The Silver Saint, also known as the Heaven Furnace for incinerating an entire demonic sect, inhaled deeply. The galaxies inside her eyes swirled faster than before. "This clumsy guy," she said, pointing behind her, "is nameless. We just call him 'this guy' or 'this whale' or something like that. He doesn't mind, but we know he used to have a name. That name has been lost, and he cannot reclaim it."

Liu Xing nodded, though he didn't understand how something could lose its name. "What is it?"

His first thought was that the whale was a spirit beast. But when its ringed eyes looked straight at him and narrowed, he knew it was not. He couldn't feel its qi. Logically, that meant the whale was a normal animal, but he knew it was far from it. Speaking of qi, he couldn't sense Silver Saint's cultivation either, and his own qi felt so restricted that he might as well have been a mortal. Perhaps this dream world had a restriction that made everyone inside it hold no power.

"We call them Ancient Beasts," Silver Saint said. "They are ancient, wield immense power, and are, for the most part, peaceful creatures. Although they have a duty so important that one of our responsibilities as saints is to protect them."

"Ancient Beast, huh?" Liu Xing muttered, observing the whale once again. The word "ancient" carried great weight in this world. After all, cultivators could live for a long time. Many had experienced a thousand years, likewise ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years, and more. Moreover, there were five Immortals who, unless they were killed, had lived and would live forever. He didn't even know the age of the Patriarch of the Purple Moon Sect. If this whale was ancient, perhaps it had been alive for a trillion years. Perhaps it had existed from the beginning, from the moment the universe was created. This made Liu Xing pinch his chin and wonder a single question. If they were ancient, why had he never heard of them?

Beings like that would be worshipped, revered, and celebrated. Thousands of legends about them would exist, and their existence would permeate all layers of life. He could imagine mortals referring to them as they did their ancestors, and cultivators would pursue them—some perhaps to refine them into pills, some to learn about their way of life, and many more.

He asked Silver Saint this question, which she replied to with a smile. "You've already experienced the reason why people don't know about them."

At first, he was confused, but then, as he understood, he nodded. "They have the ability to erase memories."

"Correct, but reducing their defensive mechanism to merely erasing memories is an understatement of their true abilities. Still, it's a sufficient description." She opened her fan again. "Ancient Beasts mostly hide from us, but even with their abilities, some people know about them. My seniors and I are among them, and you will become one of us, too. Some Immortals and their elders know about the Ancient Beasts too, as well as a special group of cultivators who possess a space affinity. Their knowledge of the Ancient Beasts is vague and fleeting, though, and we would like to keep it that way. We saints aren't really immune to their abilities either. Even to this day, I can't shake the feeling that I've forgotten something important about them."

"If even saints and Immortals aren't immune to their ability, does that mean they're supreme beings, even above Immortals?"

Silver Saint laughed, her laughter sounded like a ringing bell. "That clumsy guy? No. While Ancient Beasts are dangerous and possess immense power, they are not all-powerful. A determined cultivator at the Black Sun realm could kill one, as could we saints, not to mention the Immortals. But killing them is a bad idea. Because while they look so carefree, flying between stars," she looked up, gazing at the hundreds of Ancient Beasts flying in space, "they have an important duty to act as the glue of the universe." She looked at Liu Xing, the smile on her face vanishing. "Without them, something catastrophic will happen."

"What is their duty? What is this disaster?"

"I'll tell you when you're a proper saint," she answered with a mysterious smile.

Liu Xing sighed. And then he looked toward the whale once again. The whale was still staring at him intently, as if he were a person who had just killed its newborn child, and he thought he felt some hostility from it, too. Still, he looked at this Ancient Beast and felt as if he had just received a profound insight about the universe. While he didn't know what exactly their "duty" was, he knew that it, at the very least, benefited the whole universe.

He paused for a moment to reflect on what he had thought.

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Universe.

It was something he couldn't wrap his head around. This xianxia world was so big, with many, many places he had never visited, and he was sure that even after a thousand years, there would be places he had missed. And now, they were suddenly talking about the universe.

Liu Xing felt that his life had suddenly become so small. And so, Liu Xing lowered his head to the whale and showed it some respect. Whatever that "duty" was, the whale was a being of tremendous importance, and such a thing deserved respect.

The whale let out a wail, and its hostility lowered a little.

The Silver Saint looked at the whale, too, and then sighed. "I sometimes wonder why they were created in the first place. They look terrifying and awe-inspiring, but up close, they're just dumb, cute, and clumsy creatures. They're not really fit for their duty. The one who almost killed you, Liu Xing, was likewise given a duty, though his was more sinister."

Instantly, a memory of ringed eyes flashed in his mind. They were almost similar to the ringed eyes of the whale, yet thinking about them made him shiver. As a memory of a vague human silhouette and an orange light came to his mind, a headache began to settle in. He gritted his teeth, feeling as if a tiny slug had hatched inside his brain and was now growing as it consumed him.

"Take a deep breath and try to let go of that thought, Liu Xing," Silver Saint said in a melodious tone as she closed both of her eyes, as if she were trying to soothe him with her voice. "Think of him as a mere fragment of memory. Like the fleeting feeling of the first fear you felt when you were still a baby. You're in the care of an Ancient Beast, and while his influence is strong, the whale has already taken care of most of it. Help him by trying to let go of his memory etched on your mind. Think of him as nothing more than one of your nightmares."

Liu Xing inhaled and exhaled deeply. He tried to forget the orange light, the silhouette of an old man, and its ringed blue eyes, which began to fade bit by bit. As his head felt better, he asked a question. "What is that thing? Is he some kind of Ancient Beast, too?"

"Talking about him is considered a bad omen, you know. But, just to satisfy your curiosity, let's say that his duty is the opposite of the Ancient Beasts'. This is also related to the secret of the universe I mentioned earlier, as well as why the heavens chose us to become saints and our true purpose." She paused for a moment. "Liu Xing, what was the first thing you thought of when you woke up in this dream? Did you feel a sense of familiarity with this world? What was the most prominent feeling or suspicion you had?"

Liu Xing thought for a moment. "The very first thing I thought about this world was that it's an illusion. No, no, that's not right," he caressed his temple. "While it's true I concluded it was an illusion, I also thought this place had a familiar feeling, like my own consciousness." He looked straight toward Silver Saint, who, despite having both of her eyes closed, was smiling at him.

"And you dismissed that thought?" she asked.

He looked down, toward the shining, deep river that flowed beneath him. He looked at the countless stars, nebulas, and galaxies in the sky, at the hundreds of Ancient Beasts swimming between them, at the gigantic tree so big his mind couldn't comprehend it, and at a palace burning with different colors of fire.

This was not like a normal consciousness. His was white and empty. While he had walked and felt that his consciousness was endless, it was merely an illusion. It was as if he were in the center of a bubble, and as he moved, the bubble also moved. But this? Even if it was a dream, he knew it was vast—so vast that he was sure that even if he could fly as fast as light, he would never reach the end. And it was also filled with life. He suspected that the real place this dream was based on was filled not only with Ancient Beasts but with humans, too.

This place... was its own universe. Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling of familiarity between this world and his consciousness.

Silver Saint began to open her eyes again. Slowly, slowly, the galaxies inside them expanded further and further, until finally, her eyes were painted entirely white. She looked terrifying, as if she were a vengeful spirit trying to suck him into her eyes.

"Liu Xing, you thought that this place was inside the consciousness of some being, right?"

Liu Xing paused for a moment, then nodded. It was the natural conclusion of his thinking, but he didn't actually believe it. The progression of cultivation was a mapped-out journey. The first realm was Lock Opening, the second was Core Splitting, but starting from the third stage, a cultivator needed to create something unique.

Their own sun inside their consciousness.

But what if, at the end of the journey of cultivation, they needed to create something grander, something vast, like their own universe?

It was quite far-fetched. After all, consciousness was not a real place. It was a special kind of space. While some people thought their cultivation was their soul, others thought the space itself was their soul. And if he, and the Ancient Beasts, and the saints, and the Immortals, and mortals—all people who had lived, were living, and would live in the future—were truly inside the consciousness of a being, did that mean they were merely characters in someone's dream?

"You're wrong, Liu Xing. The universe is not inside a being's consciousness."

Liu Xing sucked in a breath. Relief flooded his body. Of course. How silly of him to get such an idea.

"Rather, the universe bloomed on the corpse of a dead god."

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