The Void Energy had disappeared from the corpses and the underground area. At first glance, Shen couldn't find any signs of where it had gone. Some beasts were feasting on the bodies by the town outskirts, but that was all. Most corpses were untouched, and the city was just as Shen had left it.
E'livia, however, had a technique to let her track whoever had removed the Void Energy—or so Shen guessed. She told him nothing. She simply looked down for a while, her blue eyes flashing purple. Then, she turned right and flew faster than Shen had been flying to get here.
He was honestly tempted to not follow and claim she had ditched him. He also honestly feared her father. So, he put his guards up—this might still be a ploy or trap from the Gardener Sect—and followed her as best as he could.
"Wait for me!" he called, but she ignored him.
She was considerably faster than him. Two seconds later, he lost sight of her.
Another second later, a massive dome of pure green qi appeared on the horizon. No, "massive" wasn't enough to describe it. It was absolutely huge. It simply popped up, and a shockwave followed suit, pushing the clouds on the skies and shaking the earth. Something had exploded, and E'livia was likely engaged in a fight.
Shen deployed his Aural Realm and hoped she hadn't died, or her father would definitely kill him for it.
His hopes decreased when a pillar of Void Energy rose from the middle of the dome and linked the heavens and earth, releasing a terrifying pressure in the entire world. It was a kind of mental attack. Hopelessness demanded to have a space amid Shen's emotions. It should be enough to make weak cultivators fall into despair or even kill themselves, but Shen easily resisted it.
Shen wasn't sure whether he'd like E'lemer to appear and get rid of the Void Energy. Who knew if E'livia had actually died in that, after all?!
He kept flying towards the dome and sighed in relief when his aura touched it. He felt E'livia's domain. That dome was some sort of manifestation of her domain.
As he had done last time, he pushed his Aural Realm over the edges of the three spatial dimensions, but the result was different. She blocked his aura. Domains couldn't be blocked by other domains, but his Aural Realm, although something in between auras and domains, wasn't enough of a domain to be unblockable.
Shen continued to approach at a quick pace. He couldn't see or feel anything inside the dome or even properly sense that qi. He knew it was qi, but that was it; how pure or what Laws it contained were beyond him.
Her domain and the continued existence of the Void pillar suggested things weren't as dire. If E'livia hadn't lied, the Gardener should be aware of the Void antics already. He was doing nothing about it, so his subjects should be able to deal with it.
Yet, E'livia might not be the said capable subject; she might need help. Shen had no choice but to enter the green qi dome. Not assisting her with dealing with the Void after being ordered so by the Gardener Sect would not end well for him.
He still slowed down, though, and touched the dome with his half-broken spear before entering. It went in unhindered, and he was able to feel something: that qi was green because it was filled with Life Laws to absurd levels. That decreased the odds of E'livia being close to death.
Shen touched the dome with his hand next. For a moment, he felt pressured, as if the world was about to crumble around his fingers and obliterate them from existence. A moment later, though, the pressure vanished. It confirmed that this was E'livia's domain, who sensed him and allowed him to go in unaffected.
His aura was still blocked, though, so he could only hope this wasn't a ridiculously contrived trap and step in.
E'livia's Path contained the Axioms of Life, Space, and Time. Unsurprisingly, the spacetime continuum didn't behave normally inside the dome. As soon as Shen entered, he appeared beside E'livia in what he guessed to be the middle of her domain. Shen could see and feel things properly now that he was inside.
E'livia was before a massive orb of Void Energy, from which rose the pillar that cut through her domain and pierced the skies. From Shen's understanding, that thing was an impossibility. Void Energy shouldn't work like that; Void Energy didn't increase in volume. Alas, he couldn't ignore what he was seeing.
E'livia was severely injured. Her left wings had been ripped apart and were bleeding silver, her eyes were bleeding golden, and the stumps where once stood her left forearm and left foot bled red. Shen couldn't recall a single race with blood that came in three different colors, but now wasn't the time to think about it.
Her clothes had been replaced with silver and red armor, which had done little to protect her. The armor didn't cover her wings, anyway, which Shen found stupid. She wielded a long, silvery and golden dagger in her right hand, another with qi, and was panting heavily. All her equipment was C+.
The Void orb floated a few miles above a massive crater. There were traces of wood and foliage here and there, but an explosion had destroyed almost everything in the dome.
A badly mingled male corpse lay in the crater. It belonged to an angel-like creature like E'livia—Shen had to ask what they were called—but with golden wings instead. The male had been cut into three pieces, and their every limb had been broken and twisted in unnatural angles. Lastly, E'livia had beheaded them.
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Yet, she looked at the corpse as if she feared it would attack her at any time.
Or perhaps it was the Void Energy. Looking at or trying to feel it twisted one's senses. The Void was the absence of everything, of all existence. It was also the absence of absence itself, for it couldn't be defined. One's mind couldn't understand it. At C-rank, Shen barely felt capable of not getting a headache by having it on the corner of his sight and senses, but he wouldn't even try to get a better look. His mind might shatter if he merely tried to organize what he saw into something that made sense.
E'livia's words revealed it wasn't the Void Energy—or how weird it was behaving—that she feared. "Find help," she said as soon as Shen was inside. "A new Prophet was born."
Her domain tried to push him away, but the Void orb shone in reverse. It didn't pull light; instead, it shone with reverse light. It made no sense. Witnessing such absurdity hurt Shen's mind, and E'livia had it much worse.
Her domain vanished when she was forced to feel whatever the Void had done. Her domain let her feel things on the metaphysical level. The feedback went straight to her mind. Shen couldn't even imagine how it would feel to sense the impossible happening on such an intimate level. To feel it with his very Path. A weak mind might go insane.
E'livia's C-rank mind almost burst. Her soul shook heavily but ultimately held. She still fainted.
Suddenly, a hand came for her throat. The golden-winged angel had returned to life, his body fully healed. He looked like a teenager, almost a child, but with a mature handsomeness that made it weird. He wore white and black clothes, and his eyes shone with the same anti-light the Void orb had shone.
Unfortunately for the Prophet, Shen had deployed his Aural Realm as soon as E'livia's domain failed and felt the approach. He thrust his half-broken spear, superimposed with qi that fully formed a spear, against that hand.
The Void Prophet started turning its head to look at Shen. Shen felt it happen on his back. His every sense other than his sight told him the creature was everywhere around him. Only his sight insisted it was before him.
Shen had been trained to trust his eyes if he ever met a Void Prophet—though, of course, he couldn't recall by whom. Void Prophets came to declare the unavoidable corruption of the Void to the world. They called it the Untruth and embodied it. It allowed them to twist almost anything one might perceive from them except anything that could be touched by Light.
It was related to some sort of agreement between all Axioms that made Light closely related to Revelation. Thus, a Void Prophet, who came to Reveal the Untruth, couldn't refuse Light's Truth. Moreover, no Void Prophet could ever pretend to have an Axiom of Light in their Path. Unfortunately, that didn't allow anyone to use it to identify them.
Honestly, Shen couldn't understand why the Void would accept it or why Reality would do that but not just kill the damn Prophet. But evidently, things were much less logical at a higher level.
His qi spear struck the open palm, pierced it, and came out on the other side. It continued until it reached the Prophet's eyes.
Then, the Prophet finally finished turning its head to stare at Shen.
Only then did Shen feel the eyes' anti-light with his aura—and was bathed by inexistence itself. It washed over his Path like sea waves, trying to wither him down into nothingness. He felt it with close intimacy, though not as well as someone with a deployed domain might. It was still enough to shake him to his core.
Shen faced the ultimate truth—or the Untruth.
All things would cease—even their ceasing end would cease one day. There was no reason to fight. No reason to have ambitions, feel, or hope. No reason to cling to life or the moment. To be was to waste time. In fact, time itself was a waste. Nothing would keep being in the end. To fight for existence didn't matter because no one would remember it. He wouldn't remember it, for only nothingness awaited him upon death. He was less than a bit of a computer, for he didn't matter for anything at all.
This was different from the intrusive thoughts one had when facing the Void Spawn. This was almost as if facing the Void itself. It was still not enough to stop Shen.
His mind held for the very simple reason that he had a True Self. It trembled under the might of the mental attack, but it was never endangered.
His qi-spear pierced the Prophet's head. His qi was denied by the creature's soul protection before it could go deep; the Prophet was still a living thing with a soul. His half-broken spear soon reached the creature's head, though, and then his hand. He exploded the Prophet's head into bits.
The corpse felt dead to him, without a soul, so Shen used his aura to crush it into a pulp and then burn it into ashes. That wouldn't be enough to kill a Prophet. Supposedly, he needed a domain for that. Evidently, even that wasn't enough in this specific case, as E'livia should've tried to kill the creature already. Shen guessed the creature's extreme survival had something to do with the Void orb, which he could do nothing against. Still, the more he crushed the body, the more time it would take to return.
Well, that's what should happen. Usually. You could never be sure with the Void, much less in this case.
Shen could do nothing to support E'livia in this fight either. The Void Prophet was peak C-rank. It had allowed Shen to kill it, and if his guesses were correct, he'd better not stay around to find out why. He grabbed E'livia, turned—
"Herald Shen," the Void Prophet said.
Its voice was deep, sounding both male, female, and billions of other sexes—not genders, actual sexes—that didn't exist, all simultaneously. Just hearing it made his ears bleed. The creature floated, completely healed, a few yards before Shen.
The Heavenly Lightning had previously blocked the knowledge that Shen was a Herald. Now, Void Energy simply materialized in his True Core and released the memory for him. The Heavens did nothing to stop it. Despite the earlier blockade, he had felt an uncanny connection to Void Energy. Now, his suspicions were confirmed.
"Hello?" Shen said. There was no fleeing. He'd better try to talk things out.
"Your tribute has been accepted," the Prophet said. "Alas, we cannot save you from the circumstances you asked deliverance from. Our Emissary has long passed. What do you ask for instead?"
Shen would love to remember what the Void Overmind, which had evidently overtaken the boy, was talking about. Obviously, he didn't. The Void Energy had disappeared after letting him recall his identity and didn't return to help him elucidate that.
He could infer he had tried to make a deal with the Void. It seemed he had paid for the Void to kill one of its Emissaries. The Emissary was no more, so the Void owed him.
Shen felt sick for having dealt with the Void. He wanted nothing to do with it. Since he already had something to do with it, he would seek to end that as soon as possible. He almost asked it to just let him go.
He stopped himself in time.
Whatever he had done for the Void was already done. He might as well use it for the greater good.
"Can you cleanse the Tribulation Lightning from me, heal my soul and mind before they are infected, and let me and this girl go unharmed?" Shen asked.