The world before Su Chen’s eyes slowly came back into view.
Su Chen suddenly found that he was in a deserted, desolate wasteland. The entire area was thoroughly permeated with an aura of death.
A tall, majestic presence off in the distance, however, instantly attracted Su Chen’s attention.
“Human Ancestor!” Su Chen quietly exclaimed.
It was indeed the Human Ancestor.
He sat there, smiling back at Su Chen.
“So it was you. You are the dream entity, so you must be Dream,” Su Chen gently said.
The Human Ancestor, however, firmly shook his head. “It’s not what you think. Dream is Dream, and I am me. We are not the same, or at least, we weren’t at the beginning.”
“At the beginning?” Su Chen was taken aback by this last sentence.
The Human Ancestor nodded. “As you know, I am the Human Ancestor, which makes me the first human. Actually, my existence itself was forbidden from the very beginning.”
Su Chen already had a rough understanding of what the Human Ancestor was referring to. “The human race’s potential is very great.”
The Human Ancestor nodded. “Great is an understatement. Humans are terrifying because they were jointly created by the Lord of Time, the Lord of Life, and the first Reaper. At that time, they were trying to uncover the secret to eternal life. Humans were one of the potential paths that they were exploring.”
“Didn’t they already have the system of faith?”
The Human Ancestor shook his head. “At that time, it was far from being enough. There are different levels of faith within the system. Also, the more powerful a worshipping creature is, the more powerful the faith that they offer, and the stronger its worshipped god will become.”
This was the reason why the gods had created ever stronger creatures to worship them — to obtain even greater amounts of faith.
The Intelligent Races were by and large all created as a result of such endeavors.
This was the natural outcome after the gods realized that the smarter a race was, the higher their potential would be, and thus the amount of faith that they could offer was higher as well.
As such, they continuously labored to create stronger and stronger lifeforms. At some point, they began imbuing them with some of the unique characteristics that the gods possessed.
It was under these circumstances that the human race had been created.
From the very beginning, they possessed a similar appearance to the gods, and although they lacked the awe-inspiring might of the gods, their boundless potential gave them the intrinsic ability to generate life on their own.
But even the Lord of Time did not realize just how high the humans’ potential actually went.
As the humans continued to grow, they eventually developed the immortal energy system.
To the gods, their innate ability to advance and improve on their own was acceptable. After all, the stronger they were, the more faith they provided.
But once the humans developed to a certain point, the gods realized that their immortal energy could convert and even devour divine power for nourishment.
This caused them to panic.
And when the humans developed immortal energy, their pride increased as well.
They started ignoring the gods’ wills and stopped worshipping them. After all, the path of cultivating immortal energy revolved around believing in one’s own strength and might, which naturally clashed with the gods’ path of amassing worshippers.
As such, the gap in strength between the gods and the humans steadily decreased, until eventually, the gods were so unnerved that they decided to destroy the human race.
This war took place in the ancient past.
The human race, after acquiring immortal energy, gained the right to fight against the gods.
Unfortunately, they still failed.
Even though immortal energy was very powerful, it was still a brand new cultivation path. Against the formidable might of the old guard, their human races’ forces were defeated before they even had a chance to truly become powerful.
After defeating the humans, the gods did not wipe out the humans. Instead, they sealed their power and made it impossible for them to continue cultivating immortal energy. The human race was thus forced to go down the path of Origin Energy, which was much more difficult and challenging.
However, there was a single individual who had managed to escape this fate.
As the first human, the Human Ancestor was incredibly powerful. He was not a god, but his strength was quite similar to one.
Even though the Human Ancestor had failed in his rebellion, he was not willing to accept the fate of a slave and instead continued searching for an opportunity to strike back against the gods.
Additionally, the war between the humans and the gods had not exactly been a one-sided one.
Some of the weaker gods had been defeated or even killed by the humans.
The Lord of the Dreamrealm was one of them.
At that time, the Lord of the Dreamrealm was far from his current status. He was just the Dream God, a typical low-tier god. The only thing he could do was use his dream realm to invade people’s minds and extract some of their vitality and consciousness power to nourish himself.
He had originally been a tree that eventually grew to become a god after living for a very long period of time. The fruit that sprouted from his branches eventually became the Dream Spirits.
Back then, the Dream God had been much simpler. He simply constructed a few dream realms that he leisurely traveled and wandered around in.
Until he met the Human Ancestor.
In the ancient past.
A few humans wearing rough beast hides and wielding stone axes hurriedly retreated. Even though their equipment was crude, their clothing was torn, and their demeanor was like that of a barbarian, a powerful aura emanated from each one of their bodies.
They seemed to be scouring the mountainous wilds for a specific something.
Then, one of them cried out, “Found him! He’s over there!”
The Primordial Humans quickly rushed towards the person who had just yelled out.
Not far away from him, there was a god lying on the ground, beneath whom a shallow pool of fresh golden blood had formed.
The god was still breathing, but he clearly could not crawl to his feet.
“You wicked gods!” a Primordial Human howled with rage as he charged forwards, chopping down at the god with his axe.
The god’s body glowed with divine light in response, but a layer of white light suddenly covered the axe’s surface, allowing it to cleave through the barrier. It smashed into the god’s armor, leaving a deep gash in it as it bit down on the flesh underneath.
“AGH!” the god cried out in pain. “No, I am a god! I cannot die here!”
He began to howl in despair.
The Primordial Humans, however, continued to mercilessly swing their axes down at him. They were going to crush him alive and vent their anger this way.
“Spare me, I beg you! I am the Dream God. I can bestow boundless power and endless blessings upon you!” the Dream God cried out instinctively.
“You can’t give anything to us!” the Primordial Humans replied coolly.
“Dammit, you bastards! You humans are dead. Dead, I tell you!” the Dream God cursed angrily.
“Yes, we are dead,” the leading human replied. “We have lost the war against you gods. But even if we lose, we will demonstrate our might and undying will to the very end. We will drag as many of you under as we can!”
“That’s pointless! You should just surrender instead so that a small remnant of you can still be preserved. I know that the gods do not want to kill all of you. They just want to seal your strength and stop you all from using that forbidden power anymore,” the Dream God pleaded. His expression had become pitiful once again.
The human in the lead laughed coldly in response. “What’s the point of living on one’s knees like that? I would rather die!”
“But as long as you are still alive, won’t you still have hope? If you die, then you won’t have any hope at all.” The Dream God continued trying to bargain with them.
The human in the lead was momentarily taken aback by the Dream God’s words.
But then, he shook his head. “You cannot help me.”
He continued attacking.
“No, no, I can! I can help you plant a seed! A seed!”
“What kind of seed?” This time, all of the Primordial Humans were taken aback by the Dream God’s words. The human leader lifted his hand, and they all paused their attacks.
The Dream God hurriedly said, “A seed of hope. Don’t you want to not be sealed? If you are willing to give up on this form, then I can help you all be reborn.”
“How so?”
“Become one of my fruits, one of my Dream Spirits. Enter my body, the dream realm, and live there. That realm is only accessible to me, and none of the other gods will be able to discover your presence there.”
The Primordial Humans laughed disdainfully. “Nonsense. How is that possibly true?”
The Dream God hurriedly assured, “But it is true. As long as you are willing to enter my dream realm, you can stay there until you mature to a point where you can escape.”
“So your body will just become our new prison?” All of the Primordial Humans seemed to reject this idea.
“This is the best way for you to survive!” the Dream God implored sincerely. “If you don’t believe me, then you can even wipe away my memories of what just transpired. That way, I will not know that you are in my body, and I will not be able to harm you either.”
But the humans didn’t believe him.
The human leader, however, began to show signs of hesitation.
Because he realized that this was at least an opportunity for them.
The human race had already been defeated. Death and slavery was the only fate that awaited them. But if they could preserve a single, tiny ray of hope for the human race, then any opportunity was worth taking.
Even though the Dream God’s words seemed ridiculous and inconceivable, it was also why his words were probably true. If the Dream God was lying, then he would have tried to sell a more believable and persuasive one.
Only the truth would be devoid of mental calculations.
Upon realizing this, the human in the lead decided to give this unlikely opportunity a try.
Finally, they decided that the Human Ancestor would be the one to take this chance, while the others would search for other opportunities.
Everything was done for their survival and to ensure that they would live on. They had no choice but to use every opportunity at their disposal.
And that was how the Human Ancestor had given up his body, entered the Dream God’s body, and successfully became a small bud on the divine tree. The Dream God’s memories of this incident were also wiped clean.
Since he had lost these memories, the Dream God had no idea about the deal that he had made with the humans. He only knew that he was close to death.
He quickly dragged his wounded body back to his own place and began to recover.
Not long after, the human rebellion was quelled, and the remaining humans were sealed, preventing them from ever using the forbidden energy again.
But no one knew that there was actually still an unsealed human residing within the body of a god.
Tens of thousands of years had passed like that.
“So you became the Lord of the Dreamrealm afterwards?” Su Chen asked. “And that led up to today’s events?”
“No, that was just the beginning,” the Human Ancestor said with a sigh. “The real story is what happened next.”
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