Chương 552: Somewhere Far Away: Madness and Chaos.

In an unknown area of the universe, tens of thousands of humans floated in the middle of the void between the stars. Each of these people exuded a terrifyingly profound atmosphere and possessed the strength to shatter stars with their bare hands. However, at this time, they were all extremely tense and fearful. Each of these 10, 000 people held their weapons with trembling hands, while the five leaders looked with ugly expressions at the space before them.

"... When did the anomaly start? Why is the SS Tier <Galaxy Sealing Array> showing a crack!?" When the person at the lead shouted, everyone tensed but dared not make a single movement. The man was tall, with a handsome face, golden hair, and eyes shining with the radiance of the sun. This person was wearing a leafy green and golden toga of unknown quality while holding an elegant spear that swirled with the power of the stars. The man, not hearing any answer, felt his temper flaring.

He ground his teeth and asked, his voice similar to a growl.

"Did I place 10, 000 <Fifth Ascension> elites here so that they behave like recently born saplings!? Answer me!" When his voice boomed out, the outer layer of a nearby star peeling off from his aura burst, effectively killing the star with his bellow. Finally, the woman at the lead spoke with a trembling voice.

"L-Lord Emperor, the crack showed only around fifty years ago; it is impossible for the being inside to do anything during such a short amount of time with a crack as small as…"

"FOOL!" The man shouted, his scream pushing the woman back for millions of kilometers, almost making her puke blood. When the man wanted to continue screaming at his people, his heart chilled, and he quickly looked back. Behind him, an array that used stars as its nodes extended for hundreds of light-years. The amount of resources and effort placed to create this SS Tier array was so large that some galactic empires almost ended in bankruptcy. However, no one felt heartache.

Inside this array, an existence that made galaxies tremble was sealed. The being inside the seal was so terrifying that enemies became allies just to deal with her single existence. The man's golden eyes stared fixedly at a white crack in the black void. This crack was just a palm long. Compared to a structure that spanned several hundred light-years, it was virtually nothing. Even the natural skin of humans had larger natural cracks in comparison.

However, at this moment, that crack made all the hairs in the powerful man's body stand straight. From the crack, a single white finger poked out. It was objectively a fair and slender finger, clearly from a gorgeous woman. Just that finger would, usually, make men want to throw away their lives and women surrender to her. Yet, the second the finger appeared, everyone's pupils dilated. From it, a multicolored aura spread and covered dozens of light-years.

At that very instant, when the multicolored light touched everyone, madness descended on all the <Fifth Ascension> elites.

"AHHH!!!! IT BURNS! IT'S COLD! IT BURNS! AHHHH!!!"

"KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!!"

"HAHAHA! MY ARM IS ROTTING!! HAHAHAHA!!"

"THE WORLD DIES! THE WORLD DIES! AHHHHH!!!!" The golden-haired man's aura exploded outward, his light battling against the multi-colored aura from that single finger and suppressing it.

"Don't you dare escape, MONSTER! Suppress!" The finger that poked out of the SS Tier sealing formation flinched lightly and then retreated. However, the little hole that the finger poked didn't close. The Emperor looked around him and noticed that almost 300 out of the 10, 000 elites were dead. Just a few seconds of exposure was enough to kill that many, injuring nearly half of them. However, the Emperor didn't feel anything wrong with that.

To begin with, the people here weren't stationed to fight the monster inside in case of breaching. They were here to notify him when any abnormality happened in the sealing formation.

'What happened? Why is she awake? Shouldn't the array force her to sleep? What woke her up!?' As his heart trembled, he heard a boundless and gentle voice reach him. The voice seemed to come from the cosmos itself, yet a refreshing feeling of nature was tightly bound to its existence.

"Emperor, you should start acting soon. If you want me to become a Galaxy-wide World Tree so that I can fight that being, you can't be soft." The Emperor nodded solemnly and looked at the poked hole for a while. As he was looking, he saw the white skin of the woman appearing and moving. The finger-sized hole showed the perfect lower jaw, cheek, and finally, an eye. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The eye was mostly white, glowing with iridescent colors.

That single eye stopped the Emperor right in his tracks, and then, a voice that twisted the fabric of reality engulfed him.

"Why am I trapped? Can you free me?" The voice was as beautiful as the cosmos itself, and carried such innocence within it that one would doubt the woman's previous actions. Yet, when one heard it, a feeling of pure nausea and terror crept deeply into their beings. It was as if a hand was twisting, mixing, and trying to bend the dimensions. The Emperor was half-frozen, unable to answer. He was using all of his strength not to start inflicting self-harm from the effects of the voice.

Thankfully, the creature with the voice that reverberated through the space around them answered softly.

"Sorry. We can't. Can you go back to sleep, please?"

"No." The woman answered, her iridescent eye shifting very slightly, as if she were looking at the creature that talked to her.

"I want to get out. Someone is calling me."

"Your existence is too dangerous to be set free." The cosmic being answered softly.

"Go back to sleep."

"No." The woman answered again.

"I will get out." The cosmic World Tree was surprised.

"Y-You. Stop it. You shouldn't get out!" BOOM! The SS Tier Array wobbled. The Emperor was stunned and then shouted, anxious.

"W-Why is she so insistent!? Stop her!" BOOM! Another hit forced the palm-sized crack to spread out much faster than the speed of light. The white cracks expanding outward were like a signal: the being inside the egg was about to be set free. The Emperor became terrified and quickly took out a communication device.

"She is escaping! Gather everyone! EVERYONE! <Chaos> is escaping!" The voice of the woman spread out softly and innocently.

"I will get out and meet who called me… I must meet her…" The Emperor's mind almost couldn't block the effects of her voice, his face paling. Looking behind him, his face despaired. The 10, 000 elites were in a state that would horrify even the most indifferent being. People eating each other, clawing their faces off, trying to pierce their ears. It was as if they just wanted to kill themselves so that they would be freed from hearing the woman's voice. As he looked at them, his sight was stained with red.

Confused, he looked at his hands and noticed large chunks of golden hair on them.

'What happened?'

"HAHAHAHA!"

'Who is laughing so hard?' Looking back, he noticed that the black wall had shattered. The black pieces of crystal floated like broken glass in the void, and near him, a woman stood silently and curiously looking at him. The woman's beauty was sharp and elegant. Her figure was tall and curvy, breasts dropping softly and barely covered by a hanging dress. Pale skin glowed faintly against the dark, and her face, sculpted with flawless symmetry, carried an allure that bent reason.

Her long, iridescent hair flowed like liquid starlight, each strand shifting in colors that no mortal language could name. Her eyes, gleaming with multicolored brilliance, drew the soul into an abyss of madness. Her body was covered in a black and teal gown that clung like a second skin. Its bodice, framed by crossing straps and a choker, crowned her with enthralling beauty. A long slit revealed her legs, pale and smooth beneath the unnatural glow of the fabric.

Across its surface, faint streaks of cyan and violet pulsed like cracks in reality, while the hem drifted as if detached from the laws of weight. It was not a simple garment but an extension of her essence. Yet, when her beauty shone with infinite lights, those around her died tragically. The Emperor, gazing at such cosmic beauty, laughed madly and clawed at his face, brutally peeling off his skin and muscles until he gouged out his own eyes and laughed to the heavens.

The woman blinked slowly, curious as the ten thousand people around her killed themselves in gruesome deaths.

"Hm… Strange people." The voice of the cosmic World Tree trembled, the space around the woman bending as roots that could connect stars blended out of space itself.

"Monstrous creature! Why did you come out!? Die!" There was no gentleness and calmness like before, but hysterical madness and fear. Even as the roots that could dwarf stars fell towards the woman, she didn't move and looked on with a puzzled expression. The roots reached the woman's surroundings, and then, they collapsed. As if reality itself was suddenly twisted, the roots exploded, burned, froze, split open, and disintegrated. Some twisted among each other, while the cosmic World Tree screamed in pain and agony.

"AHHHH!!!" The woman saw messages appearing in front of her eyes, but she ignored them. Instead, she asked curiously.

"Um… Do you know who called me?"

"DIE! LIVE! AHAHAH! I SHOULD EXPLODE AND BE ONE WITH THE STARS! HAHAHA!" The cosmic World Tree shouted, and the space around it began to twist as countless roots detached from the dimensional gaps that surrounded it. The woman muttered, a bit sad.

"So you don't know… Then, I will search myself." So, not giving the twisting roots another look, the personification of <Chaos> left calmly. As she stepped forward, sometimes she would advance one meter, and other times she would jump far between stars. As she calmly walked forward, any world or living being nearby would die, stars and planets would burn or freeze, and even reality itself would bend under her existence. When the woman left the galaxy, she looked back curiously.

The spiral galaxy she had left was now a mess, its arms twisting as stars collided, planets disintegrating in the explosions, and the cosmic World Tree that covered over a third of the galaxy collapsed and destroyed itself.

"Hm…" The woman tilted her head, confused.

"Why is everyone so strange? Is it fun to do that?" The woman reached out towards her own face, but an energy stopped her hands, making her pout.

"Whatever… I must find the person who called me." And so, she walked in the void between galaxies.