Chapter 895: Enlightenment and the essence of the power of the three-grade

Li Qi had a premonition that he would resolve his Karma with the Demonic Dao in the Desire Realm, but… he hadn’t anticipated that after the Desire Realm Universe completely withered, the massive influx of information would directly reveal to him the connection between the Desire Realm and his ‘Dao Field’.

After the Desire Realm withered and shattered, Li Qi noticed that at least eight Third Ranks from the Demon of Death lineage sent him messages, becoming ‘acquaintances’.

In other words, all these individuals participated in this operation.

Nine… adding himself, that makes ten.

Ten Third Ranks caused the Desire Realm to wither, allowing these Demon of Death Third Ranks to complete a super-gigantic experiment equivalent to the Reality Universe, much like raising an entire Universe of hamsters.

How many civilizations were there in this process?

Innumerable, simply impossible to count.

A single world contains more than one civilization, especially high-rank worlds. For instance, a Fourth Rank world itself could potentially encompass several Observable Universes, spanning hundreds of billions of light-years, filled with galaxies, countless supercluster groups, and every planet and even star might give birth to different life forms. The civilizations within are countless, more numerous than dust in a nebula.

Of course, a Fourth Rank world could also be just tens of millions of miles in length and width, but the quality of life within it is incredibly high; these depend solely on the nature of the world.

Even so, how many Fourth Rank worlds were there in the Desire Realm?

Admittedly, there were no non-Demonic Dao existences above Third Rank in the Desire Realm, meaning all Third Rank worlds within the Desire Realm were private property of a certain Third Rank Demonic Dao cultivator, so they wouldn't be affected. But even so, worlds below Fourth Rank, with different civilizations and different histories, all withered in an instant.

During this process of withering, how much information about death did they gain? And how many possibilities could this information help them deduce? Not to mention the assistance of Demon of Death’s Dao Resonance.

After realizing this, Li Qi became vigilant.

Whatever benefits they gained, he had to gain the same, otherwise, he couldn't bear these risks.

As if sensing Li Qi’s actions, the Third Ranks of the Demon of Death lineage chuckled, “Don’t worry, we have no intention of breaking the agreement.”

“This is absolutely an equivalent exchange.”

After speaking, the last layer of ‘reality’ in the Desire Realm completely shattered.

The ‘surface’ of the Desire Realm, meaning the ‘reality’ composed of thoughts and minds, completely vanished. At this moment, the Desire Realm ‘died’.

The entire Desire Realm no longer had any ‘fundamental units’ existing, so space-time also lost its meaning.

However, the next moment, another fundamental unit appeared, supporting the very end.

That was…

The power of the Heavenly Demon!

No, that wasn't power; that was information shaped by the Heavenly Demon.

But… these two seem to be equivalent.

Information is power, and power is essentially the ability to write information.

Therefore, the Heavenly Demon left information, and thus also left power.

And this information was also deciphered by Li Qi, just like everything that happened with Huodou.

Some scrambled code perfectly completed Li Qi’s puzzle.

At this instant, Li Qi finally obtained the secret he had hoped for!

His premonition was confirmed here—

“A Third Rank itself… is the fundamental source.”

“History is composed of at least Third Rank existences, and all ‘past’ is also composed of this. In other words… everything that is a Third Rank and above, in itself, is all of everything.”

Li Qi muttered to himself in his heart.

‘I’ am about to experience, ‘I’ am experiencing, ‘I’ have experienced.

Third Ranks are in one of these states.

Of course, there’s also the possibility of never experiencing, but that doesn’t matter; this merely describes a state they are in. For them, no matter who it is, they all come from the past but only exist in the present.

The existence of Third Ranks is like time itself; it seems to always move forward, but if one day, time itself suddenly tired of converging into a single stream and arbitrarily went in various directions it wished, it would be unfortunate that because everything in time resides within time, they naturally couldn’t bear such arbitrariness. They would also be distorted by time, creating all sorts of paradoxes.

But in reality, there are no paradoxes at all.

Time relative to itself, or rather… Third Ranks relative to themselves, always move forward. Those who perceive them darting around are other Third Ranks and Mortals within time.

Suppose, in a world where time lines suddenly become chaotic. From a Xiao Gou, to a person, and then to a super-intelligence formed by a galaxy cluster, how would every existence trapped in the collapsing space-time operate? And how would it eventually return to natural?

Intertwined time lines are like the relationships between Third Ranks, ignoring past and future, turning into a tangled mess.

Time abandoned its original neat order… No, time originally didn’t possess any ‘neat order’.

From the perspective of Mortals, what is the operational logic of all this?

When a Third Rank can infinitely modify the past and perceive the infinitely distant future, any new problem at any moment becomes an already solved problem.

Even future problems can be shared with countless ‘pasts’ in the past, and as long as someone solves a problem at a certain time node, then for those above Third Rank, they have already understood this problem since the Big Bang.

For Mortals, the ‘history’ of a Third Rank itself is a closed timelike curve. If viewed from a Mortal’s perspective, they can only see the ultimate observation of a Third Rank at the end of time.

But all this is ultimately just a Mortal’s perspective, and it was also Li Qi’s perspective before.

If from the perspective of a Third Rank—

He finally understood why these ‘secrets’ could not be spoken or recorded.

Because… ‘recording’ itself is useless.

How do you ‘record’ the present?

Yes, the present.

Li Qi had already understood before that there was no past or future at all; all time, everything, was only ‘now.’ But he didn’t truly feel it, because for Li Qi, the past still existed; he was indeed composed of the ‘past.’

For a Third Rank, this point is a complete reality.

No Third Rank exists dependent on the ‘past.’

All ‘past,’ all ‘history,’ are essentially the ‘present’ of a Third Rank; they are a part of the ‘Third Rank’ existing at this moment.

Therefore, you cannot obtain records of history above Third Rank from anywhere else.

Suppose you read a book and learned about history that happened millions of years ago, incorporating it as ‘memory’ and ‘knowledge’ into your mind.

Then, after you finish reading the book, the author of the book… rewrites it, suddenly changing the setting and modifying all previous stories.

Then, what meaning does the knowledge you previously read have, other than being a ‘story’?

All of that already became false; it never happened, or rather… it only happened in the mind of a Third Rank; it’s true for a Third Rank, but not necessarily for others.

Therefore, ‘recording’ is meaningless, and ‘history’ is also meaningless.

To understand the past, one can only rely on understanding the present.

But the truly meaningful ‘present’ can only be accessed by existences of Third Rank and above.

To explain this, one needs to understand what ‘space-time’ truly is.

What is space? What is time?

Suppose the Universe is static, and there is only one indivisible ‘fundamental unit’ in the entire Universe. Then… there is no space, because the essence of space is the interval between ‘fundamental units.’ At the same time, there is no time, because time is used to measure the change in the motion of ‘fundamental units.’ Without space, there is naturally no time.

An indivisible fundamental unit has neither a measurable interval nor any change. Space-time simply does not apply to it. At this point, there is naturally no history in any meaningful sense.

And if the Universe has two such fundamental units, then there is space representing the interval, and time representing the change in the interval. Thus, all changes arise.

These two fundamental units themselves will represent the distance at a certain moment. Then, in this space, as their distance changes, these two fundamental units in the Universe will have a ‘record’ of being sometimes close and sometimes far. Therefore, ‘history’ is born.

Now, if the Universe has three ‘fundamental units,’ then for each moment, the distances between these three ‘fundamental units’ need to be represented by three numbers. If the Universe has four ‘fundamental units,’ then the distances between these four ‘fundamental units’ at each moment need to be represented by more numbers…

And so on. If there are many fundamental units, then they will form an extremely complex space-time.

Next, let’s expand our thinking.

Within this space, there exist individual events, which can be called points in space-time.

So… are these ‘events’ the indivisible ‘fundamental units’?

If one travels from one event to the next at a speed less than the speed of light, then everything is normal; events will be arranged in a causal relationship, and you will see everything changing in order.

But if the speed of light is exceeded, the space-time order is broken, leaving only individual events existing in the Universe, but they are no longer correlated with each other, just like those indivisible fundamental units. A closed timelike curve jumps from one event to another, disregarding any assumed causal order.

All individually existing ‘events’ are ‘reality’.

All fundamental units in the Universe are individual ‘realities’ frozen in time. Each ‘reality’ is an indivisible fundamental unit, containing different possibilities of the Universe’s history. Arranging these ‘realities’ will reveal the activities of all ‘realities’ in the Universe, which is to depict the Universe’s history, the Universe’s present, and the Universe’s future.

The positions and moments of these ‘realities,’ every change they produce, will give birth to the complete Universe seen by all Mortals.

This is the nature of a Third Rank’s existence. These ‘realities,’ these isolated ‘events,’ these indivisible ‘fundamental units,’ are the ‘points’ existing in the vast Universe.

All these ‘points’ are called ‘Third Ranks.’

This is why history can be changed.

History is twisted by one party, then twisted back again, and the timeline is endlessly modified. This is because all ‘time’ and ‘space’ themselves are defined by these indivisible ‘real fundamental units.’

In this situation, all information is unreal, all records are untrustworthy. Everything experienced one second ago and the next could be false. Only ‘reality’ is true and trustworthy.

This is not about the truth or falsehood of the information itself; it merely states that the past that caused the current situation may have already changed.

Li Qi reads history books and learns about an event, for example, a certain great figure killed another great figure, leading to a certain event. He knows all this. Then, when he uses this information to act, he might find that… things are not as he thought, because this event has disappeared, and he cannot use it anymore.

This is very troublesome; this information changes too quickly and can become invalid at any time.

Therefore…

The true body of a Third Rank is ‘history itself.’

If Li Qi wants to understand those secrets, all he can do is read the real objects that are Third Ranks. Otherwise, he will never understand true history.

Only the reality of a Third Rank, that is, ‘everything a Third Rank experiences themselves,’ is verifiable and unchangeable history.

No… it can also change. As long as the Third Rank themselves dies, everything might be modified.

But at least before the opponent’s death, all of this will be fixed by the opponent, because these pasts are important parts that make up a Third Rank, and also the true ‘building materials’ of the entire Universe.

Yes, building materials. Li Qi can only understand it this way.

These important experiences form a Third Rank, and Third Ranks, using themselves as ‘fundamental units,’ collectively constitute the essence of space-time, which is to ‘define’ time.

Just as was said earlier.

If the Universe had only one fundamental unit, there would be no space-time.

The Universe needs at least two fundamental units to form the basic elements of time and space, namely: motion, reference frame, and interval.

If there is only one, then it is static.

And as the number of ‘fundamental units’ increases, their complexity will increase exponentially.

This is the unspeakable truth, because… the information you obtain from all non-Third Rank channels is actually uncertain, a kind of illusion that can be changed and switched at any time.

Just like… the Desire Realm at this moment.

The Desire Realm rapidly ‘rewound.’

Before a certain unspeakable power, the Desire Realm returned to the moment of its ‘initial opening.’

“The answer has been clarified, Li Qi. Do you have any other requests? If not, the remaining Dao Resonance can be paid,” Lou Neifa said indifferently. (End of chapter)