Chapter 1433: Touching NOTHINGNESS!

Eira had been speaking directly inside his mind when it did— she was talking something about Marcus, Danton and the Heavenchilds. Phei had been listening one moment, perhaps preparing another reply when everything became blank in his mind.

Phei stared through another man’s eyes at a face he did not know and felt something inside him twist with such quiet pain that his thoughts simply stopped.

He did not notice the tear either as it slipped in his one eye— the warm droplet escaped from the corner of his right eye and travelled slowly down his cheek while he floated beneath billions of stars, surrounded by enough sacred radiance to turn an entire island golden.

Phei remained there without understanding why his chest suddenly felt heavy before he eventually opened his eyes.

The tear had vanished beneath the white-gold light before he ever felt it against his skin.

He blinked once, faint confusion passing through his face as the strange ache lingered beneath his ribs.

The Hollow Woman remained another question waiting somewhere ahead.

A smile slowly crossed his face.

The expression immediately ruined at least half the unbearable righteousness surrounding him.

Even wrapped in Primordial Lotus markings, crowned beneath impossible stars, carrying one wing of sacred life and another that swallowed light while World Essence moved throughout Hell’s Paradise Island because of him— Phei Ryujin Tiamat remained stubbornly, shamelessly Phei Ryujin Tiamat.

He turned his awareness inward and touched his cultivation.

Half Divine Stage.

The power contained within those words was immense.

A short time ago, Sky Sovereign had been the Realm Phei carried into battles against World Transcendents and Half-Divine creatures, forcing victories through abilities, brutality, regeneration and an increasingly offensive refusal to remain down when struck.

Now the chasm had narrowed violently.

He had crossed from Sky Sovereign into Half Divine without climbing the path between them in any ordinary way, and the Essence flowing through him had become so vast that even the title seemed unable to encompass everything his body now carried.

Cultivation alone no longer described Phei properly.

He had become divine in a deeper and stranger way:

Genesis Angel.

—Bearer of the Primordial Lotus’s Blessing.

—Possessor of the Genesis Core.

—An Essence Sea formed from the plundered World Essence of an Angel Progenitor.

—A Cosmic Dragon carrying another mighty bloodline beside the first without either bowing to the other.

’The Genesis!’

Phei slowly turned his head toward Sienna floating below him, her dark presence beautifully distinct beneath the transformed heavens.

His wings moved before he consciously commanded them— the golden wing opened slightly; warm radiance spilled across kilometers of sky. The Endless Forest brightened beneath it. Leaves turned their surfaces upward. Golden motes thickened into luminous mist, and every stream of World Essence within that vast region grew gentler in its passage.

The black wing shifted at the same time.

Stars vanished behind it.

Entire constellations disappeared wherever its silhouette passed, not hidden merely by obstruction but swallowed so completely that for several breaths the sky behind the wing resembled an opening where the heavens themselves had been cut away.

Phei’s smile widened.

New knowledge he’d got from Marcus continued surfacing in his mind.

The memories rose in fragments— there were some ancient knowledge Phei could not fully fathom. Some of the half-awakened knowledge connected to Angels, World Essence and secrets Marcus himself had never fully recovered, some came clearly enough for Phei to understand immediately, while others remained distant and incomplete, like ancient scriptures seen through deep water.

His Soul pulsed—

Phei’s smile disappeared immediately because he felt the change far deeper than anything happening to his flesh. Something vast inside him had been developing and expanding since he was in Marcus’s Soul Realm but it had finally reached completion right now!

His Soul Realm pulsed!

Soul Energy surged through Phei with a new weight, so pure and dense that every current seemed brighter to his awareness.

[Ding! Your Soul has grown stronger!]

[Ding! Your Soul Energy has increased tremendously!]

[Ding! Your Soul Energy has become purer!]

[Ding! Your Soul Realm has expanded!]

His Primordial rank Soul had deepened. Soul Energy flowed through him with a clarity he had never possessed before, every stream carrying an almost tangible weight that made his previous reserves seem thin in comparison. Far within his Soul Realm, new reaches opened beyond old boundaries if his previous Soul Realm size and developed an even bigger size almost bigger than a continent itself!

He could feel the realm becoming larger.

Deeper... he looked at his new element.

[Mission Completed: New Element Awakened.]

[Element: Genesis Light!]

Phei focused on the new element— he could feel it the way he’d done the Void-Ice at his first awakening but it was on a deeper level this one!

Something warm awakened within him— it was an Essence that combined Life Essence itself and another one— a darker one Phei didn’t know and couldn’t touch either.

The radiance carried no resemblance to just light and life only but Genesis Light’s strange essence felt cleaner than all of them— combined them even— white-gold presence of the Life Essence carrying the strange sensation of beginning before disappearing into a dark abyss of the other essence he couldn’t touch yet— so he didn’t force the second one!

Phei lifted one hand.

A tiny point of white-gold radiance appeared above his palm.

The effect upon everything surrounding him was immediate.

World Essence bent toward the Life Essence.

Every nearby current simply curved, golden rivers shifting from their old paths and flowing closer to the newborn light as though recognizing something familiar within it.

The Void moved suddenly— Phei’s expression changed.

Blackness gathered around the white-gold point.

For a moment he expected one to reject the other. Life, light and Void had coexisted within him before, yet Genesis Light carried something different— the Void Essence had suddenly turned its attention toward the new Element.

The two touched— the Void did not devour the Genesis Light and the Genesis Light did not drive darkness away. White-gold radiance flowed through the absolute black without dimming, while the Void curled around it in slow strands that seemed almost curious.

Phei forgot everyone watching him.

The stars above, the transformed island below and the immense wings behind his back.

The entire universe narrowed into the tiny meeting point hovering above his palm.

White-gold: Absolute Void.

Then the final notification emerged before him.

[Ding! New Ability Awakened!]

[Ability: Genesis Weaver (Light of Nothingness)]

Phei stared. The name alone sent a chill down his spine.

Another line appeared beneath it.

[Note: Master the Void, to touch Nothingness!]

The golden light above Phei’s palm trembled.

The Void surrounding it swirled— Phei felt something beneath the True Void.

The realization came slowly because his instincts resisted naming what they could barely touch. True Void had already made him incredibly strong, really strong but whatever he sensed now stood beneath even that.

It was not darkness.

—Darkness still existed.

It was not emptiness.

—Emptiness still implied somewhere capable of being empty.

This was deeper than both: it was a suggestion so faint that even Phei’s Primordial Soul could barely brush against it.

Nothingness!

His golden-amethyst eyes widened fractionally.

The tiny Genesis Light continued shining within the Void, untouched and impossibly pure, while something beyond both seemed to watch from a depth Phei had only just learned existed.

Behind him, the black wing opened a fraction farther.

The change was slight: but stars vanished behind its span as the darkness across its feathers deepened, and one drop of the strange black fluid gathered at the edge of a long plume before falling through the night.

It disappeared halfway down.

The space where it vanished ceased looking like space at all before reality quietly returned.

Phei remained motionless beneath the boundless heavens, one hand raised beneath Genesis Light while World Essence, Void and the distant suggestion of Nothingness touched the edge of his awareness.

Below him, Hell’s Paradise Island continued breathing.

Above him, billions of stars burned like witnesses.

And somewhere beneath every power he had already mastered, another abyss had just opened.