The path to the Primordial Sli’s chamber was long and silent. Every echo of his footsteps seed to fade into the vastness of the dungeon.
Along the way, Lucien’s thoughts drifted to his pets. He had chosen not to bring them.
Strangely, he could sense their auras lingering outside the dungeon. Through their ntal link, he could feel their desire to follow him.
But then, he sent one last command through the bond they shared.
"Take care of everyone while I’m away."
A wave of emotions rippled back to him. Then, silence followed... as though the entire world was holding its breath.
They had grown far beyond what he first imagined. Now, they could open the cube drops on their own. It’s a feat that once only he could accomplish. Ever since they learned to wield divine energy, that privilege had expanded to them as well.
"They’ll manage," he murmured under his breath. "Maybe even better without ."
Even the people of Lootwell who can now wield divine energy had changed. His subjects could now see the cube drops too. But they couldn’t touch them.
The privilege still followed him and those bound to him by bond.
Still, one mystery gnawed at him. The Obsidian Tower.
It remained motionless within the void of his divine energy core. It defied Lucein’s every attempt to control it.
No matter how much he asked, the Primordial Sli refused to speak about it. Or perhaps it truly didn’t know. After all, the tower had appeared after its death.
At last, he reached the lowest chamber where the Primordial Sli rested.
Before Lucien could speak, its voice echoed in his mind.
[Have you made up your mind?]
Lucien’s lips curved faintly. "You already know the answer to that."
[I do.]
"I ca to ask one thing." Lucein stepped closer with his hands folded behind him. "Can I really return here... after I go there?"
A long silence followed. The sli pulsed slowly as if considering its words.
[...Yes.]
He frowned. "That hesitation wasn’t very convincing."
[Because truth is rarely simple. But yes... you can return. Though whether you will... that depends on what you beco.]
He chuckled softly. "That’s not very comforting."
[You didn’t co here for comfort.]
"Touché."
A faint hum filled the air between them. The Primordial Sli’s glow deepened.
[For the last ti... are you sure? You are not yet at your limit. Give it a few more years when your comprehension of this world’s laws matures, you could forge a path on your own. You wouldn’t need to tear through the veil.]
Lucien shook his head slowly. "If I wait a few more years, I’ll be trapped forever. Sothing in tells that I have to go now. I can’t explain why but... every second I stay, sothing in screams that I’m already late."
The Primordial Sli’s glow dimd slightly, like a sigh in light.
[You always were impatient.]
Lucien smiled faintly. "And you were always cryptic."
[It’s part of my charm.]
Lucien let out a quiet laugh, amused by the situation.
But before his words could follow, the Primordial Sli’s voice cut through the air.
[You must rember this. Your gifts, your blessings, your ’cheats,’ as you call them... They are anchors, not wings. They may give you an edge but in the Big World, power alone ans nothing. Fortune will not favor you there. There, existence itself has hierarchy.]
"I know." Lucien’s voice was steady. "But I’ll adapt. I always have. I just need to find a foothold. Once I do, I’ll return and bring them all there."
[You truly plan to move the entire small world?]
"If I can. It’s a promise."
[...You humans and your promises.]
"Guess it’s one of our laws," he said with a grin.
The Primordial Sli’s body began to shift. It glowed brighter.
[Then prepare yourself. I will open a rift toward the nearest stable region in the Big World. But stable doesn’t an safe.]
"I wouldn’t have it any other way."
[You won’t thank ?]
"Not until I co back alive."
The sli’s body trembled.
[Then go, stubborn one.]
The ground began to shake. The entire Lootwell Dungeon vibrated with life for the first ti. The dungeon’s energy spiraled upward from the chamber floor, coalescing into a massive vortex of color. The air grew heavy dense with the weight of creation itself.
[Goodbye. Let’s et again... if the laws will allow it.]
Lucien raised a hand. "Goodbye, Primo Sli. And... thank you for everything."
A rift tore open above him humming with power older than light. It pulled at his very essence and... he was drawn in.
And then... he was gone.
The vortex collapsed into silence.
The Primordial Sli remained motionless for a long ti.
Then, it moved. Slowly... deliberately... it crawled from the chamber and followed a familiar path. Upward to the Fourth Floor.
The floor where the Murals are.
And there, the Sli stopped before one mural in particular. The Human Ancestor. His face was blurred and unrecognizable but he seed almost... familiar.
The sli gazed at it for a long while while its glow flickered faintly.
Then...
[I’m sorry, I lied. I don’t think we would be able to et again.]
The air trembled.
[No one can reach the true peak if the path they walk has already been claid. Creation, my domain, was also the path you took before. If I hadn’t existed... you would have reached beyond the Eternal Realm. You would have stood where even Primordials fade.]
The sli’s form trembled.
[Now that I am gone, you may reclaim it. But when you do, there will be no place left for . When you reach the peak of Creation, the Primordial Sli... will cease completely.]
A pause. A ripple that felt almost like a sigh.
[My only friend... be careful out there.]
Its glow dimd, flickering like the last fla of a dying star.
[And I see... you still don’t know the difference between a Phoenix and a Vermilion Bird.]
Just then... the entire Lootwell Dungeon began to tremble.
The walls began to crack. The floors pulsed one last ti.
Every sli within the dungeon stirred, awakening as if called by sothing greater. They poured out, rushing toward the surface in a wave.
But outside, Lucien’s pets were already waiting. Not to fight but to receive. The slis gathered around them, rging, bowing, submitting.
It was not chaos. It was... inheritance.
And then... silence.
The Lootwell Dungeon that was once the cradle of slis, collapsed inward, folding into nothingness.
[Be careful, my friend. For in the Big World... gods can bleed too.]
•••
The mont Lucien materialized, the world itself seed to inhale. The Big World was not what Lucien imagined.
The air was thicker. The energy in the air didn’t just flow, it roared. The mountains breathed like slumbering titans and the skies shimred with rivers of lightning that twisted in the distance.
It was beautiful... terrifyingly so.
"Alright..." Lucien muttered, adjusting his clothes. "This doesn’t look too bad. No monsters, no cults, no disasters—"
Just then... Lucien’s instincts scread danger.
Then the world detonated.
A shockwave split the air. The ground shook violently, throwing him backward as two distant figures clashed atop a nearby mountain ridge. Lightning crashed, fire spiraled and reality itself scread.
Lucien blinked at the devastation.
"...You have got to be kidding ."
The mountain he stood on began to crumble. The aftershock alone was capable of killing a thousand of mortals.
He threw up a barrier on instinct, barely holding it together.
And then he felt it... a resonance.
His divine energy core trembled violently. The aura leaking from those two fighters wasn’t ordinary. They both carried a fragnt of the Origin Core.
"Primo Sli," he muttered through gritted teeth, "I’m going to find you again one day and kill you twice."
He could already sense their level. Ascendant Realm, the sa level as Monster Lords. But these two are at its peak.
Ascendant Realm experts are capable of wielding Domains. Lucien knew exactly what that ant. Inside a Domain, all lesser beings would be suppressed.
He had only beaten the Monster Lords before because he’d tricked them into entering his Divine Energy Core where they couldn’t manifest their own.
After all... his divine energy core was a superior domain. It’s an inheritance from the Primordial Sli itself. And when one domain surpasses another, the weaker is simply erased, devoured by the stronger’s supremacy.
But here?
He couldn’t risk it. If his core was damaged, he’d take everything inside with him.
He ducked behind a jagged boulder.
"Stable region, my ass! Why didn’t you tell your definition of stable is fucking different, Primo Sli!?"
High above, the two figures clashed again.
One was a towering Nephralis, a half-human, half-dragon being. He rembered living as one in his tenth life in the Mural World.
Opposite him floated a Varkhaal, a being of shadows draped in obsidian cloth. His form constantly shifted as if reality refused to fully define him. Each movent left streaks of darkness that devoured color itself.
Their auras were colossal and their domains overlapped. One burned like a sun and the other swallowed all light. The clash between Eternal Fla and Devouring Night painted the sky in apocalypse.
Lucien pressed himself flatter against the ground, sweat rolling down his temple.
"Two Ascendants... And both at their peak. Great. Just great."
Then without warning... both of them turned their heads toward him.
Lucien froze.
Their eyes t his.
"Hehehe..." he said with a strained grin. "Please continue... I’m just a passerby."
Then he ran for his life.
User Comments
0 comments from readers