"This altar is a Creator altar. But what's strange is, why would the Creators visualize an egg? The Ancient-God Emperor was hatched from an egg, yet the Creators ought to be able to directly visualize a living being. There's no reason to visualize an egg first, then hatch the Ancient-God Emperor from it..."
Quinn Shepherd was puzzled.
The birth of the Ancient-God Emperor was shrouded in mystery and strangeness. Judging from the Emperor's birthplace, it seems the egg came first, and then the Creator race somehow obtained the egg, sensed the life within, and built an altar around it.
Day and night, they performed rituals, channeling powerful sacrificial force into the egg, until the life inside was born.
Yet the birth of the Ancient-God Emperor also led to the decline and fall of the Creator race, to the point of extinction—they were even forced to carve out a new void and hide in the Grand Void Expanse.
This theory still leaves many mysteries unsolved. Where did the egg come from?
Why could such a powerful being as the Ancient-God Emperor be born from an egg?
Why did the Creators gather so many clansmen to incubate the Ancient-God Emperor? What was their purpose?
Quinn faintly sensed that this Emperor replica body could barely withstand the pressure, so he had to retreat to ease the strain.
"That split eggshell must be useful. I wonder if I can take it?"
His eyes flashed as he tried to channel the power within the Emperor's flesh, attempting to remove the split eggshell.
Yet even with power surpassing the Emperor's Throne level, the replica's mana was still crushed by the violet Dao mist of the birthplace.
Quinn frowned. The eggshell was right there, but the Ten Heavenly Venerables of Heavenly Court hadn't taken it after all these years. That alone showed how difficult it was to retrieve.
He could channel the body's strength, but it couldn't resist the Dao pressure of the birthplace, nor approach the altar.
"If I had the true Emperor body, I could take the eggshell. But the true body is trapped in Venerable Skysoar's divine art. Then again, even when the true body was around, the Ten Heavenly Venerables didn't take the shell. Were they afraid it would fall into someone else's hands?"
Ever since the death of the Ancient-God Emperor, the Heaven Alliance had fractured, with factions restraining each other. So it's understandable that even when they controlled the Emperor, they couldn't take the eggshell.
"All divine arts and Dao techniques are useless here. Even Supreme Divine Sense Domains can't withstand the pressure of the birthplace. But there's one art that can handle the violet Dao mist!"
Quinn's eyes flashed. He took out Venerable Skysoar's peach-wood hairpin.
Only Venerable Skysoar's Invariant Divine Art could freeze the violet Dao mist and smoke here.
He drove the Emperor's flesh, channeling its power to activate the peach-wood hairpin. With a gentle wave, the flowing violet light toward the eggshell froze instantly, motionless!
Quinn was overjoyed and strode forward toward the violet light, but as soon as his steps touched it, he felt a stabbing pain from the Emperor's flesh.
The body could not withstand the mist and radiance at all—each contact eroded new wounds into it.
Quinn frowned. Right now, he had to channel all the Emperor's flesh's power just to maintain the Invariant Divine Art. There was no spare strength left to use.
"Can my own yuanqi and divine sense reach the altar?"
With that thought, he sent his yuanqi and divine sense surging forth, sweeping directly toward the altar.
The altar looked close, but the real distance was vast, and the altar itself was much larger than it appeared. The split eggshells were unimaginably huge!
Quinn fused his yuanqi and divine sense, moving nimbly, and finally reached the altar, trying to lift the eggshell.
But the half-shell with the remaining egg white was so heavy, he couldn't budge it at all.
He switched to dragging the other half. This shell shifted slightly.
Quinn's heart leapt. He rallied his yuanqi and divine sense, straining to drag this half-shell bit by bit to the altar's edge.
The eggshell fell from the altar, settling atop the frozen violet light as if floating on water. Quinn's heart pounded as he pulled it closer.
The closer the shell got, the more he realized its sheer size. When it finally stood before him, this half-shell was taller than the Emperor's flesh—he had to crane his neck to see the rim!
Quinn was stunned. He didn't pause to study the runes on the shell, but strained to send it into the Keane-Sigil Continent.
Boom—
A violent tremor echoed from the Keane-Sigil Continent. The eggshell fell from the inner sky, but didn't land completely—instead, it inverted across the sky, nearly covering half the continent!
Suddenly, Quinn found his third eye's vision blurring. All he could see were countless flickering runes—anything outside was hidden from view.
This was because his third eye was peculiar: the Keane-Sigil Continent formed the iris, the Taichu Primal Stone was the pupil, and now the Emperor's eggshell had dropped down, blocking the pupil.
"I have no other treasures to store such a huge thing, so I can only keep it in the Keane-Sigil Continent. But having my vision blocked by the shell isn't ideal."
Quinn mused, "There's nothing stored on the reverse side of the Keane-Sigil Continent. Maybe I can move the shell there?"
He didn't act immediately, but put away the peach-wood hairpin and retreated slowly. Only when the Emperor's flesh could withstand the Dao pressure did he stop.
He channeled the power within the Emperor's body into his third eye, shifting the eggshell and sending it to the reverse side of the Keane-Sigil Continent, where it lay inverted at the center.
Now, the eggshell seemed to become the vitreous body of his third eye. Light from outside entered, passed through the Taichu Primal Stone at the continent's center, and illuminated the inner surface of the shell, revealing countless rune marks.
Then something strange happened—Quinn instantly felt that everything looked different through this eye.
He could see the microscopic structure of anything, even the violet radiance's micro-patterns were crystal clear!
The Dao radiance, the composition of the mist—even the subtleties of his own divine sense—all were reflected in perfect detail within his third eye!
He looked down at the Emperor's flesh; its internal structure, once invisible, now appeared sharply in his gaze!
He could even see every numerological structure inside the replica body, including the secrets of the Creation arts!
He gazed at the altar within the violet light—his eyes could pierce the glow and see the altar perfectly!
"This eggshell is incredibly useful. If only I could get the other half too..."
Quinn shook his head. For now, he didn't have the strength to move the second shell.
"Time is tight. After all, I'm only borrowing this Emperor's body. The Ten Heavenly Venerables may be busy scheming against each other, but they'll soon notice the puppet body is missing. I can't linger here."
Quinn immediately hid his true body deep within the puppet's brow, then turned the Emperor's body to walk toward the Eastern Palace Crown Prince.
Heavenly Court was crawling with the Ten Heavenly Venerables' spies. From the moment the puppet body vanished to when they tracked it down, it would take no time at all.
He still planned to use this body to visit Zaofu Palace and Fragrant Hall, but had to move before the Ten Heavenly Venerables caught on.
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince's eye twitched as he watched his 'Father Emperor' approach. Quinn came up beside him. Lucan lowered his head, his lips trembled, but he finally spoke: "Father Emperor."
Quinn stopped, giving him a half-smile, half-smirk, and suddenly asked, "You figured it out?"
Lucan shuddered, his hair standing on end, nearly fleeing in terror!
"So what if you did?"
Quinn said coolly, "I'm one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables. I don't care about an Eastern Palace Crown Prince like you. To be blunt, your father, the Ancient-God Emperor, has been dead for forty thousand years. If you noticed I've ignored you all this time, now you know why."
He said coldly, "Your father has been dead forty thousand years!"
With a thud, the Eastern Palace Crown Prince fell to his knees, bracing himself on the violet radiance—his palms were quickly worn bloody by the light.
His body trembled. He wanted to leap up and kill the Heavenly Venerable before him to avenge the Ancient-God Emperor, but he knew full well the gulf in power—he could never win!
Reason told him he must not act now—only by enduring could he hope to survive!
Quinn watched him coldly for a while, then said, "Forty thousand years ago, your father died at the hands of us Ten Heavenly Venerables. We made this puppet body to control the Heavenly Court."
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince's voice was hoarse: "Why...?"
"Why?"
Quinn laughed heartily. "Because of the throne, because of power! Crown Prince, if you behave, you can live. But if you speak out, your death will come soon enough."
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince fell silent, his body no longer trembling.
Quinn waved his hand. "I have no evidence against you yet, and deposing a Crown Prince is troublesome. So I'll spare you. Go—take care of yourself."
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince slowly stood, tears in his eyes, head bowed as he walked away in silence.
"Stop." Quinn called after him.
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince froze, standing in silence.
"Don't even think of betraying us or giving the Ten Heavenly Venerables a reason to depose you. Understood?" Quinn's voice came.
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince nodded silently.
"Go." Quinn said.
The Eastern Palace Crown Prince left, holding back tears.
Quinn breathed a sigh of relief. "If the Eastern Palace Crown Prince had really attacked, even with his Emperor's Throne cultivation, I might not have been able to hold out. This puppet body is too unwieldy—fighting a peak Emperor's Throne expert would be tough..."
He gathered his spirits and headed out: "First to Fragrant Hall—see if I can retrieve Heaven Guide Venerable's remnant soul—then to Zaofu Palace to check what artifact can make so many Blue Fattys..."
Just as he left the forbidden zone, a woman appeared ahead—cloud boots, red-trimmed white off-shoulder gown, high cloud-bun, half-exposed chest: it was Consort Cherise, one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables!
Quinn blinked, thinking, "This is bad!"
"Your Majesty, what brings you here?" Consort Cherise's beautiful eyes flickered as she glanced around, then she laughed softly.
Quinn chuckled. "Beloved consort, this is my ancestral land. Why have you come?"
Consort Cherise smiled sweetly. "Your Majesty hasn't visited the harem in quite some time. Today you suddenly appear, so naturally I was delighted and waited for you. But instead of coming to see me, you've run off here."
Goosebumps prickled over Quinn's skin. The thought that Consort Cherise might be a fragment of the Ancient-God Emperor's soul made him deeply uneasy.