Gazing at the faint sliver of light hovering before him, Jiang Chen recognized it as one of the nine rings within the chain seal his Heavenly Emperor father had laid upon his sea of consciousness.
Each ring contained a sealed treasure.
The previous three had each held a mortal-realm treasure.
"What will Father gift me this time?" A thread of anticipation stirred in Jiang Chen's heart. It wasn't so much that he was craving any particular treasure — it was that anything even tangibly connected to his father from his previous life was something he refused to let pass.
After all, the gulf between his past life and present life was so vast it bordered on unreality. He genuinely longed for some token, any token, from his father in that former existence — proof that all of this was real.
This time, when the seal released its hold, what emerged was a feathered robe.
It was another mortal-realm treasure. On the surface, nothing about the garment was particularly striking — it even looked rather plain.
But the moment Jiang Chen brushed it with his spiritual consciousness, his heart jolted violently.
"The Garment of Flawlessness?"
Those four characters flashed through his sea of consciousness, and in the next instant, he grasped the robe's wondrous utility. "The Garment of Flawlessness harnesses the natural creation of heaven and earth, accommodating all things within formlessness. Neither pure nor impure, neither increasing nor decreasing. Donning this garment allows one to conceal one's presence entirely, to vanish on the spot, to stand right beside an enemy without the slightest possibility of detection."
If those were its only effects, it would be little different from a high-grade stealth talisman.
What made the Garment of Flawlessness truly heaven-defying was the nature of its concealment — wearing it was tantamount to being completely stripped from the fabric of this void itself.
Even if an enemy unleashed world-destroying attacks across that stretch of void, so long as the wearer maintained a state of flawlessness — neither pure nor impure, neither increasing nor decreasing — they would not be exposed, nor would they be affected by such an assault.
The only exception was an opponent capable of perceiving through the Garment of Flawlessness and breaking its power. Only then could the wearer be forced into the open.
Otherwise, no matter how powerful the adversary, they could not kill someone clad in the Garment of Flawlessness.
"Father…" Jiang Chen's eyes burned, tears brimming at the rims. He could only imagine how much painstaking effort his father had poured into refining these mortal-realm treasures.
From the Heaven-Measuring Ruler, to the True Dragon Rope of Water and Fire, to the Mirror of Sentient Beings, and now to this Garment of Flawlessness — Jiang Chen understood clearly that any one of them, if placed in an ordinary plane, would become that plane's supreme treasure. Even in the vast expanse of the myriad heavens, they would incite a frenzied scramble among all.
Yet his father had set aside so many, all for him.
"It seems my reincarnation into this world was no accident. Father left behind these treasures for me — he must have held expectations for my fate."
In a sudden rush, Jiang Chen recalled that during his unconsciousness, a voice from his Heavenly Emperor father had seemed to echo through his sea of consciousness, speaking of how he was enduring unspeakable torment somewhere within a secret realm among the vast heavens. How he had been waiting all along for his son — his only son.
"Could it be… Father did not perish when the myriad heavens shattered? He's waiting for me? He's calling out to me? Is he trying to convey something to me?"
Jiang Chen's heart stirred, and warmth flooded through him.
A premonition rose within him — he was drawing ever closer to unraveling the mystery of his origins in his past life. His father had left behind the nine-ring chain seal, and there must be far more content and information yet to be revealed.
"I must intensify my cultivation. I have to break through all nine levels of the Divine Dao as quickly as possible, advance to the supreme rank of God King, attain the pinnacle of the Divine Dao, rend heaven and earth asunder, and forge my own world among the myriad heavens. Only then will I have any hope of uncovering the secrets Father left behind. In my previous life, I was unable to cultivate — I had no hope at all. But in this life, while my fate has been shaped step by step by my own hands, could it be that Father's hand guided and orchestrated much of it from the very beginning?"
At this moment, Jiang Chen burned with renewed drive.
He understood with perfect clarity that his reincarnation into this world meant he bore the weight of karma and the burden of a mission.