Quill's PoV:

A small array pulses beneath my feet, its gentle rotation mending my wounds. The familiar warmth of healing Qi seeps into my battered body.

I'm not fooling myself though - my condition is far from optimal. Beyond the physical injuries, my Qi reserves run dangerously low. In the vast darkness, unseen eyes bore into me. They keep their distance for now, but that won't last.

Not that it matters. My greatest work unfolds in the distance - a mountain-sized mass of void entities slowly collapsing in on itself. The sight almost makes me smile.

My hands trace complex patterns through the air, not weaving new arrays but analyzing reality itself. Time laws have always been my specialty - they're practically woven into my soul at this point. I rarely tap into them given how volatile they can be, but that doesn't mean I can't. Here, in this place, those fundamental laws feel... wrong. Broken. Everything I thought I knew seems like a lie. Yet when I look within myself, truth crystallizes and understanding deepens.

Since arriving in the greater universe, one question has haunted me: Could technology truly defeat immortals? The evidence was there, but doubt lingered.

Now a new timeline forms in my mind as I analyze the collision between the Abyss's laws and my own. Each revelation shifts my plans further.

The truth hits hard - we can't win this. I trust my abilities, but what lurks in that infinite darkness is beyond even my reach, both now and a thousand years from now. Breaking this Abyssal dimension requires knowledge far beyond what I possess. And this universe lacks the tools I need.

But that's a problem for later. Right now, I need to focus on closing this portal and making my retreat.

A shift ripples through the void. The countless eyes watching me from the darkness retreat one by one until nothing remains. The black mountain - my masterpiece of destruction - churns like an angry sea, its surface undulating with newfound life.

A pillar of dark light pierces the infinite sky above, swallowing the spinning mass whole. In mere seconds, the mountain vanishes completely. Before I can process what happened, she appears.

The obsidian woman stands before me, similar in form but radiating power like a dark star. My soul quivers in her presence. No more hiding or playing - she's shed her predator's skin and emerged as something closer to divinity.

Behind me, the portal that served as my lifeline collapses with a whisper, sealing itself shut.

"No chance to escape eh?"

Despite the troublesome turn of events, panic doesn't cloud my mind.

"I guess I have to thank you," she says, her abyss-deep eyes boring into mine. "Shepherds prevent knights from devouring our kind." Her mouth curves into a malicious grin. "But I'm sure they will understand this was an exception."

I return her smile with equal viciousness, catching her off guard. "I should also thank you, I guess. Initially it would have taken days for the mass to reach the critical point, but thanks to you it's already refined."

"You will keep treading on my pride until the very end, won't you?" Her arm blurs as she strikes at my heart.

Just as her dagger-like hand is about to pierce me, she freezes. Shock fills her obsidian features.

"Hahh." I sigh and regard her with disappointment. "No matter how good a joke might be, it gets kinda old by the third time."

"Impossible." The word hangs heavy in the air. She tries to move, putting more force into her attack. Her muscles bulge and energy starts coalescing around us, black lightning dancing as reality shifts under her overwhelming power.

But I remain untouched.

"How?" She ceases her attempt and looks at me with fear, like a mouse encountering a cat for the first time. I can feel her mind spin, thinking I might just be some ungodly expert, someone playing with her.

But no, the truth is far simpler. "You don't have a soul," I say, my voice low and steady. "So a single spark of my soul thrown into your vessel gives me more than enough control over you, no matter how powerful you might have become."

Her expression shifts. Her power that was attempting to brute force out of my compulsion starts being channeled inside herself. In seconds she finds it, the little spark of my soul I left inside her.

She knows she can shatter it with a single squeeze, but she hesitates.

Is the one that drove her to such lengths really stupid enough to tell her the truth? What if it's a trap? What if destroying that spark is exactly what he wants from me?

"Don't bother," I say, bringing my index finger towards her chest. "It was over the moment we met." I add and snap my fingers right before her.

The spark inside her fizzles out into sparks of light and disappears. She feels her control returning but doesn't attack. Instead she attempts to run, all her energy put in her feet. Even so, it's far too late.

Within her veins, through her blood, tendons, muscles and bones, across her skin and even on her pupils a myriad of array letters form, glowing with an eerie light. I watch as the characters dance and shift across her body like living things, each one pulsing in a myriad of colours. The arrays spread like a disease, consuming every inch of her being until she's nothing but a canvas of mystical script.

"No." A final weak desperate squeal is all she manages to put out before they all activate with a blinding light, forcing even myself to cover my eyes.

I wait as the light subsides, my eyes adjusting to the darkness once more. Where the obsidian woman stood, only scorched ground remains. In its center, a tiny pearl gleams - dark as night yet somehow alive with power.

My fingers close around the grape-sized sphere. Perfect smoothness meets my touch as I analyze its properties. This is it - the prize I've sought since arriving in this abyssal realm. The solution to our greatest challenge.

The severe lack of Qi has held us back, but no longer. I dive into the pearl with my mind, drawing forth a torrent of pure power. The Qi floods my depleted meridians, restoring me to peak condition. My wounds seal shut, strength returning to my limbs.

But celebration will have to wait. Three shadows slip through the cracks in my defensive arrays, converging on my position. A massive double-edged sword plummets from above. I leap left, the blade embedding itself to the hilt beside me.

Two figures rush in from opposite sides - a knight in full plate wielding a spear and a black-clad assassin dual-wielding daggers. I reach for my arrays but movement below stops me cold. The embedded sword rips upward, shattering the ground. A skeletal figure in tattered robes materializes, seizing the blade and slashing at my waist.

The assassin's daggers fly at my head and heart while the knight's spear hurtles straight for my face. Blood and gore explode outward as their attacks connect, my body crumpling under the onslaught. My core pulses one final time as I trigger its detonation. White light engulfs my killers.

*****************************

I crouch in my hidden cavity, arrays of concealment wrapping around me like a second skin. These fools bought my Snoring Dragon illusion completely - a technique I've spent decades perfecting. Above, the three attackers stumble around the aftermath of my "core explosion," pride written across their faces.

The obsidian bead pulses in my palm, raw power flooding my meridians. That woman collapsing the portal complicated things, but nothing I can't handle. These three need to die first - a simple task with unlimited Qi at my disposal.

Opening a window back to the main universe would be child's play, but those few seconds of vulnerability make it too risky with these vultures circling. Better to eliminate the immediate threat.

As I prepare to emerge and deal with my would-be killers, a flicker of blue light catches all our attention. My divine sense stretches upward, detecting a small vessel plummeting toward us at breakneck speed.

A frown creases my brow. "Don't tell me they are this stupid."

"Exalted one, if you hear this, we are here to save you!" Seven's voice booms from above.

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"Oh for crying out loud!" The concealment arrays shatter as I burst from my hiding spot, materializing between my three stunned opponents. Space warps around me, arrays contracting then exploding outward. The blast catches them off guard, hurling their bodies away at supersonic speeds.

My core thrums as I weave three simultaneous Asgard's Wraths, filling the air with crackling lightning. A teleportation array springs to life beneath my feet, using Seven's presence as an anchor point. In a flash, I appear in the cramped cockpit beside him.

Having unlimited Qi certainly makes things easier.

Controlling the ship with a crazed expression on her aging face, Issa gives me a grin before pulling hard, turning the ship parallel with the ground.

"Welcome aboard," she says, madness obvious in her voice.

"I knew you wouldn't die that easily, exalted one," Seven adds, his voice filled with pride.

'Slap'

My palm hits my face hard, a red imprint left behind. "You are both idiots!" I say, my voice broken and dejected.

"Ha ha ha." Issa laughs manically. "If we are a burden to you, then just leave us behind and go ahead," she says, her words hitting me like a hammer. "We knew this was most likely suicidal from the beginning." She adds and pulls hard to the right, the ship entering a death spin.

Where we once were, a mass of darkness flies by. From the ground, other such attacks start swarming us. I can feel a large one heading straight towards our position.

"LEFT!" My voice booms and Issa ignores it, pulling hard right instead.

"Don't worry," she says. "My Little Blue Pill won't be hit this easily." Her laughter fills the cabin once more.

"At least if we die, we can die together," Seven interjects, his voice sincere.

"The hell is the point in that?" I ask, my voice filled with exasperation.

"Better than dying alone," Seven adds.

"Dam straight," Issa adds as well.

'Slap'

Another facepalm, another wave of pain hits me. "I refuse to die in this Viagra ship with the two of you," my voice fills with determination.

My fingers blur through the air, arrays spreading outward to form a protective dome around the ship. The obsidian pearl pulses against my chest, feeding endless Qi into my constructs. Black tendrils of void energy splash harmlessly against our barrier.

"You two really are something else," I mutter, reinforcing another section as a particularly nasty attack threatens to breach it. "Coming here was beyond reckless."

"Says the man who jumped into a portal to fight an entire dimension," Seven quips, his antennae twitching.

A massive shape looms in the darkness ahead - some kind of crystalline construct the size of a small moon. My arrays light up in warning as it fires a concentrated beam of void energy at us.

"Hard left!" I shout, but Issa's already moving, sending us into a spiral that barely avoids the blast. The ship's engines whine in protest.

That's when I feel it again - a faint whisper brushing against my divine sense. Something ancient calls from deep within this realm, its pull growing stronger with each passing moment.

This changes everything. With unlimited Qi at my disposal and these two idiots already here...

"How fast can this thing go?" I ask, my mind racing with possibilities.

Issa's weathered face splits into a manic grin. "Fast." Her augmented hands tighten on the controls. "What do you have in mind?"

"Head towards 3 o'clock. Distance around 2.4 million kilometers." I watch her expression carefully, wondering if even this souped-up vessel can handle such a journey.

The manic glint in Issa's eyes sets off warning bells in my head. Her augmented hand slams into the control panel with enough force to dent the metal. A hidden compartment springs open, revealing a single red button surrounded by hazard symbols and warning text.

"Here we go," she cackles, jabbing the button before I can protest.

The universe turns inside out. Despite anchoring myself with Qi, the acceleration hits like a meteor strike. My body crashes against the rear wall, bones creaking under forces that would liquefy a normal human. The obsidian pearl pulses against my chest, its power the only thing keeping me intact.

Seven smashes into me, his elegant features contorting as his nose shatters on impact. Blood sprays across the cabin, floating in crimson droplets before the acceleration pins them to the wall. His mouth opens in what must be a scream, but no sound reaches my ears over the ship's tortured shriek.

The inertial force increases, crushing us harder against the metal. Even with my cultivation base and unlimited Qi, moving feels impossible. Seven's blood pools around his face, unable to drip down due to the extreme G-forces.

Through it all, Issa remains locked in her pilot's chair, her augmented body handling the stress better than either of us. Her laughter echoes through the cabin, somehow piercing the cacophony of straining metal and screaming engines.

I peel myself off the metal wall, fighting against the lingering g-forces to make my way to Issa's side. Behind me, Seven crumples to the floor with a groan, his body clearly protesting the abuse.

"So, what are we looking for?" Issa asks casually, as if we hadn't just been plastered against the wall at physics-defying speeds.

"That!" I point toward a white star gleaming in the distance. "Leave everything else to me and slam into it!"

"Relax." She waves her hand dismissively. "What could even touch us at this speed?"

"You don't want to know," I mutter, my divine sense already screaming warnings at me.

Above us, something massive appears - a form the size of a small star. City-sized tentacles descend like pillars of doom, slamming into the ground below. The impacts pulverize rock into clouds of dust that billow outward.

"Holly-" Issa's voice cuts off as another tentacle drops directly in our path. She yanks the controls hard, sending the ship into a sharp turn. My body slams into the right wall.

More pillars descend around us, and I finally understand what a banana feels like in a blender as Seven and I bounce around the cabin like ragdolls.

I manage to form an array, anchoring both of us to the floor. Every other drop of Qi I have goes into reinforcing the external defensive matrix surrounding our ship so for now comfort is a luxury we can't afford.

One hit is all it would take to end us. I can only trust Issa's piloting skills.

The white star grows larger, its pull intensifying with each passing moment. Something resonates deep within my soul, an ancient echo growing stronger. Every fiber of my being screams that this is where I need to go.

"That looks like a freaking white hole," Issa's voice cuts through the ship's rattling, "but somehow even worse."

"It's a temporal vortex," I force the words out through clenched teeth, my throat raw from the constant g-forces hammering us.

"That sounds fun!" Issa slams her augmented hand into the control panel. The ship lurches forward with impossible speed, leaving the writhing mass of tentacles far behind us.

The vortex expands until it fills our entire view, its brilliant light flooding the cabin. Pain rips through my body, my consciousness threatening to slip away.

Issa and Seven slump motionless, completely unconscious. I expected this - now comes the real challenge. Everything up to this point will seem trivial in comparison.

Arrays materialize around me, mystical script flowing across every surface of the ship. Temporal laws layer themselves over my core, each one more complex than the last.

The storm outside batters against our hull, trying to tear us apart. Seconds stretch into minutes, then hours. My core holds steady at first, drawing endless power from the obsidian pearl.

But as the onslaught continues, even my iron will begins to crack. Pain courses through my meridians as my very essence starts to unravel.

My grasp of temporal laws proves insufficient against the vortex's overwhelming might. My consciousness starts to fade as reality itself seems to dissolve.

Light floods my senses until nothing remains - no pain, no self-awareness, no temporal anchor. Just endless, all-consuming white.

************************

I blink away the last traces of disorientation as my vision clears. The vortex spat us out somewhere... unexpected. Through the viewport, a sight beyond imagination fills my field of view.

"That is a big ass frog," Seven says.

"I think it's a tortoise," Issa adds.

"Turtle..." I say, my eyes glued to the spectacle before me. "A Realm Turtle from before The Fall."

We have survived, obviously. Although my condition is not perfect, it's nothing I can't deal with.

Instead the situation ahead is far beyond anything I expected. There, in the endless void, a massive turtle cruises slowly through the emptiness of space, mountains, valleys, rivers and seas on its shell.

Realm Turtles are something I read about in ancient books. In the present time they are but extinct. But a very long time ago, they were quite common, mainly used by large sects to travel across the universe.

The creature's shell must span thousands of kilometers, each mountain peak piercing the darkness of space like nature's skyscrapers. Rivers of starlight cascade down valleys carved over eons, feeding seas that shimmer with otherworldly radiance. An entire ecosystem thrives on its back, defying the vacuum that surrounds it.

My divine sense stretches out, brushing against ancient arrays etched into the very bedrock of the turtle's shell. The complexity of these formations makes my head spin - this is craftsmanship from an era when immortals still walked openly among mortals.

I rub my temples, trying to process our situation as Issa's question hangs in the air.

"W-where are we?"

My head throbs - the temporal displacement took more out of me than expected. Still, I maintain my composure as Issa's augmented fingers dance across the controls. A holographic star chart materializes before us, the ship's computer churning through calculations.

'Byron's Super Void' flashes on the display.

Issa frowns, and I understand why. The name matches our location perfectly - except the infamous void teems with countless stars and galaxies, their light painting the darkness in brilliant hues.

"Check for the rest," I say.

"The rest?" Issa raises an eyebrow.

"The rest of the universe."

She gives me an odd look but complies. The ship's sensors sweep outward, searching for familiar celestial landmarks - the great spiral arms of known galaxies, massive stellar nurseries, ancient superstructures.

Seconds tick by. Issa's face goes slack, her mouth dropping open in shock.

"T-there's nothing," she stammers.

We stare through the viewport at the impossible sight before us - a realm turtle cruising through space that shouldn't exist, surrounded by stars that haven't existed for eons. The magnitude of our situation slowly sinks in as we process the computer's findings.

Every known galaxy, every mapped region of space - simply gone.

I watch in horror as space fractures before us, a massive warship emerging from the tear like some ancient leviathan. Behind it, thousands of smaller vessels pour through, their weapons already charging.

My divine sense screams warnings as twin columns of superheated plasma erupt from the battlecruiser's side cannons, streaking towards the Realm Turtle. The smaller ships join in, unleashing a devastating barrage. Graviton beams and precision lasers slice through the void, all aimed at the defenseless creature.

'Hmph'

The sound reverberates through my skull, a mental force that makes my teeth rattle. A colossal hand materializes in space, its palm larger than most planets. It positions itself protectively over the turtle, shielding it from the onslaught.

The fleet doesn't pause for a moment. More plasma streams from the battlecruiser's cannons while figures emerge from the turtle's surface - cultivators astride lotus platforms and wielding flying treasures, rushing to meet the attackers head-on.

My heart pounds as I watch the two forces clash. This is far beyond anything we should be involved in given my current situation.

"We need to go," I say, urgency clear in my voice. "Now."

"You don't have to tell me twice." Issa's augmented fingers slam into the consolel. Reality splits open beside our ship, a subspace window barely large enough for us to squeeze through. The tear swallows us whole, leaving the battle behind.