In the Great Reincarnation Realm, what was once Endless Deep Space has reversed into a Flowing Light Star Sea. Countless vibrant, colorful flowing lights blanket the endless void, connecting one universe after another. These flowing lights are different origins, within which various types of extraordinary resources are gestating.
And within each newborn universe, the very first life forms and treasures that only appear at the universe's inception are now gestating. While a Reincarnation Dao Lord can create a universe using cosmic vitality, and all Reincarnation Lords are, on average, Reincarnation Realm Lords, artificially created universes differ significantly from those born naturally within the Great Reincarnation Realm. Many special resources and treasures simply cannot be created by artificial universes.
Therefore, the beginning of every Epoch Cycle is a carnival for Reincarnation Lifeforms who have mastered the Indestructible Will system. By taking advantage of other Reincarnation Lifeforms having no past-life memories, they can get a head start in gestating, a head start in leaving their universes, and thus a head start in intercepting the resources born from various universes. While these resources cannot be carried over to the next Epoch Cycle, they are sufficient to play a huge role in the current one. Not to mention that the current Reincarnation Lords successfully escaped Spacetime Reincarnation not just with their indestructible memories, but also with their Reincarnation Holy Bodies and their respective territory treasures, all preserved under the protection of the memory seed until this Epoch Cycle. In this situation, the one hundred thousand Reincarnation Lords could completely sweep through the Great Reincarnation Realm.
Inside the Reincarnation Sanctuary, the true bodies of all Reincarnation Lords were eager and ready to launch an attack.
"I know everyone wants to seize this opportunity to go out and explore, but I have a proposal..." Rosen began after careful consideration. "I believe you've all noticed that we can control one-tenth of the Great Reincarnation Realm when it's at its weakest, but now that it's at its peak, we can only control one percent. Hearing this, I believe some of you have realized that with the current number of Reincarnation Lords, we cannot completely control the Great Reincarnation Realm.
"To control the Great Reincarnation Realm when it's at its weakest, we need at least one million Reincarnation Lords. To control the Great Reincarnation Realm in its peak state, we need at least ten million Reincarnation Lords. If we could have ten million Reincarnation Lords completely control the entire Great Reincarnation Realm, we might be able to completely control Spacetime Reincarnation and Karma Reincarnation. We might even be able to collectively transcend reincarnation and see what lies beyond the heavens. Therefore, we need more Reincarnation Lords, but I don't plan to expand the number of Reincarnation Lords in this Epoch Cycle.
"The reason is simple: the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree is still in its nascent stage. The backlash of karma, having been collectively shared by us, is still far from the point of a desperate struggle. Everyone wants to transcend reincarnation, but what lies beyond the Great Reincarnation Realm—freedom, a greater future, or an abyss of despair and death—we don't know. So, before the karmic backlash becomes completely unbearable, I propose we develop as many Epoch Cycles as possible."
Rosen's speech plunged all Reincarnation Lords into contemplation. Everyone wanted to transcend, but beyond the Great Reincarnation Realm lay the unknown. If there was truly an opportunity to transcend in the future, ample preparation beforehand was imperative. When a proposal aligns with the interests of the majority, its approval is almost guaranteed.
However, as the Reincarnation Lords began to vote, a bizarre scene unfolded. The number of Reincarnation Lords who voted against the proposal was, coincidentally, slightly more than those who voted for it. This voting result instantly plunged the entire Reincarnation Sanctuary into chaotic agitation. Those who voted in favor looked at those who cast 'no' votes with vigilance and fear. Rosen's proposal aligned with the interests of the vast majority of Reincarnation Lords, yet in this situation, so many cast 'no' votes. It was clear, without needing to think, that these people were opposing for the sake of opposition.
Under what circumstances would more than half of the Reincarnation Lords abandon their interests and simply oppose for the sake of opposition? There was only one possibility: these Reincarnation Lords were likely voting involuntarily. Because even some Reincarnation Lords who genuinely opposed the proposal now looked warily at those who also cast 'no' votes. They had not expected so many people to oppose along with them.
"Have these Reincarnation Lords been controlled by the Reincarnation Will?" Most of the Reincarnation Lords who voted in favor had this thought at that very moment.
A sudden thought cast a shadow of vigilance over everyone's hearts. This was because the "no" votes didn't necessarily mean that all the Reincarnation Lords who cast them were controlled by the Reincarnation Will. It was highly possible that some of the "yes" voters were also controlled by the Reincarnation Will. After all, to pass a "no" vote, only a simple majority was needed; there was no reason for everyone to expose themselves at once.
No one knew how many Reincarnation Lords the Reincarnation Will controlled, nor how it managed to control so many silently.
"Destiny Reincarnation," the Nightfall Sovereign murmured softly. Though her voice was quiet, every Reincarnation Lord could hear it easily.
As if to confirm the Nightfall Sovereign's conjecture, half of the Reincarnation Lords in the council seats suddenly panicked. These were the very Reincarnation Lords who had just voted "no," and at that moment, they seemed to realize that they had indeed cast dissenting votes. If this wasn't an act, it indicated that the Reincarnation Will couldn't permanently manipulate tens of thousands of Reincarnation Lords. It merely used the power of Destiny Reincarnation to briefly manipulate the destinies of tens of thousands of Reincarnation Lords for a very short period. Compared to permanent manipulation, temporary manipulation by Destiny Reincarnation seemed more plausible. If the Reincarnation Will could truly permanently manipulate so many Reincarnation Lords at will, it wouldn't need to hide in the shadows. Having lost its identity as the Reincarnation Sovereign, the Reincarnation Will was, at most, at the limit of an Epoch Sovereign.
Drawing this conclusion, Rosen and the Nightfall Sovereign breathed a slight sigh of relief. While the Reincarnation Will's Destiny Reincarnation was terrifying, it could at most briefly control ordinary Reincarnation Lords. If it could even control Epoch Sovereigns, the Reincarnation Will might have already emerged to seize the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree. However, while the Epoch Sovereigns could temporarily relax, the councillors present could not. They didn't know when they might be controlled. Although the Reincarnation Will couldn't permanently control a large number of individuals, permanently controlling a small number was certainly not an issue. No one wanted to be the one controlled, and what was even more terrifying was this sword hanging over their heads, not knowing when it would fall.
The meeting, which should have ended quickly, lasted for decades due to the appearance of the Reincarnation Will. Although Rosen's concept of time was already very vague, he hadn't imagined a single meeting could last for decades. However, this wasn't surprising; with one hundred thousand councillors expressing their opinions, each person only got a mere three or four hours.
They had initially thought that with so many Reincarnation Lifeforms, they would surely be able to negotiate a good solution. But it was useless because thousands of proposals were voted on during the meeting, and any proposal unfavorable to the Reincarnation Will simply couldn't pass. It was as if the Reincarnation Will's power had no limit; controlling more than half of the Reincarnation Lords could be sustained through thousands of votes.
In the end, it was the eight Speakers who couldn't bear the consumption first, as initiating proposals also incurred a cost. The Reincarnation Lords collectively shared the authority of the Reincarnation Sovereign; everyone had basically equal fundamental authority. Epoch Sovereigns had the right to initiate proposals, and Rosen had the power to veto. These privileges, which set them apart from ordinary Reincarnation Lords, came with a cost.
For proposals, once a vote passed, it became mandatory. If anyone violated it, a portion of that Reincarnation Lord's territory would be stripped and integrated into the communal territory. If violated multiple times, they could even be stripped of their Lord identity and completely perish. It was precisely because proposals had mandatory measures that minority submission to the majority was necessary to gain the recognition and support of all Reincarnation Lords. Only proposals that aligned with the interests of the vast majority of Reincarnation Lords could make all Reincarnation Lords put aside their resistance and obediently comply.
It was precisely because the final vote of a proposal was so important that initiating a proposal also required paying a certain price. The cosmic vitality sufficient to create a universe was the most basic cost of initiating a proposal. So, after initiating thousands of proposals in succession, originally intending to compete with the Reincarnation Will in terms of consumption and see if the Reincarnation Will could bear the cost of continuously using Destiny Reincarnation, all the Speakers couldn't bear it after thousands of units of cosmic vitality were integrated into the communal territory.
While dismantling the super universe did extract a good deal of cosmic vitality, more of it was cosmic death qi. The amount of cosmic vitality that Life-and-Death Reincarnation could reverse in a short time was also limited. And even if it could be fully reversed, they wouldn't dare to plunder too much cosmic vitality from the Great Reincarnation Realm. This was because after the Spacetime Reincarnation Cycle restarted, the Great Reincarnation Realm also needed cosmic vitality to generate universes. In this situation, intercepting over a million units of cosmic vitality was already their limit. Of that, a million units of cosmic vitality were used to revive Reincarnation Lifeforms and achieve Reincarnation Lords.
Thousands of units of cosmic vitality seemed like a lot, but the vast majority were integrated into territories. Each individual could at most accumulate a little over a thousand units of cosmic vitality. This time, initiating the proposal alone consumed half of each Speaker's cosmic vitality reserves.
Rosen, however, had ample reserves, at least over a hundred thousand units of cosmic vitality. But he didn't want to be a fool. After thousands of rounds of proposals, it was clear that the Reincarnation Will feared no cost. Continuing the struggle might indeed exhaust the Reincarnation Will to the point where it couldn't perform Destiny Reincarnation, but if they couldn't find the Reincarnation Will afterward, it would be a wasted effort.
Since all proposals unfavorable to the Reincarnation Will failed, only those harmless to it passed. The moment the meeting concluded, all Reincarnation Lords left the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree. They had confirmed that the Reincarnation Will's Destiny Reincarnation wasn't permanent control; for now, it could only achieve temporary control. They also confirmed that the Reincarnation Will's continuous use of Destiny Reincarnation thousands of times must have been incredibly costly. Even if it still had the capacity for permanent, long-term control over the Reincarnation Lords' destinies, the number it could control certainly wouldn't be large. So, for the time being, the Reincarnation Lords' safety was somewhat guaranteed.
However, no one was certain when the Reincarnation Will, having expended itself with thousands of Destiny Reincarnations, would recover. Before the Reincarnation Will recovered, only by maximizing their strength could they best avoid being manipulated by Destiny Reincarnation. So, after the meeting, all Reincarnation Lords eagerly set out to plunder resources from various universes. Whether it was treasures born innately within those universes, the cosmic vitality that could be extracted by destroying universes, or even Reincarnation Lifeforms that hadn't fully manifested, all became resources for the Reincarnation Lords to freely harvest.
All Reincarnation Lords were growing rapidly, and the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree consequently grew stronger. But looking at the changes in the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree, Rosen felt no joy. To completely control the Great Reincarnation Realm, at least one million, and at most ten million, Reincarnation Lords were needed. Such a massive number of Reincarnation Lords would require an astronomical amount of resources. If they recruited so many Reincarnation Lords in a single Epoch Cycle, the Great Reincarnation Realm wouldn't be able to withstand such exploitation. That's why Rosen had proposed the idea of stable development over many Epoch Cycles. This would also give him more time to fully grasp the extraordinary amplification that the Lord Core provided him.
But the Reincarnation Will ruined everything. Now, all Reincarnation Lords were like startled birds, striving to increase their strength to avoid being controlled by the Reincarnation Will. Everyone chose to frantically plunder resources, resulting in a significant increase in the total resources each Reincarnation Lord occupied. As the per capita share of resources increased, the difficulty of gathering ten million Reincarnation Lords also increased synchronously. Therefore, in this indirect confrontation, the Reincarnation Will, which didn't want them to completely control the Great Reincarnation Realm, could be said to have won a resounding victory.
Rosen sighed, leaving the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree to plunder resources like the other Reincarnation Lords. This was the most troublesome part: other Reincarnation Lords were becoming stronger by any means necessary. Even if he knew that over-exploiting the Great Reincarnation Realm would lead to more harm than good, he could only follow suit and plunder resources. Otherwise, while others grew, he would stagnate, and he would definitely be the first to suffer.
In the Flowing Light Star Sea, Rosen appeared before a newly born universe. The power of Life-and-Death Reincarnation enveloped the entire universe, and he rapidly extracted an endless stream of cosmic vitality from it. He left only one ten-thousandth, effectively draining the new universe into a cosmic remnant. Rosen did this, and so did the other Reincarnation Lords.
If this continued, the last Epoch Cycle at least managed to last almost two hundred billion years. In this Epoch Cycle, it would be a question of whether it could even last a hundred million years. When that time came, forcing the Great Reincarnation Realm's Spacetime Reincarnation into the next Epoch Cycle, the number of new universes that the Great Reincarnation Realm would restore by reversing spacetime would certainly be fewer, and the speed at which they were drained by the Reincarnation Lords would further increase. If this continued for Epoch Cycle after Epoch Cycle, the Great Reincarnation Realm would eventually be completely drained, unable to even continue Spacetime Reincarnation. At that point, the Great Reincarnation Realm might face death.
And the Epoch Cycle Ancient Tree, having plundered countless resources from the Great Reincarnation Realm, if it could absorb the corpse of the Great Reincarnation Realm and become a new Great Reincarnation Realm, that would be one thing. But if it couldn't, would they be able to cope with the potential dangers outside the Great Reincarnation Realm? Also, if the Great Reincarnation Realm truly had a master, would they just watch them destroy the Great Reincarnation Realm like this? In any case, it had come to this, and Rosen could only take things one step at a time.