Volume 1, Chapter 49: Lord Progenitor! There's movement!
He was the Martial Ancestor of the Gu family, possessing the most explosive temper and the most fiercely protective nature of all the ancient patriarchs.
Suddenly, his eyes, which had remained tightly shut for nine eons, snapped open!
Two substantive beams of crimson divine light pierced through the core of the star and shot into the endless, dark void.
"Such an overbearing dao mark of 'Purity'! Who is it? Who dares to act presumptuously within the Gu family's territory, and even leave behind such pristine traces of karmic eradication?"
His divine sense swept across the heavens and myriad realms, instantly capturing that faint, elusive fluctuation of laws within the mortal realm.
Immediately afterward, another fluctuation—even more subtle, yet far more fundamental—was captured by him.
"This is... the aura of 'Enlightenment'?! "
A look of astonishment first appeared on the Martial Ancestor's majestic face, which was instantly replaced by an indescribable, wild ecstasy.
"Hahaha! It is the Primordial Ancestor! The Primordial Ancestor has stirred!"
He abruptly stood up, causing the entire dead star to shake violently as if it were about to completely disintegrate at any moment.
...
Downstream in the long river of time across the heavens and myriad realms, a solitary boat sailed against the current.
On the boat, a scholar in a green robe, with a refined appearance and holding a judge's brush, was repairing something on an endless, vast scroll.
Every page of the scroll recorded the rise and fall of a great chiliocosm.
He was the Scholarly Ancestor of the Gu family, responsible for sorting out and maintaining the karmic order of the heavens and myriad realms.
Suddenly, the brush in his hand stopped.
He raised his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through the past and the future, locking onto a specific node in time.
"Dozens of twisted karmic lines have been smoothed out from their very roots by a supreme power," he murmured softly, a contemplative look in his eyes. "The technique is clean and decisive, untainted by even a speck of dust, as if those 'errors' had never existed at all. This is the supreme realm of 'Non-Action'."
He pinched his fingers to calculate, and the astonishment between his brows grew heavier.
"The source is actually in the mortal ancestral land? And this trace of... the breath of genesis? It is the Primordial Ancestor!"
A gratified and excited smile appeared on the Scholarly Ancestor's face. He put away the scroll and bowed slightly toward the empty bow of the boat.
"Welcome back, Primordial Ancestor, from the realm of annihilation."
...
At the edge of the universe, in a realm of "absolute nothingness" where even the concept of existence did not apply, a cold and stunning woman draped in a cloak woven from starlight held a giant scythe, confronting a nameless monster transformed from the law of "entropy increase."
She was the Penal Ancestor of the Gu family, responsible for suppressing the corrosion from beyond the universe.
At this moment, feeling a sudden stirring in her heart, she whipped her head around and gazed in the direction of home.
That familiar yet distant fluctuation of supreme will caused the heart that had been frozen for countless eons to tremble.
A slight curve formed at the corner of her lips, carrying a cold and exhilarated arc.
"Finally... things won't be boring anymore."
The giant scythe in her hand erupted with unprecedented, brilliant light. With a single slash, she cleaved that "entropy increase" monster—along with the very nothingness it inhabited—into two halves!
...
At the same time, one after another of the Gu family's patriarchs, slumbering within the event horizons of black holes, dimensional rifts, and the ends of reincarnation, awoke from their endless slumbers.
They were the foundation of the universe, the guardians of order, ancient monsters who had lived for unknown ages.
Any major event across the heavens and myriad realms might not necessarily stir them.
Yet any slight movement from the Primordial Ancestor was enough to jolt them awake from their deepest slumbers!
A grand and ancient voice traversed all dimensions, echoing in the mind of every core member of the Gu family:
"—Summon!"
"—Open the highest-level Ancestral Shrine Assembly!"
This imperial decree exploded like a thunderclap in every corner of the Gu family.
A Gu family elder who was playing go with the master of a forbidden zone in some restricted area above the nine heavens paused his go piece, smiled apologetically at the bewildered zone master, and vanished instantly.
A Gu family descendant in the Abyss of Ten Thousand Demons, who was using a primordial chaos demon god as a punching bag to temper his combat skills, heard the voice, casually smashed the demon god into fine powder, bowed respectfully toward the void, and turned into a streak of light in the distance.
A Gu family woman who was experiencing all walks of mortal life and serving as an emperor in a mortal dynasty directly announced her abdication during morning court, leaving behind a bewildered cabinet of civil and military officials. With a single step, she was already beyond the nine heavens.
...
The Gu family courtyard.
Old Fu respectfully received the imperial decree from the ancestral shrine into his hands.
The decree had no physical form; it was merely a beam of light, a stream of information.
The content was very simple:
"Fu, project the current state of the Primordial Ancestor into the ancestral shrine. Do not fail."
Old Fu's expression became somewhat peculiar.
He glanced at Gu Changsheng, who was listlessly beginning to study a colony of ants moving house on the ground, feeling a myriad of complicated emotions in his heart.
Letting those old patriarchs see the current state of the Primordial Ancestor... was this really a good idea?
He could imagine that if the Martial Ancestor saw the Primordial Ancestor being so "leisurely," the old fellow would likely rush over on the spot, drop to his knees, and cry out, "The Primordial Ancestor has suffered!"
That bookworm of a Scholarly Ancestor would definitely take out his little notebook and start analyzing how many cosmic dao principles of creation and destruction were contained in the Primordial Ancestor's gesture of watching ants.
As for the Penal Ancestor... she would probably feel that the "formation" of those few ants was a sign of extreme disrespect toward the Primordial Ancestor, and she would cross space and time to purify the ants' entire family.
A headache.
Old Fu rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Yet he could not disobey the command of the ancestral shrine.
He walked over to Gu Changsheng and asked cautiously, "Young Master, do you... perhaps find it a bit boring?"
"Indeed." Gu Changsheng didn't even raise his head, using a small twig to poke at the line of ants, watching them scurry and frantically change their path. "It's too boring. There isn't even a decent game to play, and my phone has no signal. Old Fu, tell me, when will days like this ever end?"
Old Fu's mouth twitched.
Primordial Ancestor, the days you are living right now are the ultimate form that all living beings across the heavens and myriad realms wouldn't even dare to dream of.
While inwardly muttering to himself, he silently activated a dharma seal.
A curtain of light, invisible to the naked eye of mortals, rose from the courtyard, transmitting Gu Changsheng's current state in real-time and with absolute clarity directly into the Gu family's ancestral shrine, which existed in an unknown dimension.
Having done all this, Old Fu held his breath and stood quietly to one side, awaiting the "highest instructions" from the patriarchs.
He only hoped the Young Master wouldn't do anything too earth-shattering in a moment.
Such as complaining that the sun was too glaring and telling it to roll away, or something of the sort.
The last Heavenly Dao that complained about being too noisy had a grave whose grass was already tens of thousands of feet tall. The sun in this mortal realm certainly couldn't withstand a single word of fuss from the Primordial Ancestor.
However, Old Fu's prayers were clearly of little use.
Because Gu Changsheng had grown tired of playing with the ants, raised his head, stretched lazily, and swept his gaze around the courtyard.
Finally, his sight locked onto Xiao Hei, who was sleeping soundly by the door, and... the brand-new, shiny doghouse beneath Xiao Hei.
The sunlight shone on the doghouse, reflecting a blinding glare that happened to catch Gu Changsheng right in the eyes.
Gu Changsheng narrowed his eyes, a look of distinct displeasure appearing on his face.
The Gu family ancestral shrine.
This was not any physical building, but a conceptual space independent of time and space, woven purely from the fabric of "Dao" and "Reason."
In the center of the space, a massive curtain of light clearly displayed the scene within the Gu family courtyard.
Beneath the curtain of light, a dozen fuzzy yet majestic figures stood on either side.
Some had roaring flames surging around them, resembling walking stars; some had thousands of scriptures revolving around them, every single word profound and evolving the birth and death of civilizations; others were silent as iron, their forms merging with the darkness, with only the occasional flash of their gazes capable of severing karma.