The sea had engulfed all the original land, forcing the Trilobite people to return to an aquatic existence, once again competing with the People of the Abyss for survival resources.

Volcanoes erupted, and temperatures plummeted.

Amidst this brutal environment of killing and fighting, the Trilobite people’s territory and population dwindled.

They lost everything they once had, including the crucial Sun Cup and the priestly legacy.

They lost city after city, then towns, and even their language.

Gradually, they forgot everything from their past.

They devolved into a group of savage beasts.

Even so, they stubbornly clung to existence.

Until they encountered their natural enemy—the monsters.

Fire demons, having lost their nests where fire elements naturally formed, became virtually extinct, leaving behind only rare traces of mythical blood.

Most stone demons fell into slumber, submerged beneath the sea.

But the wing demons still existed, gradually forming vast colonies.

These highly active monsters occupied islands of various sizes. Their strong, powerful wings allowed them to soar through the sky, while their keen sensory organs could detect any movement in the air or under the sea.

With wings folded, their snake-like and worm-like bodies could easily burrow into the seabed.

Though unable to dwell underwater for extended periods, it was sufficient for hunting.

They frantically hunted Trilobite people and the People of the Abyss in the vast ocean, using them as food. Given the wing demons’ enormous size, only the Trilobite people and the People of the Abyss were substantial enough to serve as their prey.

The sky, thick with black wings, became an eternal nightmare for the Trilobite people and the People of the Abyss.

No one had anticipated this.

These beings, once created and enslaved by them, had become their ultimate disaster.

Under such cruel conditions, the Trilobite people and the People of the Abyss slowly edged towards extinction.

But the wing demons’ era of dominance didn’t last long either. Their so-called great power proved insignificant in the face of the world’s changes.

As time passed, temperatures began to fluctuate dramatically. Snow as light as goose down fell from the sky, and the sea started to freeze over.

The wing demons lost their primary food source and couldn’t withstand the harsh weather.

In an incredibly brief span of time, as temperatures dropped within a certain range, the wing demons also began to vanish amidst the ice and snow.

The world once again fell into deathly silence.

Tectonic plates shifted, and new continents emerged on the far side of the world.

Under the sun’s radiation, the ozone layer gradually formed.

In the ocean, a type of fish began using its fins as legs, crawling onto the shore and slowly evolving proper limbs.

These creatures were the descendants of the ancestral fish.

Mosses and algae slowly crept above the sea surface, extending onto land, gradually evolving into various early land plants, and finally transforming into swamp forests.

Strange, towering trees reached heights of thirty to forty meters, looking like giant slingshots from afar. Their sporophylls clustered into strobili at the tips of small branches.

Shorter plants with fern-like leaves spread along coastal areas.

Various amphibians and even purely terrestrial reptiles appeared, roaming freely through the swamps.

In the jungle, insects fluttered about, including dragonflies spanning tens of centimeters.

Unusually large centipedes and spiders crawled across rotting logs.

More than 200 million years after the era of the Trilobite people.

Northern Hemisphere.

On a massive peninsula in the east, vast forests covered the coastal regions.

As far as the eye could see, there were various gymnosperms. Some had leaves like ferns, while others resembled palms.

On the ground lived strange, enormous creatures, killing each other for survival. The same was true in the seas.

This cycle of predation seemed an inescapable fate for every era and species.

On a dark night.

Danger lurked in the jungle; even at this time, the game between predator and prey couldn’t be avoided.

Without warning, dazzling golden light showered upon the land, as delicate as a layer of shimmering silk.

A massive beast with a strangely shaped sail on its back looked to the sky, while a lizard perched on a tree craned its neck to gaze into the distance.

In the sky appeared an enormous cup emanating golden light.

It seemed to have come from another time, or from beyond this world, suddenly descending into this era.

The cup bore inscriptions and engravings so complex they defied description, with all manner of strange writings and peculiar symbols.

The light from the golden cup grew increasingly intense, gradually transforming into a radiant sun so bright it was hard to keep one’s eyes open.

Streams of light fell upon every living being, penetrating their consciousness and connecting with them.

What had descended in the dark of night was none other than the Divine Cup, the sole source artifact of the Dream Ability.

The golden light gradually dispersed, and the Divine Cup slowly faded.

It attached itself to the dreams of all things, existing within the consciousness of every living being.

All conscious life forms felt a subtle change within themselves, yet couldn’t quite perceive what had happened. It was as if they had somehow connected to another world.

As the Divine Cup attached itself to the consciousness of all life, the Dream Realm reappeared within the world.

The Dream Realm.

The dark space instantly burst into light, with countless dreams of life illuminating one by one.

Following closely were innumerable dream bubbles, projections of the dreams of all beings in reality with a certain degree of consciousness and thought.

The sea of dream stars could now truly be called a galaxy, far surpassing what it had been in the past.

It also reflected the vibrant rhythm of life in this era.

Above the Divine Cup, which had transformed into the dream sun, was an ancient island—the God-Given Land, the origin of everything, the destination of all faith.

The sea of sun flowers had withered, and the dream realm had grown dim.

“Whoosh.”

A powerful force swept through, carrying dreamlike starlight, rekindling their vitality.

Flower after flower rebloomed, swaying in the wind.

The wind blew across the flower sea, up the steps of the pyramid.

It carried the overwhelming fragrance of flowers to the front of the temple.

The doors of the pyramid temple were tightly shut, with the statue of God Yinsai standing in darkness. At this moment, a small conch horn fell from the waist of Yinsai’s statue.

“Plop.”

The conch horn slowly enlarged, transforming into a shell the size of a house.

The shell emitted a soft glow, its sturdy exterior becoming translucent. Inside, one could see a little girl sleeping peacefully.

The badge on her chest began to glow, and a powerful force entered Shelly’s body. Her power immediately underwent a transformation, causing the Mother Conch of All Things to shine brilliantly as well.

The imprint of the Scarlet Apostle appeared on the Mother Conch of All Things, followed by the marks of the seven Ruhe beasts flashing one by one.

This supreme artifact of the Life Ability had become more intricate, no longer as rough as before, more like a carefully crafted artificial object.

Shelly yawned and rolled over.

It seemed she wanted to sleep a bit more, but before long, she opened her eyes.

Shelly rubbed her eyes and sat up.

Her consciousness felt as if she had only taken a short nap, completely unaware that the outside world had crossed an unimaginably vast span of time.

Shelly emerged from the shell, her eyes wide with curiosity as she took in the world around her.

“Gurgle.”

Unlike before, her gaze was now clear, no longer vacant and confused.

The supreme being at the source of the Life Ability had finally gained wisdom.

Shelly walked through the empty temple, finally arriving before the statue of Yinsai, looking up at it.

“Gurgle!”

There was no response.

“Gurgle?”

Shelly’s eyes showed confusion, as if she felt this wasn’t right.

She remembered.

The statue should be able to move, so why was it now motionless on the divine pedestal?

In a flash of insight, she realized.

It must be asleep, not yet awakened!

Just like her moments ago, even after waking, she had wanted to sleep a bit more.

She reached out her hand, carefully touching the statue.

The stone was cold, yet through it, she felt the presence of a majestic being.

A distant existence beyond the universe and the world, she grasped a strand of starlight falling from the endless darkness, as if clutching the hem of its garment.

Shelly suddenly recalled something, memories of certain scenes flooding back.

A tall man with black hair patting her head, his body seeming to be composed of light and stone, existing between reality and illusion.

If one word could describe him, it would be—God.

God looked at Shelly, softly speaking her name.

“Shelly!”

Shelly’s eyes lit up, and she slowly pronounced the syllables.

“She…lly~”

“I am… Shelly.”

Her mind was in chaos, but she could sense that this being was very important.

An existence crucial to this world and to her.

She began wandering around the temple, gradually circling to the side of the divine pedestal.

She saw a statue kneeling at the foot of the pedestal.

It had been kneeling there for who knows how long, and had been dead for an equally unknown time.

The figure was emaciated, having died at a very advanced age.

Despite its decayed state, the statue maintained a posture of reverence, forever facing the deity in silent devotion.

Another scene flashed in Shelly’s mind: she had become a monster, building a tall pyramid, while a humanoid being with bone armor stood before the temple, watching her.

That person must be the statue in its youth.

“Gurgle?”

Who could this be?

She couldn’t recall the name, but felt a sense of familiarity.

She and this being were born together on the shores of the Origin Site, at the place where God Yinsai descended. They were both progenitors of ability power.

One governing life, the other governing wisdom.

Shelly pondered for a long while but couldn’t remember, so she decided to let it go.

She sat on the divine pedestal, raised her hand, and saw tendrils of darkness extending outward.

The doors of the pyramid temple slowly opened, letting in light from outside.

A golden Sun Cup was caught by the dark tendrils and brought before Shelly.

Shelly reached out and grasped it tightly.

Just as countless years ago, when faced with her, the Sun Cup trembled, not daring to make any movement.

Shelly took a deep breath and then leaned against God’s feet.

She swung her legs contentedly on the divine pedestal, humming a tuneless melody.

This made her feel comfortable and safe.

It seemed that for countless days and nights, she had guarded God’s side like this, watching the world outside the temple.

One day.

One year.

Ten years.

God had not yet awakened, and it was unknown when He would.

Carrying the entire Dream Realm across more than 200 million years was no small burden for Yin Shen, or perhaps it couldn’t be called a burden entirely, but it had reduced Yin Shen’s sensitivity to time to its limit.

Yin Shen’s consciousness was still beyond this world, his perception of the outside world as unresponsive as a stone.

He was re-establishing his anchor points connecting him to this world, while also synchronizing his time flow with this era.

Even so, Yin Shen had chosen this method.

He could have chosen to cross time alone, or to slumber alone, leaving behind the Divine Cup and the Dream Realm.

But what about Hila and Shelly? Let them endure the passage of 200 million years?

That was a span of time sufficient to erode and change anyone’s consciousness.

Shelly walked through every corner of the Yinsai Temple, finding several sets of the most magnificent clothes in God’s treasury.

Unlike Yin Shen’s preference for white, her favorite color was black.

She donned a black cloak and pulled up the hood.

Floating in the air, she looked like a terrifying dark deity.

“Hee hee.”

She loved this mysterious feeling.

She sampled various delicacies produced by the miracle kitchen and fiddled with the Miracle Tools. Suddenly, she remembered that there should have been another person in this temple.

A woman.

As she gazed at the statue of Yinsai, fragments of memory from her earliest moments began to surface.

She learned to speak and communicate bit by bit, matching the carvings and paintings on the temple’s stone tablets and walls, though not in the later Yinsai language.

It was the original language that Yin Shen used to communicate with Redlichia, which Redlichia could never master no matter how hard he tried.

That must have been the divine language.

On this day, Shelly came before the statue of Yinsai again.

Looking up at Yinsai, she saw not a statue, but a majestic star.

She stretched out her hand, her eyes filled with longing.

As if hoping the other would also extend a hand to grasp hers.

Just like before, holding her hand and walking through every corner of the palace, through the flower sea and along the island’s shore.

But alas.

The other remained motionless, offering no response.

“Why?”

“Haven’t you woken up yet?”

Shelly felt a bit dejected. She went to the window and sat in the ornate, carved high-backed chair.

She reached out and picked up a hand mirror placed nearby.

The moment she picked it up, the name of this mirror flashed in her mind.

“Dream Spirit Hila’s Magic Mirror.”

Hila.

That must be the name of the other person who once lived here!

Through the mirror, she saw the outside world.

This had become her favorite pastime since discovering the mirror’s function recently—watching the endless desert and migrating herds of beasts, observing various life forms evolved from lizards fighting and killing each other.

Before gaining wisdom, she had felt that spending even ten million or a hundred million years in this temple would be bearable.

She would never grow weary of it.

But now that she had gained wisdom, she began to yearn for the outside world.

Everything out there was so fresh, and she felt as if something intangible was calling to her.

Finally, one day.

She brought out the spirit hot air balloon stored in the corner.

She rode the hot air balloon out of the God-Given Land, gradually moving away from the dream sun.

She saw the huge moon formed by God’s Grace Stones in the distance, its light dim.

The hot air balloon floated past the moon, and a sealed giant door appeared at the edge of the Dream Realm.

Shelly raised her hand, and a terrifying monster shadow appeared behind her, extending countless dark tendrils to push open a crack in the gate of God’s realm.

The hot air balloon floated out, and Shelly saw a shadow sitting on one side of the gate to God’s realm.

It was a giant Ship Giant, though it too was motionless at this moment.

Passing through the darkness.

She broke through the boundary between illusion and reality, appearing in the real world.

She descended upon the eastern part of the continent.

The moment she descended, Shelly released her power and aura without restraint. Instantly, all conscious life forms within many miles fell unconscious.

Before losing consciousness, they saw the shadow of a terrifying dark god roaring at the sky, its body covered in countless green eyes, brown tendrils piercing the clouds as if trying to pull down the sun.

Shelly stepped on a giant beast with sharp teeth, pushing it hard.

It didn’t wake up. Even if it did, seeing Shelly would probably frighten it unconscious again.

“Hm?”

“What’s wrong? Too scared?”

Shelly cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone.

“Hey!”

“Am I really that frightening?”

The result was a gust of wind that sent the creature tumbling down the slope.

Shelly scratched her head, wearing an innocent expression.

When she had watched the mortal world through the magic mirror, she never imagined these seemingly fierce creatures could be so fragile.

She reined in her aura and rode a giant beast with a hard shell on its back through the desert.

The beast trembled, pitiful and afraid.

It dared not resist.

As she traversed the jungles, Shelly captured various dragon-beasts. At one point, she spotted a winged lizard gliding from one tree to another in a brief flight.

During her journey, she caught a slippery creature that looked like a lizard but had no legs.

When it encountered Shelly, her aura was already suppressed.

Yet it foolishly tried to bite her, only to be swiftly caught in Shelly’s hand.

Shelly loved these slippery, wriggling things. They were fun to hold, just like catching the Sun Cup that once tried to ambush her.

She grabbed its tail, skipping along while swinging it back and forth until it stopped moving completely.

It was hard to tell if it had fainted or died.

Finally, she traversed the vast forest and reached the easternmost coastline.

Shelly gazed out at the sea, sensing that the faint call she’d been hearing was coming from there.

She took out the small conch horn from her waist and put it to her lips.

“Woo woo!”

After eons, the sound of the Mother Conch of All Things rang out once more.

The sound echoed directly in the minds of every conscious being. They immediately prostrated themselves or curled up into balls, facing the direction of Shelly, the Mother of Life.

They bowed to this great being from over 200 million years ago, who had created their ancestors and originated life.

They bowed to that supreme artifact of the Life Ability.

Far across the sea, the surface suddenly surged with massive waves, forming an unprecedented giant whirlpool.

The seabed rose from the ground, continuously pushing upward.

The seven Ruhe beasts had grown to an indescribable size, their bodies becoming mountains, rivers, swamps, and land.

Together, they formed a landmass so vast it resembled a continent—an island whose edges stretched beyond sight.

Now they responded to the sound of the Mother Conch of All Things, answering the call of the supreme Mother of Life and King of Beasts, rising from beneath the sea.

The huge island carried and merged with the seven giant beasts came from the southern hemisphere, traversing the ocean towards Shelly.

Finally crossing the equator, it arrived just a few hundred miles from Shelly.

The Mother of Life, Shelly, had summoned a continent-sized island with just one blast of her horn.

She could feel seven powerful consciousnesses awakening from deep slumber, communicating with her, expressing their submission.

With just a thought, she could control them. She was the master and king of the Ruhe beasts.

Shelly, holding the legless lizard, rode the Miracle Tool – the spirit hot air balloon – to this continent or island.

On the island, one could see volcanoes, mountain ranges sprawled like starfish, vast swamps and bogs.

There were also lakes constantly erupting with lightning, and strange, luminescent jungles.

At last, Shelly reached the highest mountain range. The hot air balloon slowly descended, bringing her to the peak.

At the top of the mountain range stood a giant city.

It was the undersea magic city that once resided at the bottom of the Bottomless Abyss.

As Shelly approached, the city gates opened automatically.

In the center of the city was an altar, enshrining a pearl.

The Eye of Mutation.

“Clang clang clang!”

As Shelly drew near, the Eye of Mutation swept out a beam of light, making a strange sound.

When the light passed over Shelly, she remained unchanged, but the creature in her hand was different.

The legless lizard began to transform further, becoming something that resembled a snake but wasn’t quite the same.

“It changed?”

Shelly found it uninteresting, but the action of the Eye of Mutation gave her a completely different idea.

Like Yin Shen who once felt lonely, she too wanted to create a being that looked similar to her and could communicate with her.

She took out the Mother Conch of All Things, enlarged it, and tossed the lizard inside.

When it came out, it had become a creature with a snake-like tail and a human-like upper body.

Unfortunately, this life form had just been born and died shortly after.

This was due to the instability of its life form.

Death wasn’t a problem; as long as the Mother Conch of All Things retained its bloodline, it could continuously reproduce it.

“Let’s try again.”

Shelly found this very interesting and began playing this dice-like game on the spot.

Shelly became completely immersed, repeatedly creating her toys on the Eye of Mutation and the altar.

She lost track of time.

Unlike Yin Shen of the past, who had to roll for many years with a gloomy face before successfully creating a new species, and most of the species he created were useless, which led him to eventually abandon this gambling game.

Shelly focused on this game without sleep or rest, and after a month, she had her first successful creation.

This success was partly due to the Mother Conch of All Things containing far more life templates than Yin Shen had access to in his time.

From the Mother Conch of All Things, a female snake person with a graceful figure and a long snake tail slithered out shyly.

She had seaweed-like wavy hair, beautiful light red pupils, and fair skin.

The world’s first snake person appeared in the magic city.

Shelly was overjoyed, grabbing the female snake person’s tail and swinging it back and forth.

She would occasionally pinch her face and touch her all over.

The snake person made fearful sounds: “Hiss hiss!”

But she dared not show any defiance.

“Oh!”

“Has it been that long?”

Shelly suddenly realized she had been in the Beast Magic City for so long without fully exploring it.

Shelly circled this massive city and discovered that despite its various buildings, it was evident that no one had ever inhabited it.

In fact, rather than a city, it was more like an intricately carved large altar, existing solely to house the Eye of Mutation at its center.

The power maintaining this city without decay came from one of the Ruhe beasts beneath their feet.

This city was essentially the beast’s shell, or perhaps a crown adorning its head.

With her new snake person in tow, Shelly made her way to the higher reaches of the Beast Magic City, gradually ascending to the temple at its pinnacle.

Shelly strode forward fearlessly.

The female snake person followed timidly behind Shelly, cautious and wary.

Strangely, there were no statues or murals in the temple.

There was only a throne that resembled a candelabra.

A twisted black shadow moved beneath Shelly’s feet, forming a giant arm that lifted her and placed her before the seat.

Shelly stepped across and turned.

She sat down on the seat reserved for her.

At her feet, the female snake person instinctively raised her hands, prostrating herself on the ground, bowing to Shelly.