Late Antiquity Era, one hundred thousand years ago, traveling through the Black Heaven Spectral Soul Demon Venerable was unstoppable.

Any Soul path Beast would become further nourishment to his immense Demonic might. He slaughtered everything that crossed his path.

"Even Giant Sun Immortal Venerable only has methods to prolong one's life but none extend into eternity." Spectral Soul was deeply troubled.

He pondered: "Who in this era can challenge my might, even the venerables of old have already dimmed, meanwhile I shine like a sun at its zenith, but won't my time come won't there be another?"

"I REFUSE. With the Heaven's as my witness, I Spectral Soul will never vanish." As he made that declaration a revelation struck him.

"Heaven! Of course, why didn't I think of this before who else is truly immortal but Heaven itself, from the era of Primordial to my own and beyond, Heaven will stand watch."

Spectral Soul then flew towards Crazed Demon Cave.

Descending past the first 8 levels was no problem for a venerable.

Seeing the Primordial Domain and Derivation Formation further piqued Spectral Soul's curiosity.

"Friend Spectral Soul please wait!" Spectral Soul turned around and came face-to-face with the will of Limitless Demon Venerable.

"Hmph, a relic of the past wishes to stop me." As Spectral Soul was about to activate a killer move Limitless responded.

"Could I stop you even if I wanted to? You know as well as I do that in any era a venerables might is unquestionable."

"No instead I'm here to offer a proposition."

Spectral Soul was intrigued: "Interesting what could you offer me?"

Limitless began speaking: "I know you are here to seek eternal life. I have pursued the Dao all my life in search of attaining it, not caring for wealth nor fame."

"So, believe when I say, it's not done. I have spent nearly a million years trying to derive the answers of immortality and I too as you, turned to Heaven."

Spectral Soul nodded as Limitless spoke.

"Yet although I know I am closer to a right answer I can't help but have the premonition that I have veered slightly of course, that this is not the true immortality I am seeking." Limitless continued.

"So, friend, I want to ask for your help."

At this point Spectral Soul was confused and slightly annoyed: "Help? How am I supposed to do that? I'm no expert in Heaven Path and even if I was why should I?"

Limitless shook his head: "You misunderstand I do not need your help regarding the derivation of Heaven Path, nor do I need your insights. What I need is your demonic might."

"Go on" Spectral soul nudged.

"In a hundred thousand or so years an individual will come to our Gu world, he is known as Fang Yuan, he will be the instrument used to stop you from achieving immortality."

"We are on the precipice of the Great Era, where the forthcoming of the greatest venerable known, Great Dream Immortal venerable."

Spectral soul got slightly annoyed: "I know all that get to the point!"

"Friend you need to calm down what's the rush besides I am about to share a secret I found from research." Limitless calmly responded as a teacher would to their students.

Upon hearing the word 'secret' and 'research' Spectral Soul shut up and paid close attention.

"I'm sure at some point you've felt the presence of Heaven's will, yes?" Spectral Soul nodded in agreement.

"But have you ever wondered what Heaven's will is?" Limitless asked.

Spectral Soul responded: "Is it not the conscience of the Heavens to dictate and run the world?"

Limitless chuckled: "Well, yes and no, you are right to say that Heaven's will's purpose is to dictate events and run the world and, it does this by relying on fate and destiny."

"But it is not a single conscience that operates the world, rather it is the collective wills of every being in the world, from rocks to plants and animals, to even us Humans and the Variant Humans."

This was eye-opening to Spectral Soul: "So Heaven's eternity is tied to our reality? That as long as this world exists Heaven exists?"

"HAHA, that's right. Now you can see why Heavenly Court to act the way they do, they want to continue maintaining their influence over Heaven's will through Star Constellation's will."

"She is acting as a mediator between Heaven's Will and the Will of the living, see Heaven normally takes in every will and filters through the responses and sees, how balanced the world is."

"If any will be Significantly higher or doing tremendously better than the rest of the wills Heaven responds by leveling the playing field, 3 million Years ago Humanity started to rise as Heaven used Fate to dictate it so."

"But there's a reason why Humans are known as the spirit of all the living beings, we were after all created to be as such hehe." Limitless chuckled.

Spectral Soul caught to his implications: "What do you mean by that?"

Limitless smiled: "I'm sure you've read the legends of Ren Zu. Among the common populace, it is treated as a well-known story, among Gu immortals it is seen as the ultimate Human path inheritance."

"What people don't know is that it truly is the number 1 Human Path Inheritance because it follows the creator of Humans himself, Ren Zu."

Spectral Soul frowned: "I know that everyone knows that; Ren Zu sacrificed his dead children and himself to Derivation Gu to become the human race."

"But why?" Limitless asked with a smug grin.

Before Spectral Soul could retort, Limitless responded with more questions: "Why didn't he produce more children instead of making a new race? Why did he decide to give Humans so little power? What purpose did he have in making Humans?"

These questions although painful important had never been questioned or asked, people, either treated the legends as legends or as inspiration. Never has anyone taken what is said as fact.

"Okay, I'll bite why?" Spectral Soul asked.

"To do what Ren Zu couldn't to fight back against the Heaven's and create a new path in destiny. He wanted a world where people would not be constrained by Destiny."

"So, he needed someone to rise above taking charge of Destiny to subvert it and give the people freedom. But would others not be tempted to take control of themselves?

He needed a race so short-lived that they would go through the myriads of life and conclude that eternity is all that's worth pursuing.

The other races just wouldn't cut it, their lifespan was either too long or their personalities too incompatible.

Look at the Rockmen, they sleep for years on end and can't be bothered to care about Cultivation, only doing the minimum to not lose their place in the world but not aspiring for greater.

Look at the Feathermen, a race who desire Freedom more than life itself, they could never have the diligence or passion required to suffer through periods of captivity for greatness, should face enslavement they rather kill themselves than seek a path out.

All the Variants are flawed in some aspect and do not represent the totality of life that Ren Zu had and, needed his race to have.

What better way than to create a race so easily oppressed it craved freedom, so easily outsmarted that they crave wisdom, and so easily outlived that they crave eternity more than anything."

A single clapping sound could be heard reverberating through the caves: "Great job and all discovering such ancient secrets but how about you get to the point and tell me what you want from me."

Limitless sighed; "Impatient as always, I needed you to understand all that so that you can understand what I need you to do."

"Which is?????" Spectral Soul asked getting increasingly annoyed.

Limitless sighed: "I need you to start another path towards eternity."

"Come again?"

"Remember when I say I felt my path is wrong. That premonition has gotten stronger and stronger but I'm too far down this path to turn, so I can only ask someone else."

"That's where you come in. I had once devised an idea based on Ren Zu's inheritance. I figured that since Ren Zu could create Human's why couldn't I do the same?"

"To engineer a human body that is completely in tune to the Heavenly Dao, able to cultivate all paths and achieve immortality by imitating Heaven."

"Essentially having a mini–Gu World within the cultivator that through an increased flow in time could produce Life Span Gu that could be absorbed by the Gu immortal sustaining the world."

"I thought the idea was unsustainable as to amass the amount of space required would be impossible even though the aperture of this body would be huge it would not have the natural treasures and materials that make the Gu world what it is."

"And even if it does to find such a quantity of life forms would be an arduous task, not to mention being a high-level attainment in various fields and having to find ways to cultivate all Dao marks."

"But then I noticed you, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, trying to create Killing path, your attempts at creating a Perpetual loop of killing to extract souls to devour to improve yourself coincides with my idea."

"With the ability to practice all paths that body would be perfect for your path of devouring, it would be the only body that could take full advantage and 'digest' just about everything from the things that you kill."

Spectral Soul was certainly intrigued at the idea, he had long been stumped at the inefficient use of the dead, they would leave behind Blessed lands; that he couldn't use, they would have Dao marks; that he couldn't use.

"One problem with your plan Limitless, to devour the blessed land or Grotto heaven of someone you need 2 things the same path and certain level of attainment of that path. Your 'human' has the path part but what about the attainment?" Spectral Soul asked.

Limitless responded by taking out a pink fog.

Dream Realms!

"Although not popular yet I have done some research on them and have found that one can raise their attainment levels by merely completing the dream of others."

With that Limitless handed over his Dream path Research and the Blueprint for what later become the Sovereign Immortal Fetus Gu.

Upon looking at the blueprint Spectral Soul frowned: "Rank 10 are you kidding me!"

"Nope. My intuition says it is theoretically possible to achieve Rank 10." Limitless replied while waving goodbye to Spectral Soul.

Thus, began Spectral Soul's plot to revive using the Sovereign Fetus Gu and begin his devouring of the world.

Unfortunately, we know how that goes. But Spectral Soul was never one to fully devote himself to the plans of others.