Buzz!
A flash of white light appeared.
In the blink of an eye, Nanessa and Doehring Cowart arrived at the interplanar teleportation array of the Netherworld.
Locke had already been prepared.
The moment Nanessa and Doehring Cowart entered the Netherworld, he casually opened a spatial passage connecting the Chief Sovereign Palace atop Mount Nether to the teleportation array outside the Mountain of the Undead.
Looking at the spatial passage that had suddenly appeared before her, Nanessa didn't hesitate.
She stepped directly into it.
"Greetings, Lord Locke."
Seeing the familiar surroundings, Nanessa knelt on one knee within the Chief Sovereign Palace before gently placing Doehring Cowart's soul upon the palace floor.
Having just entered the Netherworld, Doehring Cowart, now nothing more than a soul, felt as though he had become an ordinary person.
No...
It would be more accurate to say he was even weaker than an ordinary person.
After all, every living being that arrived in a Higher Plane was, at the very least, a Saint-level expert.
Although Doehring Cowart had once been a Saint-level expert as well, he was now merely a soul without a body.
Under such circumstances, the suppression he suffered was naturally far greater than that experienced by other Saint-level experts.
On the other hand, however...
The power he had gained by burning his soul made him considerably stronger than an ordinary Saint-level expert, placing him almost on par with those peak Saint-level experts who were only a single step away from fully comprehending one Earth Laws Profound Mystery and becoming Deities.
Of course...
Whether one was an early-stage Saint or a peak Saint made no difference within a Higher Plane.
Both occupied only the lowest level of existence.
Flames flickered upon Doehring Cowart's soul.
Overwhelmed by the aura filling the Chief Sovereign Palace, he involuntarily knelt to the ground.
After hearing Nanessa address Locke, Doehring Cowart immediately understood that the figure seated upon the throne was the Sovereign who had saved him.
"Doehring Cowart greets Lord Sovereign!"
"Mmm."
Locke gave a slight nod.
Then he casually waved his hand.
Instantly, Doehring Cowart felt the burning of his soul come to a complete stop.
It was as though he had never resorted to burning his soul in the first place.
Standing beside him, Nanessa's heart stirred.
Just now...
She had sensed fluctuations of the Laws of Time.
Clearly, the method Lord Locke had used to halt Doehring Cowart's burning soul involved the Laws of Time.
After briefly examining Doehring Cowart's current soul, Nanessa immediately understood.
It seemed Lord Locke had reversed the flow of time affecting Doehring Cowart back to the moment before he had burned his soul.
As a result, his soul now bore no traces whatsoever of soul burning.
Nor did it contain any traces of having absorbed the three Soul Pearls.
"Thank you, Lord Sovereign."
Feeling that his soul was no longer burning, Doehring Cowart once again expressed his gratitude.
Although he had already accepted death when he chose to save Linley...
Who truly wished to die if they could continue living?
"Doehring Cowart."
"Lord Sovereign."
"Although only your soul remains, your future path has not been completely cut off."
Looking at Doehring Cowart kneeling within the Chief Sovereign Palace, Locke's tone became somewhat gentler.
"For a Saint-level expert to advance to the Deity level, one need only completely comprehend one of the six Earth Laws Profound Mysteries."
"You were able to reach the Saint-level within a Material Plane."
"Your talent is by no means poor."
"With proper guidance, completely comprehending a single Profound Mystery and becoming a Deity—allowing the Laws of the universe to reconstruct your body—isn't a difficult matter."
"For the time being..."
"You will cultivate on Mount Nether."
"Yes, Lord Sovereign."
Doehring Cowart was overjoyed.
Although he had no idea why this unfamiliar Sovereign was treating him so favorably...
For the current Doehring Cowart, becoming a Deity first was the only qualification needed before thinking about anything else.
"Nanessa."
"I'll leave this little fellow's cultivation to you for now."
"If he still hasn't become a Deity within twenty years in the Netherworld, then take Doehring Cowart on a trip to the Earth Divine Plane."
Since Locke intended to attribute all the credit for saving Doehring Cowart to Nanessa, he naturally wouldn't trouble anyone else with guiding Doehring Cowart's cultivation.
After all, with Nanessa's cultivation as a Lightning Paragon, guiding a Saint-level Earth mage to become a Deity wasn't difficult at all.
The true difficulty...
Was enabling Doehring Cowart to become a Deity within fifty years.
After all, Linley was currently nineteen years old.
Only eleven years remained before he would become a Deity at the age of thirty-one.
If, by the time Linley came to the Netherworld to ask the Death Chief Sovereign to search the Necropolis of the Undead for his father and sworn brother, Doehring Cowart were still merely a Demigod...
That would hardly reflect well upon Locke.
As long as Doehring Cowart could become a Demigod within fifty years, then by the time Linley eventually arrived in the Netherworld, no matter what, Doehring Cowart would at least have reached the God level.
And if Doehring Cowart were willing to refine a divine spark...
He could even become a Highgod.
Of course...
Whether to refine a divine spark or cultivate independently...
Locke had no intention of forcing Doehring Cowart.
The choice would be entirely his own.
If Doehring Cowart's talent proved sufficient to support the fusion of Profound Mysteries...
Then Locke naturally wouldn't allow him to refine a divine spark merely to become a Highgod.
On the other hand...
If Doehring Cowart lacked even the potential to cultivate to Highgod through his own efforts...
Only then would Locke inform him of the path of refining a divine spark.
Or perhaps...
By that time, Doehring Cowart would already possess enough knowledge that he would discover that path without Locke's guidance.
After all, throughout the Seven Divine Planes and Four Higher Planes, becoming a Deity by refining a divine spark wasn't any secret.
Every major merchant association, as well as every Fiend Castle, sold divine sparks of every element.
Among all Deities throughout the Divine Planes and Higher Planes, at least thirty percent had become Deities by refining divine sparks.
Saint-level experts who ascended from Material Planes were relatively fortunate.
Out of every hundred, at least ten would eventually completely comprehend a single Profound Mystery and become Demigods.
However...
Among Saint-level natives born within the Divine Planes...
Fewer than one in ten thousand ever reached the Deity level.
Many tribes possessed tens of thousands of Saint-level experts...
Yet only two or three Deities.
And even then...
Only Demigods.
Had those Saint-level experts been born within a Material Plane...
Most would likely have been nothing more than ordinary mortals.
They had the good fortune to be born within a Divine Plane or Higher Plane, granting them the long lifespan of a Saint-level expert.
Yet they were also deeply unfortunate.
Within the Divine Planes and Higher Planes...
Saint-level experts ranked even below livestock in Material Planes.
Now that Doehring Cowart had been saved...
One thing was certain.
If he truly possessed the talent to independently cultivate to Highgod...
Then after Linley became the Controller of the magical universe, even if Doehring Cowart refused to enter the Linmeng Universe that Linley would create...
He would still possess, at the very least, a Sovereign spark within the magical universe.
"Yes, Lord Locke."
After Nanessa and Doehring Cowart departed, Locke once again turned his attention toward the Yulan Plane.
This time, however...
He merely continued watching the story unfold and didn't interfere again.
Changing fate once to erase Linley's greatest regret was enough.
Further interference wouldn't be beneficial for either Linley or Locke.
In truth...
If Locke were ruthless enough, he could have simply killed Linley while he was still weak, preventing him from ever becoming the second Hongmeng Controller.
Without Linmeng...
Qinmeng would never appear either.
That would leave the four positions of First-Class Hongmeng Controllers vacant for a much longer time, granting Locke ample opportunity to complete the fusion of the Laws of Time and the Laws of Space.
However...
That didn't accord with Locke's character.
If he truly acted that way...
It would amount to admitting that he considered himself inferior to Linley.
Such a blow to his confidence would inevitably affect his future cultivation.
In Locke's view...
Linley's ability to fuse four different elemental Laws was certainly extraordinary.
But Locke had never believed himself inferior.
Ultimately...
Linley became a Hongmeng Controller for two reasons.
First, because his soul had mutated across the four elements of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire.
Second, because after becoming the Sovereign of all four elements and facing a life-or-death crisis against the Fate Chief Sovereign Oden, he comprehended the fusion of the four elemental Laws through the state of Transcending Reincarnation, ultimately producing Hongmeng energy within the magical universe and cultivating a Hongmeng body.
Locke believed that if he had likewise possessed a four-element soul mutation...
He could also have accomplished the fusion of four different elemental Laws.
In fact...
He believed the number of complete four-element Law combinations he could achieve would be far more than just one.
Linley's limit...
Was becoming a Hongmeng Controller.
But Locke intended to take one more step beyond even a Hongmeng Controller!
...
"Olivier..."
Within the Yulan Plane, this was the first time Locke had shifted his attention away from Linley.
This time...
During Olivier's battle with Haydson, he suffered a devastating soul attack that left him on the brink of death.
Yet through sheer luck...
He became a dual-element soul mutate.
Moreover...
An exceedingly rare Light-Dark soul mutate.
In the future, Olivier's Darkness divine clone would be destroyed, forcing him to refine a divine spark to become a Highgod.
That incident shattered much of his drive.
Ultimately...
He only reached the level of a Seven Star Fiend.
One had to remember...
Olivier had already begun fusing the Laws of Light and Darkness while still at the Saint-level.
In Beirut's opinion, his potential even exceeded Linley's by a considerable margin.
For Olivier's strength to stop at the level of a Seven Star Fiend meant that after becoming a Highgod, he hadn't fused more than three Light Laws Profound Mysteries.
Likewise, he had only completely fused a single Light-Dark fused Law.
Otherwise...
Had Olivier fused four Light Laws Profound Mysteries, combined with the power of fused divine power, he would have possessed strength at the level of a Prefect.
"Hmm..."
Locke stroked his chin.
Although he was an Edicts Chief Sovereign and nominally possessed eight Sovereign Emissaries...
Over all these years, he had accepted only three.
The Commander of Locke's Sovereign Army—Oakes.
The Vice Commander of Locke's Sovereign Army—Ryan.
And the current Prefect of Heavenly Mountain Prefecture within the Infernal Realm—Rocky Peak.
Aside from them...
Locke had never accepted another Sovereign Emissary.
Although Nanessa had likewise been discovered by Locke and later cultivated into a Paragon...
She wasn't Locke's Sovereign Emissary.
Instead, she served as the Sovereign Emissary of the Death Chief Sovereign Lilia.
After all...
Even for an Edicts Chief Sovereign, possessing a Paragon as one's Sovereign Emissary greatly satisfied Lilia's vanity.
At present...
Among all the Sovereigns, only the Destruction Chief Sovereign Wodred and the Death Chief Sovereign Lilia possessed Paragon Sovereign Emissaries.
However...
In terms of actual strength, Dunnington lacked a cultivation method for the Higher Laws.
Thus, although he was a Paragon, his strength could only be considered ordinary.
Compared to Nanessa...
The gap remained considerable.
As a Paragon who had already comprehended some of the Laws of Time...
Even another Paragon who had comprehended five percent of the Laws of Space wouldn't be Nanessa's match.
Space is supreme, but Time reigns above all.
That wasn't merely an empty saying.
Completely comprehending the Laws of Space only allowed one to become a Divine King comparable to an Overgod.
Completely comprehending the Laws of Time, however...
Allowed one to become a Celestial Exalt, an existence surpassing even the Overgods.
Judging from Nanessa's current comprehension of the Laws of Time—as demonstrated during her battle with Beirut—the influence of the Laws of Time allowed her speed to rival that of an ordinary Sovereign.
It was only because Beirut himself was a Wind Sovereign specializing in speed that he remained somewhat faster than Nanessa.
Even so...
They still belonged to the same general level.
Although Beirut's evaluation of Nanessa contained some subjective bias...
That didn't mean his judgment was wrong.
Once a Paragon comprehended ten percent of the Laws of Space...
The qualitative transformation was no different from a Saint-level expert completely comprehending a single Profound Mystery.
Before reaching that point...
Other Paragons might possess many more combat techniques, but they still hadn't undergone a true qualitative leap.
Against Nanessa, who had comprehended the Laws of Time...
With one side accelerated and the other slowed, they would have no choice but to endure a beating without the slightest chance to fight back.
If Olivier were properly guided...
He might also reach a level approaching—or even surpassing—the Paragon realm.
However...
After thinking it over carefully, Locke ultimately shook his head.
Although he had already begun fusing the Laws of Time and the Laws of Space within the Elemental Planes...
That didn't mean his cultivation of the spacetime Laws was complete.
Once Linley became a Hongmeng Controller...
The time remaining for Locke would become very limited.
Qin Yu became the third Hongmeng Controller just over two calendrical eras after Linley created the Linmeng Universe.
Therefore...
The deadline Locke had set for himself was five calendrical eras.
If after five calendrical eras he still hadn't cultivated the spacetime Laws to the point where he could create a universe...
Then he would resort to an expedient method—fusing Hongmeng energy, cultivating a Hongmeng body and a Hongmeng spirit, and first securing one of the First-Class Hongmeng Controller positions.
Under such circumstances...
Locke simply didn't have the time to personally guide Olivier's cultivation.
Besides...
After becoming a Hongmeng Controller, apart from those of his own lineage, Locke had no intention of relocating anyone else into the universe he would create.
As for people like Oakes, Ryan, and Rockpeak...
They had already grown accustomed to life within the magical universe.
If they were suddenly brought into a completely unfamiliar universe...
They would inevitably find it difficult to adapt.
(End of Chapter)
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