The Obsidian Palace drifted through the chaotic void between the Fourth and Fifth Heavens. Inside the meditation chamber, the atmosphere was cold—colder than the Frozen Sea.
Shen Yuan sat cross-legged. His hair, once a river of starlight, had turned jet black again. His Aegis armor lay in a heap in the corner, too heavy for his current physical strength to lift. His Dantian, once housing a miniature universe, was now a silent, dark cavern.
"You're a madman, Yuan," Hecate whispered, standing by the door. She held the marble-sized "Prison World" of the Fourth Heaven in a silk pouch. "You traded a God-tier Internal Universe for... what? Emptiness?"
"I traded a leash for freedom, Hecate," Shen Yuan's voice was thin, but steady. "The 'Seed' was a Trojan horse. Every bit of power I gained from it was a brick in a prison Ling Xian was building around my soul. Now, the prison is gone."
[Current Cultivation: Mortal Stage (Null-Refinement)]
[Physical Status: Severe Cellular Collapse]
[Soul Status: Absolute Void]
"Master," Zither-Soul entered, his face grim. "We have reached the border of the Fifth Heaven: The War-God's Arena. But there is a problem. The 'Weight-Law' of the Fifth Heaven is absolute. Only those with a physical strength of over 100,000 'Dragons' or a Soul-Rank of 'Saint' can breathe the air there. In your current state... you will be crushed the moment we exit the Void-tunnel."
"Then I won't breathe the air," Shen Yuan said.
He stood up, his legs shaking. He walked to the center of the room, where a single drop of the Dragon Marrow he had saved from the mines floated in a stasis field.
"I am going to cultivate the [Nothingness-Script]," Shen Yuan declared. "I will not pull Qi from the world. I will not use the laws of the Heavens. I will create a vacuum within my own cells. If there is 'Nothing' inside me, the 'Pressure' of the outside world has nothing to crush."
The Fifth Heaven – The Gates of Iron
The Fifth Heaven was not a world of beauty or machines. It was a world of Red Dust and Iron. The sky was the color of dried blood, and the ground was a single, endless Colosseum made of black basalt.
Floating above the arena were the War-Gods—Soul Transformation experts who lived only for the thrill of the kill. They looked down as the Obsidian Palace materialized in the sky.
"A new challenger?" one of the War-Gods, a giant with four arms holding serrated blades, laughed. "The Fourth Heaven has fallen, and this is what emerges? A floating rock?"
A fleet of Iron-Vultures—mechanical birds used by the Fifth Heaven's scouts—swarmed the palace.
"Open the gates!" the War-God commanded. "Let's see who is bold enough to bring a palace into the Arena."
The gates of the Obsidian Palace opened.
But it wasn't the Generals who stepped out. It was Shen Yuan. He was dressed in simple, grey bandages. He looked frail, his ribs visible, his skin pale. He didn't fly; he walked down a staircase of shadows provided by Hecate.
The moment his foot touched the basalt floor of the Fifth Heaven, the Weight-Law hit him. It was like having a moon dropped on his shoulders.
CRACK.
His shins snapped. Blood sprayed from his pores. The War-Gods roared with laughter.
"A mortal! They sent a mortal to the War-God's Realm!"
Shen Yuan fell to his knees, his face pressed against the hot stone. But he didn't scream. He began to whisper a chant that sounded like the wind through a graveyard.
"[First Verse of Nothingness: The Void-Absorbs-The-Weight]"
Inside his body, his cells didn't resist the pressure. They opened. He turned every atom of his body into a miniature "Gate" to the Void. The pressure of the Fifth Heaven didn't crush him—it passed through him, flowing into the infinite emptiness he had created during his "Death."
His bones knitted back together in a second. He stood up.
The laughter in the sky died down. The four-armed War-God narrowed his eyes. "He... he stood up? Under the pressure of ten thousand tons?"
Shen Yuan looked up at the War-God. He didn't have Qi. He didn't have a Domain. But his eyes were like two black holes that sucked in the light of the red sun.
"I am Shen Yuan," he said, his voice quiet but reaching every corner of the Arena. "I have no cultivation. I have no laws. But I have a hunger that your 'Heaven' cannot satisfy. Who is first?"
The four-armed War-God leaped from his platform, his blades glowing with a murderous red Qi. "I am Kahn the Bone-Breaker! I will turn your 'Nothingness' into a puddle of gore!"
Shen Yuan didn't raise his hand. He simply waited. As Kahn's blade reached an inch from his neck, Shen Yuan breathed out.
"[Void-Touch: The Erasure of Momentum]"
Kahn's massive, mountain-cleaving strike didn't just stop. The kinetic energy of the blow—the "Force" itself—was sucked into Shen Yuan's open palm.
THUD.
Kahn froze mid-air. Then, his own momentum, now converted into Void-energy, exploded back into his own body.
BOOM.
The War-God was turned into a fine mist of red meat before he could even blink.
Shen Yuan stood in the center of the Arena, his bandages now stained with the blood of a God. He looked at the remaining War-Gods.
"Next."