Chapter 822

【 CYCLE OF THE UNIVERSE 】

The towering temple stood ancient and majestic, with its every brick and stone seeming to bear witness to the passage of time.

Evé carefully examined the familiar “Pantheon” before her, then slowly nodded.

Urinos had been right.

This truly was not the Pantheon that she knew.

Although it looked identical in appearance, the aura it radiated was even older than the Pantheon itself…

Moreover, this comparison was not with the current reconstructed Pantheon. Rather, it was with the original Pantheon preserved within the memories inherited from the World Tree.

Yet even that old temple turned out to have been only a replica all along.

Perhaps… this temple standing before her was the true original, the base model upon which every later Pantheon had been modeled right after.

As she gazed at the ancient temple before her, a flash of understanding crossed Evé’s mind, and she formed a vague hypothesis regarding the origin of the Pantheon’s design.

Following behind Urinos, the two arrived before the ancient temple.

Urinos raised the violet sphere of light in her hand, and its radiance illuminated the temple’s ancient stone gate.

At that very moment, Evé sensed a faint tremor simultaneously coming from the blue sphere deep within her soul, the True Divine Artifact, the Gate of Reversal, stored within its extradimensional space, and the true body of the World Tree, far away in the world of Seigues, which maintained a faint connection with her incarnation…

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The next instant, the entire temple emitted a gentle glow, and its massive gates slowly opened.

At the same time, an emotionless voice echoed across the temple platform:

“Verification… successful. Welcome back… Supreme… Sovereign…”

It was uttered in an unknown language but surprisingly enough, she could understand every word.

More importantly, she was not unfamiliar with it.

She had heard this language before awakening as the World Tree. At the time, she had always assumed it to be the voice of the system she had received after reincarnating…

But now, it seemed that it had never been the system at all.

Welcome back? Supreme Sovereign?

Evé could not help glancing at Urinos beside her, only to discover that the Ancestral Dragon showed no reaction whatsoever, as though she had heard nothing.

“Your Majesty Urinos, did you hear anything just now?”

Evé could not help asking.

Urinos blinked in surprise.

“Hear what exactly?”

Turning around, she looked at Evé with a puzzled expression.

“What are you referring to?”

Seeing the genuine confusion on Urinos’ face, Evé fell silent.

“No… it’s nothing.”

She shook her head.

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Since Urinos had heard nothing, then the mysterious voice had been directed solely at her.

Until she uncovered the truth, Evé instinctively felt it would be wiser to keep this matter to herself…

Although she managed to suppress her surprise, one question continued to trouble her.

Why was she the only one who could hear that voice?

And the words welcoming her… had it been directed at the sphere key in Urinos’ hand, or at herself?

Evé was not so narcissistic as to believe that a mere reincarnated soul like herself could somehow be connected to a supreme sovereign.

If there truly was a connection, then it could only be related to her identity as the World Tree.

Yet that only made things more confusing.

If this temple predated even the Pantheon, then it must have existed long before the World Tree ever descended into the universe here in Seigues…

Which meant it should have had nothing to do with the World Tree at all.

She simply could not make sense of it.

Evé frowned slightly, feeling that before she had solved one mystery, another had already appeared.

Urinos watched her furrowed brow for a moment before slowly shaking her head.

“Your Grace Evé, there is no need to worry. The road ahead is perfectly safe.”

“However… you should prepare yourself mentally. What we are about to witness may cause you to fundamentally question everything you have believed about the cosmos, as well as your own future itself.”

“Anos was the same. He survived the corruption of the Abyss, only to lose his sanity after seeing what lay within here inside the Cradle of Origin.”

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Urinos sighed softly, her voice filled with quiet melancholy.

What lies within the Cradle of Origin…?

Evé’s thoughts stirred.

She set aside her unanswered questions and turned her gaze toward the temple’s dark entrance.

Though the gates now stood open, the interior was shrouded in absolute darkness and nothing could be seen within it.

It resembled the gaping maw of some monstrous beast, silently waiting for its prey to step inside.

Urinos entered first.

“Let’s go.”

Her movements were practiced, as though she had walked this path countless times before.

After hesitating for several seconds, Evé followed.

The moment she crossed the temple’s threshold, her surroundings quickly transformed and she found herself standing within a starry sky.

—No.

It was not a starry sky.

It appeared to be the ruins of an entire universe.

Silent.

Cold.

Even time itself seemed frozen.

To her astonishment, countless shattered worlds drifted all around her, packed so densely that they were impossible to count.

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Yet these worlds were incredibly small.

The largest were only about the size of a human palm, while the smallest were no larger than sesame seeds.

With the extraordinary vision of a True God, Evé could even peer through the fractured crystalline walls of those miniature worlds and observe what lay within.

Each one contained a dead and desolate realms.

Some even preserved the ruins of civilizations long devoid of life.

These ruined realms bore no resemblance to the architecture seen in the prime material realm.

Instead, they possessed an unsettlingly bizarre atmosphere, primitive, savage, and grotesque.

Scattered among the ruins were terrifying skeletons that looked remarkably like enormous dead insects…

Evé frowned.

“What is this…?”

“Magnificent, isn’t it? This is a universe that has already been destroyed.”

Urinos replied.

Evé immediately caught the significance of the word.

A universe?

At that moment, white steps gradually materialized beneath the feet of the two, extending deeper into the miniature universe.

The staircase was identical to the one they had crossed before entering the Cradle of Origin, matching it perfectly in both color and design.

Urinos stepped onto the stairs and continued walking deeper as she spoke.

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“This universe was called the Poseidonian Universe. It was ruled by an intelligent race that called themselves the Kulich. They developed a brilliant civilization and reached extraordinary heights in the study of psychic power…”

She glanced at Evé.

“‘Psychic power’ may sound unfamiliar to you, but if I use another term, I believe you’ll recognize it immediately.”

“What term?”

Evé asked.

“The power of faith.”

Urinos answered with a sigh.

After a long pause, she continued.

“However, just as their civilization reached its greatest glory, a catastrophe descended upon them. Endless swarms of insects appeared throughout the Poseidonian Universe, in which those insects devoured every form of energy and thus, ultimately destroyed everything.”

Evé was thoroughly shocked.

After a long silence, she finally asked,

“How do you know all of this?”

Urinos paused before answering.

“Well, I read it in the records.”

She then looked at Evé.

“In fact, you can read them as well.”

Evé was momentarily stunned.

Just as she was about to ask another question, she realized they had already reached the end of the staircase.

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There stood a familiar platform.

It was identical to the platform at the entrance to the Cradle of Origin.

Beyond it stood another temple identical to the Pantheon, except that before this one towered a massive stone monument.

The monument was covered with densely packed inscriptions.

The script was unlike anything Evé had ever seen.

She could faintly recognize traces of Elvish, Dragon Script, Titan Script, and even the Ancient Divine Language once used by the Ancient Gods.

Yet the instant she saw the writing, she was astonished to discover that although she had never encountered these characters before, she could understand their meaning perfectly.

“Surprising, isn’t it? We’ve never seen this script before, yet we can still immediately comprehend it. I call it the Origin Script.”

“It possesses a mysterious power. You may not notice it here, but once you leave the Cradle of Origin and return to the Prime Material World, you’ll discover just how extraordinary it is… the script itself contains magic.”

“Oh, and by the way, the Dragon Script which the Dragon uses was created by me based on these very characters.”

Urinos explained.

Looking at the inscriptions, Evé’s expression became rather complicated.

Perhaps… Elvish was as well.

The monument was densely covered with text.

Recorded upon it was the complete history of this universe…

From the birth of life…

To evolution…

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To the rise of civilization…

And finally, to its destruction.

At the very end of the monument was a separate inscription:

【 The Poseidonian Universe endured for 530 million years. A total of 34,000 Laws of Origin Fragments were born. Of these, 32,000 were successfully collected for our Lord. 】

Evé fell silent.

“What does this mean?”

she asked, turning toward Urinos.

A terrible suspicion had already begun forming in her heart, and her expression darkened.

“It means exactly what it says.”

Urinos answered calmly.

“Come. Let’s move on to the next one.”

She raised the violet sphere of light once more, bathing the temple gates behind the platform in its radiance.

The massive doors slowly opened.

Once again, that same lifeless voice echoed in Evé’s ears, repeating the exact same words.

Yet standing before the entrance, she found herself unable to take a step.

She had a feeling she already knew what awaited beyond the gate.

“Come.”

Urinos said calmly.

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She stepped inside first.

Taking a deep breath, Evé followed.

Her vision shifted once again.

She found herself within another star-filled void.

No…

This was yet another ruined universe.

Countless shattered worlds drifted silently through the endless darkness, cold and devoid of life. Fragments of continents, broken stars, and the remnants of celestial bodies floated aimlessly through the void.

And within those broken worlds, just like in the previous universe, there still lingered faint traces of once-flourishing life. Crumbling cities, collapsed mountains, and dried-up oceans all testified that this universe had once been vibrant and alive.

But the moment Evé peered through the fractured crystalline barriers surrounding those miniature realms and saw the countless remains scattered across them, her expression abruptly changed.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

Unable to restrain herself, she turned toward Urinos.

Yet Urinos remained as calm as ever, her eyes quietly fixed upon the desolate universe before them.

“So… this is what ‘Beyond the Cosmos’ truly means?”

Evé asked in disbelief, her voice tinged with shock.

Urinos remained silent for a long moment before slowly letting out a quiet sigh.

“I don’t know… From the moment I descended into the universe of Seigues, all the memories of my past were already gone.”

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Evé said nothing.

Several seconds later, she slowly withdrew her gaze from the shattered worlds.

The remains scattered throughout this universe were none other than dragons.

And they were not merely ordinary dragons either, as every single one of them possessed the same appearance as Urinos’ true form, the sacred form revered by the beings of Seigues as the Ancestral Dragons.

This…

…was a universe that had once belonged to the dragons.

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