Chapter 718: One is All, All is Everything (Part Two of Two)

In the vast cosmos, there lay the Pixel Planet.

Its landscape was covered with trees, flowers, and animals, all made of pixel blocks, forming a bizarre pixelated world. If the real world was high-definition and uncensored, this place was 480p, with every living thing composed of coarse, visible pixel cells.

In Pixel City, streets made of square pixels were surrounded by lush green trees. Square-faced pixel people, each with a unique appearance, walked along the streets.

Thud, thud, thud! The ground vibrated. Some pixel knights, holding pixelated square swords and plaid shields adorned with eagle patterns, rode their tall and mighty pixel beasts through the streets.

Ever since this planet came under the rule of Stone Star, it had been transformed into a battle planet. Its inhabitants, a naturally bellicose race with immense mass and exceptionally high average quality, were renowned as the universe's premier warrior race. They continuously supplied cosmic warriors to Stone Star's front lines.

Below, the Gem Kingdom and the Block Kingdom, though governed by the same universal law, were embroiled in endless internal strife. The high-ranking officials of Stone Star even tacitly approved, and even encouraged, their infighting. Firstly, it weakened the planet's capacity for resistance. Secondly, such internal conflict could breed true warriors.

An ancient deity, whose body was made of delicate white porcelain, sat on a cliff overlooking the pixel planet, continuously making deductions and observing its inhabitants. "The journey of the Shu Mountain path has shown me the importance of forging will! The path to the Ninth Rank is essentially about refining the soul, hammering one's life fiercely, embedding it into flesh and blood through countless trials, to achieve continuous integration of soul and body," she mused. "Therefore, I went astray."

Caroline continued her deductions, a look of wistful introspection on her face. "It's too comfortable, too peaceful. There's no sense of oppression, none of the blood-stained, radical obsession or madness like Liu Wenjian and the people of Shu Mountain..." she murmured. She wasn't referring to her own lack of pressure or comfort, but rather to all the beings within her mental universe.

She recalled the low-level civilized city-states of the Three Pillar Gods. "The Three Pillar Gods, as a virtual racial will and heavenly dao, maintained an era of cruel slave city-states, continuously making their beings suffer and struggle. They deliberately avoided high development to create hardship and pain. With no human rights, their people had to fight for their own rights. But I, as a physical Pillar God, allowed the Yixiu Dar people to establish a perfect mental universe system where they live well, without hardship."

Consequently, the beings in her mental universe cultivated slowly, and their souls integrated very slowly. This naturally slowed her progress as the Pillar God of the entire mental universe. She hadn't fully utilized her advantage. Like the Three Pillar Gods, she would grow stronger as the beings under her command grew stronger, for they were part of her own body. In a sense, she was the Pillar God of destiny's will.

"Do you have an idea?" a calm voice suddenly spoke.

Caroline turned her head to see the Ultra-Ancient God. She took a deep breath, her face full of apology. "This time, I've failed your expectations."

Xu Zhi shook his head, looking at her. Caroline bit her lip, her expression firm. "Yes, I have an idea. The Three Pillar Gods were originally fragmented virtual Pillar Gods who cultivated through their beings and then merged to become physical Pillar Gods... My path should be the exact opposite! I can also reverse their path. I am already a unified physical Pillar God; I can split into all beings, let them cultivate individually, and then unify them again."

"A similar method?" Xu Zhi asked, slightly stunned. "Turning them into individual physical beings? You want to materialize your beings, turning yourself into a virtual Pillar God? To have all your beings descend into the mortal realm? Or rather, to make the entire old Yixiu Dar civilization universe reappear?"

Caroline shook her head. "I don't intend for the Yixiu Dar civilization to reappear in this universe. Instead, they will take on another form, abandoning our comfortable existence and all our technological advantages, transforming into ordinary warriors to cultivate and break through. For all these years, we have relied too much on our talents and forgotten the raw impetus and miracles of bloodlines and souls themselves." As she spoke, she looked towards the pixel warriors on the entire pixel planet.

Xu Zhi was taken aback. The entire Yixiu Dar race, descending from the mental universe, intended to manifest as physical pixel warriors? This presented no technical problems. Pixel creatures, as a species, had already undergone a morphological evolution, transforming their fine ceramic cells into enlarged, super-coarse particles, yet still retaining immense mass and exceptional weight.

At this point, even Xu Zhi marveled at Caroline's audacious plan! The Yixiu Dar were truly a group of mad scientists!

What was the situation in Caroline's mental universe now? A perfectly sound utopian society! It was the exact same Yixiu Dar civilization from back then. Within their minds, programs were set up for automatic, idle cultivation; upon reaching adulthood, they would already be at the Fourth Rank. They also didn't need to practice combat skills, as those were already programmed into their minds.

Therefore, whether high-ranking experts or ordinary people, none were true powerhouses. They were essentially administrative scientists, a society of scientists where knowledge truly was power. And now, they were to set aside their test tubes, beakers, programming software, and mechanical control research to descend and fight? "A scientist who can't wield a hammer isn't a good warrior?"

"Are you sure about this?" Xu Zhi was stunned. This was an extremely radical move, one only the Yixiu Dar would be audacious enough to attempt.

"The internal World Council review, with eleven members, has passed it unanimously," Caroline stated. "We are too comfortable. We love peace and order, but that doesn't mean we are hothouse flowers or truly weak."

Xu Zhi was momentarily stunned, then chuckled. "You must know that they'll lose their magic core's combat AI and computational power, leave their mechs, and fight with their bare hands as native warriors... They'll be devastated. After all, the current mental universe is even more comfortable, for scientists who have never killed a person, or even an animal, in their lives..."

"There's a first time for everything. Society is too perfect; let them experience the life of a truly ordinary person," Caroline said calmly. "But this situation is like Shu Mountain's forging furnace: crude iron is put in for hammering, constantly beaten and refined through countless trials, eventually transforming into smaller, finer iron."

Xu Zhi said no more. Was it similar to the Dream Dao? One dream transforming into billions of beings, allowing these billions of beings to comprehend the Dao, refining and integrating their souls?

Boom! Caroline left the Pixel Planet and drifted in the dark cosmos. Her delicate white porcelain body suddenly expanded, and her tiny, refined cellular particles abruptly transformed into enormous pixel block cells! Boom, boom, boom! Her entire being, like a 1.7-meter delicate white porcelain doll, instantly swelled every cellular particle, like an expanding sponge or rapidly growing white granular foam, transforming into an incredibly rough, miles-high cosmic pixel giant. Every single cell was colossal. Every pore and cellular particle on her face was distinctly visible.

Like a brilliant fireworks display, countless pixel particles, as if undergoing a cosmic big bang, caused her entire body to explode in an instant, turning into individual pixel creatures of ordinary size, drifting in space. Tens of billions of pixel creatures surged towards the distant giant planet.

Xu Zhi sighed, "Caroline has now also become a virtual Pillar God, losing her physical form. In this way, she lets her beings control a part of her body, helping to advance the integration of her body, merging every soul and cell?"

One must understand that Caroline's fragmented bodies were each divine bodies! Over ten billion divine bodies in total! Regardless of who controlled the beings within them, or whether their true cultivation was Fifth or Sixth Rank, they possessed this fragmented part of her body, wielding overwhelming power in an era where deities were scarce. However, Caroline had sealed this power. Furthermore, she erased all their cultivation, making them start from the First Rank. Only upon their death would this power be unsealed, allowing them to return with their divine bodies, integrated to varying degrees.

The integration of soul and body was a form of mental training, a tempering. After all, the souls of these beings were also parts of her soul. With tens of billions of beings acting as blacksmiths, helping to temper the body and integrate it into the Ninth Rank path, this method was indeed incredibly fast, as evident from the speed of the Three Pillar Gods. In fact, it was somewhat similar to Xu Zhi's previous theory of the multi-crystal wall universe, where countless multiversal selves each cultivated 10%, and then merged. Yet, it was different. A Pillar God was like the hidden Heavenly Dao, the fate of a race, not an avatar, but the countless beings under their rule.

Xu Zhi looked down, watching the tens of billions of creatures flying towards the Pixel Planet.

Boom! In the distant cosmos, the First Priest slowly arrived. As the priest overseeing various planets, he naturally sensed the abnormality here. He respectfully said, "All-God..." His expression was one of fluctuating astonishment. He had just witnessed the terrifying scene of another ancient and sacred All-God rapidly expanding and exploding into countless beings, surging towards the Pixel Planet.

"Your Majesty, the Great All-God, the other one..." the First Priest began.

"One is all, and all are beings," Xu Zhi said, smiling as he looked at the First Priest.

The First Priest was greatly shocked, finding it increasingly incredible. One entity transforming into tens of billions of beings? What immense power was this? He clearly felt that each of those over ten billion beings possessed its own complete soul and consciousness, each a living, existing individual. This was terrifying. One is all, and all are everything—this was the true All-God! Creating planets, seeing the past and future, and now, witnessing with his own eyes the creation of endless beings...

Xu Zhi said, "Do not tell anyone about this anomaly here, these over ten billion pixel beings. Announce to the public that they are creatures from a parallel pixel planet, transported to this space-time by a god. There's no need for special treatment; everything should proceed as usual."

"Yes, sir!" the First Priest quickly replied.

In just over thirty years, a large group of pixel creatures descended upon this planet. Although it remained a colony, their arrival greatly boosted its prosperity.

Thud, thud, thud! In Digital City, a mysterious, gigantic pixelated square platform stood on the ground. Many pixel warriors stood on it, their fighting spirit high.

"Is this the Grade Six Warrior Advancement Platform in Sector Seven?" Below, some pixel people, carrying luggage and clearly from remote towns, asked, "Is that white dwarf up there from the legendary Frost Demon race, the strongest in the universe?"

"You haven't seen one?"

"No."

"I heard many geniuses have appeared in this advancement competition, even the universe's greatest nobles! The noble Frost Demon race, the rarest with only a dozen or so members, has come to watch!" One pixel person, with a square, simple-looking head, tilted their head and chatted excitedly, making it seem like a true tribe from "Minecraft."

The platform was invented by the ancient Digimon. Although they had separated from the pixel race and become the Digimon race, revered as pixel pets by various cosmic civilizations, the platform they left behind, with its mysterious decomposition and synthesis abilities, had evolved over time to become the cultivation system for the pixel warrior race today. Unlike the natural breakthroughs of other races, pixel warriors needed to stand on the platform for their advancement, undergoing a transformation, reorganization, and synthesis of their own bodies. What lay before them was the arena known as the Advancement Competition.

"They have to fight to the death?"

"Indeed. The Advancement Competition requires advancement through bloody combat."

"After all, breaking through on the platform requires immense energy. Unless you're a wealthy noble who can expend various resources to evolve on the platform... common warriors can only use these large platforms, fighting each other to make the opponent a resource for their own advancement." Some low-ranking pixel warriors' expressions changed completely. They had come from the countryside, painstakingly gathering resources on their own. But in the later stages, the resources needed for advancement and breakthrough grew exponentially. So, some of the strong individuals from the big cities chose to go onto such platforms? Without resources, they could only enter the arena and make other warriors their resources for breakthrough. This was incredibly cruel, like raising venomous insects. Yet, this was an advancement model deliberately guided by the Stone Star race; they needed true cosmic warriors.

"But why would the noble Frost Demon race pay so much attention to us humble cosmic warriors?"

"They say it's because of the Super Saiyan legend!"

"That legend?" A collective gasp went through the crowd. This legend was left behind by the Digimon race, who had also left the mysterious platforms. They deeply admired those ancient sages.

Super Saiyan. Countless warriors quietly murmured the name.

"Yes, Super Saiyan is a special transformation unique to our cosmic pixel warrior race. It's said to be a legendary super warrior appearing only once every thousand years! According to the records of the ancient Digimon tribe, their great legendary Digimon King Rayquaza's prophecy states: Once a Super Saiyan truly appears, a terrifying Great Harmony will ensue! The entire universe will be bathed in a magnificent, mysterious holy light, and wherever it reaches, there will be harmony, and blood will turn green!"

In the crowd, Xu Zhi's expression subtly changed. What kind of ancient legend was this? He had gone out for lunch and returned to check on Caroline's physical race. By transforming into pixel creatures, they weren't just accelerating their path to the Ninth Rank; there was also an intention to allow some of their outstanding talents, like Hailan Dong, to attempt breaking through to the Ninth Rank. To have a Ninth Rank powerhouse appear within her own race. This was something even the Three Pillar Gods couldn't achieve currently; Subaru, the Daughter of Sheng Lin, and others had only just embarked on the Ninth Rank path. But she could leverage the pixel creatures, who possessed the absolute advantage of the shortest Ninth Rank path, to make this attempt! This was also one of the reasons she had materialized her entire race as pixel creatures.

The bustling continued nearby. "Such a terrifying cosmic super warrior?"

"It's said that the Frost Demon race secretly fears our potential. After all, they were once weak, enslaved white dwarfs, and only later did some exceptional individuals gain transformation abilities. They also fear that we might possess similar transformation abilities."

"It's also said that a few years ago, our kin from a parallel time-space descended upon this land, making them realize how much the All-God values us!"

"Those kin don't say a word about where they come from, but they've now integrated normally into our lives."

"Shhh!"

"Keep your voices down."