The mysterious radiance had spread through the Myriad-Race Universe without sound or warning.

The overwhelming majority of living beings noticed nothing at first. Even T8 Oracle-grade experts failed to detect the initial disturbance. Only beings at T9 or above sensed an obscure change passing through spacetime.

That concealment would not last for long.

As the flow of time continued accelerating, the entire universe would soon feel the consequences.

The Myriad-Race Universe had existed for immeasurable ages. Compared with the young Chaosverse, it resembled an old man approaching the final moments of life, while the Chaosverse was still an infant newly born into the world.

Now the aging universe had been targeted by an Eternal Grade expert.

Its temporal flow had been forcibly accelerated, as though someone had pressed a fast-forward command upon a mortal who already possessed only a short life remaining. At this rate, the universe would reach its end far sooner than nature intended.

The clearest sign of a universe exhausting its lifespan was the birth of Great Dao Tribulation Clouds.

Those clouds would spread Tribulation-Ash corruption throughout the cosmos.

If the inhabitants failed to evacuate in time, Tribulation-Ash Seeds would appear inside every sufficiently powerful being. As time passed, those seeds would grow, and all matter, life, laws, and civilization would gradually be covered by tribulation ash.

Under its natural temporal flow, the Myriad-Race Universe should have survived for tens of millions of additional years.

That amount of time would have allowed every supreme faction to prepare an orderly evacuation, search for new territories, and preserve its inheritances.

No one had expected an Eternal Grade expert to shorten the process so violently.

The universe might now possess only a few thousand years.

Golden Holy Mountain naturally refused to wait passively for destruction.

Its leader had urgently attempted to contact the founder. Only an Eternal Grade Oracle could resist another Eternal Grade existence and reverse a method acting upon an entire universe.

Yet no matter how desperately the elder prayed, the founder’s statue produced no response.

At last, his gaze shifted toward the Life-Soul Lamp standing before the statue.

He stared at it for a long time.

A terrible possibility entered his mind.

Could the founder of Golden Holy Mountain already be dead?

Only death could explain the complete lack of response.

The elder’s legs weakened, and he collapsed onto the floor. His face became pale and rigid with fear.

The Eternal Grade ancestor of Golden Holy Mountain had almost certainly fallen.

"The Eternal Tribulation," he whispered. "It must have been the Eternal Tribulation that killed the ancestor. Why was he dragged into that calamity? If so many Eternal experts have become involved, the Endless Starfield is about to fall into complete chaos."

He closed his eyes in grief and unwillingness.

* * *

Similar scenes unfolded among the supreme factions of the Chaosverse and nearby universes.

Every organization whose foundations included an Eternal Grade ancestor attempted to contact that powerhouse.

The matter concerned the survival of entire life universes, and no faction dared delay.

Yet none of the Eternal experts responded.

Their Life-Soul Lamps extinguished almost simultaneously.

One Eternal Grade powerhouse after another had fallen.

The beings who once stood at the summit of the Great Dao appeared to have been wiped out together, with almost no survivors.

The high-stage Oracle-grade experts who witnessed the extinguished lamps trembled.

Every faction reached the same terrifying conclusion.

"It can only be the Eternal Tribulation. The Eternal Tribulation has descended."

Nothing else could cause so many Eternal Grade beings to perish in the same period.

Killing even one Eternal expert was unimaginably difficult. The death of a single such existence would normally shake entire networks of universes and alert powerful beings across distant eras.

Now, however, large numbers of Eternal experts had fallen at once.

Only a calamity directed at Eternal Grade itself could produce such an outcome.

Some younger Oracle-grade experts did not understand the term.

"What exactly is the Eternal Tribulation?"

A high-stage Oracle answered solemnly.

"It is a great calamity among Eternal experts. Reaching Eternal Grade allows a cultivator to escape the direct restraints of the Time River, but it does not mean that they have transcended the Great Dao itself."

The expert continued explaining.

"An Eternal being approaches the Origin of the Great Dao. Once the Great Dao senses a threat to its own authority, it naturally attempts to suppress those beings. Across endless timelines and countless rivers of history, the Great Dao secretly cultivates chosen geniuses and grants them extraordinary opportunities, treasures, inheritances, and resources."

"The destinies of those chosen children are controlled. Their purpose is to create conflict among Eternal experts and force them to kill one another. This is one of the Great Dao’s methods for reducing the number of beings capable of challenging it."

The listeners grew increasingly pale.

"Many so-called peerless geniuses are therefore puppets. Their fate, cultivation, opportunities, personalities, thoughts, and even the people they love or hate are shaped gradually by the Great Dao. Countless threads of causality are planted throughout their lives. When the Great Dao ignites all those threads at once, the Eternal Tribulation begins."

The high-stage Oracle’s voice became heavy.

"Your birth, your parents, every encounter, every sentence spoken to you, every enemy and benefactor, and even the final tribulation you face may all follow a path prepared by the Great Dao. Even if you successfully enter Eternal Grade, it may be because the Great Dao deliberately allowed you to pass."

"Many Eternal experts never realize that they are puppets. Their life paths were fixed long before their supposed rise. Even if the Great Dao stops interfering directly, the inertia of their cultivated personalities and causality will cause them to continue along the predetermined road."

"The endpoint of that road is the Eternal Tribulation."

"The Great Dao’s true targets are the beings who possess the potential to surpass Eternal Grade and enter the supreme realm beyond its control."

The Oracle-grade experts listening to the explanation felt their minds shake.

They had never imagined that the Great Dao’s arrangement could extend so deeply into life and history.

The Eternal Tribulation was not merely a natural disaster. It was a war among Eternal beings, engineered by the laws governing existence itself.

On one side stood Eternal experts cultivated directly by the Great Dao. From birth, their lives followed prepared scripts. Their thoughts and choices appeared free, yet every step strengthened an irreversible momentum of fate.

Even their advancement into Eternal Grade might be intentional.

Those puppets could possess terrifying power, but the Great Dao had placed an unbreakable limitation within them. They would never truly transcend its control. When a supreme calamity arrived, they would inevitably fail.

This was the horror of the Great Dao.

If defying heaven were simple, it would no longer deserve to be called defiance. Anyone who genuinely attempted to break free could face annihilation at every moment.

The Myriad-Race Universe could only endure the destiny descending upon it.

T9 Oracle-grade experts and half-step Eternal beings were powerless to reverse the accelerated death of the cosmos.

The Great Dao Tribulation Source would inevitably be born.