Chapter 413 - 68: The Source Code and the Speed of Gods

Chapter 413: Chapter 68: The Source Code and the Speed of Gods

The holographic projection of the First Emperor’s Theoretical Framework on the Origin Law of Spatial Dimensions filled the quiet study of Ash’s villa. The golden, multidimensional runes hung in the air, folding and twisting in ways that made the eyes water if you tried to look at them directly.

Ash sat in his plush armchair, a cup of tea resting on the table beside him. He hadn’t moved in over an hour.

He didn’t need to spend weeks deciphering the framework. Thanks to his heaven-defying comprehension talent and the vast, terrifying processing power of his Mental Universe, his parallel streams of consciousness went to work. They deconstructed the multidimensional runes, stripping away the physical projection and looking at the raw conceptual data underneath.

In just a few minutes, Ash saw the "3D shadow" for what it was. He mentally rotated the framework, folding it along axes that didn’t exist in normal physical space, until it snapped into its true, higher-dimensional shape.

As the framework clicked into place in his mind, Ash made his first major discovery.

Origin Laws didn’t just govern the physics of the three-dimensional world. They were the foundational source code for higher-dimensional worlds as well. The 3D universe he lived in, the one with length, width, and height, was just a flat projection. It was a shadow cast by a much deeper, multi-layered reality that stretched upward into dimensions the human brain wasn’t naturally built to perceive.

So that’s why the First Emperor’s framework looked so weird in 3D, Ash thought, taking a slow sip of his tea. He was trying to write a four-dimensional equation on a three-dimensional piece of paper. No wonder the other Sovereigns couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

This realization about higher dimensions immediately triggered a cascade of connections in his mind. He pulled his Sovereign-level terminal closer and initiated a deep dive into the classified archives. He bypassed the standard human history files and went straight for the records recovered from the ruins of other extinct, high-tier civilizations.

He needed to know what lived at the top of the food chain. He needed to know about the realms of the Martial Gods.

***

The archives were vast, filled with the translated logs, tactical reports, and fragmented histories of alien races that had reached the apex of cultivation millions of years before humanity even discovered fire.

Ash scrolled through the data, his eyes scanning the glowing text at a blinding speed.

The Martial God Realm. It was the current absolute peak of the known universe, according to the data humans had collected. The records described these existences as beings who could create and destroy galaxies on a whim. They were beings who didn’t just manipulate the laws of reality; they embodied them.

Then, Ash read the physical statistics, and he actually had to pause.

The records showed that a fully realized Martial God possessed a physical and conceptual relativistic speed calculated at a staggering 3.16 trillion times the speed of light and higher.

Ash leaned back in his chair, staring at the number. Three point one six trillion c. It was a number so large it basically lost all meaning. If a Martial God wanted to cross the whole galaxy system, it would take them less than a fraction of a second.

But as he kept reading, he found a massive, terrifying caveat in the tactical logs.

Martial Gods never traveled at that speed inside a galaxy.

Ash read the after-action reports from ancient intergalactic wars to understand why. The physics were brutally simple. If a Martial God actually flew at 3.16 trillion times the speed of light through a galaxy system, the infinite energy shockwaves generated by their sheer mass and velocity would instantly vaporize the entire galaxy they were flying through.

They wouldn’t just break the sound barrier; they would break the structural integrity of the universe. The kinetic wake of their passage would ignite stars, shatter planets, and rip the spatial fabric to shreds. A galaxy simply couldn’t survive the friction of a God moving at top speed.

Because of this, Martial Gods had to use workarounds when traveling inside a galaxy. They mostly folded space, used stable wormholes, or ascended into higher dimensions to travel from point A to point B, dropping back down into the 3D world only when they reached their exact destination.

The only place they freely used their top speed was in the deep, empty void of intergalactic space. The vast, empty darkness between galaxies was the only arena large enough to handle their velocity without collapsing reality. The void between galaxies was the true battlefield of the Gods.

That makes sense, Ash mused, his mind easily digesting the physics. You don’t drive a Ferrari at two thousand miles an hour through a crowded grocery store. You take it to the empty desert.

***

He scrolled further down, moving past the physical statistics and into the cultivation requirements.

Comprehending higher dimensional principles and mastering an Origin Law wasn’t enough to reach the Martial God realm. The archives made it explicitly clear that a cultivator must also master one, two, or more of the Four Fundamental Forces of the Universe.

Ash read the breakdown.

Gravity. Electromagnetism. The Strong Nuclear Force. The Weak Nuclear Force.

These weren’t just Cosmic Laws. Cosmic Laws were the rules of the simulation—how fire burns, how space bends, how metal cuts. The Fundamental Forces were the actual glue holding the simulation together. They were the baseline mechanics of existence itself. To reach Martial God, a cultivator had to take their Origin Law and weave it directly into the Fundamental Forces, mastering the literal building blocks of reality.

And then, Ash read about the realm above Martial God.

His eyes widened slightly. The archives were sparse here, mostly consisting of mythological fragments and fragmented warnings, but the core requirement was clear. To ascend to that unimaginable height, a cultivator had to learn to gradually fuse their Origin Laws directly with the Fundamental Forces. They had to stop just using the forces and become the living embodiment of the universe’s core mechanics.

Ash let out a low whistle. The scale of the universe was getting ridiculously big, and he was just sitting in a chair in his villa.

***

He closed the alien archives and pulled up a theoretical matrix on his terminal. He wanted to synthesize everything he had just read. He wanted to see the exact anatomy of an Origin Law.

His fingers flew across the holographic keyboard, cross-referencing the First Emperor’s framework with the alien ruins’ data. Slowly, a clear picture began to form.

An Origin Law wasn’t just a "stronger" version of a True Cosmic Law. It was a complex, layered mixture. It was the base principles of a Cosmic Law combined with the principles of higher-dimensional space.

He mapped it out on the screen, watching as the terminal translated the base laws into their higher-dimensional Origin counterparts. It was like looking at a massive, reality-bending skill tree.

Fire Law, Ash typed. The screen shifted. It evolved into the Origin of Entropy, Ignition & Astral Pyre. It wasn’t just about making things hot anymore; it was about the higher-dimensional concept of decay and stellar birth.

Water Law. It evolved into the Origin of Flow, Adaptation & Hyper-Tide.

Space Law. It evolved into the Origin of Spatial Dimension & the Infinite Fold. This was the one the First Emperor had been working on.

Earth Law. It evolved into the Origin of Mass, Foundation & Monolith Axis.

Wind/Air Law. It evolved into the Origin of Motion, Expansion & Horizon Drift.

Lightning Law. It evolved into the Origin of Charge, Cohesion & Quantum Arc.

Metal Law. It evolved into the Origin of Sharpness, Indestructibility & Tesseract Edge.

Sword Law. It evolved into the Origin of Severance, Edge & the Apex Cleave.

Ash stared at the glowing list. The names alone sounded like they belonged in a high-fantasy novel, but the underlying math was brutally, terrifyingly real. Every single one of these Origin Laws required the cultivator to perceive reality in more than three dimensions while simultaneously manipulating the base physics of their chosen element.

***

Ash leaned back in his chair, staring at the glowing matrix. He was amazed by the sheer scale of the universe, by the terrifying majesty of the Martial Gods, and by the brilliant, tragic genius of the First Emperor.

But as the awe faded, a cold, pragmatic realization washed over him.

He looked at his own cultivation path.

Normal cultivators, even the absolute geniuses of humanity, only needed to comprehend one Origin Law and maybe master one Fundamental Force to reach the Martial God realm. They picked a lane, they drove down it, and they ascended.

But Ash’s path was fundamentally different. And infinitely more difficult.

Because of his Boundless Omni Art and his Law of Absolute Genesis, his cultivation method was a living, assimilating framework. It didn’t just let him pick a lane. It demanded that he pave the entire highway.

He didn’t just need one Origin Law. To fully perfect his Omni Art, he would eventually have to comprehend multiple Origin Laws. He would have to master the Fundamental Forces. And then, he would have to fuse all of those massive, higher-dimensional principles into his Omni Art and his Unique Law.

He wasn’t just climbing a mountain. He was trying to carry the entire mountain range on his back.

His cultivation path was exponentially harder than anyone else’s in human history. The energy requirements, the mental processing power, the conceptual weight—it was all multiplied by a factor that made his head spin just thinking about it.

"I really do have a long and tedious journey ahead of me," Ash said quietly to the empty room.

He looked at his hands. His current heaven-defying comprehension talent was amazing. It had allowed him to decode the First Emperor’s framework in seconds. It had allowed him to terraform Mars. But as he looked at the massive list of Origin Laws and Fundamental Forces he eventually needed to master, he realized something chilling. "My comprehension actually might not be enough for all this."

Processing the sheer, astronomical volume of data required to fuse multiple Origin Laws and Fundamental Forces simultaneously would push his mental capacity to the absolute breaking point. He needed more processing power. He needed a stronger foundation for his mind.

He already knew the solution.

He would have to make another Multiversal Jump.

He needed to find a parallel version of himself in the multiverse who also possessed a heaven-defying comprehension talent, and he needed to copy it. By stacking the talent, he could exponentially strengthen his own mental processing power, giving his Mental Universe the raw computational horsepower it would need to handle the fusion of the Origin Laws.

But that was for later. He wasn’t going to jump blindly.

Before he initiated the Multiversal Self-Resonance, he needed to know exactly where his current limits were. He needed to see how far his current comprehension could push him before it bottlenecked. He needed to test the engine before he tried to upgrade it.

Ash reached out and tapped the terminal.

The holographic projection of the First Emperor’s multidimensional framework faded, the golden runes dissolving into the air. The study returned to its quiet, dimly lit state.

Ash stood up, walked to the center of the room, and sat cross-legged on the soft rug. He closed his eyes, slowing his breathing, letting the ambient cosmic energy of the villa wash over him.

He didn’t try to comprehend the whole Origin Law. He just focused on the foundational thread he had sensed earlier—the concept of the higher-dimensional anchor.

He dove his consciousness directly into the multidimensional source code of the Origin Law of Spatial Dimensions.

The real work began.