The vast flood that had submerged even the Brahma sanctum began to recede layer by layer, inch by inch, toward the lower-dimensional realms.
Then, the various realms that had been utterly destroyed and erased from the Three Realms by the three great calamities—the kalpa-fire, kalpa-flood, and kalpa- wind—began to revive once more through the creative forces of the new kalpa.
From the realms below the attainment of the Stream-entry Path all the way to the six heavens of the Desire Realm, every celestial world gradually recovered its former outline of laws as the immense flood covering them receded and finally dried away.
At last, the waters of the ancient Great Calamity retreated into the mortal human realm.
When the flood had completely dried, a strange substance known as the ‘Earth Essence’ began to emerge from the primordial earth that would one day become the dwelling place of humanity.
Its form resembled milk slowly boiled over an immeasurable length of time until all the water had evaporated, leaving behind a thin film that cooled and congealed.
It floated quietly upon the surface of the streams, rivers, and seas of the primordial world.
The color and fragrance of the Earth Essence were as pure and flawless as the finest clarified butter, while its taste was as sweet as the purest honey within the hive of the Honey God.
Its delicate, overwhelmingly sweet primordial fragrance transformed into invisible ripples that seemed to pierce Heaven and Earth, tearing through the Nine Heavens and drifting all the way into the Brahma sanctum, penetrating the deepest consciousness of those Brahmas who had yet to attain any noble spiritual fruition.
Thus, even the Brahmas who had fortunately escaped interference from the demons and remained peacefully within their realms began to be disturbed by the strange fragrance of the Earth Essence.
Ordinarily, the bodies of Brahmas had long since severed every form of sensual attachment.
Toward form, sound, fragrance, taste, touch—in other words, all five sensual objects of the mortal world—they should have felt neither delight nor craving.
Yet the extraordinarily sweet primordial fragrance of the Earth Essence possessed an ultimate forbidden power almost akin to the slaying of gods and immortals.
It forcibly awakened the latent defilements that had long lain dormant within the hearts of the Brahma gods, causing them once more to develop affection and craving for form, sound, fragrance, taste, and touch.
Before long, the Brahmas enchanted by the fragrance of the Earth Essence descended one after another into the mortal human realm, simply to taste that irresistible primordial delicacy.
And it was at this moment…
that the terrifying true nature of the Earth Essence, its almost curse-like causal effect upon the divine bodies of the heavens and Brahma realms, was finally revealed.
Any Brahma who conceived the thought of tasting the Earth Essence would see his originally flawless Brahma body gradually decay.
The memories and divine powers accumulated across his previous lives would all vanish.
His absolute Brahma divinity would ultimately be lost, and he would degenerate into an ordinary human being possessing nothing but a mortal body.
And when these first human beings known as the “human devas”—the first generation of humanity descended from the transformation of Brahmas—were born, the Sun God and Moon God were likewise drawn forth by the karma of their previous lives and awakened once more high above the Nine Heavens.
They descended once again, bringing light to the Three Realms and restoring the turning of day and night.
As the Sun, Moon, and countless stars were once again woven across the heavens, the order of the seasons likewise returned to the workings of the Three Realms.
Plants, flowers, myriad spiritual herbs, and vast forests began growing wildly across the earth once more.
As for those “human devas” who had degenerated from Brahmas, their former divine powers and imperishable abilities having completely vanished, they could no longer ascend and return to the heavens.
They had no choice but to remain in the mortal human realm.
There, they survived by consuming the Earth Essence and drinking the clear waters of the mountains and rivers.
Thus began the first age of the new kalpa—
**the **Krita Age.
It was the first dawn of every great kalpa, and also the age in which the power of virtue was strongest throughout Heaven and Earth.
For at that time, there were only good people across the entire human world.
The humans transformed from Brahmas still retained deep within their souls the four pure Brahmavihāras possessed by the Brahmas themselves—
loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
Thus, whether in the mortal human realm, the sacred Himalayan realm, the heavens, or even the Brahma worlds, all were immersed in a peaceful and joyous primordial harmony.
Between humanity and the heavens there existed only kindness, compassion, mutual love, and mutual aid.
More importantly…
in that distant and pure age, the human realm had not yet produced a single so-called evil person.
Not even one.
Yet the Earth Essence that emerged from the primordial earth at the beginning of the kalpa was itself a primordial creation that would vanish completely once consumed and could never naturally regenerate.
As sentient beings became increasingly attached to its delicious taste and consumed it without restraint day and night, it was not long before the Earth Essence was completely exhausted.
But when the Earth Essence vanished, the greed of sentient beings did not cease.
Instead, their sense of loss gave birth to subtler forms of attachment and discrimination.
Because of these unwholesome causes, the earth gradually transformed and produced a second strange substance known as the ‘Earth Skin’, a thin layer spread across the surface of the land.
Its form resembled mushrooms.
Although it was still delicious, it was already far inferior to the Earth Essence of the past.
After consuming the Earth Skin, sentient beings began absorbing the heavy, turbid energy of the mortal world, and the originally flawless forms of the “human devas” underwent dramatic differentiation.
Those humans whose accumulated merit was somewhat weaker and whose hearts had begun to develop arrogance found their bodies becoming rougher and darker.
Those with deeper blessings, however, remained radiant and lustrous.
Thus humanity began developing attachments to distinctions of beauty and ugliness, superiority and inferiority.
This was the first germination of the countless sins and evil causes of the mortal world.
As jealousy and arrogance over beauty and ugliness grew stronger, the Earth Skin too vanished abruptly from the primordial earth, summoned away by the collective karma of sentient beings.
After the Earth Skin became extinct, the punishment did not end.
The earth once again transformed and produced a third substitute—
the ‘Earth Vine’, a creeping plant that wound itself around trees.
Its form resembled melon vines, and also palm and coconut vines.
This was the final and faintest surviving form of the primordial essence of Heaven and Earth.
Its color and fragrance still possessed the sweetness of honey, but compared with the Earth Essence and Earth Skin that had come before, its spiritual essence had already greatly diminished.
Humanity continued relying upon the clear waters of the mountains and rivers together with the Earth Vine to sustain their increasingly heavy mortal bodies.
Until, at last, the Earth Vine too disappeared upon the wind, consumed by the ever-expanding greed and miserliness within human hearts.
At this point, all the natural gifts of primordial antiquity had vanished.
In their place appeared the first primordial rice of the earth—
the ‘Natural Fragrant Rice.’
This was a miraculous rice that required neither human cultivation nor the sowing of seeds.
It could simply arise according to natural conditions and grow of its own accord.
It was a primordial divine rice that grew entirely according to the laws of nature.
It possessed no coarse husk, no bran, and no rough outer coating.
Each grain was crystalline white and pure, exuding an enticing fragrance.
Whenever anyone felt hungry, they needed only to reach out and take some.
And this miraculous rice was the supreme ancestor of every variety of rice that would exist in the human world thereafter.
It possessed an astonishing power of causal restoration.
Even if humans or other sentient beings harvested and consumed it, after merely half a day in the human realm, the severed stalk would revive and grow again, producing fresh primordial rice ears as white and pure as before at an inconceivable speed.
……
From the moment the Earth Essence first emerged from the earth, through the successive extinction of the Earth Essence, Earth Skin, and Earth Vine beneath the weight of sentient beings’ karma, until humanity was finally forced to depend upon cool spring water and Natural Fragrant Rice, the ancestor of all rice, simply to survive—
for the mortal world, this long age of degeneration and stripping away was so vast that it could only be measured in countless ages and the rise and fall of oceans and mountains.
Yet to Itihasa, Bhadrakāla, who stood alone within the Castle of Fate, the Great Brahma King and the great celestial gods seated within the heavenly palace, and to supreme beings such as Mahā Brahmā Sahampati, Maya, and Rohini, who dwelled at the summit of the celestial realms—
ten million years in the mortal world were no more than the fleeting passage of a few days in Heaven.
At this very moment…
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the Great Brahma King, Maya, Rohini, and the two Heavenly Patriarchs who remained silently opposite one another within the Castle of Fate—Itihasa and Bhadrakāla—all simultaneously employed their heaven-piercing mental powers without any prior agreement, secretly directing their awareness downward to observe the current condition of Shuo Lei.
When their consciousness crossed layer after layer of void and they saw that young Brahma within the deepest palace of Naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana, his core heart-flame still emitting a gentle radiance through the primordial long night, while his seven-colored rainbow light continued silently shifting without end…
When they confirmed that Shuo Lei still rested peacefully at the summit of the Three Realms, untouched by worldly dust and quietly enjoying the bliss of liberation…
Five ancient beings who stood at the summit of the universe and governed causality felt, almost simultaneously, supreme joy and appreciative delight arise within their divine hearts.
“What are you smiling about… Rohini?”
A man’s voice, gentle to the extreme and clear as jade striking jade, quietly emerged from the void.
It was the Moon God—
Rohini’s beloved from her previous lives.
Ever since the first humans had appeared in the mortal world and the cycle of day and night had returned to its proper course, this radiant deity who governed the night sky had likewise been drawn forth by the karma of his former lives.
He had awakened once more beneath the vast celestial canopy of the new kalpa, returning from his long slumber.
His voice gently awakened the supreme goddess who governed the divine officials of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions from her joyful contemplation and distant gaze.
Rohini slowly turned around.
Her beautiful eyes rippled softly as she looked toward the lover she cherished.
“We have seen hope.”
“And we have glimpsed a dream…”
The Moon God stood tall and graceful, dressed in robes white as snow.
Hearing this, he smiled faintly.
“What kind of hope and dream could move you so deeply?”
“Will you share it with me?”
“A hope and dream sufficient to allow the glory and sacred pride of the gods of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions to continue through countless long ages of this rolling new kalpa…”
The Moon God took a deep breath.
His divine heart immediately understood part of her meaning.
“Could it be…”
“Have you already found, within the Three Realms, a supreme candidate suitable to inherit the position of guardian deity of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions?”
As he spoke, he moved gently and purely toward his beloved.
Rohini turned toward him, meeting his gaze.
A rare smile of joy, one she had shown only a handful of times throughout countless ages, appeared upon her face.
She gently nodded.
Then she restrained her supreme divine might and whispered in a low, tranquil voice:
“But whether we can truly obtain him, whether the Lunar Mansions themselves can become the ultimate destination of his fate…”
“The celestial secrets remain scattered.”
“Even now, we cannot foresee the answer.”
“Why?”
The Moon God asked softly.
At the same time, he extended a strong and warm hand and gently placed it upon Rohini’s slender shoulder.
He caressed it tenderly, soothing the exhaustion accumulated within her eyes over countless millions of years.
“Because this person…”
Rohini gently leaned against her beloved’s chest, her voice soft and melodious.
“Is more special than any life we have ever encountered throughout all the countless kalpas of the past.”
“He is so special…”
“that even I have developed the faintest trace of concern out of my own private desire.”
“I fear he may be too exceptional.”
“Perhaps he simply will not be willing to become a subordinate deity under the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions.”
As her words fell, the supreme goddess who governed the countless stars turned and looked directly into the Moon God’s eyes.
The Moon God understood her without words.
With perfect tacit understanding, he opened his arms and pulled her tightly into his embrace.
Beneath the celestial canopy of the divine palace, the two great gods who governed the chaotic night sky held one another tightly and kissed deeply.
Their lips and breaths intertwined, filled with the deepest tenderness and reluctance toward this primordial world of Heaven and Earth.
For both of them understood clearly—
under the laws governing the mortal realm in this newly born kalpa, the days in which they could hold hands and remain together without bearing the burden of silent loneliness…
would come only once a year throughout the long passage of time.
……
Time flowed far more slowly within the Brahma sanctum than in the mortal world.
Thus, even though only a few short weeks had passed within the void where Shuo Lei resided, the primordial human realm had already undergone countless ages and immeasurable transformations.
Until—
the age finally passed from the pure and flawless Krita Age into the Tretā Age, when the first traces of karmic defilement began to emerge.
And the first great upheaval brought by the arrival of the Tretā Age was this—
absolute evil began to take root and sprout within the mortal human realm.
Although the power of evil at that time occupied only one quarter of the forces governing the mortal world, it was already enough for evil people, bandits, and those driven by selfishness to begin appearing throughout humanity.
This was a celestial sign clearly understood by all the gods of the Three Realms:
from this moment onward, the evil path of the demons could finally tear through the barrier and seep into the human world.
As subtle sins began mixing with and polluting the earth of humanity, the Natural Fragrant Rice, which by its very nature could not withstand the corrosion of mortal evil karma, finally reached the end of its existence.
It disappeared completely upon the wind.
From then onward, the mortal human realm retained only its degenerated descendants.
Ordinary rice had developed coarse grains, hard husks, and rough bran.
It no longer possessed its terrifying ability to restore itself in an instant, and its growth had become exceedingly slow.
The extinction of the primordial divine rice plunged all good people of the mortal world, the gods and Buddhas of the heavens, and every sentient being who upheld Right View into profound grief.
For they all understood clearly—
the pure and wholesome Krita** Age** had come to an absolute end.
Even the Brahmas who had yet to attain any noble spiritual fruition sighed mournfully over the passing of this great age.
Only…
Arati, daughter of the Demon King, her father Vasavatti, and the countless demons within the Demon Palace all wore cruel and triumphant smiles.
For the destruction of the primordial rice and the pure age heralded a signal of absolute delight:
the demons’ season of “play” had finally arrived.
It was time once again to toy with and provoke the ignorant beings of the Three Realms, leading them step by step, without wisdom or awareness, into the demonic sea of suffering from which there would be no escape.
This wicked delight caused Arati to instantly forget the displeasure she had previously felt when Shuo Lei broke free from the demonic obstruction and escaped her control.
Because in the eyes of this cruel demoness princess—
“Within the vast game of the future, there are still countless toys and prey in the mortal world far more interesting than him…and far easier to manipulate.”
Yet…
while the demons throughout the heavens celebrated the end of the age of purity, and the gods, Brahmas, and beings who upheld the True Dharma mourned its passing with solemn lamentation—
Shuo Lei, dwelling within Naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana, felt not the slightest trace of sorrow.
He did not mourn the departure of that age of good people.
For within his lucid heart-flame, which had seen through all laws…
this was merely the natural succession of the cycles of samsara and causality.
And the memories of his previous lives awakened within him, gently reminding him:
such rises and falls, such transformations of oceans and mountains…
he had already witnessed them countless times throughout innumerable ages and kalpas.
So many times that they had long since become ordinary to him, incapable of stirring even the slightest ripple within his heart.
More importantly…
Shuo Lei was not merely free of sorrow.
A faint joy instead arose within his divine heart.
Because he had keenly realized—
the thunderous beginning of the Tretā Age meant that the supreme opportunity to accumulate merit had finally arrived.
The Great Vow he had once made—to incarnate within the mortal world and liberate sentient beings—could finally begin.
Now that absolute evil had invaded the human realm, this chaotic mortal world had instead become the fastest and most rewarding furnace in which to refine causality and accumulate immeasurable merit.
With this realization, Shuo Lei immediately regarded the great upheaval of the age as a heaven-defying opportunity to transform danger into fortune.
He decisively let go of the final trace of attachment he held toward the passing of the age.
Then—
he dispersed the heart-flame of seven-colored rainbow light and decided to completely change the state of his existence.
From his position as a Formless Realm Brahma at the summit of the Three Realms…
he descended into the mortal world.
He would be reborn as a human.
All for the sake of fulfilling that supreme vow of cultivation and merit that belonged to him alone.
……
The third watch of the night had long since passed.
At the edge of a silent primordial forest in the mortal human realm, all things were utterly still.
Most spiritual plants and ignorant creatures had already fallen into slumber.
At that moment—
the seven-colored heart-flame of Shuo Lei appeared defiantly in the distance.
This place… would become the crucible of his reincarnation, where his Great Vow within the mortal world would finally begin.
Shuo Lei selected the grandest, most towering tree in the ancient forest.
Beneath its enormous shadow, that translucent primordial flame, pale and elegant in color, continuously transforming through the seven colors of flowing light, slowly descended.
At last, it floated quietly before the tree trunk like a tiny star.
Shuo Lei gathered his divine heart.
With absolute resolve, he abandoned the Formless Brahma divinity he had enjoyed for three hundred and sixty million years.
Then, following the laws of causality, he established his Great Vow within this realm of Heaven and Earth—
to receive the karmic blessing bestowed upon him by Maya in a previous life, and to descend into the human world through a resultant consciousness of great wholesomeness unassociated with wisdom.
Under the iron laws of the universe, it was not entirely impossible for sentient beings to take control of their own reincarnation.
Yet to abandon an old divine body and, in the very instant of creating an entirely new life, use nothing more than a single strand of vow-born divine power to completely determine the circumstances of one’s rebirth and the form of one’s mortal body…
one would require previous-life merit and blessings vast enough to rival the Nine Heavens.
And that alone would not be enough.
One would also require supreme mental power capable of illuminating the void, together with a spiritual furnace of immeasurable strength.
Only a being possessing such tremendous virtue and power could, in the instant of reincarnatory annihilation, overturn Heaven and Earth with a single thought.
And Shuo Lei…
was precisely such a being.
His pure Brahma heart, untouched by worldly dust, had been refined within primordial stillness for hundreds of millions of years.
Furthermore, after experiencing the intervention of the Demon Princess Arati and passively developing subtle sensory faculties, he had gone on to purify and liberate countless demons through supreme compassion.
Thus, once again, he had carved out an immeasurable ocean of merit within the void.
Most importantly—
engraved within the core of his soul-consciousness was the ancient blessing personally bestowed upon him by Maya, the ruler of the Three-City realm.
Only because of all this could Shuo Lei follow his Great Vow and determine the form of his mortal life for himself.
With…
a heart of great wholesomeness unassociated with wisdom…
he descended into reincarnation as a human.
This method of reincarnation inherited from the Queen of the Phantom City did not, according to the laws governing Heaven and Earth, place the illumination of true wisdom at the center of the circumstances of birth.
Even so, it remained one of the most exalted and refined forms of life within the Three Realms.
For it was almost a flawless form of physical spontaneous generation.
Those born through this method naturally possessed complete and perfect physical forms, free from the suffering of bodily defects.
They could also inherit spiritual abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals.
Even their bone structure, physique, skin color, and even the species of their mortal body could be determined through causality, reaching an astonishing degree of perfection.
Yet even so…
Shuo Lei had absolutely no interest in these supreme divine privileges that the gods and Buddhas of the heavens would desperately seek.
He did not even develop the slightest attachment to them.
He abandoned every great supernatural power and every supreme divine ability.
Within the vortex of his extinguishing vow-power, he revealed to himself only the simplest and most ordinary wish of the mortal world:
He wanted to live one lifetime as…
a young man of nineteen years of age.
He would descend into the human world through spontaneous generation.
Beyond his bones, physique, and mortal body, he asked Heaven and Earth for only a simple set of cloth garments to cover himself.
And…
a most ordinary mortal musical instrument, one that would be convenient and easy to carry.
Nothing more.
At last…
the moment of reincarnation arrived with a thunderous turning of Heaven and Earth.
Beneath the towering divine tree, the core heart-flame of Shuo Lei, which had shone like a sea of stars throughout the endless night in seven-colored rainbow radiance, suddenly extinguished.
It fell into complete stillness.
In the very next instant—
a cool, gentle, and utterly pure primordial breeze slowly began to swirl within the void where the heart-flame had disappeared.
Pure and flawless elements of the primordial earth were swept up by the divine wind.
Heavy soil detached from the ground and merged with the wind.
Thus came Earth and Wind.
Next, the primordial pure dew condensed upon the leaves of the ancient forest and the tips of the grasses was drawn into the divine wind.
The Water element thunderously entered the game, merging with Wind and Earth.
Three primordial particles gradually became complete.
And then—
dawn broke across Heaven and Earth.
The first rays of morning appeared in the eastern sky.
They carried with them the greatest and purest Fire element within the mortal human realm.
The light of the sun suddenly illuminated the vortex at the heart of this gathering of the three elemental forces.
Thus—
Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind, the four primordial pure elements, were finally complete within the mortal world of the new kalpa.
The four primordial particles fused and collided within the vortex of divine wind.
All laws seemed to converge.
They condensed and contracted into a dazzling, perfectly rounded sphere of brilliant light.
Beneath the towering tree at the breaking dawn, that blazing sphere looked like—
a colossal golden divine egg forged from the creation of Heaven and Earth and the fire of pure Yang.
Bright.
Pure.
Dazzling.
It illuminated the entire primordial forest at dawn.
In the next instant—
supreme light in all seven colors of the rainbow swept outward from the golden sphere in every direction.
Then the seven-colored radiance gradually shattered, transforming into countless tiny crystalline particles of milky-white light, like a sky full of stars suddenly opening their eyes beneath the daylight heavens.
At the same time, the golden egg-shaped sphere of light at the heart of the storm shattered into a vast cloud of brilliant golden dust.
The light gradually faded.
Heaven and Earth became still.
At last…
the tall figure of a young man emerged from the cocoon of light beneath the countless branches and shadows of the primordial tree.
He wore a simple, unadorned set of pale-blue cloth garments.
This miraculous young man, nineteen years of age, who had descended upon the mortal earth—
was none other than Shuo Lei, who had severed his Brahma divinity and completed his supreme vow of reincarnation.