Read Novel Full Chapter 386: Hope
Chapter 386: Hope
It is an ironclad law in the Real Void that the inner world of a Nihilium royal is not merely a pocket of space, but a living reflection of the creator's soul.
The cosmos within is a mirror; the stars are shaped by their will, and the tides are pulled by their temperament.
This is why, before a royal is ever permitted to create their inner world, they must endure centuries of emotional asceticism.
They are taught that a single spark of uncontrolled rage can cause suns to go supernova, and a moment of deep grief can drown entire civilizations in eternal rain.
Sansa, whose nature was innately nurturing, had birthed an inner world of profound beauty and compassion. Her Gods were Caring and protectors, and her mortals lived in a state of grace.
Yet, even she held a sliver of mercilessness; a cold, sharp edge reserved for the protection of her kin. It was this tiny fragment of shadow that allowed for the existence of evil and conflict within her world, providing the friction necessary for growth.
Verion, by contrast, was a creature of calculated malice. His inner world was a landscape of predatory laws and demonic hierarchies. His demon lords were extensions of his own greed.
Yet, even Verion possessed a form of self-love, a twisted care for what belonged to him. This singular, selfish light was the only reason that some of his demons weren't mindless killing machines; they had just enough order to ensure their own survival.
Sunny, however, had never received this training. He was a Sovereign who had bypassed the formal education of the Nihilium, thrust into his role by the sheer momentum of his growth.
Currently, Sunny was a tempest of raw, unbridled emotion. He was consumed by a burning anger toward the Domain of Negation and the hidden architect behind it. He felt a heavy, suffocating grief for the billions of Old Gods who were rotting into mortality in the dark. And beneath it all, he felt the sharp cold of fear, a primal panic for his own existence.
He did not realize that these emotions were currently tearing through his inner world like a hurricane.
In the 50 billion worlds of the sub-realm, the sky had turned a bruised, angry purple. The oceans were restless, and the winds howled with a frequency that sounded like a sob.
The billions of independent worlds that had yet to join Anohara's empire were gripped by an irrational, growing agitation.
Riots broke out in the streets of civilizations that had known peace for a thousand years. The public lived in a state of constant anxiety, convinced that a war of absolute annihilation was moments away.
They didn't know why they were afraid; they were simply reacting to the Mood of the Mother.
But even in their panic, the lifeforms did what they had been taught to do since the first sunrise: they turned to the heavens.
Across 50 billion worlds, a collective, rhythmic hum of prayer began to rise. Billions of quadrillions of souls fell to their knees, their pleas for peace and protection merging into a singular conceptual river. This massive wave of Faith began to flood Sunny's soul-core.
The numbers were astronomical. Around 70% of this Faith flowed directly into Sunny as the Supreme Sovereign.
Another 30% was distributed among the other Gods of the Pantheon, but due to the Imperial Protection Pact Sunny had enforced, a further 25% of their share was funneled back to him as a cosmic tax.
As the Gods in the outer void continued to conquer new multiverses and integrate them into the System, the Faith generation accelerated. Within the span of a few days, Sunny's reservoir had swelled past the Quintillion mark.
"One quintillion Faith Points," Sunny whispered, his physical body trembling in the dark. "That is the price of the 17th Clone."
He hesitated. If he could manifest a 17th soul-clone, he could use it as a scout to find the source of the negation or as a beacon to lead the other Gods out.
But the Domain of Negation was a greedy beast. If he released that energy to forge a new clone, there was a high probability the domain would simply consume the Faith before the clone could stabilize.
If the pool dropped even a fraction below a quintillion during the process, the entire investment would be vaporized.
"I cannot gamble the prayers of my people on a whim," Sunny thought, his resolve hardening. "I need to find the heart of this darkness first."
Suddenly, his body erupted in a brilliant, violet flash.
For one glorious, crystalline second, the Domain of Negation shattered. The connection to his 16 clones snapped back into place.
His godly eyes flared to life, showing him the billions of miles of empty void. He felt his talents; his Divine Eyes, his Time Affinity, his Void Step; all humming with power.
And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. The darkness rushed back in, thicker and heavier than before, slamming the door shut on his divinity.
"What... what was that?" Sunny gasped, his lungs burning.
If he had been ready, he could have used that second to dilate time, turning that single heartbeat into hundreds of years of subjective action. He could have scanned the entire sphere, located every fallen God, and identified the Beyonder's core. But he had been caught off guard.
"Was it an anomaly in the domain? Or is someone... is someone helping me from the outside?"
He pushed forward with renewed vigor. A day later, the phenomenon repeated. His body glowed, but this time, the sensation was different. Instead of his talents returning, his pores began to leak a thick, tar-like black substance. It smelled of sulfur and ancient rot, staining the void around him.
"Impurities?" Sunny wondered, looking at the black sludge drifting away from him. "Is the darkness trying to digest me, or am I purging the influence of the negation?"
He found no answers in the silence. Over the next few days, he encountered several more clusters of fallen Gods. He repeated his ritual, tapping their foreheads and transferring a minute fraction of his quintillion-point Faith reserve to ignite their internal sparks.
He had helped millions now, a drop in the bucket compared to the billions trapped, but their collective gratitude acted as a secondary engine, fueling his soul with a Faith that began to push back against the pressure of the domain.
Then, it happened again. The third glow.
This time, Sunny was ready. The moment he felt the Hinges of Reality groan, he didn't wait. He didn't wonder.
He burned through ten quadrillion Faith points in a millisecond, forcing the one second of stability to stretch. In his mind, the world slowed to a crawl. He activated his Divine Eyes, pushing the Golden violet light to its absolute limit.
The darkness peeled back like a burnt scroll. He saw them, the billions of Old Gods, scattered like dust across the sphere.
He saw the boundaries of the reality, cracking under the pressure of the negation. And then, he saw it.
In the center of the domain sat an entity that defied description. It wasn't a creature of flesh or mana. It was a tear in the fabric of existence, a humanoid shape made of Nothing. It sat upon a throne of stars, its eyes; if they could be called that, fixed directly on Sunny.
The entity didn't move, but Sunny felt a conceptual gaze that made his soul wither. It wasn't a beast of the bubble. It was something from the Great Void beyond, a sentinel of the end.
And it was moving.
With a slow, languid grace, the entity rose from its throne. Every step it took caused the Domain of Negation to ripple and expand. It wasn't just coming for him; it was coming to erase the very concept of Cosmos.
"It's looking at me," Sunny whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "It's been waiting for me to wake up my power so it can have a taste of it.... Or even this entity didn't think that i could break its negation."
The second of stability ended. The darkness slammed back into place, but the image of that entity was burned into Sunny's mind. He felt his pulse thrumming in his ears. The fear was gone now, replaced by a cold, survivalist instinct.
"Can I run?" he asked himself. He looked at the direction of the exit, but he knew the truth. If he ran, the entity would simply follow him out into the bubble, using him as a bridge to devour Sansa's world.
He was the anchor. If he broke, everything broke.
"One quintillion Faith points," Sunny said, his eyes glowing with a dark, determined light even in the negation. "I was going to use them to find the source. Well... the source has found me."
He stopped drifting. He planted his feet in the nothingness and waited. He could feel the entity approaching, a coldness that made the absolute zero of the void feel like a summer day.
"You want to eat me?" Sunny challenged the darkness. "Then come. I have an entire inner world behind me, and they all believe I cannot die."
Far away in the Real Void, Sansa felt her inner world shudder. She saw the sky turn a brilliant, blinding gold. She didn't know what was happening, but she felt a surge of hope that made her tears stop.
"He's not running," she whispered, her voice filled with awe. "He's challenging it."
Inside the dark, the metallic clicking returned, louder now. The Beyonder was inches away. Sunny closed his eyes, his hands beginning to glow with the golden fire of a quintillion prayers.