The elder stares at the collapsing rift—eyes narrowed, posture rigid, aura sharpened to a killing edge.
For a breath, he considers stepping through.
He must kill the demon.
He cannot allow a being like that to roam freely—not after what he sensed when Merin opened his eyes. That pressure… that instinctive dread. It wasn't simply demonic power.
It was something ancient.
Something forbidden.
Something remembered only in clan records sealed under blood oath.
Killing intent churns through his veins.
He takes one step toward the closing crack—
—and freezes.
A violent distortion erupts from the void.
His expression darkens.
"...A space storm."
Dimensional winds howl through the collapsing fracture—razor-thin currents capable of reducing even a Saint King into scattered atoms. The void devours itself in silence and fury.
The elder clasps his hands behind his back and waits as the crack seals, restoring calm.
Only when the sky settles does he finally speak—not to the world, not to Silan or the onlookers—but to the sword in his hand.
"I saw it," he murmurs. "At the last moment… the demon consciousness vanished. His body returned to normal."
A calm, genderless voice echoes from the Fireice Sword:
"Correct."
The elder's brows tighten.
"Then explain," he says slowly, "why his strength rose instead of weakening."
The answer comes without hesitation:
*"There are many possibilities.
But the most likely is simple—
He allowed the demon consciousness to fully form."*
The elder's breathing falters.
His voice sinks to a tense whisper:
"…What does that imply?"
This time, the spirit pauses.
When it speaks again, the tone is solemn—almost mournful.
*" Some allow the demon consciousness to form with the intention to devour the demon consciousness later.
He also intended this from the beginning.
After your first strike, his true mind suppressed the demon consciousness."*
Silence stretches.
Wind stirs the broken sky.
The elder's voice is barely audible:
"…That technique exists?"
The spirit's reply chills the air:
*"Yes. Those with an unshakeable will can do it.
The first to succeed…
was the Demon Ancestor."*
The elder's eyes widen.
Their Spirit Dragon Race may stand above the human race now—Saint Kings, vast heritage, deep bloodline—but they lack one thing:
A living Supreme.
The humans, however, still have four—even if they vanished centuries ago.
And among them…
The Demon Ancestor is the youngest.
And rumoured to be the strongest.
A tremor enters his voice:
"Are they returning?"
The Fireice Sword answers:
*"Highly unlikely.
But the human just now…
may have obtained her inheritance."*
Greed flickers in the elder's expression—
—then dies.
If that man truly carried her legacy…
Then killing him was not a victory.
It was provocation.
The elder exhales slowly.
His gaze lowers to the world below—to Silan holding the Icefire Sword, and to Mengui at her side.
If Dina is to inherit the sword, Silan must die.
That was the simplest outcome.
But now?
Now she is connected to a being tied to the Demon Ancestor.
That changes everything.
The elder's voice becomes firm, commanding:
"You two," he says coldly, his eyes on Silan and Mengui, "will be coming with us."
Mengui steps forward, expression defiant.
"And why should we?"
The elder's answer is chilling in its simplicity:
"If you refuse, I will exterminate every living being in this world."
He pauses—then adds, as if stating a fact, not a threat:
"And since your mother holds the Supreme weapon of our race… I will not harm either of you. For now."
Silan meets her daughter's gaze.
A silent exchange.
Fear.
Resolve.
Understanding.
Then—slowly—they both nod.
The elder turns away.
His decision is final.
---
Merin tears open the collapsing void behind him, pushing it into a chaotic imbalance until it spirals into a full space storm—erasing any pursuit.
Then he turns toward the only beacon in this darkness:
A blinding distant radiance—the Supreme World.
Even beyond the barrier of the Transformation World, its presence is unmistakable. Because that small world was not separate—it hung like a pearl, fused to the inner shell of the larger, primordial world.
Meaning:
The void he now travelled through wasn't outer space.
It was the inner void of a Supreme World.
A domain shaped by the will of a being who once ruled reality.
As he flies, Merin breathes in the raging dimensional winds—not resisting but refining them. The violent space energy compresses into pristine qi, circulating through his damaged pathways, knitting shattered flesh and fractured spirit threads back together.
This is no longer Demon Merin.
This… is Merin himself.
The original.
When the Fireice Sword struck him, his body had burst apart—but more importantly, the blow shook his very consciousness. The demon personality that had been growing inside him could no longer hold dominance under that pressure.
In that single moment of imbalance, Merin acted.
He stepped out of the Dream Space of his mind—took control—and forcibly suppressed the demon consciousness. He couldn't erase it; even if born from him, it had become its own entity.
But he chained it.
Locked it deep within his inner world.
A temporary victory.
Eventually, the void's turbulent tides part slightly, and Merin notices something drifting ahead:
A massive floating stone—scarred, ancient, and inscribed with faint fragments of primordial runes.
He lands upon it silently.
Crosses his legs.
And continues refining the void energy, letting his consciousness sink inward.
---
Inside his inner world, his Dao manifests—yet no longer as roaring chaos or devouring hunger.
Now, at its core stands the Virtual Engine.
An enormous eye formed of runic circuits, gears of light, and shifting fractal logic—a Dao of calculation, reflection, and absolute structure.
Its gaze sweeps across his Spirit Sea—searching.
Then it finds it.
Something stirs in the depths:
The Devouring Maw—bloated with resentment, warped emotions, and instinctual hunger—glares back and releases a violent roar. The sound alone warps the spirit space, shaking runes loose like falling stars.
Both entities have reached the Blooming Stage of Dao.
But where the Devouring Maw now stands only at the initial boundary, the Virtual Engine sits at the peak—cold, perfected, unshakable.
A beam of controlled law radiates from the Engine, illuminating the Devouring Maw—pinning it in place.
The Maw thrashes violently, its jagged teeth grinding against invisible restraints, cracks splitting the spirit space with its resistance.
The demon consciousness stirs with it, trying to surface.
Merin speaks—not aloud, but into the very fabric of his soul:
"Struggle if you must."
His tone is calm.
Cold.
Resolute.
"But you already know the outcome."
The Devouring Maw roars again—but this time, frustration bleeds into the sound.
It cannot overpower the Virtual Engine.
Not anymore.
While the two forces clash, the eye begins its true function:
Analysis.
Runes shift.
Laws align.
Equations unfold.
The Virtual Engine dissects the Devouring Law piece by piece—not to destroy it…
…but to understand it.
To claim it.
To make it his own—not as a demon—
—but as Merin.
The moment that intention forms, the Virtual Engine responds.
The runes along the great mechanical eye begin to rotate—slow at first, then faster—gears of law clicking into alignment. Sacred geometry unfolds like a blooming lotus, and streams of light branch outward like rivers across a map.
Every beam strikes the Devouring Maw.
Not to harm it—but to read it.
To unravel its existence on the level of principles.
The Maw shrieks—its voice not merely sound, but emotional pressure that twists reality. Hatred. Hunger. Rage. Desperation. Every negative emotion intensifies, trying to disrupt the analysis, distorting the spiritual domain into storms of blood-black energy.
The Virtual Engine does not waver.
Every spike of emotion becomes data.
Every surge of power becomes structure.
Every instinct becomes law.
The engine records. Dissects. Understands.
The Devouring Maw lunges forward, its abyssal teeth tearing at the very light, analysing it. The space buckles, cracks spiderwebbing across the spirit world—but the eye simply rotates once more, and the laws of existence rewrite the damage back into order.
More beams descend.
Chains of runes coil around the Maw.
Every loop tightens—not physically, but conceptually.
An understanding cage.
The more Merin understands, the more absolute his authority becomes.
The Maw roars again—louder, deeper—its voice pressing against Merin's consciousness like a tidal wave of hate.
Emotion tries to drown thought.
Instinct tries to crush reason.
Law tries to devour law.
But the Virtual Engine exists for one purpose:
Calculation over chaos.
The last fragments of ignorance dissolve.
The final missing pieces fall into place.
A single tone reverberates through the spirit realm—clear, perfect, inevitable.
Understanding: 100%.
The lights converge.
Runes collapse into a single command.
The chains stop restraining—
—they consume.
The Devouring Maw's form fractures into thousands of law-construct shards, each one a fragment of hunger, greed, entropy, consumption.
The Virtual Engine absorbs them one by one.
Not violently—
—but with mechanical inevitability.
Piece by piece, the Maw shrinks, its roars weakening—from fury to pain, from pain to confusion, from confusion to silence.
Finally—
Only a single ember remains.
A last spark of the demon consciousness.
Merin reaches out—not with hate or pity, but with absolute authority.
His voice echoes through the spirit world, calm and final:
*"You served your purpose.
Now become part of me."*
The ember dissolves into light.
The Virtual Engine flares—its runes rewriting themselves, integrating the Devouring Law into its structure. Not wild, not monstrous—refined, balanced, controlled.
A new symbol forms in the centre of the great eye:
A fusion of logic and hunger.
Devouring—not of emotion—
—but of concept, structure, and limitation.
A Devouring Law that no longer corrupts him…
…but answers to him.
Merin exhales slowly—eyes opening in the physical world atop the floating stone.
His aura changes—not an eruption, but a refinement.
Void essence that once resisted him now collapses willingly into his channels, pulled by an invisible gravitational will. Every breath he takes devours miles of dimensional qi, and every heartbeat refines it into pure Saint essence.
The build-up is rapid.
Controlled.
Inevitable.
Behind him, the Virtual Engine manifests—once a vast cosmic mechanism, now condensed into a single enormous eye rotating with precise and perfect rhythm. Runic lines spin across its surface like constellations realigning under a superior law.
Then—
crack.
A sound like the breaking of an ancient seal.
Merin's cultivation surges, crossing the final threshold. His foundation stabilises instantly, settling into the pressure and authority of the Great Saint Realm.
The void reacts.
A phantom wind sweeps across the empty dimension—an impossible movement where no air exists. The fabric of space darkens, rumbling with a low thunder that echoes like the voice of an unseen judge.
Above him, clouds begin forming—not of vapour, but of law.
Lightning coils within them, twisting into shapes almost resembling runes—tribulation script.
The Great Saint Tribulation.
Merin raises his head slightly—expression calm, unhurried.
Not with arrogance.
Not with fear.
But with the certainty of someone who has walked through death and digested it.
He steps forward—standing firm on the floating stone as the sky of void law crackles with judgment.
He waits.
Ready.