Comprehension

Gu Changyuan said nothing.

His eyes were fixed solely on that golden figure. The longsword in his hand rose once more, the power of the Nine Calamities Sword Formation converging upon the blade. Light flickered through alternating colors before merging entirely into a single silver-white radiance—pure, concentrated to the extreme.

Then he moved.

The sword traced a straight silver line through the air, thrusting directly at the Emperor's chest.

The Emperor did not dodge.

His right hand rose gently, index and middle fingers pressed together. Just as the sword tip was about to touch his robe, he gave it the lightest of taps.

That tap looked as soft as brushing away dust from one's shoulder, yet Gu Changyuan's sword was knocked wildly off course, as if struck from the side by some invisible force. The blade grazed past the Emperor's flank, trailing a sharp gust of wind that stirred the hem of his dark-gold robes.

Gu Changyuan did not stop.

His body spun with the momentum of the missed strike, turning full circle, and the sword came swinging back from the opposite side, aimed at the Emperor's neck.

The Emperor still did not move his feet.

He simply withdrew his left hand from his sleeve, spread five fingers, and pressed down gently toward the arc of sword light.

Gu Changyuan felt an overwhelming pressure.

It was as if the entire weight of heaven and earth had been compressed into a single point, pressing squarely upon his blade.

His arm was seized by an indescribable heaviness, and his sword strike ground to a halt once more.

After a moment, the hint of scrutiny in the Emperor's eyes gradually faded, replaced by the listlessness of one who had seen through something and found it wanting.

The slight curve at the corner of his mouth receded, and his tone carried an unmistakable note of disappointment.

"If this is all you are, then there is nothing about you worth paying attention to.

That being the case, hand over the position of the God Emperor!"

His tone shifted abruptly. The moment those final words left his lips, his entire bearing erupted.

The faint golden light that had always shrouded him flared to an intense brilliance in an instant, bursting outward from the surface of his body. Wherever that light passed, the runes of law within the void were crushed into deformation, bending and snapping. The entire sky was dyed a dark gold, and even the Immortal Emperors and Heavenly Dears locked in battle far away froze for an instant under the shockwave of that aura.

The Emperor moved.

No longer standing still to parry and deflect, he shot forward like a bolt of golden lightning, straight at Gu Changyuan.

His speed was so great that even Gu Changyuan's perception lagged for a breath. The next moment, his figure had already appeared less than a zhang before Gu Changyuan.

His right hand closed into a blade of five fingers, thrusting straight for Gu Changyuan's chest.

At the last instant, Gu Changyuan's sword rose to block.

He twisted his body aside, and the hand-blade scraped past his shoulder, tearing a long gash in his robes.

Using the inertia of his evasion, he retreated, sweeping his sword across in front of him in defense, trying to create distance.

But the Emperor clung to him like a shadow that never leaves, his second strike following the first without a single gap or pause.

Gu Changyuan raised his sword to block. The moment the blade met the hand-blade, a dull metallic tremor rang out. His wrist absorbed a tremendous shock, and the bones of his entire arm rattled.

The Emperor's assault did not relent.

His attacks were vicious, utterly devoid of extraneous movement—every palm strike, every finger thrust aimed straight at a vital point.

Between evasions and blocks, Gu Changyuan's mind was rapidly processing what his opponent had said earlier. The Emperor's words clearly indicated recognition of him.

That phrase "hand over the position of the God Emperor" revealed far too much.

The position of the God Emperor—he himself had once been a God Emperor, and the Emperor had been searching for that position all along.

The reason he could not break through to God Emperor was not that he lacked the ability, but that some limitation existed—as if the entire cosmos could only accommodate a finite number of God Emperors. Only when one God Emperor fell could those cultivators at the peak of Dao Sovereign gain the qualification to ascend.

And the Devouring Beast King—it too might have been a God Emperor. If so, then the self that had once fought it must also have been a God Emperor.

A God Emperor, reborn after clashing with another God Emperor—that was the only explanation.

As Gu Changyuan ducked under one of the Emperor's heavy punches, the scattered clues in his mind assembled themselves like pieces of a puzzle snapping into place.

His cultivation had always advanced through the feedback of his disciples' power—from the Tribulation Transcendence stage of the Nine Skies Realm, to the Immortal King stage of the Immortal Realm, to his current Immortal Emperor stage. Every breakthrough had come from external power surging into his body.

He had no disciples at the Dao Sovereign stage, which meant no such feedback ever arrived. That was why his cultivation was stuck at the peak of Immortal Emperor, unable to touch higher realms on his own.

But—why wait for someone else's feedback?

His cultivation base was already sufficient. If the power within him had always been his own, or rather, if that device called the System was originally a mechanism to help him rapidly recover his former cultivation instead of merely a tool that fed him power from outside—

Then why could he not take that step on his own?

The one who had once been a God Emperor, after fighting the Devouring Beast King, had undergone some event that caused him to be reborn as his current self.

This System must be a mechanism to help him restore his cultivation quickly. Its purpose was to save him the time of starting from zero—to bring him back to the peak of Immortal Emperor in the fastest possible way, after which he would break through to Dao Sovereign on his own and return to God Emperor.

The Emperor's attack continued.

Gu Changyuan's sword had taken dozens of heavy impacts in succession. Cracks had already spread from the blade all the way to near the hilt.

But at that moment, a faint smile curved at the corner of Gu Changyuan's mouth.

He had figured it out.

He closed his eyes.

He began to turn his awareness inward, sinking deep into that ocean-like expanse of power within his body—an ocean formed by the accumulated feedback of countless disciples' cultivation, vast and profound as an abyss.

He simply stood there, allowing that power to churn within him, peeling it apart layer by layer, combing through it, fusing it together.

The Emperor sensed the ripple of that transformation.

He paused for a fraction of a moment, his gaze falling upon Gu Changyuan. In those eyes, always so calm and still, true fluctuation appeared for the first time—a wariness, like that of a hunter sensing his prey slipping free from the trap.

He did not hesitate. His figure accelerated once more, and the force behind his hand-blade surged sharply.

But this time, Gu Changyuan dodged.

His body spun in midair, and the moment he landed, he opened his eyes.

Something in his pupils was changing.

His aura underwent a qualitative shift in that instant—from a silent depth like the ocean's abyss to something that combined the emptiness of the void itself with a profound gravity, a special existence that contained both nothing and all.

The aura of an Immortal Emperor within him had vanished, replaced by an entirely new realm.

A cultivation level once reached, in this moment, flowed into being as naturally as water finding its course.