The scorching Solar Divine Fire Bullet tore through the darkness, igniting a Dark Sun Nest with divine flames.
Rosen silently kept count—this was the 11,220th Dark Sun Nest he had slain.
Without the help of the Main God Network, finding so many Dark Sun Nests in the endless darkness would have been nearly impossible.
However, even with the Main God Network, he could no longer locate any new Dark Sun Nests.
The remaining ones could only be artificially created by capturing Dark Sun Spawn and forcing their evolution into new Dark Sun Nests.
Yet, despite exterminating all these Dark Sun Nests, the Dark Sun of the Old World showed no reaction at all.
Furthermore, the Dark Sun Corruption left behind by the slain Nests had no effect on him.
Any other Great True God attempting this would have long been corrupted into a Dark Sun Thrall.
Of course, even if they could resist corruption, no Great True God dared to hunt Dark Sun Thralls on such a massive scale—no one knew if the Dark Sun would retaliate when provoked. The rewards for hunting them weren't worth the risk for a Great True God.
Rosen only dared to go on this unrestrained slaughter because he had data transmission capabilities that allowed him to escape to the New World at any time.
By his calculations, this Dark Sun Nest hunt had already taken nearly a hundred years.
At times, he even questioned whether spending so long on this was truly worth it.
If not for the Hunter Points he earned and the permanent boost to his True Damage, he might not have had the perseverance to continue for a century without rest.
Rosen considered artificially cultivating more Dark Sun Nests, aiming for at least 15,000 in total.
However, only fifty years remained until the thousand-year deadline he had agreed to long ago.
That was nowhere near enough time to artificially produce close to four thousand additional Dark Sun Nests.
Would he choose the King's Game or the Dark Sun Imprint? It was a difficult decision before him.
Using the Omniscient Demon Eye, he locked onto the True God of Star Coins and quickly read their information, letting out a sigh of relief.
The King's Game had no fixed time limit, so delaying it for a few more years wouldn't be a problem. That thousand-year deadline had only been imposed by the True God of Star Coins and the others to pressure him. If he failed to become a True God within that time, they would still have no choice but to wait.
Besides, even fifty years from now, the True God of Star Coins might not have fully regained their divine strength.
So even if he didn't request an extension, the True God of Star Coins would likely delay the start of the King's Game anyway.
Reassured, Rosen resumed his frantic hunt for Dark Sun Spawn.
The Dark Sun Slime proved invaluable—it could enslave 150 Dark Sun Spawn at once, forcing them to cannibalize each other and evolve into Dark Sun Nests. Because of this, most of his time was spent searching rather than fighting, and the high-frequency data transmissions were pushing the Main God Network to its limits.
A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye. Rosen raised his gun and shot the last remaining Dark Sun Nest.
Now, in the Old World, not only were the Dark Sun Nests gone—even the Dark Sun Spawn were nearly wiped out.
It had only taken him two centuries to accomplish this. The Old World had so many Great True Gods— even without the Main God Network, shouldn't they have been able to eradicate all the Dark Sun Thralls over the course of a few thousand years? Even if they had to be cautious of corruption and proceeded slowly, wouldn't tens of thousands of years have been more than enough?
Yet, after all these countless years, the Great True Gods of the Old World had continued to do nothing.
Looking on the bright side, perhaps they were simply leaving the problem for the Celestial Empire to solve.
After all, even though hunting Dark Sun Thralls yielded little rewards, it was better than nothing.
But if viewed pessimistically, perhaps the Great True Gods didn't refuse to act out of indifference, but because they couldn't. Perhaps large-scale slaughter of Dark Sun Thralls carried unknown consequences, endangering even the lives of Great True Gods. Perhaps that was why they had created the divine throne system in the first place—to counter the Dark Sun Thralls.
If that were true, then why had nothing happened to him, even after he had nearly wiped out all the Dark Sun Thralls?
As the last Dark Sun Nest was reduced to ashes by Solar Divine Fire, the vertical pupil-like True God-level Dark Sun Imprint on Rosen's forehead began to evolve and transform.
In mere moments, the Dark Sun Imprint fused with his Eternal Divinity Core.
[Eternal Origin: Root (Dark Sun, Omniscience, Mimicry, Compatibility, Plunder, Evolution)]
[Eternal Organ: Dark Sun Heavenly Eye]
"???"
Rosen had three big questions in his mind.
Wasn't Dark Sun's Eternal Origin supposed to be Evolution?
Why did Dark Sun suddenly appear under the category of Root?
And what exactly was an Eternal Organ?
Rosen carefully examined his Dark Sun Origin and Dark Sun Heavenly Eye through his Eternal Divinity Core.
The essence of Dark Sun's Root was darkness and corruption, while the Dark Sun's Heavenly Eye allowed him to manipulate darkness and corruption through the vertical pupil at his brow.
The moment Rosen activated the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye and looked at the Old World's Dark Sun, he realized—he could control it.
This made him sit up in shock. A windfall this massive was terrifying.
Suspended Empire of the Heaven-Piercing Stone Pillar. Rosen visited the World Tree once again.
The World Tree studied the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye on Rosen's brow and gestured for him to use his Root abilities.
Rosen demonstrated them one by one, and after observing, the World Tree understood.
"Compatibility originates from me, and Plunder originates from the Ancient God..."
The World Tree explained, "Dark Sun and Omniscience come from Evolution and Mimicry. However, where Evolution and Mimicry originate from is unknown. Only Compatibility, Plunder, Evolution, and Mimicry truly stem from Eternal Life. A true Eternal Origin has no natural counter."
Hearing this, Rosen immediately understood—that Dark Sun and Omniscience were not real Eternal Origins.
It was more accurate to say that an Undying Origin had been strengthened and fused through Eternal Evolution, gaining partial abilities of an Eternal Origin but never reaching its true level. The best proof was that the darkness created by the Dark Sun could be countered by ordinary sunlight.
But then another question arose. If Dark Sun wasn't a true Eternal Origin, why couldn't the Ancient God destroy it?
And if Dark Sun didn't live up to its name, then how did the Ancient God manage to defeat the World Tree using it?
Faced with Rosen's doubts, the World Tree provided answers one by one.
Though Dark Sun wasn't a true Eternal Origin, that didn't mean it was weak. Because it had fused with Eternal Evolution and Eternal Mimicry, it had received the strengthening of two Eternal Origins.
Thus, the real Dark Sun was actually stronger than both the Ancient God and the World Tree.
However, Dark Sun had no intelligence, no self-awareness. That was why the Ancient God had been able to borrow its power to defeat the World Tree in the past.
Even so, not even the Ancient God could fully control Dark Sun.
The Ancient God's Plunder Origin wasn't strong enough to overwhelm Evolution and Mimicry and achieve complete control over Dark Sun.
Thus, the Ancient God was also corrupted by Dark Sun.
As for why the Old World's Dark Sun seemed weaker, even to the point of being controlled by the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye, it was because its power had been heavily depleted while corrupting the Ancient God.
The Ancient God's slumber was partly due to the World Tree, but even more so because it was cleansing itself of Dark Sun's corruption.
Rosen had essentially taken advantage of the Ancient God's slumber to pick up a bargain in the Old World.
Even though he could control the Old World's Dark Sun through the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye, at best, he could only control a small portion of it.
While the quality of his Root abilities had reached the Eternal level, their quantity was barely at the True God level.
Only when quality and quantity merged could one achieve true Eternity.
Even the World Tree possessed the Eternal Compatibility Origin, yet it was now in a weakened, barely surviving state.
Seizing the opportunity, Rosen showed the World Tree the Doomsday Ark's voyage logs as well.
This time, however, the World Tree had no answers—the information had truly exceeded its knowledge.
As the World Tree disappeared into the Stone Sphere, Rosen left the Stone Wall Spirit Realm, hesitating over whether he should act.
The World Tree had been too cooperative, answering every question without demanding anything in return.
This made Rosen uncertain—what exactly was the World Tree thinking?
In the end, he decided not to make a move.
A being of the World Tree's caliber, even weakened, was unlikely to be completely defenseless.
If he really fought it to the death, he might be able to kill the World Tree, but what if the World Tree could drag him down with it?
For now, peaceful coexistence was the better choice. If he ever wanted to deal with the World Tree, it would have to wait until he became an Undying God-Demon.
Returning to the Old World via data transmission, Rosen attempted to control the Heavenly Dark Sun through the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye.
Only now did he realize—Dark Sun wasn't as powerful as he had imagined.
At this point, it was probably only equivalent to the power of an Undying God-Demon.
Endless ages had passed, and the Dark Sun's radiance had continuously polluted the Old World, corrupting all things.
In this process, the laws of the Old World's Origin had collapsed, leading to a situation where the Dark Sun's power only decreased rather than replenished.
At its peak, it might have had the power of an Eternal Lifeform, but by now, it had long since fallen to the Undying God-Demon level.
Rosen wandered through the Old World and found a very well-hidden passage.
The Ancient God's Black Cavity, guarded by the Earth Demon Dragon, was actually a section of its trachea. On the surface, it served as a channel for the New World to plunder the Old World's Dark Sun power. However, hidden within it was an esophagus, continuously devouring the Old World's Dark Sun energy.
So the claim that the New World couldn't digest Dark Sun's power was a lie. The truth was that the Ancient God had never stopped plundering Dark Sun's power.
Rosen was even certain that the Ancient God had deliberately allowed the Old World to be polluted by Dark Sun's power.
The reason was simple. Dark Sun's power didn't dissipate easily. If the Ancient God wanted to plunder it directly, it wouldn't be easy.
However, after countless years, Dark Sun's power had already spread out and been diluted into the Old World. Through the esophagus that connected both worlds, the Ancient God could plunder this diluted Dark Sun power much more easily.
By madly hunting the Children of Dark Sun and destroying Dark Sun Nests, Rosen was, in a way, competing with the Ancient God for food.
Now he understood why the Holy Emperors of the Holy Court in the Old World never joined forces to eradicate Dark Sun's spawn. Killing too many would affect the Ancient God's feeding, and none of those great True Gods wanted to provoke the Ancient God just for the sake of dealing with the dangerous Dark Sun power.
But it was too late to regret anything now.
Even if he had understood this earlier, Rosen would still have chosen to hunt Dark Sun's spawn to increase his strength.
Through data transmission, Rosen appeared at the edge of a Dark Sun Forbidden Zone.
Using the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye, he scanned the area and soon locked onto a Great True God-level Dark Sun spawn deep within the Forbidden Zone.
It looked like a miniature Dark Sun, capable of transforming into a tiny star or a tentacle-covered eye. Even an ordinary Great True God wouldn't be its match—within the hierarchy of Dark Sun's spawn, it belonged to the highest rank: a Dark Sun Apostle.
At his current level, Rosen's Dark Sun Heavenly Eye couldn't control these Dark Sun Apostles.
However, since he held a portion of Dark Sun's Origin, allowing him to manipulate a fraction of its power, these Dark Sun Apostles wouldn't actively attack him either.
Rosen wondered—could he lure one away?
If he ever encountered a real threat, even if he couldn't control a Dark Sun Apostle, he could still throw it at his enemies and make them suffer.
Thinking of this, he took the skin from a fallen Dark Sun Nest, crafted it into a dimensional canvas, and used Dark Sun's Origin as divine paint.
His divine brush moved at an incredible speed, leaving behind countless afterimages, and in the end, he completed a painting—a copy of the Dark Sun in the sky.
This was a Sequence 0 Dark Sun Painting, containing a pocket spirit realm and a certain amount of Dark Sun's Origin.
Would it attract a Dark Sun Apostle? He would just have to try and see.
It worked even better than expected. The moment Rosen approached with the framed painting, the Dark Sun Apostle willingly dove into it.
Successfully abducting a Dark Sun Apostle, Rosen used Painting Realm Descent to bring the painting's spirit realm into the Dark Sun Forbidden Zone. Then, using Original Painting Sealing, he peeled off the entire Forbidden Zone and merged it into the painting—now, the Dark Sun Apostle had an even more comfortable home.
Rosen had originally planned to create more Dark Sun Paintings, but after careful observation, he gave up the idea.
The Dark Sun Apostle had been drawn into the painting because of the Dark Sun's Origin inside.
Even feeding a single Dark Sun Apostle consumed a massive amount of Dark Sun's Origin over time.
Rosen was already struggling to support one. Carrying a whole group of Dark Sun Apostles was completely impractical.
While the Dark Sun Slime had failed to find the best way to establish a Divine Kingdom, Rosen had gained both the Dark Sun Heavenly Eye and a portion of Dark Sun's Origin.
Over the next few months, Rosen traveled across the Dark Sun Forbidden Zones.
He harvested an enormous amount of supernatural resources, but his greatest discovery was the corpse of a fallen Great True God.
Different Dark Sun Forbidden Zones had varying levels of Dark Sun Apostles.
In the strongest Forbidden Zones, the Dark Sun Apostles were either Undying God-Demon level or close to it.
Otherwise, the Great True Gods who had entered in the past wouldn't have been completely wiped out.
Rosen had assumed that the fallen Great True God would have turned into Dark Sun's spawn, but to his surprise, the corpse was intact—the Dark Sun Apostles seemed uninterested in polluting dead bodies.
Though damaged beyond recognition, the corpse still held immense value.
Upon retrieving the body, he found no trace of any Divine Miracles. The corpse hadn't been tampered with, meaning it was clear—when a Great True God fell, they didn't drop Divine Miracles.
As for the supernatural artifacts the Great True God had originally carried, they had all shattered into material fragments.
Still, with the addition of this corpse, Rosen might just have enough materials to forge a Great True God-level supernatural artifact.
One must learn to be content—Rosen was already very satisfied with this harvest.
Especially because this corpse gave him additional inspiration.
It belonged to a Great True God from the Old World. Strictly speaking, its level was that of a Celestial Immortal, but not one from the Primordial Spirit Immortal Dao. Instead, it was a Celestial Immortal from a civilization that specialized in artifact refinement. It had neither a divine kingdom nor a divinity core but possessed a cave-heaven world that functioned as a fusion of both.
The entire cave-heaven world was treated as its body, while its Celestial Immortal will became equivalent to the world's will—its very own Dao of the Cave-Heaven.
The Dark Sun Slime was well-suited to follow this path—it could create a cave-heaven world within its body just like this artifact-refining civilization.
Rosen considered this possibility and found it feasible. The Celestial Immortal's remains still contained the core extraordinary power of the artifact-refining civilization, even though its cave-heaven world was shattered. With his Root Sequence, he could mimic it to a considerable degree, enough to construct a god-level internal cave-heaven.
The refining process was simple—if the Dark Sun Slime devoured the materials, it would integrate them into its body.
Then, he needed to hollow out its insides, transforming the body into various refined materials. Next, he would engrave the countless formation runes mastered by the artifact-refining civilization upon these materials. With his skills as a painter and sculptor, simulating an artifact refiner's techniques was no issue.
After a few hundred years within the accelerated time of the Historical World Core, the Dark Sun Slime's internal cave-heaven was complete.
This special Dark Sun Cave-Heaven could trap even a True God to death if they entered.
Since the Dark Sun Slime couldn't progress further for now, Rosen shifted his focus to his three clones.
Since his main body had already reached godhood, his three clones had to become gods as well.
The first one he considered was his Death God Clone, as it possessed the Sequence 0 Hell Reincarnation Painting.
The deathly hell within the painting naturally served as the perfect divine kingdom for the Death God Clone.
Faith wasn't an issue either—most of the souls from those he killed had been thrown into the Hell Reincarnation Painting. Now, the number of Death Hunters inside was immeasurable, and even Death Angels were beginning to shift their faith toward the Death God Clone.
Thus, the Death God Clone could ascend to godhood at any time. However, Rosen wanted it to be even stronger.
In the Spirit World of the New World, Rosen released the Law of Death, which had been bound within the Death World Core.
It didn't take long before the Death Shroud, which pursued the Law of Death, came seeking him.
In the past, he had feared the Death Shroud, but now, it was no longer a threat.
Rosen grabbed hold of it, and the death curses and death plagues it transmitted couldn't harm him at all. After all, his body was a divine domain that had devoured an entire Dragon Realm, making it impervious even to True Gods.
However, when he attempted to refine the Death Shroud, it vanished from his grasp, reappearing not far away to envelop him again.
No matter what he tried, he couldn't keep hold of it. Likewise, the Death Shroud couldn't harm him, and they ended up locked in a stalemate.
Rosen activated his Omniscient Evil Eye, gradually analyzing the true nature of the Death Shroud.
It turned out to be the burial shroud of a certain True God—but not a real burial shroud.
When the Spirit World resurrected this fallen True God from history, it had recreated the shroud as the god's clothing.
However, upon being revived, the True God immediately committed suicide, turning everything into a curse.
The Death Shroud absorbed these curses, and the Spirit World transformed it into a conceptual entity—one that specialized in eliminating threats to the Spirit World.
In essence, the Death Shroud was one of the Spirit World's "cleaners."
No wonder Rosen couldn't grab hold of it—it was part of the Spirit World itself.
However, while he couldn't take away the Death Shroud, the death power it contained was another matter.
Rosen released his Death God Clone, allowing the Death Shroud to envelop it.
The Death Shroud attempted to devour the death laws within the Death God Clone. But since the clone now shared the same root as Rosen's main body, it could counter this by assimilating and plundering the Death Shroud's power instead.
Over time, the Death Shroud grew weaker and weaker until, in the end, it admitted defeat and disappeared without a trace.
(End of Chapter)