Prime Originator

Back inside the unburied section of the Desolate Crow Clan, Duna silently and subtly hopped off from Leon's back before circling around to his front.

Looking at Leon standing on the spot with his eyes closed, Duna could not help but give him a look of wonder and interest.

"How strange…"

Slowly, her eyes shifted to the nape of his neck with a hint of bloodthirst before she frowned and peeled her gaze away, no longer concerning herself with Leon's matter.

"He will be fine on his own since there isn't anyone around to bother him. I, on the other hand, need to finish recovering," Duna muttered softly.

Her hands have been restored, but the gaping hole in her chest was rather unsightly to look at. She did not want to continue looking like this.

After finding herself a spot on the ground away from Leon, Duna entered seated meditation with her eyes closed and refined the remaining True Grandmist Energy in her body.

…

Meanwhile, Leon continued musing on the Great Way of Earth, unaware of the Transcendent Phenomenon forming in the skies outside.

His divine sense slowly spread out before sinking into the earth and subconsciously fusing with it.

In that instance, Leon's divine sense expanded infinitely, easily covering the entire Desolate Crow Clan's territory, allowing Leon to sense the countless lifeforms moving on the surface, as well as those living deeply underneath.

However, the new experience gave Leon a different feeling to divine sense. 

While the range was great, it also came with many limitations. 

He could sense the movements of all beings in the depths of the earth, but only their forms. He could not make out their image clearly as he would with divine sense like he was looking at them with his own eyes. 

As for the beings on the surface, it was even more limited. He could not even tell their forms, only feel their movements. 

'What kind of ability is this? It's like my consciousness had entered a whole different world...' Leon wondered.

He was astounded by the discovery, even feeling a little overwhelmed. The numerous life he could sense within his range was like countless ants gnawing on his consciousness.

'Although this detection ability is not as detailed as divine sense, just its range alone has far exceeded the level granted to Divine Practitioners at the Divine Origin Realm...' Leon ruminated. 

Even at his peak, it was impossible for his divine sense to stretch this far. 

'The divine sense of Divine Practitioners at the Divine King Ream might not necessarily be better than this either...'

Leon had a feeling that if he fused his divine sense with the earth and increased his connection further, the range of his detection could also increase even further.

'I can increase my detection further, but I fear the load will overburden my consciousness and collapse my mind...' Leon contemplated the risks. 

'This ability isn't something a Transcendent should have... Heck, Celestials shouldn't be this impressive either.'

As Leon pondered the reason behind the situation he was experiencing, his mind suddenly lit up like a light bulb. 

'No. Ordinary Celestials might be incapable, but a Celestial Ruler is a different story entirely...' 

It was said that Celestials could fuse with Celestials Bodies to achieve absolute power within their domain and live as long as the sun and moon.

'I'm afraid this ability has already entered the territory of gods, even if it is only sensing the earth...'

'But for me to have this ability, does that mean I've become the Celestial Ruler of Gaia?' Leon wondered.

Alas, the thought only lasted a moment before Leon scratched the idea from his mind. It was ridiculous just thinking about it. 

The detection ability was considered an earthen ability. 

However, his Earth Law has yet to reach the level of Transcendents, let alone Celestials. It was impossible to suddenly become the Celestial Ruler of Gaia. 

'Not unless the Celestial Realm was not the prerequisite for fusing with Celestial Bodies, but something else?' Leon suddenly thought, bringing himself back to the topic. 

'For example, one's soul perhaps? If it's my soul, which is that of a Divine Practitioner at the Divine Origin Realm, it might be possible?' 

Shortly after, Leon could not help but mentally shake his head and sigh, 'All this thinking is getting me nowhere.' 

'If I want answers, I need to completely fuse with earth to find out. However, that might be a path of no return..." Leon mentally frowned.

He could sense an inexplicable force pulling his consciousness towards the center of Gaia as if it wanted to devour him whole.

When Leon focused his sense on the subterranean world below, he could not help but feel amazed and dreadful at the same time.

'I knew that the subterranean world exists and that it is extremely vast. Still, it is much more boundless than I had anticipated...' Leon pondered.

Using his new earth sense ability, he could feel the layout of each underground floor. 

He had only been to the third floor at most. But at this moment, he could sense far, far beyond that. 

After every nine floors, the gap to the next floor was almost equal to the previous nine floors combined. 

In other words, every nine floors represented a layer, and the subterranean world had multiple layers, leading ever closer to the deepest depth of the world.

'To think that that the subterranean world expanded this deeply... It might just reach all the way to Gaia's core,' Leon mentally frowned before adding, 'Unfortunately, I can only sense up to the third layer...' 

Even so, the number of lifeforms he detected in the first two layers of the subterranean world left him breathless. 

'How can there be so many lifeforms living underneath the earth? This layout almost makes it the same as the fabled 18 layers of Hell...' Leon thought.

Suddenly, the inexplicable force Leon sensed in the depths of Gaia spiked dangerously, wrestling Leon's consciousness away from his body and beyond his control!

He could not resist!

'Shit!' 

His expression changed instantly. 

Leon was forced out of his earth sense state and into his astral body form as his consciousness got dragged straight towards the center of the world.

The sight was akin to like traveling at lightspeed in the void. 

Everything was a blur of darkness with countless stretched lines of light, making Leon unable to gauge how many floors and layers he was passing.

However, it only lasted a single instance before the brightness of light intensified to the point of turning his world into blinding whiteness. 

Shortly after the brightness dimmed, Leon was already in a strange new world with his consciousness before he knew it. 

"Where is this? The center of Gaia? This is not how I pictured it to be," Leon commented, full of doubts as his eyes wandered around. 

The world around him was filled with a plethora of plants and exotic herbs, which should have painted the place in lush green colors. 

Unfortunately, most of them were dead.

"This place is like a land of death..." Leon muttered with a frown while looking at the wilted plants and herbs that made the land look barren and desolate. 

However, the place was not completely barren and dead, thanks to a single holy tree keeping it alive, albeit barely. 

"To think there was a World Tree here... But then again, I'm not exactly sure where 'here' is or why I was brought here. What is happening to this place?" 

The sky was crimson, but there were no clouds. Instead, there was a dome-shaped barrier keeping out the molten-hot liquid, which was the source of the crimson light illuminating the foreign land with a World Tree within the dome.

Amidst the wilted plants and herbs across the land, Leon discovered the black and brown ground was not made of regular soil nor sand, but iron dust.

Glaring red veins spread across the foreign land like roots, sucking out all life from the plants and herbs, even the ground itself. 

"Are these red veins the main cause of this dying world?"

Leon's eyes traced the red veins to its source, which lead him towards circling around the dying World Tree. 

On the other side, he found a beautifully carved female stone golem and the World Tree's roots intertwining around a glaring red crack in the dimension. 

"A spatial rift? No, a spatial rift shouldn't be red like this—or red at all, for that matter. What the heck is it?" Leon frowned with a grave look. 

He could not come up with a guess for the grim-glowing red crack at a glance, but it gave him an ominous feeling. 

"Look at the positioning of the World Tree's roots and this female stone golem; it looks like they were working together to seal this red crack..." 

Leon began analyzing. 

"An inestimable amount of time must have passed since the sealing of this red crack that it has begun weakening and break out from the seal—Hm?"

Leon suddenly noticed the female stone golem opened her eyes before gazing back at him. 

"You've finally come... Hm? No, you are not the one who I have been waiting for. You are simply too weak!"

The female stone golem's words rumbled in Leon's ears as if they were the laws of the world itself. 

"Wait, I have some quest—"

"Begone!"

With a single word, Leon's consciousness was banished from the unknown land and sent straight back to his body in the next instance.

His eyes immediately snapped open before patting himself, filled with goosebumps and cold sweats. 

"What the hell was that? I thought I was going to die just now.... How terrifying!" Leon shivered with lingering fear.