, then opening it is Earth’s own transformation and evolution."

"How could a mother destroy herself by evolving?"

"If opening this door will destroy Earth, then it proves only one thing..."

Aiden’s voice rose like thunder from the heavens, making the entire underground layer hum.

"This door does not belong to Earth!"

"It is an alien tumor. It is a carefully planned scheme. It is a threat forced upon us by invaders!"

"I will not answer whether to open it or not."

Aiden gave a cold snort. The Law of Light around his body formed into a giant sword that seemed to reach the sky, its point aimed directly at the golden door.

"I demand proof!"

"Prove that your choice between life and death is real. Prove that opening this door truly leads to destruction!"

"If the question itself is false, then your test means nothing!"

Boom!

The moment Aiden finished speaking, the entire space at Earth’s core erupted into chaos.

Countless chains of law shot wildly from the golden door. But the instant they touched the nine golden dragons around Aiden, they shattered into golden fragments that scattered through the air.

Cheryl’s beautiful eyes widened as she stared at the scene in disbelief.

Aiden was actually questioning the laws of Heaven themselves!

The dark red words on the golden door began to flicker violently, bright one moment and dim the next, as if they might collapse at any time.

The door fell into a long silence.

This was not rejection or disregard. It was more like a computer freezing while struggling with an impossible calculation.

It was processing Aiden’s logic.

It was working through a question no one had asked in ten thousand years.

As the seconds passed, the pressure from the laws deep within the Earth grew stronger and heavier.

Then, in the silence that seemed almost frozen solid—

Buzz.

A soft sound suddenly echoed deep within Aiden’s Inner Spirit.

It did not come from the golden door, nor was it the sound of any law or symbol.

It was a faint signal that entered his Inner Spirit directly, carrying a trace of something ancient and strangely familiar.

The signal passed through life and death and crossed ten thousand years. For the first time, it reached Aiden directly from the other side of the golden door.

"...You took long enough."

The sigh that entered Aiden’s Inner Spirit seemed to cross ten thousand years before spreading through the depths of the Earth as an invisible ripple.

Aiden’s double-pupiled eyes suddenly narrowed. At that moment, the Golden Dragons of National Destiny of the Great Shaw Empire around him all let out a deep growl.

The violent fluctuations of law suddenly fell silent.

In an instant, the world of molten rock around them vanished, replaced by a pure white and empty space filled with laws.

At the center of this space, the golden door was half real and half transparent.

And directly in its center, a blurry figure stood quietly.

Half of his body was inside the door, and the other half was outside. He looked like a statue frozen in time.

He was not a ghost or a remaining soul. He was an afterimage, torn away at the level of the laws themselves and imprinted onto the door.

"Ten thousand years have passed. At last, someone has reached this place."

The figure slowly turned his head. His face was blurred, but his eyes carried the weariness and wisdom of someone who had seen through everything.

Aiden did not move. The giant sword formed from the Law of Light remained suspended in the empty space, giving off a powerful and frightening pressure.

"Yves."

Aiden spoke the name slowly. There was no surprise in his voice, only calm certainty.

The figure gave a slight smile. His body flickered like a hologram, as if he could fade away at any moment.

"It is me. More precisely, I am the last trace of my existence that this door forcibly kept after I failed to push it open."

Yves pointed to himself, his voice carrying a hint of self-mockery.

Back then, when he failed to open the door, the terrible backlash instantly shattered his divine body. It became countless fragments of the heavenly laws, scattered across Earth.

But his final consciousness was trapped by the door at the boundary between its two sides. He could neither leave nor send any message to the outside world.

If Aiden had not carried the small chip of primal law sent by Kelsey, this faint trace would not even have been able to reach beyond the door.

Kelsey was not some great genius, but she had the strongest connection to the primal laws of anyone on Earth.

It was this pure connection that allowed Yves’s remaining fragment to follow the link created by the chip and send this weak signal to Aiden.

"There is not much time. My afterimage is about to break apart completely. Listen carefully to what I am about to say."

Yves’s figure began to shake violently. Countless golden symbols of law peeled away from his body.

Aiden’s expression turned serious. He released the full power of his Inner Spirit and formed the most direct possible mental link with the afterimage.

Boom!

The first devastating message crashed into Aiden’s mind like a meteor.

"First, you do not need to answer any question about life, death, right, or wrong!"

"Because this golden door... was created by me!"

Yves’s voice exploded inside Aiden’s mind, filled with pride and deep sadness.

This was never a miracle created by nature or the heavens. It was a gate to the higher realm, forced into existence by Yves after he burned away the last of his own power over the laws.

"You do not need to follow the door’s rules. You only need to use [All Things Return to Their Source] and gather every fragment of the heavenly laws scattered across Earth!"

"In the name of all laws, command this door to open!"

Aiden’s heart pounded. Lightning and the Law of Light nearly burst from his double-pupiled eyes.

Then the second message rushed in like a raging tide, striking at everything Aiden thought he knew.

"Second, the three questions about right and wrong, moving forward or backward, and life or death were never tests from the heavens!"

"They were the three inner demons I could never overcome when I was trapped before this door!"

"I could not answer them, so I carved them onto the door, hoping that some great talent in the future would find the answers for me!"

"They were nothing more than a defeated man’s regret and obsession. Your question just now has completely shattered those false ideas!"

Yves’s afterimage laughed freely. There seemed to be tears in that laughter.

The ultimate questions that had troubled Earth’s greatest people for ten thousand years were nothing more than an unsolved problem left behind by a man who had failed.