NOVEL NEXT Chapter 478: The Soul Locked in Black
Morzan's actions left Ethan stunned.
"What the hell are you doing?" he blurted, startled. This was the Spirit Realm—the sentient will of a pocket dimension. Throwing it straight into his Mindscape? That wasn't just reckless, it was lunacy. If that thing decided to cause chaos inside his head, it could tear his sanity apart.
"Relax… take your time. Play with it, but don't kill it. We still need it to unlock the vault," Morzan replied, his warm expression twisting into a sly grin. He winked, turned, and with a single step, brought Ethan back into the cockpit of the Shatterstar mech. Without ceremony, he placed him inside the virtual capsule.
He gestured toward KH3106. "Best keep him in here. Otherwise, the pain will be too much for him."
Ethan, powerless to resist, lay back as the capsule door sealed. The unidentifiable liquid began to flood in, and his heart spiked with panic. It felt like drowning all over again. Even knowing he'd been in this very capsule after blacking out earlier didn't stop the primal fear from clenching his chest. He had always hated deep water.
The liquid climbed past his face, and at last he could hold his breath no longer. He gasped. The fluid surged into his lungs, thick and suffocating—until, in the next heartbeat, the sensation vanished. His breathing smoothed out, the stabbing pain across his body faded, and he realized the liquid carried oxygen. In fact, it seemed richer, cleaner, than air itself.
"Should I induce sleep?" KH3106 asked, glancing toward the man who shared Ethan's face. It knew this figure was powerful and bore no hostility toward Ethan—if anything, the bond between them seemed unusually close.
"No need," Morzan said. He watched Ethan's eyes slip shut, knowing his mind had already retreated inward. Then he turned to KH3106 and, with a simple wave, Julian, Blackie, Micah, and Red Snow collapsed, unconscious.
Only then did he ask, "Did you escape from the First Universe? What's its state now?"
KH3106 tensed at the sudden show of power, but hearing the question, it relaxed. It understood why Morzan didn't want the others overhearing.
"I'm not certain," KH3106 admitted. "When I left, the Void Realm had just touched the edge of the ΩA001 Universe."
"Oh? You call it the Void Realm?" Morzan's lips curved in faint amusement. "Fitting… that place is exactly as the name suggests. Wait—you came through right when it made first contact with the First Universe?" His tone sharpened with urgency.
"Yes. Approximately six thousand one hundred and sixty-five years ago, in what you'd call the Great Barren Universe," KH3106 replied.
Morzan stared. "By the heavens… then how old are you?"
KH3106 checked the chrono display on its wrist before speaking. "One million and thirty-one years… though…" Even it seemed startled by the number. "The ΩA002 Universe's time flow is a thousand times faster. I've been away from the ΩA001 Universe for more than six millennia… yet the timelines don't match."
"The Second Universe's life is nearly over. That's why time has begun to slow," Morzan said, gazing upward with a shadowed expression. "It burned itself out trying to keep up with that place. One year in the Great Barren Universe is but a heartbeat there… a hundred thousand years pass in the blink of an eye."
KH3106 lowered its head, fingers dancing across its controls. "You're right. At its peak, the ΩA002 Universe's time dilation reached one to sixty thousand, but it was unsustainable. It collapsed back to one to one thousand twenty thousand years ago."
Had Ethan heard this, he would have remembered the Tree of Life—how it said its dormancy began twenty thousand years ago.
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Ethan appeared inside his Mindscape—and was instantly hit by a storm of Soul Power so fierce his astral form wavered. The once clear lake at its center was now choked with thick, black fluid. At the Gate of Ascension, a massive, dense black soul was crashing again and again against the barrier.
The vines entwined around the gate had come alive, thrashing wildly to keep the intruder away. Outside, the will of the Spirit Realm had been colorless, almost serene. In its human guise, it had worn white. Here, its soul form was pitch-black—and according to Morzan's Soul Arts manual, that was all the warning one needed. Light souls belonged to the virtuous; dark ones to the corrupt. This thing was no friend.
It was also immensely strong. The vines struck again and again, only to be torn aside as the black soul hammered the gate, sending ripples of discomfort through Ethan. Still, the pain wasn't unbearable—thanks to whatever was in that strange capsule fluid.
"Hey," Ethan called into the chaos. "You done throwing your tantrum?"
The pounding stopped.
"Let me out," the entity's voice said, cold as steel.
"Agree to the old man's terms, and I'll let you out," Ethan replied, lowering himself cross-legged on the island. Inwardly, panic gnawed at him. What did Morzan mean by 'play with it but don't kill it'? How was he supposed to handle something like this? The old man never gave straight answers.
"Hmph. Let me out, or I'll use the Soul Refinement. You won't enjoy it."
The will of the Spirit Realm coalesced before him in black robes, its face twisted into a cruel sneer. As it spoke, an ocean of black mist poured from its body, swallowing the Mindscape, staining even the white fog. It wrapped the Gate of Ascension in a shadowy shroud, cutting it off completely.
Ethan tried to retreat from his Mindscape, but it was pointless. The will of an entire realm could crush his soul without effort. It could possess him right here and be done with it. But it didn't. To take his body meant losing its control over the Spirit Realm—and its immortality. It already had another target in mind. This blockade was just to trap him, forcing him to open the gate and release it.
"Oh yeah? Come on, then," Ethan said, forcing a smirk and crooking a finger toward it. Inside, his thoughts were a mess. Why did Morzan think he could pull this off? Was there something here he wasn't seeing?
The black-robed figure narrowed its eyes. "Refusing my offer?, then face the punishment. Soul Shadow Refinement!"
Countless black threads lashed toward him.
"Sigil—" Ethan's voice cracked as he prepared to summon the Sigil of the Wild Legion.