CHAPTER 276: CHAPTER 276 ALBUM

Riley’s Primordial Chaos Physique—a terrifying constitution born from a forgotten era—was now fully active.

His spirit core devoured spiritual essence, cosmic particles, and even time fragments.

His body was being rewritten, refined, and reborn.

The universe inside him shook.

The galaxies in his soul space danced around his core.

And his will—his divine, unbreakable will—shined like the center of a black hole.

Then—

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The heavens split open for the final time.

He had done it.

True Immortal Realm.

Everything fell silent.

The desert was gone—replaced by a luminous world of stardust, flowing rivers of law energy, and floating platforms made from crystallized soul power.

Riley slowly opened his eyes.

They burned with light. Planets reflected in them. Time bent around his eyelashes.

His gaze alone could shake the weak to their knees.

He raised his hand—and reality trembled with it.

"I can feel it..." he muttered, voice layered with power.

"The boundary between me and the stars... is gone."

He stood slowly, dust falling from his robe like fragments of ancient history.

Riley used his divine sense and would have wanted to see earth at this time but then something arrived in his senses.

"Ding!"

"Congratulations, host! You have successfully attained the true immortal realm. Please select one of the three available rewards."

It was the system’s voice, and Riley’s eyes immediately lit up with interest.

Without hesitation, he opened the interface to review the potential rewards he could claim at this time.

1. Dao of Time (Absolute Control)

Comprehending time means walking the line between eternity and annihilation.

The Dao of Time is one of the most elusive and terrifyingly powerful paths an immortal can tread.

Time governs all things: birth, decay, growth, and destruction.

Everything that exists is bound by the flow of time—and to master it is to defy the heavens themselves.

Those who grasp the Dao of Time gain the ability to slow, accelerate, pause, or even reverse the passage of moments around them.

You can make a blade strike last a year, or an entire battlefield be frozen in a heartbeat.

You can glimpse into the past, foresee future possibilities, and eventually erase someone from the timeline altogether, making them as if they never existed

2. Dao of Space (Absolute Control)

To master space is to bend reality to your will.

The Dao of Space is the art of movement, distance, dimension, and boundaries.

It is a foundational force that allows all existence to take shape.

You can distort reality, move between dimensions, and build pocket universes inside a grain of sand.

But high-level spatial mastery allows one to become untouchable, merging with the void or traveling between universes freely.

You can compress entire cities into rings, reshape realms with a thought, or even warp a planet inside out by shifting coordinates at a cosmic level.

3. Dao of Fate (Absolute Control)

The invisible strings that bind all living things.

The Dao of Fate is neither explosive nor showy, but it is infinitely terrifying—because it deals with control over destiny, karma, and cause and effect.

It is the web that governs fortune and misfortune, life and death, success and ruin.

Those who comprehend the Dao of Fate are not just observers of destiny—they become its weavers.

Cultivators of this Dao can see fate threads that tie every living being to the world.

With a touch, they can bless or curse, ensuring a person will one day rise to become emperor or be struck by tragedy in their prime.

You can influence luck, plant seeds of fortune or calamity, and even alter the future of entire bloodlines.

You can use Fate Contracts, binding souls, clans, and even nations to oaths that must be fulfilled.

Breaking them invites cosmic retribution.

You can erase entire timelines, changing outcomes of wars or preventing disasters.

You can choose your reincarnation, manipulate heavenly tribulations, or even redirect divine punishment onto another by transferring karma.

These beings are feared and respected because no one wants to become a mere pawn in their grand web of destiny.

"What amazing rewards," Riley murmured, his voice filled with awe and quiet anticipation.

His gaze lingered on the glowing screen suspended in front of him, etched with divine symbols only those who had touched the veil of eternity could decipher.

"It would be ironic, even laughable, for a so-called true immortal like me to reach this realm... without fully mastering even a single Dao."

He chuckled softly at the absurdity of it.

After all, it was an unspoken truth across the immortal realms: to ascend and become a true immortal, one must touch the essence of a Dao.

A Dao was more than just a path or a concept—it was the fundamental principle of reality, a cosmic truth that shaped existence itself.

There were as many Daos as there were stars in the sky.

The Dao of the Sword, sharp and relentless. The Dao of Fire, destructive and passionate.

The Dao of Space, bending distance and logic. The Dao of Time, elusive and uncatchable.

Some even pursued peculiar paths—one ancient immortal was rumored to have achieved enlightenment through the Dao of Brewing Tea.

Another, through Painting. Even Flower Cultivation had led someone to eternal life.

Such stories were reminders that the Grand Dao, the ultimate source of all paths, did not discriminate.

It did not care how one arrived—only that they did.

All Daos, no matter how grand or humble, were threads woven into the same infinite ending.

Yet Riley understood one thing that most cultivators did not: true mastery of a Dao was a myth.

Even the strongest beings—those who reigned for trillions of years—had only touched a fragment of the Grand Dao.

The end of the path was unreachable, a horizon that moved ever further the closer one approached.

Mastery, in the truest sense, was an illusion.

But now...

Something was different.

As Riley stared at the system’s reward screen, he could feel the weight of the offer.

It was not just comprehension that was being given—it was absolute control.

An unnatural, terrifying promise.

His instincts screamed that if he chose one of the three offered Daos, he would leap beyond the realm of mere understanding and into a domain where he reigned supreme over it.

Not just an initiate of the Dao. Not even a master. But its embodiment.

"A Dao that listens to me," Riley whispered, heart pounding.

"A Dao that bends not because I ask—but because it belongs to me."

Such a thing was heretical in the eyes of most immortals. Blasphemous, even.

To claim authority over a Dao was to declare oneself a rival of the Heavens.

But Riley had already defied the heavens once. What was one more step?

He glanced at the three Daos presented before him. They pulsed with different energies, each representing a domain of supreme power and complexity:

The Dao of Time – to see the past, alter the present, and command the flow of future events. The Dao of Space – to tear through distance, fold reality, and create or destroy with a single step. The Dao of Fate– a dark, limitless realm where he holds the wheels of destiny itself.

Each of them could elevate him beyond anything this world—or any world—had ever seen.

He closed his eyes for a moment, allowing his mind to settle, his soul to listen.

"I already have the Primordial Chaos Physique," he mused.

"The body of beginnings. If I add dominion over a primordial Dao, even the ancient true immortals will have no choice but to kneel."

He opened his eyes and smiled faintly.

"It’s decided, then."

With one final look at the screen, Riley extended his hand and chose the Dao that resonated with his very being—the one that whispered to him like an old friend in the silence between stars.

And with that choice, the universe itself shuddered in recognition.

"I choose the Dao of Time," Riley said calmly, his voice echoing across the void sanctuary like a decree from the heavens themselves.

In that instant, time itself shuddered.

The sanctuary, though built outside the fabric of reality, flickered momentarily—as if uncertain whether it belonged to the present, the past, or the future.

A deep, primordial hum reverberated through the air, and all motion ceased for a breathless moment.

Then it came—an avalanche of knowledge.

Riley’s mind was thrown into a timeless stream where concepts of beginning and end dissolved.

Millennia compressed into moments, and moments stretched into eternities.

He no longer stood within the void sanctuary—he existed within time itself, adrift in the river that flowed across all realities.

He witnessed the first flicker of creation, when the primal chaos gave birth to time, space, and form.

He saw planets coalescing from stardust, gods awakening, empires blooming, and entire universes aging and collapsing into nothingness—only to be reborn again in an endless cycle.

In one second, Riley observed a single drop of water fall from a leaf.

In the same second, he watched galaxies form, expand, devour one another, and perish. It was an unbelievable experience!