Chapter 1301: The Forbidden Palace

Lyrate immediately noticed that something had changed in my expression as I rose from the formation. She looked at me expectantly, her eyes narrowing slightly as she tried to read the answer from my face.

"So?" she asked. "What did you see?"

"The Generator."

She stared at me for a moment before slowly exhaling. "That is hardly an answer."

"I know."

"You were already convinced that your talent might be connected to the breakthrough. You spent half your time talking about evolving it before we even came here. If the All-Knowing Eyes simply showed you the Generator, then all it really did was confirm what you already suspected."

"Not exactly." I glanced toward the endless darkness surrounding us. "If the Origin Expanses of other universes were the key, I should have seen one of them. I didn’t. The vision was very specific. It showed me activating the Generator, and then it showed the gears forming across my chest. That wasn’t random."

Lyrate considered my words before giving a small nod. "So you believe the answer is hidden inside your talent."

"That’s what I’m going to find out."

"Then ask another question."

I looked down at my Divine Core and sighed. "I would, but there is a small problem."

"Your soul force?"

"Almost completely gone." I smiled helplessly. "That last question consumed nearly everything I had. Even with the formation feeding essence into my body, I need time to recover before I can use the All-Knowing Eyes again."

Lyrate folded her arms. "Then recover first. There is no point killing yourself before you even discover the answer."

"I suppose that’s the one piece of advice I’m willing to accept."

I sat down again within the formation and closed my eyes. This time, I wasn’t searching for the path to Godhood. I was going to uncover the secret of the Generator.

***********

I sat down again within the formation and closed my eyes. This time, I wasn’t searching for the path to Godhood. I was going to uncover the secret of the Generator.

I spent the next several hours recovering the soul force I had exhausted while using the All-Knowing Eyes. The formation continued drawing pure essence from the Origin Expanse and feeding it toward my Divine Core, allowing my Generator Core to replenish what had been consumed. I did not stop when my reserves returned to their previous level. Instead, I continued absorbing until I had accumulated considerably more than before, creating as much of a reserve as my body could safely contain.

Only when I was satisfied did I open my eyes again. I took a slow breath and focused my consciousness.

How can I evolve the Generator Core?

The moment the question formed, the familiar sensation of the All-Knowing Eyes descended upon my mind.

The Origin Expanse disappeared.

For a brief instant, there was nothing. Only an endless black void stretching farther than my perception could reach.

The darkness was so complete that even light seemed to have been erased from existence. There was not a single star in the surrounding region, nor any drifting asteroid, dust cloud, or fragment of matter. It was as though something had carved out an enormous portion of reality and left behind nothing but absolute emptiness.

Then I noticed something in the distance. At first, it looked like a tiny shadow floating within the darkness.

But as my vision approached, the shadow grew.

And grew.

Until I finally understood what I was looking at.

A palace.

My eyes widened.

The structure was enormous, so massive that even some of the smaller moons I had encountered would have looked insignificant beside it. Yet despite its unimaginable scale, the palace looked as though it had been abandoned for countless ages.

Its once magnificent towers had collapsed in several places. Cracks covered the enormous walls, while structures hung broken from the edges of the palace. Vast sections of its outer halls had been swallowed by darkness, and countless enormous pillars had fallen across the surrounding void.

It should have looked dead. Instead, it felt terrifyingly alive.

An aura surrounded the entire ruin. I immediately became cautious. Even through the vision of the All-Knowing Eyes, I could feel pressure coming from that place.

My expression slowly became serious.

What the hell is this?

The aura was ancient.

Not merely old, but ancient in a way that made the passage of time itself seem meaningless. There was something contained within those ruins that had survived eras I could not even imagine.

I continued observing. Eventually, my gaze reached the enormous entrance of the palace. Two gigantic gates stood there, each one covered in countless cracks and traces of decay.

And in the center of those gates was an emblem.

My breathing stopped. Several enormous gears had been carved into the gates, arranged in exactly the same pattern as the strange tattoo that had appeared across my chest when I awakened the Generator.

There was no mistaking it. For the first time since the vision had begun, genuine excitement replaced my caution.

So this is where it came from.

The realization sent a strange sensation through my soul.

My talent had always felt like something unique to me, something that had somehow appeared alongside my System. Yet now I was looking at the same symbol carved into a palace that appeared to have existed long before the current age.

The implications were enormous. I tried to push my perception deeper into the ruins.

The moment I did, the entire vision changed. Two enormous orange eyes dwarfing the entire palace suddenly opened above the palace.

I froze.

The eyes were so gigantic that they seemed to occupy a portion of the void itself. The instant they opened, the surrounding darkness trembled.

Space distorted.

The ruins shook.

Even the distant void appeared to ripple outward from the palace as though reality itself had become frightened.

A pressure descended upon me.

For the first time since becoming a High Demi-God, I felt something approaching genuine danger from a vision.

Then the eyes moved. They looked directly at me.

My heart skipped a beat.

The vision shattered.

I opened my eyes violently, my breathing suddenly heavy as cold sweat ran down my face. For several seconds, I simply remained seated within the formation, staring into the darkness of the Origin Expanse.

Those eyes were still burned into my mind. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and slowly exhaled.

"What the hell was that?"

Lyrate immediately turned toward me.

"What happened?"

I didn’t answer immediately. My mind was still trying to process what I had seen.

The palace had been connected to the Generator. That much was certain. But those eyes...

I clenched my fist.

"I saw a vision of a ruin and I feel like those ruins are real," I finally said. "And something is guarding them."

Lyrate’s expression became serious. "A guardian?"

"Maybe."

I looked toward the darkness as though I could somehow see the place from here.

"Or perhaps those eyes belonged to the owner of the palace."

Either possibility was troubling.

If those eyes belonged to the guardian, then something powerful enough to protect the remains of such a magnificent palace was still alive inside that dead zone.

But if they belonged to the original owner...

I slowly narrowed my eyes.

"Then I may have just found something far more troublesome than I was expecting."

The gears of the Generator within my chest seemed to pulse faintly.