Chapter 989: The Secret of the Void Rift
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 989: The Secret of the Void Rift
The moment this Life Clone of mine was captured, her life's purpose was fulfilled.
Taking the first Life Clone, the "Ancient Remnant Ice King," as a revelation, I had transformed that initial coincidence of birth into a possibility held within my own hands.
A Life Clone.
She was more like a version of my current self becoming the past version of me who had nothing. She proved that so-called strength consists not only of the accumulation of power, but also the cognition of that power.
She let me know that even if I am not yet a Transcendent, I still possess the possibility of killing one without relying on tools like Void Rifts or Dream Domains.
"Consequences?" At this moment, the Transcendent Wizard had cast all caution to the wind.
There would be no consequences!
He had captured this Little Witch. Even in the worst-case scenario, if a Transcendent Witch tried to move against him, he could drag this girl down to the grave with him!
While trading a Transcendent life for a Little Witch's life seemed like a poor bargain, as long as the interests were high enough, he was willing to pay with his life.
After all... even for Wizards, life was not lived for oneself alone. Wizards had partners.
They even had descendants.
As a Transcendent race, Wizards naturally possessed special methods of procreation, allowing Transcendents to mate and give birth to offspring who were Transcendent from birth.
The reason Transcendent races were so rare was that it wasn't enough for a race to simply produce male and female Transcendents; special means were required to produce Transcendent children.
For example, the Transcendent Witch race had the Breeding Great Subject. The reason Witches were a Transcendent race was that their racial floor was the Transcendent level. They were forced to act this way. Before the birth of the Breeding Great Subject... they basically sustained the prosperity of their race through large-scale Witchification.
Transcendents were not immortal.
Even Transcendent Wizards could die.
"I know you definitely have a crowd of Transcendent Witches behind you—you might even have a Transcendent Witch partner. Since we Transcendent Wizards have already intervened, there's no need for you all to keep hiding, is there?"
"And yet you still dare to strike?"
I looked at the Transcendent Wizard before me. I could sense his resolve to die, but fundamentally, he didn't want to. This undisguised expression of emotion made it easy for me to see through his mind.
Heart Sense does not lie, unless... the opponent has deceived even themselves by altering their own memories and cognition.
But clearly, this man had no need for such elaborate measures.
"As long as I hold you... who would dare touch me! Aren't you very important to the Witches? Would they just stand by and watch you die?" To ensure his safety, the unnamed Wizard used a special technique to pierce and imprison my soul.
"So, your confidence in acting comes from using me to threaten the Witch Academy, is that it?"
"..."
"You're so naive it makes me laugh."
After saying this, I looked at the man's gaunt, haggard face and laughed. "A minor character like you isn't even worthy of the Witch sisters behind me stepping in!"
"I originally intended to die at your hands, since you are my first true Transcendent-level opponent. But now I realize you aren't worthy... do you understand? You aren't worthy!"
"What did you say! Where do you get the nerve to say such things!" An instinctive trace of unease rose within him, and he intensified the soul-binding curses and restraints.
The intense curses bit deep into my soul, nearly making me groan, but it went no further than that.
"People like you, I only call... brutes. You don't even understand your opponent, do you realize that?"
The Wizard looked at my mocking gaze. He saw no trace of fear. The soul-deep pain did not elicit a plea for mercy; there was only disdain for him.
By this point, some onlookers seemed to realize that the person captured by the Transcendent Wizard might not be the Little Witch they thought she was.
Then who was this?
A double? Or some form of disguise? But regardless of the reason, it failed to answer one question.
Why would the Witches fail to protect such a genius?
However, time would not wait for their contemplation.
The source of this entire incident—that massive, unique Secret Realm Core—began to fluctuate without warning.
A chilling power leaked from the rift in the core, causing it to shake violently.
It was like an unstable bomb that had just had its fuse lit.
When it blew, the vast space contained within the Secret Realm and the snowfields covered in ice crystals and drifts would manifest upon the Qunluosen Wasteland in the most extreme manner possible.
At that time, ice and snow would fill the sky, blanketing the entire wasteland, and cold winds would howl, whipping up a bone-chilling cold wave.
But that was only one level of the disaster.
Back when the Secret Realm exploded at the Witch Academy, it had caused massive problems. If a Transcendent Mentor hadn't stepped in to stabilize it, the entire Fool's Village that accompanied the Secret Realm's collapse might have piled up into a mountain in the center of the academy.
What was even more lethal was the spatial volume of the Secret Realm. The internal space of the Glacial Throne Secret Realm was significantly larger than that of the Fool's Village Secret Realm.
The spatial tremors caused by the moment a Secret Realm ruptures are no joke. Furthermore, the accompanying dense web of Void Rifts would ensure that no living thing remained in the affected area.
Of course, this level of danger only applied to the weak.
Students possessing extraordinary power might be heavily injured or even die, while only those with Immortality could guarantee survival.
As for Transcendents, they could smooth over such spatial disasters with a wave of a hand.
"A Witch Secret Realm." The Wizard frowned as he watched the fluctuations, unsure of what I was trying to pull.
But it was this very Secret Realm that soon birthed a power that made his heart skip a beat.
A Void Rift!
Upon seeing the entire core fall into a macroscopic state of distortion, the Transcendent's expression finally changed.
Amidst the sounds of tearing space, even the explosion of the Secret Realm became a mere background element!
BOOM—!
The explosion, accompanied by extreme cold, sent a spherical shockwave expanding across the Qunluosen Wasteland.
Snowflakes and ice crystals were shredded by the terrifying force, turning into a frozen mist.
The trembling space distorted rapidly before their eyes. The tremors brought about by spatial overlapping tore open countless fine cracks, dotting the air like surface waves on a sea, revealing flashes of the darkness of the Void.
Countless drifts of snow and blocks of ice were scattered by the blast, eventually falling to the ground as hail and debris.
After the Main World had been conquered, the first large-scale snowfall in the Core World—where the four seasons were normally absent—played out here on the Qunluosen Wasteland.
And the area affected by this snow would not be limited to the wasteland alone.
But no one cared about these celestial-level aftereffects anymore.
Along with the shattering of the Secret Realm, a Void Rift that looked like a jagged tear across the sky emitted a terrifying pressure of energy and an extremely dangerous, explosive aura.
And a figure of massive proportions, holding high a long staff condensed from ice crystals, stood between the heaven and earth of the Qunluosen Wasteland, bracing against the massive maw torn open by an unknown number of Void Rifts.
"This! This is the aura of a Witch's Great Spellbook!"
At this moment, a Saint Realm Transcendent finally recognized that unique aura belonging solely to a Witch's Spellbook.
Only the systematic Spellbook construction platform of the Witches could emit such a perfectly regulated aura of Spell Order.
Yes... the aura of Spell Order.
The reason the Witches' foundation was so powerful was that, starting from the Spellbook, they were smoothing the path to the Saint Realm for every Witch.
Within the Spellbook lay the revelation of order. It was precisely because of the Spellbook's existence that the specific term "Spell Domain" existed.
In theory, any kind of Transcendent power could be used to shape order and transform into a Domain, but without a systematic legacy, the advancement of a Domain relied entirely on individual understanding and talent.
The Spellbook was jokingly referred to as a "Spell Deepening and Derivation Research Platform." What it lowered was the threshold for a Transcendent to qualify for the Saint Realm!
Now... with such terrifying power fluctuations and those chilling, iconic Void Rifts, what could this be if not a Great Spellbook?
"This Ancient Remnant Ice... it! It's actually creating a Great Spellbook!"
"How is that possible? It's really creating a Great Spellbook?!"
When this result was laid bare for all to see, they had no choice but to believe it.
The greed buried deep in their hearts surfaced in their eyes.
However, upon realizing that this was very likely the so-called Great Glacial Throne Technique, the wiser individuals suppressed their greedy gazes.
After all, the Great Glacial Throne Technique involved the Luck of the Main World and the unknown schemes of the Witches. Even if they had the heart to seize it, they had no way to keep it.
This power was not to be touched; once they held it, it would threaten their status in the Main World.
More importantly, it might disrupt the rumored "Staff of World Destruction Plan." No one could bear the guilt of sabotaging that plan.
Not even a sliver of a possibility could be allowed.
Because the first time the Witches' Great Ice Throne Plan had humiliated the Three Top Academies, they had completely elevated the status of this Great Spellbook to a matter of highest principle.
Because of this, they stood by and watched as a Great Spellbook neared completion, gradually being perfected in the hands of that Ancient Remnant Ice entity.
Yet no one dared to step forward, and no one would.
Regardless of race or faction, there was a heartfelt yearning for the creation or replication of power.
Out of respect for knowledge.
Out of affirmation of ability.
Out of recognition of achievement.
You could call a person arrogant, you could call them brainless, you could even say they were all style and no substance—but no one would say "you're not good enough" to someone who had created a Great Spellbook.
Geniuses receive preferential treatment at every level, even from their enemies.
To that end, they would use even more powerful means to strangle a genius in the cradle—and is that not a form of preferential treatment in itself?
As the initial shock faded, the thought of strangling this Ancient Remnant Ice King in its cradle was born in many minds.
Transcendent power has no racial boundaries, but the beings who hold that power do.
The last time they had seen this "monster," it had been a powerful existence ascending to the Transcendent level!
But that time, what they had feared was the Ice Throne Plan carried by the rise of that race, not the Ancient Remnant Ice itself.
Its power, its Transcendent status, its everything—it had all been given by those Transcendent Witches. It had been fragile and easily broken.
This time... the Ancient Remnant Ice King had been revived, and it wasn't even a Transcendent yet.
But those Transcendents were even more wary of the entity itself!
Because it had created a Great Spellbook without the help of any Witch!
Even if this was just a reassembly, how could one climb to such power without a thorough understanding of it?
Understanding a power and wielding a power are two entirely different concepts.
In most cases, the two are basically incompatible. Once they are compatible, such an existence is called—a genius.
To understand and to wield.
Such simple words, concepts that roll off the tongue, yet they heartlessly filter out the dreams of so many.
Even if this Ancient Remnant Ice could not stir up the same waves as it did years ago, in the eyes of too many, it had to die!
Or be used by them.
While everyone's eyes were focused on the Great Spellbook, the Ancient Remnant Ice I had manifested was staring fixedly at the Void Rift.
Crossing the material space of worlds, tearing the fundamental Void itself—this opening reached deep into the depths of Real Time. No wonder it could completely kill a Transcendent whose life essence was anchored in Real Time.
With the accumulation of those Witch predecessors, I witnessed the Void Rift torn open by such staggering power.
I began to understand the data on Great Spellbooks that had first existed within the Secret Realm.
Because... my current self was personally experiencing the things described in that data.
Through the proof of these lines of data and figures, I felt as though I were gradually touching a corner of the Void Rift's essence, and... why a Great Spellbook required the tearing of a Void Rift.
It was just that the truth buried deep within the torn Void left me puzzled.
The Void Rift seemed to represent more than just endless Transcendent power and a literal hole in the Void; it held a much deeper significance.
But for now, if I had to explain it, it was the special rule of "Infinity and Self-Circulation."
Perhaps there were other concepts, but from the rules torn by the Great Spellbook, I could only roughly identify these.
Perhaps this was one of the constituent rules of the Void itself.
And the first lifeform to discover it had utilized it, which was why there were Great Spells with permanent, undying effects.
If that were the case... then theoretically, it shouldn't just be power shaped by [Transcendent Knowledge] that could achieve permanent effects; there should be other means.
But theory is theory, and fact is fact.
The Void itself is a massive treasure trove of Infinity and Self-Circulation rules, and [Transcendent Knowledge] was the only "key" I had encountered so far that could pry it open.
And this wasn't something that could be pried open by mere brute force; it required both power and skill. That was why it was called [Transcendent Knowledge], not [Transcendent Power].
Thus, following this rule, the associated concepts of Great Spellbooks and Void Rifts emerged.
But... is it really only [Transcendent Knowledge] that can leverage such rules?
When I asked this question, there was only one answer in my heart.
No!
There could never be only one possibility.
In my cognition, so-called strength is not pure accumulation, but the gradual breaking of common sense, frameworks, rules, and the impossible.
That is the path of strength I recognize.
And now, I wanted to break this "unique" impossibility. A concept surfaced in my mind once more.
Totem.