Pure power of the Grand Dao flowed all around him. Yang Kai stood within it, unable to discern direction, and could only let himself drift with the current.
In his estimation, the source—or perhaps the terminus—of this River of the Grand Dao must hold some kind of secret. Swimming upstream would be far too difficult. Even now, having attained the Ninth Rank, Yang Kai could accomplish little against the current, so he could only travel downstream.
The sensation was wondrous, as though he were truly standing in a river, flowing toward an unknown destination—sometimes calm, sometimes turbulent.
After an indeterminate stretch of time, Yang Kai suddenly felt the tributary he was in surge forward with greater velocity, as though the river had passed over a downward slope. The tributary's volume also swelled dramatically, and the consequence of that change was that the power of the Grand Dao surrounding him grew far denser.
Understanding dawned on him at once—his tributary had merged with others.
After another stretch, more tributaries joined the flow, and the river raced ever faster. Yang Kai drew upon the River of Space and Time to shield himself, preventing outside forces from interfering.
Until, at some moment, a sensation of weightlessness hit him—as though he had plunged over the lip of a sheer waterfall. The violent, churning water tossed his body about, and no matter how Yang Kai struggled, he could barely maintain his footing.
The power of the Grand Dao was in violent upheaval. The River of Space and Time he had wrapped around himself could barely hold, and for a time he was completely disoriented. At one instant, he even had the strange sensation of being spewed out of somewhere.
The feeling struck him as rather absurd…
When he finally managed to steady himself, the tributary that had been enveloping him was gone. With no outside forces sweeping him along, Yang Kai stood still in silence, frowning deeply.
Was this where the tributary ended?
And where exactly was this place?
He turned his head to look around, and in the next moment, his gaze went momentarily blank.
Before him, a colossal, magnificent furnace was hurtling through the void, rapidly receding into the distance. The furnace was ancient and unadorned, its surface covered in intricate, labyrinthine patterns. A heavy, weathered sense of the ages poured from it in waves.
"The Cosmos Furnace!" Lei Ying's shocked cry rang out through his mind. Even it had been stunned by the spectacle.
All of Yang Kai's recent actions had left it rather perplexed. Only now did it understand—everything Yang Kai had done had been to probe the mysteries of the Cosmos Furnace.
And now, the greatest mystery of heaven and earth was truly laid bare before his eyes.
That colossal furnace streaking through the void ahead was identical to the one that had been projected across the battlefields of the various Great Domains. If it wasn't the Cosmos Furnace, what else could it be?
The only difference was that the projections had been mere illusions, while this one was the genuine article.
Still dazed, Yang Kai seemed to snap back to awareness at Lei Ying's shout and was about to give chase when a torrent of multicolored light erupted from the furnace's mouth.
The moment those multicolored rays appeared, they scattered in every direction. Many grain-of-sand-like objects burst outward, expanding into the embryonic forms of cosmos worlds. Bizarre celestial phenomena swelled rapidly, filling vast stretches of the void. Pure, dense power of the myriad Daos flowed from the Cosmos Furnace, flooding what had been a formless, chaotic expanse.
A single grain of sand flew straight toward Yang Kai. Free of the pressure inside the Cosmos Furnace, the sand finally revealed its true nature. As it drew closer to Yang Kai, it rapidly expanded into an embryonic cosmos world rivaling the Star Boundary in size.
Yang Kai hurriedly dodged out of the way.
Deep within the Infinite River, he had already glimpsed these sand grains and known they were no ordinary sand. Now that they had escaped the Cosmos Furnace, they were finally showing their true faces.
As embryonic cosmos worlds, they currently held no life—they were barren wastelands. But given the right conditions and the polishing of ages, they would surely mature over time. Someday in the future, it was entirely possible that living beings would be born on these cosmos worlds.
The Cosmos Furnace continued to streak forward at tremendous speed, and from its mouth, the multicolored radiance kept erupting without cease.
Yang Kai now understood how he had ended up here. He had intruded into the tributary and ridden its flow—which meant he had been ejected by the Cosmos Furnace in exactly this manner.
The tributary's movement had been nothing more than the consequence of the Cosmos Furnace's eruptions.
This was not the Three Thousand Great Domains, nor was it the Ink Battlefield. It was a place he had never set foot in before.
A lifetime of cultivation had made him a man of broad experience, yet what lay before him now exceeded all imagination and shook him to his core.
Steadying his mind, Yang Kai set off in pursuit of the Cosmos Furnace, occasionally dodging the celestial bodies and phenomena that sprang into being around him.
For a long time, he had carried a question in his heart.
How had the myriad Great Domains come to be? How had all those cosmos worlds, all those strange and magnificent celestial phenomena come into existence? The common explanation was that primordial chaos had first divided, heaven and earth had opened, and thus the Great Domains and cosmos worlds had been born. But who could possibly possess such colossal power to accomplish that?
Even if it were the self-evolution of heaven and earth, there had to be some origin.
His explorations within the Infinite River had shown him those sand-grain-like embryonic cosmos worlds and those tiny, exquisite celestial phenomena. A vague understanding had stirred within him, but it had never quite crystallized.
Until now. In this moment, everything fell into place.
The origin of it all was here—in this Cosmos Furnace!
Every cosmos world in the Three Thousand Great Domains, every celestial phenomenon lingering in the Ink Battlefield—all of it traced back to the Cosmos Furnace. It was the product of eruption after eruption from this single, primordial source.