The Epic Tale of Chaos vs Order

Chapter 2194: A body as powerful as an Early Alpha-Omega Overgod treasure

Cain and the Champions of the Root felt the surge before they saw it. A violent burst of energy rippled out from the Matrix—raw, resonant, and impossibly vast. Even from their perch in the fractured void, they sensed how much power it consumed. And then, from that incandescent pulse, eight massive golden gates bloomed into existence across the distant horizon.

Emprik and Kukulkatz exchanged a moment of wordless confusion, their eyes narrowing as the colossal structures unfolded like burning constellations. But Cain... Cain recognized them instantly.

His gaze sharpened with a cold, knowing focus. The aura radiating from those gates was the same force that had seized him when he was once trapped within the Empyrean Wall—dragged him through blinding light and screaming space so he could stand before the Heart of the Root itself.

"So it was the Matrix that brought me here," he thought, the realization flickering through his mind like a razor of certainty.

The Universe Will must have detected the danger of The Heart of The Root, and Cain was in a perfect position to be teleported across the void, tossing him into the frontlines of the war.

However, the Scarlet King shoved the thought aside as quickly as it came. He had no idea how these portals operated, nor whether the masters of the other Empyrean Worlds would step through them. Expecting reinforcements was a luxury he did not have.

He fought as though he were all alone.

The moment his focus snapped back to the battlefield, he slashed his hand through the air. A web of invisible blades tore outward to carve the enhanced spawns apart. Hundreds fell, but dozens slipped through, barreling toward him until their bodies swelled with violent radiance. They detonated at arm’s reach, engulfing Cain in an ocean of molten orange flames.

The instant his silhouette emerged out of the blaze, Emprik was already on him.

The Champion of the Root descended with a blade swung in pure, sharpened killing intent. Cain had already deciphered how to overcome the Grafter’s power, but knowing the path forward was very different from walking it.

Achieving the perfect convergence of Entropy and Nihility required delicate precision—nearly impossible to accomplish while swarms of explosive abominations hurled themselves at him, ready to melt flesh and muscle with every detonation.

Bit by bit, Cain was pushed backward. More wounds tore open across his already-damaged body. And then the final wave came—a massive horde of spawns lunging from every direction.

Cain managed to slaughter more than eighty percent of them in a blur of motion, but the remaining scores exploded simultaneously, releasing blasts of cosmic-rooted fire that swallowed him whole.

The void lit up in a sunburst of purple-orange carnage.

Emprik’s grin widened at the sight. His expression twisted into a devious, triumphant leer as the storm of flames churned. "He must be too wounded to escape," he murmured, watching the inferno greedily.

As if answering him, the flames at last dissipated—revealing Cain’s unmoving body at the epicenter of the blast. Wounds gaped open across every inch of his form. The sheer pain he must have endured was unimaginable.

Naturally, Emprik felt no pity. Only triumph.

He shot forward instantly. No hesitation. His blade arced toward Cain’s neck in a clean, merciless motion. He could already imagine the Scarlet King’s severed head rolling through the void, ready to be devoured by the Heart of the Root.

The blade slashed down with overwhelming strength.

But instead of splitting flesh, the battlefield rang with the sharp, impossible sound of metal colliding against an unbreakable wall.

Emprik froze.

Cain had raised his hand—just the back of his hand—to block the strike.

And the blade had not even pierced the skin.

Shock ruptured across Emprik’s face as the impossibility sunk in. That was no defensive technique, no clever trick. His blade genuinely could not cut through Cain’s flesh.

Cain finally smiled.

It was a cold smile—glacial, merciless. With a flick of his arm, he knocked the blade aside as if it were a child’s toy, then planted three crushing blows into Emprik’s face. Entropy and Nihility clashed inside each strike, detonating outward and blowing apart the back of the Champion’s skull.

Before Emprik’s body could even begin to fall, Cain’s fists blurred again. A double punch to the chest. Another internal collision of Entropy and Nihility. A hole erupted clean through Emprik’s torso, sending him hurtling across the void like a broken puppet with severed strings.

Cain exhaled slowly, feeling the raging power coursing through his entire form. During the battle against the spawns, he hadn’t simply resigned himself to the inevitable. He had used every scrap of Primal Origin Energy he harvested from each spawn he killed—Tens of thousands at the Deity tier, thousands at the Archdeity Rank—to force the Eclipse Monolith Inherence forward.

And now, standing amidst the drifting cosmic embers, he had reached the Fourth Level. His body-refinement technique was complete. His flesh had become as resilient as an Early Alpha-Omega Overgod treasure.

And that was only the foundation.

Once he layered on the resilience granted by his energy, his Laws, his Star Power, and the living shell of NecroSkin, his endurance had risen to the point where he could stop Emprik’s blade with nothing but the back of his palm.

Still, Cain didn’t relax. Kukulkatz was already moving with renewed ferocity, and hundreds of spawns had surrounded him again. Each one glowed like a star on the verge of going supernova.

But instead of dread, Cain’s smile only widened.

Because the Eclipse Monolith wasn’t the only thing he had accomplished.

The next instant—

"BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!"

Kukulkatz’s grin spread as another tidal wave of Root-born orange fire swallowed Cain. "No matter how strong your body becomes, nothing can withstand the power of the Root," the Champion declared, satisfaction dripping from every word.

He finished speaking just as the flames froze.

Every ember, every ripple of orange light halted mid-motion for a single impossible second—then began spiraling inward, forming a vortex that twisted and howled like a collapsing star.

And at the heart of that spinning inferno... was Cain’s left hand.

His middle and index fingers devoured every single ember of that orange flame.

Cain stepped through the unraveling storm with a wild, icy grin twisting his lips. His gaze locked onto Kukulkatz, sharp enough to shear soul from flesh.

"It took me a while to perceive your frequency," Cain said, his voice a low, cold rasp that carried through the void. "But after hundreds of your explosions... I finally have it."

His right hand rose slowly—almost casually.

"And that means..."

His smile widened, merciless and exultant.

"You can have your attack back."