Chapter 4043: Cosmic Laws

As the monster’s size increased, its heartbeat grew louder.

Even when it had increased its size before, the heartbeat had never rang out so loud.

What’s going on?

Lu Yin released the Karmic Dao and infused it with Immortal matter before sending out a spiral of karma. He wanted to understand the beast’s ability.

As karma pierced the monster, multiple scenes played out in Lu Yin’s vision.

At the same time, the heartbeat that he heard drowned out everything else in existence, becoming the sole sound that he could hear.

...

Roar!

A colossal foot slammed down, shattering the ground. The sky and earth both fell into darkness.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

Only the heartbeat remained, faint to the point of nearly being silent.

...

The land and sky switched places as a world broke apart beneath an unknown astral beast’s vast wing as the creature swept by, pulverizing the planet in its passing.

All life on that planet perished. Only a faint heartbeat traveled away, carried upon a drifting meteor.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

...

It was the same wing again, but this time, the owner of the wing was pulsing with that same familiar, powerful heartbeat. The beast exalted as it soared among the stars.

Thump-thump, thump-thump

.

...

In the Aevum Inch, Lu Yin watched as the Immortal monster’s size increased further and further, while also watching the scenes that appeared. What was he seeing? There were so many scenes, almost all of which belonged to different species. The only thing that they shared in common was that heartbeat.

Why did such diverse creatures all share the same heartbeat?

Did that sound only appear in the visions because he was hearing it in real life and the sound was overlapping, or did it truly come from the scenes themselves? None of the karmic visions that he witnessed before had ever included sound.

The spiral of karma continued to pierce the beast. The monster never tried to evade, and it simply grew, bigger and bigger and bigger...

“Senior, can you tell what this is?” Lu Yin asked.

Master Qing Cao’s voice replied, “Each Immortal is unique, so I can’t say. However, slaying an Immortal before reaching that level is an overreach that requires an unimaginable price. Lord Lu, reconsider this.

“No matter how low that beast may rank among Immortals, an Immortal is still an Immortal. It exists in accordance with the Cosmic Laws, or rather, it is a lifeform acknowledged by those very laws.”

Lu Yin’s eyes sharpened. “The Cosmic Laws?”

Master Qing Cao would not say another word.

“In that case, Senior, guard the gate. That’s all I ask of you,” Lu Yin said while staring at the beast.

Master Qing Cao let out a breath. “You have my word.”

Lu Yin continued to release the spiral of karma. He needed to clearly see this beast’s path.

𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

If he could see it clearly, it might even bring the path to the Immortal realm into his view.

“Align with the laws of the cosmos?”

Cultivators had always believed that they wrested their fate from the heavens. They shattered mortal limits, tread across the stars, and broke through barrier after barrier, advancing farther and soaring higher. Yet the cosmos never changed. Above every head stretched a sky that no one had ever surpassed.

Lu Yin could not do it, and neither could an Immortal.

So what did it truly mean to struggle against the heavens? What counted as victory?

If even an Immortal could not win, then how could cultivation be called a struggle against the heavens? At best, it was a struggle against other beings, not against the heavens themselves.

The heavens were the cosmos. Only by following the Dao of Heaven could one align with the cosmos and attain Immortality.

This was not a sudden epiphany. It was Lu Yin’s understanding of Master Qing Cao’s words, and the limit of his comprehension of the cosmos.

No being had ever escaped the shackles of the cosmos.

Then how did this beast plan to break through? And by what path had it attained Immortality?

Lu Yin watched the scenes, growing increasingly absorbed in what he saw.

The Immortal beast’s size continued to increase until it was nearly pressing against the stone gate to the megaverse.

Inside the gate, Master Qing Cao frowned as more and more blades of grass sprouted to reinforce the gate.

Lu Yin was extremely close to the beast, and its heartbeat felt nearer than ever.

As Karmic Lines struck each other, Lu Yin was struck by a sudden realization: replacement. That was the beast’s innate gift, replacement.

The monster was able to replace other creatures.

Karma had shown so many visions of the beast’s past, but while myriad species had been shown, they were all the same being: the beast. Bodies were nothing more than shells to the creature, and its true form was the pulsing sound.

The monster’s current form was not its true form. Its true form was the pounding heartbeat itself.

From weak to powerful, the creature had replaced other species, step by step shedding a form when each host reached its limits. Each replacement had allowed the creature to climb higher than before, until it had finally become the giant that Lu Yin was familiar with. This was why, the fiercer the beast fought, the louder its heartbeat was; its true body was being used.

So that’s it, that sound is its root.

As Karmic Lines continued to collide, Lu Yin saw more and more.

Each host had to have a heartbeat, as the creature could not replace any other sound.

It could replace any being that possessed a heartbeat. As soon as Lu Yin understood this, he immediately suppressed his own, freezing the time that surrounded him in order to avoid being replaced.

The beast’s true form was the sound of the heartbeat, and Lu Yin did not know if he could resist being replaced.

Every creature that it replaced had been far stronger than itself at the time of the replacement.

The creature’s cultivation had leapt forward at incredible speed, with the exception of overcoming the bottleneck to step into the Immortal realm.

The only beings it could not replace were Immortals. When it had broken through to that realm, it had shed all former shapes. Its current form did not belong to any creature it had ever replaced; it was something born of its own growth, a form that naturally aligned with the laws of Immortal existence.

No wonder the monster had such a grotesque and bizarre appearance. When Lu Yin had first seen it, he had wondered how such a creature could exist.

The answer was that it had taken such a form because it had simply done so at random.

Random also meant that the monster cared nothing about its appearance, only that it conformed to the cosmic laws.

If its form matched the cosmic law the beast aligned to, then what was that law?

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump...

Inside the Tianyuan, Jiang Feng and the others stared at the monster’s vast bulk outside the gate. The gate alone could never hold such a monster back. If it swelled beyond a certain threshold, it would simply crush everything outside the megaverse, and no gate could block that kind of damage.

The beast’s body continued to grow larger.

Bigger, ever bigger.

Lu Yin suddenly looked up. He stared at the figure that shrouded his entire sight.

Yes, it’s size itself.

He understood. What the beast sought was size. It sought to be boundless, immeasurable, and vast enough to cover the cosmos and spread across the entire Aevum Inch.

That was the creature’s deepest desire and what it believed to align with the cosmic laws.

When reconsidering what he had seen of the creature’s past, Lu Yin realized that every creature that it took over had been larger than its previous host. The first thing it had seen after being born had been a colossal foot descending and blotting out the sky. Size had become an obsession indelibly carved into the beast after that.

Yes, it was size.

Regardless of whether a creature was an astral beast or a human, no matter how intelligent they might be, no being could escape their natural instincts.

From birth, the Immortal beast had pursued ever-greater size. Its whole existence had been a quest for largeness. It was madly swelling once again, and yet its defense never weakened despite its growth. Even without Lifeforce shielding it, Lu Yin’s strikes were too small to matter against such incredible size.

The monster sought to crush the entire Tianyuan with its bulk.

This matched with what Lu Yin had first seen in the Willbound Spire, the memory of the Tri-Azure Sword Intent severing the monster’s arm.

Even at that time, the monster had been large enough to crush an entire megaverse, though Lu Yin had never known which one he had been looking at.

One mark of an Immortal was the ability to grasp space and time. Master Qing Cao could do so, though only within a limited range. The Immortal beast possessed the same ability; if it grew large enough, even the cosmos itself could fit within its grasp. That was its understanding of the law by which it aligned with the cosmos.

Lu Yin drew a deep breath. He had finally seen through the monster, but what of it? Its body was much too large. If it reached the point of being able to crush an entire megaverse, then even cutting through it would barely count as a wound.

The only possibility was if he could find a way to stop the creature from growing larger and then deliver a truly devastating blow.

Thinking quickly, Lu Yin released his inner universe, and his third Progenitor’s world—Dust World—appeared.

You want to be larger than the cosmos? Let’s see. When you truly exceed the cosmos, what will you become?

Dust World started as a speck of dust. As Lu Yin waved his hand, it grew to form a land mass, and then it continued to expand endlessly across the sky.

As that happened, he merged his Karmic Dao with the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm, and the Investiture of the Gods connected to the Wordless Heavenly Book. With that, Lu Yin proceeded to weave karma again.

The cosmos roared.

Countless people in the Tianyuan looked in the direction of the Aevum Inch. That roar was so familiar; had it come from Lord Lu?

If that was true, then the previous roars must have come from him as well.

Lu Yuan and the others understood; Lu Yin had been observing the Tianyuan all along. When the Nest civilization invaded them, he had not been able to communicate and warn them, and so he had produced the roar. He had been the one to block the insects with the unseen force that was karma.

This knowledge left multitudes shaken. Even in his absence, Lu Yin had constantly protected the Tianyuan.

He was Lord Lu, the master of their megaverse.

Not even the Origin Progenitor could rival Lu Yin’s status as the true ruler of the megaverse in people’s hearts.

The Origin Progenitor had founded the Heavens Sect era of the ancient era, whereas Lu Yin was shaping the current era and guiding everyone, even those who were from that ancient time.

As cultivators finished fighting against insects, they turned towards the Aevum Inch and slowly knelt.

Soon, there were countless people kneeling and praying, pleading for Lu Yin’s victory in his current battle.

He was not fighting against some common foe, but an Immortal, a being who had reached a realm only spoken of in legends.

In the Aevum Inch, Lu Yin clenched his teeth as the beast’s heartbeat thundered ever louder. It was deafening to the point where it threatened to drown him.

His Dust World had replaced the sky, spreading out above the monster’s head.

The beast roared, growing ever larger as it thrust its arm upwards. It could finally see it, the boundary of the cosmos, the limit that restrained it.

Break, break it! Break through, shattering the cosmos’s shackles! Larger, ever larger...

Karma drove the beast to believe that the bit of land above its head was the edge of the cosmos.

Its arm tore through Dust World, and a tremor of exhilaration ran through it. It had broken through, ripping apart the boundary of the cosmos. If it could still grow larger, it would replace the cosmos entirely.

There was a thunderous crash, and the Aevum Inch fractured. Spatial cracks raced out into the distance, and every observer’s scalp went numb in terror.