Up or down, left or right, forwards or backwards, the man closely monitored the handsome hero on his journey. "What a peculiar way of traversing the Nothingness," he pondered as Samuel’s moves became even more odd. "I wonder what universe is capable of giving birth to someone such as him. The gates might open earlier than I estimated."
Realizing the changes in and haste and crudeness in the boy’s moves, the man disappeared from the slab, veiling himself behind a thick tangible darkness. "Quite perceptive. It’s reasonable, but startling nonetheless. Perhaps there are more of him where he’s going. Else it’d be inconceivable why someone would opt for the barren region rather than the outer rim."
Since the dawn of multiversal travel, many have suspected the barren, empty, and derelict region of the Nothingness to house secrets untold, but none could find any evidence to confirm their beliefs. As such, it has been left untouched by non-deities ever since. There is little energy, few resources, little competition, and a connection to the laws remaining thin. Unless you were kicked one too many times in the head, you’d never return to this area upon escape. Yet Samuel was going back. There must be a secret indeed. Perhaps the key to it all. To true ascension. To freedom. To bliss. He must bear witness himself!
His raging intent changed the very air, with the effects reaching the ever-suspicious Samuel, validating his fear of being the target of malicious spying. Uncertain what the individual wanted from him, he became faced with a dilemma. Would it be prudent to allow such a perverted individual, surely lusting for his god-like body, knowledge of his home? "No," he thought while shaking his head according to what the Eternal Master of Nothingness Traversal physique demanded. "It seems I can only enter some other universe for the time being, and perhaps he’ll leave me alone after a while. I should have acted on my instincts earlier; now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere within the Nothingness. At least I could sense a decent chunk of universes where I previously was, but here… there’s nothing. Truly nothing."
Very subtly, yet significantly, Samuel altered his path. He was venturing into unknown depths with a powerhouse stalker watching his every move, while also being starved of qi. To label his situation precarious would be an understatement. He. Was. Screwed.
This cat and mouse chase continued for many hours, then days, then weeks. The man kept watching, Samuel kept running, and his core kept crying. Being starved of qi was a death sentence to cultivators, especially more powerful ones. Their entire beings are sustained by qi, after all. It’s equal to losing your life support, so to speak. Many draw the similarity between qi and food, as both are sustenance, but this analogy is deeply flawed. A human, a mere mortal, can often go weeks or months without food, granted they have water and some nutrients. Cultivators above the True Cultivation stage can survive at most five days without replenishing any of their qi. The difference is great. The only reasons Samuel was yet to perish were his unfathomable body and abilities. Both aspects of himself he was yet to explore and experience. Due to one fucked situation after the other, he had no chance to reflect on or try any of what he wants to.
Once, Samuel tried to discover what the black rune on his right hand was, and in the process, he lost some of his focus on the traversing part. This momentary lapse of concentration caused a deviation in his patterns and path, both significant enough for the watcher to perceive. In that very moment, thousands of videos where he died grotesque deaths began playing in his head, bringing with them the dread and pain he was experiencing. Let’s just say he didn’t want that to happen again. The worst part was that even after correcting himself, the videos didn’t stop for an entire hour. Not a Samuel hour, an actual hour. The price was simply not worth it.
It did have one positive implication, however; the watcher does not want to kill him but is rather looking for something. Something Samuel most definitely does not have, but could perhaps imagine into his possession. If he’s not in danger of pain and death, then all is well. Because his revenge will be just as sweet, but with fewer downsides on his part.
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Thwarting Samuel’s grand delusions of revenge against someone who should, by the decree of the origin, not be in this plane, was a now-familiar sensation of praying. Someone was praying to a nameless concept that Samuel intercepted. Freebies! More importantly was the fact the pleas came from a place nearby. From what he could tell, the inane mutterings simply wished for revenge against some local thug. He was given free faith, a beacon, and a chance to vent by the good graces of the Nothingness. His good karma was finally paying off.
“On that note, I wonder if the reward Karma gave me is still eligible. That man did say I would keep all rewards accumulated from the system. But I was supposed to receive it when I reached the Superior Mortal stage, so maybe not. Surely he didn’t forget, right?”
He clearly did. Who in their right mind would ever remember such minuscule nonsense? Doesn’t matter if you’re five, 20, god, or man, such irrelevant matters are best left forgotten. Until some doofus reminds them, making them feel foolish and insecure. Oh, you better believe Samuel was going to receive that boon from Karma, but a subsequent price for obscenity must be paid. Regardless, it must wait due to the incredibly, not at all boring, high-intensity situation Samuel was in.
...
Zhong Greg, a wandering merchant, was currently sobbing on his hands and knees, begging for justice. Some hooligans stripped his caravan clean of wares and coins before riding off on his Swamp Horses. All he was left with was a few pieces of wood on wheels, unable to move due to the lack of horsepower, and a few rations to sustain himself. These bandits were cruel to the bones! Well… not really.
If we were to rewind the clock approximately three hours, we’d be greeted with the scene of the great Zhong Greg pounding the lead hooligan’s mother. Afterward, as all upstanding individuals do, he snuck out without notice. He scored big this time, and he knew it. But no woman, irrelevant of beauty, could tie his immeasurable future down. This left him with only one option; to run as quickly and quietly as humanly possible. He left in such a hurry he did not even notify his guards, which obviously caused this retribution. How someone named Zhong Greg even managed to be in the same location as a woman was baffling to the extreme, second only to him expecting a clean escape. Foolishness. However, all of this was superfluous and unnecessary information to the gods Greg was praying to. The gods are much too important and busy to listen to hours of background story; expressing the crux of the matter took precedence.
The custom of his hometown was to pray for one hour in the case of injustice, so he did. Near the end of his session, he realized the gods must have more important matters on their plates at the moment, so their response would be delayed by quite some time. The best course of action when this occurs is to wait patiently without disturbing them again, lest they smite him in sheer anger. The last time he was one syllable away from being whisked away to hell—cough—heaven, and he did not plan on repeating earlier mistakes.
Honorable Zhong Greg finished one last kowtow and sob before straightening his luxurious robe with gold-engraved dragons. If those thugs stole this robe from him earlier, then he’d long ended his own life. It was purchased at the royal auction of Kain for an incomplete immortal technique. Labeled the Golden Robe of the Dragon Emperor, it was blatantly obvious how superior a garment it was. How can a weak and poor merchant incapable of fending off local thugs possibly be in possession of such wealth, you might ask? You see, Greg is no normal person. Or he is currently, but it’s a façade. He, the son of the universe, heir to power, inheritor of domination, the opposition of impermanence, Zhong Greg, has been blessed with countless powers and talents. One of which was the art of trade. It was an innate ability he could awaken, but it came with certain requirements. One was to have all his cultivation sealed while doing trade for over a year, the second was to successfully sell 1,000,000 Kainian golds worth of wares in that state, and the third was all his wares must be accrued by his own legal effort. It made for a difficult task, but the rewards were sufficiently grand.
Upon turning towards the painful reminders of robbery, Greg’s antsy thoughts were interrupted by an irate voice. “In your next life, don’t try to deceive those you pray to,” it said before Greg’s world went dark.