The ancients once said, "A day in the cave equals a thousand years in the mortal world…"
Time flows differently across worlds, and the disparity can be terrifying.
This is especially true within dreams. Thus, accelerating time in the Eternal Dream doesn't just greatly reduce consumption—it even massively enhances the effects of time-based laws. That's why only a few short years had passed in the Immortal Realm, while unknowingly, thousands of years had gone by in the Mortal Realm.
Although accelerating time in the Eternal Dream consumed little energy, the vastness of the Mortal Realm made up for it.
The total consumption remained astronomical, and Rosen could only offload it all onto the Eternal Dream.
He was very aware that the Immortal Emperors of the Immortal Realm wouldn't just stand by and watch him recklessly siphon the Eternal Dream's origin power.
So he had no choice but to help the Eternal Dream develop new sources. He merged all the origin seeds he had into the Mortal Realm, which had already transformed into an immortal dominion.
Origin seeds can draw origin energy from the cosmos, and their efficiency depends on many external conditions.
Nine-in-one origin seeds were, without a doubt, far superior to the most basic single-type seeds created by immortal godfiends.
Origin seeds with stronger traits at the same level definitely extract energy more efficiently than weaker ones.
If an origin seed is of the energy type, its efficiency would certainly surpass that of the plundering type created by the ancient gods.
The most decisive factor, however, was the world to which the origin seed was attached.
If an origin seed fused into the world of the ancient gods, its extraction efficiency would far exceed that of one embedded in the Eternal Dream.
It was only through the Eternal Dream that Rosen discovered: origin seeds need to attach to a world to grow to their full potential.
Now that all the origin seeds were fused into the Mortal Realm, and since the Mortal Realm was a subordinate world of the Eternal Dream, it was essentially the same as being merged into the Eternal Dream itself. This not only helped Rosen speed up his control over the Eternal Dream, but also multiplied the efficiency of origin energy extraction.
Because the Eternal Dream's recovery rate had drastically increased, the three Immortal Emperors of the Immortal Realm had not detected anything unusual.
After several millennia of harvesting, Rosen's divine source had grown from 168 to 174.
With the full cap at 180, one more round would probably be enough.
But continuing to harvest sentient beings' spiritual cultivation wouldn't be that easy anymore.
Over the years, the Mortal Realm had developed at a frightening pace, and the Immortal Realm wasn't without a response.
The Primordial Spirit Immortal Emperor and the others had already freed themselves from the memory-erasing effects of forbidden knowledge and, with the power of the Eternal Dream, had successfully resurrected both the Primordial Soul Immortal Emperor and the Primordial Mind Immortal Emperor. Now that the five Immortal Emperors were reunited, they would undoubtedly stop at nothing to once again destroy the Mortal Realm.
But having suffered a setback once, they clearly understood that he wasn't easy to deal with.
If they weren't confident in defeating him, their best option was to barricade themselves in the Immortal Realm.
If they didn't want to play defense, then they'd have to demonstrate the determination to perish together in mutual destruction, even posing as if they'd break through the Eternal Dream to awaken the ancient gods—anything to pressure Rosen into retreating. This could very well be a tactic to force him out of the Eternal Dream.
Yet through the Primordial Insect Mother and the Eye of the Creator, Rosen discovered something shocking: the five Immortal Emperors had suddenly committed suicide.
On the very day the Primordial Soul and Primordial Mind Immortal Emperors were revived, they all gathered in the Primordial Spirit Palace and collectively ended their lives.
When Rosen thought of their back-to-back revivals, his first conclusion was that they would certainly come back to life even after suicide.
As for why they would all commit suicide together, it was very likely some kind of tactic aimed at him.
Rosen couldn't figure out what kind of plan the Primordial Spirit Immortal Emperor and the others had that required suicide as a trigger…
But the Eye of the Creator had seen it with its own gaze, and no matter how absurd it seemed, he had to remain on high alert.
Since their collective suicide, Rosen had stopped cultivating and focused entirely on monitoring the Primordial Spirit Palace through the Eye of the Creator.
Then one day, the five Immortal Emperors silently resurrected inside the palace.
Though it wasn't clear what method they used to achieve simultaneous revival, each of them was now terrifyingly weak—even weaker than the Primordial Mind Immortal Emperor had been upon first revival. They were so frail they were nearly falling from Immortal Emperor level to the rank of Great True God.
Without question, if they reappeared in the Immortal Realm now, Rosen could easily shoot them down.
But before he could act, he suddenly felt the entire Mortal Realm beginning to fade.
It was like waking from a dream—and so, the Mortal Realm, being part of that dream, was also about to vanish with the awakening.
To stop the Mortal Realm from disappearing, either the dreamer must be stopped from waking up, or the Mortal Realm must be completely severed from the Eternal Dream.
Rosen couldn't do either of those two things at the moment.
First, the master of the Eternal Dreamscape should have been the Eternal Dreamfiend, and that eternal being had already perished at the hands of the Old Gods.
How could one stop a dead person from waking up? Rosen was helpless in this regard.
As for completely severing the Human Realm from the Eternal Dreamscape—over the years, the Human Realm had been closely entangled with the Dreamscape in order to extract its origin. Before he could separate the two, the Human Realm might have already vanished with the awakening of the Eternal Dreamfiend.
Heaven favored the willing!
An Immortal Crown emerged above Rosen's head, and he channeled its power into the Immortal Kingdom.
The Immortal Crown could lock down origin—not only his own origin, but also that of the entire Immortal Kingdom. Thanks to this, the gradually fading Human Realm regained some clarity and substance. However, it was still a temporary fix rather than a permanent solution.
Rosen's true reliance wasn't the locking of origin, but the fortune granted by Heaven Favors the Willing.
The Miracle Sequence was at the Immortal Godfiend level, and the luck bestowed by Heaven Favors the Willing was also at the same level.
How great the effect would be, even he couldn't say for sure at the moment.
But he immediately found out. The Human Realm stopped fading. The Eternal Dreamfiend, who was on the verge of awakening, fell back into slumber at that very instant. With a flash of realization, Rosen understood what had happened.
Since he also mastered the Laws of Dreams, Rosen was quite familiar with dream-related power.
When ordinary people dream, external stimuli can wake them up abruptly. Sometimes they might jolt awake from fear within the dream.
For example, if someone is afraid of snakes, and a snake suddenly coils around their neck in a dream…
There's a high probability that person will wake up frightened.
But if the snake in the dream wasn't a cold, scaly real snake, but rather a cute cartoon version, then the person might not be startled awake. Turning a real snake into a cartoon snake in reality was no easy feat—but in a dream, it could be done with a single thought.
Rosen didn't know exactly what the Immortal Emperor Yuanling and the others had done, only that they had awakened the Eternal Dreamfiend who shouldn't have been alive.
Yet under the effect of his absolute luck, the "real snake" that would've awakened the Dreamfiend turned into a "cartoon snake."
On Rosen's end, he had neutralized the fatal move of Yuanling and the others. Meanwhile, those Immortal Emperors were on the brink of despair.
Ever since they realized that even if they combined all their strength to eliminate the intruder, the result would still inevitably be the awakening of the Old Gods…
They gave up on the idea of killing him and focused instead on driving him out and further sealing the Eternal Dreamscape.
However, the intruder had already taken over the Human Realm like a bone-deep parasite—ordinary methods couldn't drive him away.
Left with no choice, they joined forces to perform a special celestial spell.
Unlike reality, dreamscapes had extremely low costs for resurrecting the dead.
Although the Eternal Dreamfiend had perished, it left behind this dreamscape and a Dream Origin Seed. In other words, it hadn't truly died. By performing a powerful soul-reversal spell together and borrowing the power of the Eternal Dreamscape, they resurrected the Eternal Dreamfiend within the dream.
Of course, this wasn't a permanent resurrection. At most, the Dreamfiend could remain revived for a few seconds.
But that was more than enough. Once awakened, the Eternal Dreamfiend would soon vanish, and they didn't have to worry about being harmed in the meantime—because from the Dreamfiend's perspective, the greatest threat wasn't them, but the Old Gods.
So even if it briefly awakened for just a few seconds, the only thing it would do was desperately try to hide itself.
Using this method, they could use those few seconds when the Eternal Dreamscape began to vanish to force the intruder out.
To complete this spell, the five Immortal Emperors had even gone so far as to commit group suicide.
Besides the fact that the Soul-Reversal Spell consumed too much energy—and Yuan Shen and Yuan Hun were too weak to support it—the spell's burden forced them to push themselves beyond their limits.
Moreover, they were also resurrected using the Soul-Reversal Spell.
Since their resurrection had consumed part of the spell's power, the time the Eternal Dreamfiend could stay revived became even shorter.
While they tried to use the Dreamfiend, the being they feared most—apart from the Old Gods—was precisely the Eternal Dreamfiend.
Yet to their shock, the trump card they risked everything to unleash had been easily thwarted.
What they didn't know was that things had been anything but easy for Rosen.
Because the stronger the luck granted by Heaven Favors the Willing, the more drastically his fortune energy was consumed in return.
Especially at the moment when the Eternal Dreamfiend fell back into slumber—the Immortal Kingdom lost more than half of the fortune it had accumulated over the years from the Human Realm.
Rosen didn't know if Yuanling and the others could awaken the Eternal Dreamfiend a second time.
So he wasn't prepared to give them any chances; now was the time when they were the weakest and easiest to deal with. Since they could be resurrected after death and feared nothing, this time he would take the opportunity to seal them away.
Rosen crossed the boundary gate and arrived at the Yuanling Immortal Palace in the blink of an eye.
The celestial formation set up in the Yuanling Immortal Palace had been activated long before they cooperated to awaken the Eternal Dreamfiend. Now that he appeared within the range of the formation, the power of space-time immediately locked onto Rosen and tried to expel him from the Immortal Realm. However, all the space-time forces were blocked by the Creator's Domain that he had unfolded.
Rosen opened the Creator's Sketchbook, and the paint colors derived from the Eternal Dream Origin appeared on the Creator's Palette beside him.
The Creator's Divine Brush, dipped in the paint, began to bring the pre-drawn picture to life.
He had already prepared portraits of the five Immortal Emperors. Now, with a stroke of the brush, ancient divine shackles began to appear around the Yuanling Immortal Emperor and others, binding them tightly. Then, the Fallen Paradise descended instantly, taking the Yuanling Immortal Emperor away.
Next, the Hell Evil Eye, strengthened by the Creator's Eye, locked onto the weakest Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor.
The Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor didn't even have time to struggle before being sent into the Hell Residual Realm inside the Hell Evil Eye.
Afterward, for the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor, Rosen used a dimensional seal upon the figure of the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor in the painting.
The dimensions surrounding the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor instantly collapsed, sealing him inside the Creator's Sketchbook.
Next was the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor. Rosen activated the Miracle Trait of the Eternal Star Coin, Greedy Payment.
A massive consumption of origin transformed into countless star coins, exchanging for the transfer of the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor, sealed by the ancient divine shackles, to the Immortal Castle. The combined strength of the Human Realm and the Immortal Kingdom was focused on suppressing the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor at this moment.
Rosen was about to make a move on the Yuan Law Immortal Emperor, but the Yuan Law Immortal Emperor suddenly committed suicide.
They would rather destroy their immortal soul than be sealed and suppressed.
Rosen watched as the Yuan Law Immortal Emperor left behind a body that continued to self-destruct. Time froze to stop the further destruction of the body.
The Yuan Law Immortal Emperor had committed suicide too quickly, clearly having been prepared for it.
Before his death, there was resentment and hatred, but not despair, which suggested that the Yuan Law Immortal Emperor had some kind of revival plan.
However, Rosen could no longer focus on hunting down the Yuan Law Immortal Emperor. He had to suppress and take control of the Immortal Realm.
The Immortal Kingdom began to devour the Immortal Realm, and the root source mother insect parasitizing the Immortal Realm also began to consume the Immortal Realm. Previously, it had been so easy to seal and suppress the four Immortal Emperors. This wasn't just because they had just been resurrected and were extremely weak, but also because the root source insect mother interfered with their immortal souls and the connection to the Immortal Realm.
In the Hell Residual Realm, the weakest Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor faced the Immortal Soul Serpent.
Bound by the ancient divine shackles, all he could do was watch helplessly as the Immortal Soul Serpent devoured his brain.
The Immortal Soul Serpent inherited part of the Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor's memories, but they were incomplete and chaotic.
At this moment, it slowly devoured the brain storing the Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor's memories, piece by piece, consuming the immortal soul that stored those memories. The originally incomplete memories were soon completed, and these memories were organized by the Main God Computer for Rosen to review.
Rosen had already learned how the Yuanling Immortal Emperor and the others had been resurrected.
They had created a special technique called Immortal Dream Rebirth, splitting their immortal souls in two.
The main part remained in their true bodies and the Immortal Realm, while the remaining part, a secondary body, was independent. They erased the wisdom from the secondary body and let it fall into a deep sleep within the Eternal Dream, entering a dream within a dream. After the main body died, the secondary body's immortal soul would revive in the dream.
As for the method of resurrecting the Eternal Dreamfiend, it was a simplified version of the Eternal Rebirth Curse.
The former was a skill left by the Eternal Dreamfiend, while the latter was the result of the Yuanling Immortal Emperor and the others simplifying the process.
The Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor had already resigned to being slaughtered, but the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor had broken free from the ancient divine shackles.
However, before he could escape the seal in the Creator's Sketchbook, the free Hell Evil Eye locked onto him.
Under the continuous fire of the Apocalypse Bone Arrows, the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor was soon heavily injured and completely sealed.
The Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor had considered suicide, but each time, it was interrupted.
Rosen continued to deal with the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor, who had been suppressed by the entire Immortal Kingdom. After the seal was heavily reinforced, Rosen used the Apocalypse Bone Arrows to severely injure him, and like the Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor, he was sealed in the painting, unable to live or die.
Apart from the fleeing Yuan Law Immortal Emperor, only the Yuanling Immortal Emperor was left struggling in the Fallen Paradise.
Unlike the other three Immortal Emperors, who found it difficult to die, the Yuanling Immortal Emperor had many opportunities for suicide within the Fallen Paradise.
However, despite already attempting and failing to escape the Fallen Paradise, the Yuanling Immortal Emperor still desperately held on.
The only possibility that Rosen could think of was that the Yuanling Immortal Emperor was trying to buy time, using everything he had.
For whom was he buying time? Besides Yuanfa Immortal Emperor, Rosen couldn't think of another possibility.
The moment Rosen entered the Fallen Paradise, the Yuanling Immortal Emperor's Yuanling Pagoda already flashed through the air and came crashing down.
As the Yuanling Pagoda descended, the time and space of the Fallen Paradise were shattered.
Even in his weakened state, he was still this formidable; it would be impossible to capture him alive without this weakened condition.
If other immortal emperors had even a slight weakness, Yuanling Immortal Emperor truly matched the extraordinary level of the Immortal Godfiends.
The Yuanling Pagoda was blocked by the Glorious Throne, and following that, endless streams of Yuanling Immortal Emperor's divine spells poured out from the tower.
These countless divine spells could turn all the immortal techniques mastered by Yuanling Immortal Emperor into living Yuanling entities. This allowed him to cast endless spells without consuming his own power, using only the control of the Yuanling entities with minimal cost.
This was why, even in his weakened state after resurrection, Yuanling Immortal Emperor still had the strength to resist.
Faced with the countless descending divine spells, the Glorious Throne's "Universal Protection" could no longer withstand them.
If it continued, the Human Realm would be destroyed by the damage transfer.
Rosen released the Serpent Mother Gourd, and the Eternal Celestial Vine collided with countless divine spells.
Some divine spells were scattered, but others, before dissipating, gave birth to tiny divine spells due to the influence of Eternity, and further, through the power of the Eternal Source returning to its roots, they were reversed into smaller Yuanling entities.
In the counterattack of the Eternal Celestial Vine and countless miniature divine spells, Yuanling Immortal Emperor's assault was finally stopped.
This stalemate continued for several days until the Yuanling Immortal Emperor's accumulated Yuanling entities were completely exhausted.
Without hesitation, Yuanling Immortal Emperor used his last bit of strength to commit suicide.
Rosen suppressed the Yuanling Pagoda in the Imperial Vault, and after returning to the Immortal Realm, the Yuanling Immortal Emperor had already been resurrected.
The first thing after resurrection was to merge his Immortal Soul into the Immortal Realm, preparing to use the Immortal Realm for his final struggle.
However, in these past few days, the Source Mother Worm and the Immortal Kingdom had already completely devoured the Immortal Realm.
Now even more weakened after resurrection, Yuanling Immortal Emperor, with the current power of his Immortal Soul, was no longer able to compete for control of the Immortal Realm.
At this moment, Rosen, using the Immortal Realm he had occupied, manifested the Creator's Will.
He instantly became the World Will of the Immortal Realm, manipulating all the power of the Immortal Realm to suppress Yuanling Immortal Emperor.
In the final desperate struggle, Yuanling Immortal Emperor attempted to escape but was once again enveloped by the Fallen Paradise.
Rosen killed Yuanling Immortal Emperor twice more, and only then did he weaken to his limit, sealed in the Creator's Album, unable to die.
As for whether he could not survive, Yuanling Immortal Emperor probably did manage to survive.
Because he had not found Yuanfa Immortal Emperor in the Immortal Realm, the goal of Yuanling Immortal Emperor protecting Yuanfa Immortal Emperor's escape had been achieved.
At this point, Yuanfa Immortal Emperor had most likely already escaped from the Eternal Dream, and it was expected that he had fallen into the hands of the World Will.
Months later, the Immortal Kingdom completely absorbed the Immortal Realm and continued to devour the Eternal Dream.
In the Mysterious Study Room, two more statues of Immortal Soul Serpents appeared on the desk in front of Rosen.
Originally, he hadn't planned on having Yuanling Immortal Emperor produce another one, but after exhausting all means, it was difficult to pry into Yuanling Immortal Emperor's memories. He had no choice but to convert other Eternal Sources into Eternal Creation Sources and make Yuanling Immortal Emperor produce a second Immortal Soul Serpent.
Through this second Immortal Soul Serpent, he finally uncovered the hidden secret of Yuanling Immortal Emperor.
It turned out that after creating the Immortal Realm, Yuanling Immortal Emperor realized that he could not become an Eternal Being.
And a single Immortal Emperor alone could not fully devour the Eternal Dream and replace it.
So, Yuanling Immortal Emperor began to cultivate other Immortal Emperors. Yuanling Immortal Emperor, Yuan Soul Immortal Emperor, and Yuan Spirit Immortal Emperor were all born this way. However, the more Immortal Emperors he created, the greater the threat Yuanling Immortal Emperor felt.
Therefore, when cultivating the fifth Immortal Emperor, Yuanling Immortal Emperor was actually cultivating his own avatar.
When the avatar became an Immortal Emperor, Yuanling Immortal Emperor even swapped identities with Yuanfa Immortal Emperor.
So, the one Rosen captured alive was actually Yuanfa Immortal Emperor, and the one who truly escaped was the true Yuanling Immortal Emperor.
(End of chapter)