Chapter 9: Star Devouring Leviathan

The liquid energy began to separate from the lake, rising into the air as thousands of thin, glowing energy threads.

Before Sigurd could move, the threads rushed forward, wrapping tightly around his small body layer by layer, encasing him completely into a thick, glowing cocoon.

Simultaneously, every single rune across thebridges and the high walls lit up with absolute power.

The entire interior of the Martial Soul Hall turned into a world of blinding, brilliant white light. Inside the cocoon, Sigurd didn’t feel pain, but the tugging in his soul became an outright violent pull.

When he opened his eyes again, the stone hall was gone. He found himself floating completely weightless in an endless, terrifying expanse of open space.

It was pitch black, freezing cold, and illuminated only by the distant, intermittent flashing of unknown stars.

From time to time, gigantic balls of cosmic fire shot across the void, leaving long trails of light before disappearing into the infinity of the dark.

Before he could analyze his coordinates, the heavy pull seized him again.

He had absolutely no command over his body as he was dragged forward through the cosmic void at an accelerating speed. As he flew through the darkness, he passed massive, glowing bubbles floating stationary in space.

Each bubble contained a distinct, floating manifestation. He saw legendary weapons, roaring mythical beasts, glowing plants, crackling bolts of purple lightning, concentrated clumps of absolute fire, and strange, distorted structures that gave off an intensely creepy vibe.

Whenever his eyes locked onto one of these bubbles, a sharp, ravenous hunger flared deep within his unawakened core. His body wanted to consume them.

Time lost all meaning. He couldn’t tell if he had been flying for seconds or hours.Then, the pulling force ceased abruptly. Sigurd stopped dead in the vacuum of space, his small form drifting slightly.

He let out a long, heavy breath, his mind working rapidly.

That was terrifying, he thought, adjusting his posture. Before he could form a tactical plan, an unprecedented, cataclysmic pressure descended upon him from above.

The sheer weight of the force was staggering. Sigurd’s small countenance turned completely white, his breath catching in his throat.

Even with his thirty-something years of adult life and his heavily conditioned, professional hitman mentality, he found himself utterly terrified. Every instinct in his soul screamed at him to run, to hide, to disappear.

He forced his neck to move, slowly lifting his headto look up at the source of the pressure.

Floating directly in front of him was a bubble so infinitely colossal that Sigurd looked like a single speck of dust standing before a planet.

The bubble was surrounded by dense, twinkling stars that orbited around its perimeter in perfect, rapid synchronization, mimicking a miniature solar system. Inside the translucent sphere resided an impossibly massive creature.

Sigurd’s human mind couldn’t even make out the full shape of its body; it was a sprawling, dark mass of absolute cosmic predation. The only clear feature he managed to glimpse before his mind overloaded was a single, colossal eye.

The eye was cold, ancient, and fixed directly on him, staring deep into the very depths of his soul. The sheer scale of the entity crushed his consciousness. As the darkness rushed to claim him, a sequence of familiar, cold chimes echoed directly inside his head.markdown:

[ Compatible Martial Soul Foud... ]

[ Binding With Martial Soul... ]

[ Martial Soul Recognized... ]

[ Martial Soul: Star Devouring Leviathan ]

[ Martial Soul Grade: ERROR... ]

Use code with caution.While Llewellyn was drifting into unconsciousness within the cosmic void, the world outside the hall descended into absolute, unprecedented chaos.

In the grand plaza, the air went completely freezing cold. A suffocating, crushing pressure suddenly erupted from the obsidian walls of the Martial Soul Hall, expanding outward in a massive wave that struck the crowd like a physical blow.

Every single person’s face turned pale. Thousands of hardened knights, branch lords, and noble vassals began sweating bullets, their knees trembling under the sheer weight of the aura.

Even the nine elders, powerhouses who had spent decades cultivating their internal cores, were not spared. In fact, because their perception of energy was far higher than the average person’s, they suffered the most.

They gripped their staffs with white knuckles, their breathing ragged as they fought to remain standing.

The surrounding crowd fared much worse.

The children who had not yet awakened and the lower-ranking subordinates were instantly brought down, laying flat on the stone ground, shaking like leaves in a storm.

Then, the environment altered completely.

Though it was the middle of the day, the bright sky turned pitch black in an instant. The sun was entirely obscured, replaced by millions of brilliant, ancient stars that blazed to life across the dome of the heavens.

Before anyone could shout, the space above the Martial Soul Hall fractured.

Through the dark, starry sky, a colossal, dark abomination seemed to swim through the celestial void. Its scale was mind-breaking, its movement sluggish but filled with an absolute, world-ending density.

The entire phenomenon lasted for less than three seconds.Before the crowd could even discern the true shape of the entity, the dark sky vanished.

The sun snapped back into place, the stars disappeared, and the crushing pressure evaporated as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind only the crisp, biting afternoon air. It happened so fast that it felt like an absolute illusion.

But the sweat on the ground and the thousands of people trembling on their knees proved it was real. All of them felt genuine fear in the depths of their souls. Just the pressure alone that they felt made them think that they were going to die.

At the front of the steps, the lead elder stood frozen.

His hands were shaking so violently that his staff rattled against the stone. He stared at the tightly closed iron gates of the hall, his lips trembling as he attempted to form a coherent sentence, his voice completely failing him.

"Divine..."