Jehovah was stunned.
Twice now, he had invoked his greatest authority, and twice the results had fallen disastrously short of his expectations.
That simply wasn't supposed to happen.
His reputation as the omniscient and omnipotent God rested upon this power. Among Earth's countless deities, few abilities could compare to it in either uniqueness or raw potency.
It was a force that stood above nearly all others.
When Jehovah infused his words with divine power and declared his will, reality itself obeyed.
It ignored existing conditions.
It bypassed conventional laws.
It rewrote possibility at the level of cause and effect.
No matter how improbable an outcome might be, if Jehovah spoke it into existence through this authority, it became reality.
Of course, such power came at a price.
The greater the change, the greater the burden.
If too many people, objects, timelines, or dimensions became entangled in the alteration, the backlash grew exponentially.
In severe cases, the user could be rejected by causality itself.
The consequences were catastrophic.
Not even gods could withstand them.
To disrupt the balance of causality was, in some ways, more terrifying than annihilation itself.
It was an act that distorted the fundamental laws of the universe.
And the universe always corrected such distortions.
Those who pushed too far would not merely die.
They would be erased.
Their existence would vanish from the root.
Their history.
Their lives.
Every memory others held of them.
Everything they had ever created.
Gone.
As though they had never existed at all.
Even Jehovah feared such a fate.
That was why he had always exercised caution when wielding this authority.
The restrictions limited its full potential, but until today, it had never failed him.
Not once.
Until now.
Until the Taiji Diagram.
"How can a mere artifact possess power like this?"
Disbelief filled Jehovah's voice.
Yet disbelief changed nothing.
The Taiji Diagram was already upon him.
Again and again, the realities he crafted through causality manipulation were shattered by its advance.
No matter how much divine power he poured into his authority, he could not stop the treasure from tearing through the worlds he wove.
He could feel it.
Only a thin layer of reality remained between them now.
A fragile barrier.
One touch away from collapse.
At any moment, the Taiji Diagram might smash through and strike him with its overwhelming divine might.
Yet what troubled Jehovah even more than the threat of destruction was something else.
For the first time in countless years, the authority that had elevated him to the throne of Heaven had failed.
That was unacceptable.
Faced with the relentless advance of the Taiji Diagram, Jehovah abandoned all restraint.
No more caution.
No more compromises.
His voice thundered across the dimension.
"I am the Omniscient and Omnipotent One."
"The All-Seeing, All-Wise, All-Loving, All-Powerful, Everlasting Supreme Creator."
"I am everywhere. I am all things. I know all things. I possess all things."
"I am the Creator of existence, the ruler of the cosmos, the revealer of truth, the savior of the chosen, and the judge of sin."
"I am the Lord of all life."
"I am the Heavenly Father."
"The Sovereign of Heaven."
"I command you, heretical creation."
"You shall not approach me."
"You shall not gaze upon my glory."
"Your protection is meaningless."
"Your power is hollow."
"You will fail."
"You will fall."
"And you shall find no place to stand beneath the heavens."
The moment the declaration ended, thunder exploded across the world.
Dark clouds churned.
The entire dimensional realm trembled violently.
Everything seemed to submit beneath Jehovah's overwhelming divine authority.
Countless pillars of light pierced the storm clouds.
Lightning tore through the darkness.
Above, the Taiji Diagram began to descend.
Its power weakened.
The blazing energies woven through its golden radiance rapidly unraveled.
Lightning from the heavens merged with the boiling sea of light below.
Together they crashed into the Taiji Diagram like hammers shattering glass.
The treasure's golden brilliance fractured.
Thunder and holy light struck its true body directly.
For the first time, the Taiji Diagram lost the ability to remain suspended in space.
It could no longer stand against gravity itself.
Lightning exploded across its surface.
Holy flames scattered in every direction.
Thunder roared endlessly.
Like a burning meteor, the supreme treasure plummeted from the heavens.
At the same moment, the Pangu Banner was struggling merely to hold its ground.
The Taiji Diagram was being suppressed.
And then, at last, the third supreme treasure appeared.
An ancient bell.
Upon its outer surface revolved the sun, moon, stars, earth, water, fire, and wind.
Within its body existed mountains, rivers, vast continents, and countless primordial races.
Five-colored divine light illuminated the heavens.
The sacred might of chaos shook the universe.
A bell toll echoed across existence.
The cosmos trembled.
Heaven and earth lost their color.
Space and reality quaked.
The authority of a supreme treasure of chaos revealed itself without reservation.
The Chaos Bell.
A treasure capable of suppressing the Primordial World.
One that could twist space and time across countless realms.
One that could reveal the deepest mysteries of the Heavenly Dao.
One that could refine earth, fire, water, and wind themselves.
Its wonders were endless.
Its potential limitless.
It could freeze time.
It could suppress space.
It could reflect the attacks of divine artifacts and heavenly weapons.
It could ignore the effects of supernatural techniques and mystical powers.
Perfect offense.
Perfect defense.
With the bell above one's head, defeat became nearly impossible.
Its powers could be summarized in three supreme authorities:
First, suppressing primordial destiny and governing the operation of the Heavenly Dao.
Second, absolute defense, rendering its bearer virtually invincible once activated.
Third, twisting space-time and reversing yin and yang.
The Chaos Bell rang once.
Just once.
The sound swept across the great cosmos.
Everything froze.
Jehovah was affected immediately.
At the critical moment, Ra raised his creator authority and shielded the surviving gods.
Even so, he struggled against the bell's overwhelming power.
A substantial portion of his creator energy was stripped away in an instant.
Had he not intervened, ninety-nine percent of the remaining gods would have been reduced to dust by that single toll.
With the support of the Chaos Bell, the Taiji Diagram immediately recovered.
Its power surged back to life.
The momentum of the battle reversed.
Now it was Jehovah who found himself suppressed.
Then flames erupted.
Endless flames.
They poured from the Taiji Diagram in an unceasing torrent.
Higher and higher they rose.
Soon they stretched across the horizon itself.
The lightning in the sky vanished.
The holy radiance was swallowed whole.
The moment the flames appeared, everyone present was left speechless by their terrifying might.
Jehovah could scarcely believe what he was seeing.
The Taiji Diagram still possessed power he hadn't anticipated.
Even worse, his causality authority had failed yet again.
Frustration churned within him.
But beneath it lurked something far more dangerous.
Fear.
For the first time since his descent, genuine fear took root in his heart.
Without hesitation, he invoked his greatest authority once more.
"Heretical creation!"
"In the name of the Lord God, I command you..."
"Retreat!"
"Retreat!"
"Retreat!"
Three simple words.
Three absolute commands.
Unlike his earlier proclamations, there was no subtlety here.
No layered conditions.
No hidden safeguards.
No room for interpretation.
Only Jehovah's pure and desperate will made manifest.