In the ocean of Void, Kaelan's true body drifts—vast, still, tentacles floating like silent cosmic rivers. He does not move. He deduces.
His recent battle with the sword immortal plays again in his mind. He had an advantage, yes—but only barely. And that is unacceptable.
Void monsters are inherently superior to cultivators. Yet he fought like an equal. The reason is simple: the same human soul that protects him from falling into bestial bloodlust also limits his use of true void power.
His soul can control the laws he inherited like fingers guiding a blade…
But he has no technique yet for channelling them perfectly.
A void monster inherits three primal laws:
Devour.
Void.
Destruction.
Together, they form the unified *Law of the Void Monster*—equal in power to the law of a small world. To use his strength perfectly, he must build techniques from all three.
But right now?
He is like a newborn in a universe that fears him.
Before one runs, one crawls.
So he must start with one law.
He considers.
Devour—endless endurance, recovery from an enemy's strength, immortality fed by foes.
Void—movement without restriction, slipping between worlds, vanishing beyond pursuit.
Destruction—pure power, crushing all that dares stand before him.
All are worthy.
All tempting.
But he remembers death.
Remembers mortality.
Remembers the fear of reincarnating as something weak, something small, something forgotten.
He was lucky to be born a void monster. He will not gamble that luck again.
So he chooses.
Not the path of conquest.
Not the path of eternal consumption.
But escape.
Freedom.
Survival beyond all heavens.
He reaches inward, feeling the law of Void pulse through his blood like an ancient ocean tide.
A presence older than creation itself.
A silence deeper than death.
Kaelan becomes still.
And slowly, deliberately—
He begins to comprehend the Void.
He floats in the silent infinity, tentacles drifting like ancient banners as he sinks into the depths of his own blood, feeling the pulse of the void law whisper through every scale.
He comprehends—slow, vast, patient—and when clarity sparks, one tentacle rises and releases a thin, silent beam of pure void that cuts through reality like a blade, leaving only nothingness behind before he returns to stillness.
A wave spreads from him, invisible but sovereign, and the silver void energy freezes mid-flow around his body, then hundreds of meters beyond, as if time itself kneels before his will.
A domain forms—rough, newborn, yet terrifying—as the void bends around him, his insight brushing against the edge of divinity, only a heart away from true godlike mastery of the law.
With the heart formed and his comprehension stepping into the realm of gods, he begins shaping technique from thought and instinct, threading instinct through law like a sculptor carving eternity.
The first technique blooms—a movement method born of fear of death and a hunger for eternity—as thousands of clones materialise from the pure void, identical in aura and flesh, swirling like a living galaxy, each a coordinate for his escape.
The second takes shape as a defence—an elegant black hole that drinks all attacks, devouring fury and returning it to any place he desires, even the heart of the one who launched it.
Last, the third—an attack method sharp enough to split worlds—Void Blade, a cut without edge, without sound, where existence ceases.
Satisfied, his titanic body sinks deeper into the layers of the void like a god returning to his throne, eyes closing in calm thought as he wonders which law his hands will shape next.
His heightened understanding makes the void tremble around him, ripples travelling through infinity until a world slowly reveals itself to his senses, wrapped in a familiar sword-sharp aura.
Recognition ignites in him like hunger as the Sword Immortal appears outside that world, and Kaelan's golden eyes narrow with a greedy, predatory gleam.
The Sword Immortal turns, stepping toward that world—the world where Kaelan's first clone waits—and the void around Kaelan stirs, silent and eager.
He watches the Sword Immortal close in on the world where his clone waits, and dread coils through him as the Immortal draws a blade forged with Stage Five might.
His tentacles drift in slow circles, uncertainty gripping him, because where he once held a thin edge, now that sword doubles the Immortal's strength and death feels too close to breathe.
If he does nothing, his clone dies and his investment turns to ash, yet if he fights now, one misstep means oblivion and a new life as something small and helpless.
He hesitates, fear and greed wrestling in his chest, but the three void techniques pulse in his blood—a promise of escape even if victory slips through his grasp.
Resolve cracks through caution, and his tentacles snap with decision as he begins gliding toward the Sword Immortal, teleporting in sharp, clean jumps through the layered void.
The moment he nears, the Immortal reacts, swinging the Stage Five sword and sending a cleaving arc of sword light through the void like judgment.
Kaelan scatters a hundred void clones around the Sword Immortal, slipping into one just as the sword light tears through the space he abandoned, cold and precise as fate.
The Sword Immortal stands unmoving for a heartbeat, eyes sweeping the false Kaelans, fingers tightening around his hilt before his blade arcs and a storm of sword lights erupts, carving toward every clone at once.
Void twists; a black hole blossoms along the path of every sword light, swallowing them whole like a silent cosmic throat.
Another black hole yawns open behind the Sword Immortal, spitting the stolen sword lights back at him in a deadly mirrored rain.
The Sword Immortal moves, cutting through his own returning attacks as he dives into motion, and the void shatters with flashing blades as he dismantles clone after clone while Kaelan births more without pause.
Kaelan dances through the void, dodging first and striking only through stolen force, turning every attack meant to kill him into a blade aimed back at its owner.
Then a shout splits the silence—"World Domain"—and reality bends as a phantom world blooms around the Sword Immortal, pressing into the void with unquestionable authority.
Kaelan's gaze sharpens, awe and warning mixing as he whispers to himself that the Immortal has reached Stage Five application of law, manifesting a virtual domain in the endless void.
The instant the domain solidifies, Kaelan's eight tentacles snap outward, each wrapped in a void blade as he tears open space within the newborn world and slips through the wound like smoke escaping a sealed jar.
Outside the fading World Domain, Kaelan pauses in the grey-silver abyss, form rippling like smoke over deep water, eyes locked on the Sword Immortal as that oppressive aura folds back into stillness.
The domain dissolves, and the Sword Immortal swings—magma-like energy surges out like a burning tide, rolling across the void, molten and merciless.
Kaelan whips his eight tentacles, void blades cutting through the molten wave, each slice severing red-gold light and scattering it into sizzling fragments that die in silence.
The Sword Immortal's sword falls again, and Kaelan feels it—not the blade but the weight, a mountain pressing down on his existence, as if gravity itself tries to kneel him into nothing.
Void clones burst outward at his will, and he slips into one as the crushing force shatters space where he had been a moment before.
A sweep of the Immortal's sword, and razor wind erupts in every direction, annihilating clone after clone in an instant, scattering false bodies like dust in a storm.
Kaelan spawns more, shifting from one to the next, riding the edge of destruction as blades keep coming, relentless as time.
Then the sword flicks—effortless, casual—and a circular arc of energy erupts around the Sword Immortal, cutting through void and clone alike, a perfect ring of annihilation expanding outward.
Kaelan calls a black hole into existence, swallowing the incoming strike—only to watch both collapse together, devouring each other in a silent detonation that ripples through infinity.
The Sword Immortal pauses only long enough to register that even a Heaven-strike has been blocked, and then he continues, cold and tireless, sword flashing as Kaelan scrapes by each blow, escaping by threads, always half a breath from death.
The void trembles from their clash, fluctuations spreading like tidal waves across the cosmic ocean, crashing into a nearby world like an unseen storm breaking on a lone island in an endless sea.
Slowly, the Sword Immortal's aura begins to ebb, divine radiance dimming, his strength returning to its tide's low point, and he halts his assault on Kaelan without a backward look.
He turns toward the distant world—Kaelan's clone world—and moves, silent and direct, blade pointed like a promise.
Kaelan follows, close as a shadow and sharp as a knife held by fate, watching as the Sword Immortal raises his weapon and slashes toward the world's barrier, sword light falling like judgment upon a sky that is not ready to break.
His aura dips further from the swing, and a narrow rift tears open in the world-wall.
Kaelan peers through that wound in reality, and his spirit brushes his first clone's—two minds touching across a veil of existence. Memories swap like currents meeting in deep water; he sees through his clone's eyes even as he looks from the void.
Inside, the Sword Immortal's blade splits—nine swords, nine fates, scattering like silent meteors into the world through the gap.
Kaelan's clone does not notice swords—only the flood of destructive void force that follows.
Just like him, other transcendents rush to the outer-inner boundary of the world, raising barriers, shielding the inner realms from the incoming ruin. The world's skin knits slowly, the rift sealing while tidal void energy thrashes against their defences.
Outside, Kaelan watches the Sword Immortal turn away, aura thinning, body streaking back toward his own world like a fading divine comet.
Kaelan does not chase. He hovers in the hush of the void, tentacles still as cold roots, watching the retreating Immortal with narrowed eyes. Thoughts churn.
Why nine swords? Why seed another world?
"Invasion precursor," he murmurs in the soundless deep. "Day and Night World—that's its name now."
The Sword Immortal's move is clear: a quiet beginning to a conquest no one inside that world understands yet.
Kaelan turns away. He cannot break into the world from outside—not without risking destruction or alerting deeper predators in the void—but he trusts his first clone to handle what comes.
His body fades, slipping through layers of emptiness like a shadow folding into deeper shadow, heading toward the world of his second clone.
He has learned another way to pluck origin from a world.
And while the Sword Immortal lays his hidden blades, Kaelan moves to claim power just as silently—his own threads of fate weaving in the dark.