Chương 386: The Plunge

Falling through the upper atmosphere of the sunless superplanet was like descending into a colossal, three-dimensional metropolis constructed of dark glass and violet fire. The sheer, impossible scale of the world spanned millions of miles, defying every standard law of cosmic gravity. Colossal, non-Euclidean palaces carved from condensed space-dust rose from the dark basalt, their lines curving at impossible, brain-bending angles.

Floating cultivation chambers, shaped like hollow, multi-pointed stars of kinetic quartz, drifted through the amethyst-tinted atmosphere, drawing raw, uncompiled energy directly from the massive rings that wreathed the planet. As I adjusted my gravity field to stabilize my descent, a sudden, bright flash of color wreathed my vision. It didn't carry the standard, clinical blue tint of the Prime System I had spent my life navigating. It was a deep, vibrant violet.

[System Interface: Restructuring conceptual frameworks...] [Familiarity detected... Integrating local variables.] [Welcome, Eren Kai. Void System Online.] I stared at the violet box, my star-cores spinning in a slow, confused circle.

"Void system?" I muttered.

"What kind of person calls it a Void system? Could it be related to the System back on…"

"It is only a representation," a smooth, melodic voice spoke beside me. I didn't flinch, though my [Void-Lattice Perception] hadn't registered her arrival, again. The tall, pale woman in the starless silk gown was drifting beside me, her cascade of light-eating black hair floating around her head like silk threads in water. Her giant, pupil-less black eyes fixed on me.

"You carry the curiosity of a pioneer, Eren Kai," she said, her telepathic projection smooth and warm.

"The System is currently manifesting itself in a form your mind can easily comprehend. You spent so much time in the narrow, structured sandboxes of your reality that you forgot what the uncompiled Void actually feels like. This... simplifies the process." I looked at her, my mind running through a dozen defensive calculations.

"Can you read my thoughts?" She let out a soft, musical sound — a surprisingly light, adorable laugh that completely threw off my tactical focus. It was a remarkably humanizing sound for an entity of her terrifying caliber, and it left me utterly confused.

"No," she smiled, her dark features softening.

"I do not know the exact secrets you are hiding in that vault of yours. But your emotions are too obvious, Prince." Too obvious, I thought to myself, a dry, sarcastic internal monologue instantly taking over. Right. My Mythic-tier Prime Axiom's Nullifying Veil, which can conceptually erase my causality from a Tier 12 Judge, is apparently a neon billboard to this lady. A thousand defensive contingencies, and I'm basically wearing my heart on my sleeve.

To test her words, I flared my [Void Emperor's Omnipresence] to its absolute limit, attempting to quietly scan the surrounding palaces and floating cultivation chambers. Instantly, my perception arrays hit a solid, frustrating wall. In this supermassive city, not a single soul was completely unveiled. Every citizen drifting through the starlight pathways, every cultivator meditating inside the hollow stars, was masked, cloaked, or conceptually veiled.

I struggled to identify the power level of even a single person; their signatures were deep, dense pools of starless black that completely absorbed my scanning. Worse, my scans didn't go unnoticed. As my perception brushed against several massive, towering palaces of black basalt, several high-tier cultivators paused. They turned their giant, liquid-black eyes toward my coordinate, their expressions hard, cold, and heavy with a silent warning.

But the moment their gaze swept past me and landed on the woman drifting by my side, their posture relaxed. They offered a deep, respectful nod to her and quietly turned back to their tasks, completely ignoring my intrusion.

"It is a bit rude to be so invasive, Eren," the woman noted, her voice carrying a gentle, teasing reprimand.

"But you are new to the Deep, so my people understand. This is my quadrant, so they will let your curiosity slip. But make sure not to do it later on, until we have worked on your methods to make your scanning more subtle." I nodded along, but internally, I was utterly baffled. My [Nullifying Veil] had successfully hidden my presence from Ascendants, Judges, and the most advanced sensors of the Kyorian Empire.

Nobody in Sector Z-99 had ever been able to detect my stealth, yet the common citizens of this quadrant had felt my omnipresent scan as if I had tapped them on the shoulder. I was completely, terrifyingly out of my depth. As we neared the floating basalt terrace of her quadrant, three figures materialized from the shadows. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

They were humanoid, wreathed in flowing robes of silver and dark silk, their faces hidden behind masks of raw, unpolished kinetic quartz. They stepped toward us, bowed deeply to the woman beside me, and then simply... ceased to be. I didn't feel a spatial fold. I didn't feel a gravity shift. I didn't even register a micro-second of mana fluctuation.

Through my [Void Emperor's Omnipresence], which was supposed to be the absolute apex of spatial transit, they left no trail, no coordinate ripple, and no signature whatsoever. They had simply edited themselves out of the scene, returning to the sub-layers of the void with an effortless, god-tier grace. The realization hit me with the cold force of a physical blow. Those weren't sovereigns or generals. They were servants.

And yet, their spatial transit was similar to my own omnipresence, which I considered to be one of the very best Mythic skills I have encountered. I was completely, utterly outclassed. This wasn't just above my pay grade; this was a different currency entirely. I slowly cleared my throat, adjusting the collar of my cloak, my voice adopting the smooth, polite pitch of Jeeves on a particularly formal day.

"So," I said, looking at the woman.

"Ma'am. Your Grace. Whichever title you prefer... I think I should learn a few things before proceeding into the other 'quadrants'. It would be a good thing to learn the proper customs before losing everyone's respect." The woman's dark eyes flared with that same, patient amusement, her lips curving into a graceful smile.

"Respect is earned through the Plunge, Eren Kai, not through titles. But I appreciate the sentiment." Before I could ask what she meant, the world blinked. I didn't feel the transition. My star-cores didn't stall, and my Domain didn't register a threat. My entire spatial reality was simply rewritten in a fraction of a millisecond, completely bypassing my defenses.

One moment we were standing on her quadrant's terrace; the next, we were standing on a colossal, basalt platform that spanned millions of miles in a neutral, planetary-scale public trial area. The scale of the plaza was staggering, a flat expanse of lightless stone that seemed to stretch to the very horizon of the superplanet, etched with massive, pulsing silver channels that carried the planetary-tier mana like glowing rivers of liquid starlight.

But what caught my attention was the circular, planetary-sized pool that sat in the center of the neutral basin. It was filled with a liquid of absolute, lightless black — a substance so dense and conceptual that it didn't reflect the violet light of the rings, existing as a flat, starless void in the center of the stone. As we stepped onto the platform, the Trinity of Curses inside my soul gate reacted violently.

Inside my inner geode, the five heads of the Obsidian Hydra huddled together, letting out a series of low, anxious whines, its ravenous [Gluttony] suddenly replaced by an instinctual, terrified submission. The Hydra, which usually wanted to eat everything in sight, felt like an ant trying to drink an endless, un-consumable ocean.

On my shoulder, the Wrath-Sprite coiled herself into a tight, silent ball, her fiery white-dwarf heat dropping to a tense, concentrated spark, completely suppressed by the sheer, absolute dominance of the pool's presence. Even the Crown of Pride on my brow sat incredibly heavy, refusing to whisper its usual arrogant commands. They felt the absolute, primordial power radiating from the black water, and for the first time since I've encountered them, the curses were afraid.

[Void System: Gravitational Density and Soul Gate Integrity...] [Warning: Approaching —. Conceptual check is imminent.] Through the far-reaching edges of my omnipresence, I flagged three other high-tier signatures millions of miles away across the neutral basin, preparing for their own trials. One signature looked like a colossal gaseous storm, another a crystallized construct of gold-light, both of them carrying a weight that surpassed any Sovereign I had ever fought.

But the moment their physical forms touched the absolute black water... their signatures completely vanished. The colossal construct of gold-light stepped forward, and the moment its foot touched the absolute black water, the golden luminance didn't splash or ripple. It was simply... snuffed out, like a candle being capped. Not a spatial translation, and not a standard veil. Their conceptual presence was simply erased from our reality's Lattice the moment they entered the deep water.

It wasn't a violent death, but a complete, administrative rejection of their permission to exist in this subspace.

"Even I cannot break the rules set for this place, Eren Kai," the woman said, her voice dropping into a solemn, respectful tone as she looked down at the black water.

"This is the Gateway every Sovereign must face. Every visitor who seeks to enter the true sanctuaries of the Deep must first take the Plunge."

"You must enter the pool and descend as deep as your foundation can withstand," she continued.

"It will test your density, your soul gate integrity, and your hybrid bloodline. If your threshold is considered acceptable, the gates will open. Otherwise... even your blood will be refused entry, and your coordinates will be permanently erased. But do not worry, Prince. I am sure you will make it deep enough." I looked at her, my mind running through the pragmatic risk calculations.

"And if I fail? Do I just pop out of existence, or do you have to mop my remains off the floor?" The woman's smile carried a quiet, absolute confidence.

"If you fail, there will be nothing left to mop, Eren. But I did not bring you all this way just to watch you dissolve." I let out a long, slow breath, looking down at the absolute black liquid. I had known a trial like this was coming. If this pool wanted to test my weight, I was ready to show it what a Sovereign of Ferra carried. I stood there, silently reviewing my active skills for the plunge. I mentally toggled my hybrid engine, coupling my [Symphony of the Animus Arch] with [Syntropy] and body enhancements.

I set Syntropy to function as an "Always-On" passive buffer in the back of my mind, ready to instantly snap my physical coordinates back to a state of wholeness if the black water began to dissolve my conceptual permission to exist. This was a calculated, cautious build, but one that left no room for error. I stepped to the very edge of the basalt platform, my boots resting on the dark stone as the cold, lightless water brushed against my toes.

The liquid didn't wet the basalt of my boots; instead, it repelled the surrounding air, creating a tiny, frictionless vacuum around my soles. I wove my star-cores into a high-speed battle-tempo, locked my focus onto my foundation, and prepared to take the plunge.