His head a complete and utter mess, Alexander jerked awake.

'...'

Without words forming within his mouth, Alexander was left alone inside a white sealed world. The surge of memories broke his sense of pain and inferiority beyond reason. The Heavens' blue lightning felt nothing like usual. The power it contained was obviously similar to the one he understood from the Origin Tribulation layer, but even so, the difference was night and day.

However, some things started to make more and more sense as his lucidity emerged back from the abyss.

Still baffled and quite honestly confused, Alexander remembered the Greater Primordial Deity's words, the pain he felt and the mist the Deity's implosion left.

'I...'

'Let's calm down first...' Purging his mind, Alexander sat cross-legged and became one with his internal world.

Slowing the flow of time countless times, he watched worlds and civilizations come and go.

Watching the different colors of each Universe's layers taking root, worlds learning the path of cultivation.

This helped him greatly, not having to focus on broken memories and empty feelings of doom.

Once he felt better, Alexander could now resume his thoughts.

'He said I was a traitor... because I used the Heavens' power. This confirms my clone to have been possessed by this Greater Primordial Deity in some way. As for why it suffered so much...'

'I'll avoid jumping to conclusions now.'

The words were censored one way or the other, and Alexander only knew one word capable of causing such a mess. Only one word he knew was taboo for unknown reasons.

'I don't see why anyone would say that word with such boldness and arrogance, I must have theorized wrong. Why would anyone even bother risking their lives and entire world by saying that word. Must've definitely been something else.'

The world Alexander referred to was the obvious 'Supreme' word. The lore behind it was dubious at best and non-existent at worse. Nobody knew why it was such a dangerous taboo, especially when it was not depending on the use.

As for the Greater Primordial Deity, Alexander already knew deep within that his theory was not so hard to believe. The arrogance and contempt the Deity had was baffling. The censored word would also make sense since it was used for such dangerous things. Especially for the last sentence he used it in.

'I am... S word... That's the one, at least it could be. Anyone I know of ever claiming that got blasted into oblivion in an instant. Luckily I never said it when I was ignorant, though the more ignorant one is of the Martial Dao, the less powerful the punishment is. I could test it, never bothered before, but it could quench some of my curiosity.'

Creating a clone, Alexander removed all of its memories and his own intent when creating it. After some deliberation, Alexander also altered its appearance.

Still scared, he decided to first test the waters with a puppet.

Taking out said puppet, the sealed world protected its structure from the rampaging Origin Energy. After also removing everything inside it, he ordered it to repeat a set of words without any will.

"I am Supreme." The puppet suffering no damage, it looked ahead with hollow eyes.

'Alright, now onto my clone...'

"I am Supreme." The same outcome formed before his eyes. But now was the true test.

'Let me just add a very barebone understanding of the word's definition to the clone and puppet, and...'

After hearing the same sentences without much of a difference, Alexander stroked his chin.

'What if, on top of that, I add some... actually let's test the opposite first.'

Clearing both the puppet's and the clone's memories, Alexander gave them a slight understanding of the Martial Dao, something anyone at the Qi Sensing Realm would have uncovered by then, before making them say it again.

The outcome was... altered.

'I felt it! I definite felt it!' Alexander referred to a higher being's prying gaze and unfiltered anger. There could only be one culprit for such a display. The Heavens themselves.

'What if I combine both now, adding both the understanding of the word and Martial Dao.'

This time, a brilliant blue lightning bolt crashed down into the sealed world, but did no damage to its structure, only reducing both puppet and clone to ashes.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

'If the Heavens used the same amount of strength as in the memory, the sealed world would have collapsed in a heartbeat. This mostly confirms the theory about cultivation and understanding mattering with this process.'

'Though I still don't understand why and, frankly, am not sure if I even want to.'

What Alexander meant was related to the unpredictable actions of powerful beings. If one was strong enough, banishing words or even actions such as breathing or moving would be possible.

It was not a matter of it making sense, but a matter of who actively enforced such restrictions.

'There are not many possibilities. Either the word is taboo because of someone's pettiness, or because of a much deeper and intricate meaning and reason.'

'Let's just not think too much about it. I just need to never say it like I did before. Not hard.'

'Anyways... now I need to breakthrough to the Earth Transcending Realm. But it is easier said than... actually... it might be easier than I first expected. Since Valtos was at this realm's peak, and only a step away from the Nihility Realm... I should have received some benefits.'

'First of all, my own internal world's Space Dao is quite developed. And my own comprehension isn't so bad. This major realm should also grant me my space abilities back. If I can teleport around, then I won't be wasting as much time travelling.'

After his stay near the Dark Wall, some information came to him naturally. Some about the current drama of two members, death of this and appearance of that. As for crucial information, he received rather interesting sets of information after his breakthrough.

'Valtos might have delayed the information to see if I was worthy of it... but still, I don't understand everything completely. Is he so confident in his ability to suppress me? Either way, knowing more is always better.'

The Earth Transcending Realm, consisting of only three stages, namely True Space Mastery, Principle Tribulation and Void-Land Immortal, would prove to be either extremely difficult or very easy depending on one's talent and life experience. Someone like Alexander, with fair talent and a life consisting of spatial breakthroughs, would have a much easier path on this road rather than someone without the experience of teleportation.

In that sense, beings from an expert's internal world had an early advantage.

The nearest goal for Alexander was the first of nine layers within this first stage.

'Reminds me of the Qi Master and Profound Realms...' The Qi Master Realm required one to master Qi by an increment of ten percent per stage, and the Profound Realm required a mastery of one hundred percent over Qi for the first stage.

The Earth Transcending Realm's first stage, True Space Mastery, demanded a mastery of true space increasing by ten percent each layer. The third and last stage, Void-Land Immortal, required a hundred percent.

Even though these percentages were unprecise, they still held credibility. Someone could very well have a better mastery than someone at the Void-Land Immortal stage, but this would be more about practice and skill than mastery over their principles per say.

For example, if one could teleport a thousand times faster and further than another, it did not mean their mastery over space's principles to be higher. It simply meant that this person was stronger and more skilled than the other by a large margin. Because in the end, both could teleport.

These principles were the focus point of this major realm. And Alexander could not ask for anything more, since these mastery requirements were fair for all.

'Let me see, Valtos should have also given me information on these... Or not...'

'Well, no matter. I'll just recover my spatial skills and see when I get a tribulation falling on top of my head.'

Clearing his remaining thoughts, Alexander started practicing without stop, spending his years holed into the unmoving asteroid sea, yearning for his former abilities.

By that point, Alexander's life expectancy was unknown to him, and millions of years seemed like candies he could throw around without a care. His sense of time was distorting more and more as he cultivated further.

Prior, spending a single year in seclusion was soul crushing. Yet, after some more time, he could cultivate for decades without a problem.

At that point, what felt like an insurmountable mountain of a single year in seclusion turned into a millennium.

After a millennium turned easy enough, Alexander felt that a hundred thousand years was too long.

This process repeating for many, many years, Alexander soon felt that a million years was not much, then ten million years, a hundred million, and so on.

Alexander was now unaware of this next mountain.

But...

...was there even a mountain anymore?

A billion perhaps? Ten billion? Maybe even a quadrillion, a septillion, or even more?

At least, Alexander could not see it. His sense of time wore off much deeper than ever before. Seconds could now become years and years could turn into seconds.

Jumping around, playing within the asteroid sea, Alexander had hollow eyes, his memories slowly reforming themselves over time.

The broken memories of his corrupt clone became clearer than ever, and its smaller memories, crushed by the broken, much bigger one, resurfaced one after the other.

Silently fighting with the void, Alexander's movements were identical to his previous ones from an unskilled standpoint. But for experts capable of perceiving actions as if slowed down countless times, his every moves turned out much more refined.

Each strike lacked imperfections, each fluid enough to appear seamless. His body travelled the black space and brown asteroid sea like a fish in water, or an angel in the sky.

At some point, his own mastery over Origin Energy took over, forming countless weapons and items around him, used to move around even more freely. Be it a spear to stab, an axe to cleave or a flail to free himself from his own flesh and its limitations.

Playing as such, Alexander's gaze peered into the void, the fabric of space itself, its mysteries now for him to perfectly see.

And as his body moved around erratically with arcane beauty, this same body tempered with Universes and their materials, completely disappeared.

Reappearing a far distance away, Alexander teleported again and again, before sending barrages of strikes to the void, these same attacks soon reappearing in random spots across space.

'...' While dancing with his every strikes, Alexander spun backward into the air, before abruptly tearing space apart. His elegant heel as if a sharp blade, dissecting reality without hindrance. A white light submerging him, Alexander ignored it, lost in a trance, without realizing his own advancements.

At this moment, his body was struck by blue and dark lightning bolts. The blue ones caused his flesh to collapse, while the darker ones, as if a mixture of black and purple, were easily seen through, dispersed without a need to move.

Gaining a bout of enlightenment from the dark lightning bolts, Alexander continued his routine of pure chaos.

Very rarely, some people would come across him, and while most left, some unlucky ones would be swept within a sudden abysmal hole forming near them.

None dared to temper with a crazy man's erratic journey across the void.