Death… And Me

Chapter 4083: Chains

Kentucky continued to fly at full speed. Behind, Gin and his group also flew in the same direction. It wasn’t that Gin’s group could see Kentucky, but that they were also going for the center of the formation.

Still, there was a huge distance ahead, and even though Kentucky was bending Space and accelerating Time around him, it would take a few days to get there. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have used Spatial Gates until now.

Using his Divine Sense Bending, Rean made sure they stayed out of Gin’s group perception range, changing that into a pretty boring journey. Roan thought about changing direction and going somewhere else. But when he thought that it could impact their chances to acquire Hick’s body, he decided to wait. At least at the moment, things looked fine.

Days later, in the distance, Kentucky noticed something. The endless void seemed to grow dark yellow, although it was mostly transparent. "We are getting close to the barrier separating the insides from the outside."

"What is that?" Yet, Rean noticed something different. An enormous ring-like structure also began to take form in their visions. At the same time, there was a black sphere, or maybe a black void, in the center. It was hard to tell from their position.

"Is that black sphere your body?" Roan asked Hick on the side.

Hick nodded. "Yes, but it isn’t just the black sphere. That’s just my body’s core. The entire ring is also my body."

"That’s a body?" Havira was surprised. "I totally thought it was some kind of building or maybe a containment structure to seal the black sphere at the center."

Hick shrugged. "Just because we are called Primordial Demon Beasts, that doesn’t necessarily mean we have beast forms. If you think about it, Xyrath’s body wasn’t really a serpent, but a bunch of Time Plates put together that took that form."

"Alright." Roan didn’t seem to care. "So, we just need to get you to your body, and that’s it?"

"Of course not!" Hick corrected. "If that was all, then my body could be said to be free to some extent. I wouldn’t need to ask for your help. I could control my body and find a way out on my own. We need to set my body free first."

Hick pointed somewhere else after that. "Pay attention, you should be able to see them soon."

Everyone looked where Hick pointed. At first, other than his body and the barrier of the Universe, there wasn’t anything else. However, as they got closer, they began to see ginormous semi-transparent chains emerging from inside and outside of the Universe, all wrapped around the Terminarch’s body.

The chains extended for thousands of kilometers, and they got more and more transparent the further into the void they went. Finally, there seemed to be some openings in space, or breaches, and the chains entered those openings. It was impossible to tell where those chains were connected without entering those spatial breaches.

*Pin!*

At that moment, the system’s voice echoed in the twins’ minds.

[Abyssal Path Detected.]

The Abyssal Path Detector was still working just as fine, and it quickly identified the existence of another one. No doubt that was the Abyssal Path used with the Great Void Shifter that the Celestials outside mentioned. Of course, the twins’ group didn’t know about that Great Void Shifter until now.

"A shifter?" Rean looked at Roan.

And Roan nodded. "Unless it is an Abyssal Path connected to a Dimensional Realm, it has to be a Great Void Shifter. We haven’t seen Abyssal paths being used for anything else until now."

They found an Abyssal Path connected to a Dimensional Realm before. To be more specific, it was the Abyssal Path that brought the twins’ group into the Mist Library’s Dimensional Realm all those years ago.

"So... should I go after one of those chains?" Kentucky asked. "There are chains that are inside the Universe before leaving it to wrap around Hick’s body, most of them from what I can see."

"Give me a minute." Hick closed his eyes, and his face disappeared once again, being replaced by a black void surrounded by a white crown. Looking at the structure around the big black sphere, they saw the ’ring’ was basically the same as the crown around Hick’s black void face.

"Now I can feel it more clearly. The chains are being fueled by the Chaos Origin Source of C44. Those Spatial Breaches are no doubt connected to the Chaos Origin Source of this Universe," Hick said as he concentrated.

Then, the twins’ group saw Hick’s body tremble, and the sound of chains, carried by Divine Origin Energy, entered everyone’s ears. "It is being held tightly. I can’t get free of them from this distance. It won’t change if I transfer my soul back into my body either. We have to take down the chains first."

[Attacking won’t work,] Sister Orb was finally close enough to analyze them. [Those things’ inscriptions can’t be hacked. They aren’t formations. Those chains are made of an extremely resistant material. From what I can tell, even Roan’s Dark Element would take decades to corrode a few centimeters, let alone the hundreds of meters of circumference that each segment of the chains has.]

"How can you tell?" Kentucky couldn’t help but ask. The chains weren’t formations, after all.

[Did you forget who used the system’s processing power to work on so many different types of metals?]

Rean scratched the back of his head. "Flattering me won’t earn you any favors, you know?"

[Who the hell is flattering you?] Sister Orb countered. [Anyway, the metal used on those chains isn’t something we can deal with at the moment. Unless, of course, you want to spend countless years on them. Let’s not even talk about the fact that those chains most likely have self-repair abilities.]

Rean narrowed his eyes. Even he couldn’t make such a resistant material with what he has in his hands at the moment, and there were bound to be very few blacksmiths who could match him.

Hick could see that. "They are materials from the Celestial Plane. That’s why they are strong. Pay attention to the inscriptions, don’t they remind you of something?"

Rean looked closer and finally understood. "The runes used for those inscriptions are slightly similar to the runes of Zanbril’s collars. Hick is most likely right to say those chains were produced in the Celestial Plane."

"So, what do we do? Turn around?" Kentucky asked.

However, before anyone could answer...

*Rumble!*

Two figures appeared in front of the Terminarch’s body, their energies spreading everywhere.

Flogon and Kroqui’s avatars arrived.