Chapter 1338
Void storms are truly terrifying. I was nearly swept away, but instead, when I escaped the void storm, I fell onto a massive desolate planet. The gravity here is dreadful—I couldn't escape and nearly became the first Sky Rank mage to die from a fall...
After three years, I finally adapted to the gravity here and found a way to escape this desolate planet...
Leon frowned and continued flipping through the pages. He had thought Thornton Merlin's diary would contain information about the Stellar Battlefield—what it was, who the enemy was, and who they were fighting—but there was nothing of the sort.
Each diary entry was written with long intervals in between, and only rare, unusual experiences were recorded. It seemed as if ordinary things were never worth writing down at all.
He kept flipping until he reached about halfway through the diary, and finally found something different.
I actually saw him...
That entire page contained only this single line, and the handwriting was a bit different. Reading these words, one could almost feel Thornton Merlin's shock, confusion, and a swirl of complex emotions as he wrote them.
Leon frowned in thought, unsure what “him” meant. It seemed that when Thornton Merlin wrote “him,” he hesitated—this person must be extremely powerful. If he wrote their name in such a powerful magical book, perhaps the person would sense it, so he used a pronoun instead.
But in this obscure magical language, “him” is just a generic term—you can't tell if it's a man, a woman, or something else entirely.
Leon stared at the page for a long time, analyzing the sentence, trying to read Thornton Merlin’s emotional shifts and contradictions, but aside from that, he found no useful clues.
Turning to the next page, it seemed a long time had passed since the previous entry—the handwriting and ink were noticeably different.
Damn it, I was almost discovered by him. This cursed expanse of stars is just too barren and quiet—anything that appears stands out like sunlight in the night.
I’ve been tracking him for so long, and now I smell conspiracy—a very bad omen of disaster...
The handwriting was very sloppy and seemed to have been written in a hurry, as if he jotted down a few lines under urgent circumstances.
As he kept flipping, the handwriting became even more sloppy, and it looked as if something interrupted him halfway through writing.
Hell, I saw the Seventy-Two Eldritch Lords—living Eldritch Lords...
Reading this, Leon’s hands trembled—Eldritch Lords? The Seventy-Two Eldritch Lords? And alive?
What nonsense is this? The Eldritch Lords all perished ages ago—how could any still be alive?
Through the page, Leon could almost see Thornton Merlin’s face—shocked, panicked, utterly at a loss.
In these final pages, there were long gaps between each diary entry. Through these few lines, Leon closed his eyes and silently tried to deduce what Thornton Merlin had experienced.
It must have been a coincidence—Thornton Merlin discovered someone, or perhaps some creature. Gender, race, even age were all uncertain.
When Thornton Merlin saw this “person,” he was shocked, and then secretly followed them. The target seemed incredibly powerful, and it was tough for Thornton Merlin to keep up—no matter how careful he was, he was nearly discovered.
In the Endless Void, tracking someone seems easy to spot, because there’s almost nothing here—not even air, no obstacles at all. With Sky Rank power, you could see for tens of thousands of kilometers.
Tracking someone is both difficult and simple—if you keep your distance, even if you’re following in a steel warship, as long as you’re beyond their detection range, you could trail them openly and still not be noticed.
With Thornton Merlin’s strength, he didn’t even need to see the target—just following residual traces, he could keep tracking indefinitely, almost impossible to be discovered.
Yet, even so, he was nearly discovered.
In the end, after following that person, he discovered something incredible. Overwhelmed by shock, he lost control—he only managed to write half a sentence before being discovered.
Escape began. As he passed this desolate planet, he threw this magic book onto it—or perhaps it was simply left behind.
None of this is certain—too many accidents. From the magic book’s resonance, Thornton Merlin definitely hasn’t died; he must have escaped. The book survived here, probably because of this desolate planet.
Neither Thornton Merlin nor those pursuing him were confident that they could escape the gravitational pull of this desolate planet once they entered its range.
So this magic book was as good as destroyed—at best, its bloodline resonance could serve as a coordinate. Unfortunately, the space here is compressed to an unbelievable density. Breaking it open is nearly impossible.
Only a rare creature like the Void Owl, whose mastery of spatial power is instinctive—the best escape artist in the Void—could escape from here.
The gravity of this planet isn’t even the strongest in the Endless Void. On the most extreme desolate planets, only beings as terrifying as the Eldritch Lords could come and go freely. Plane Paths, Teleportation Arrays, Stargates—all useless for those worlds. You have to fly in, and fly out...
Leon kept flipping through, but found only blank pages—nothing more. He made all sorts of guesses, but couldn’t be certain of anything.
Who exactly was the person Thornton Merlin mentioned? What race were they?
And the Eldritch Lords...
Thornton Merlin was so shocked; what he saw must have been Eldritch Lords who were definitely, unquestionably dead—and maybe not just one.
But if he really encountered Eldritch Lords, how did he survive? If they meant him harm, he’d have died the instant he was discovered—his soul would have had no chance to escape.
Was it an illusion? Or did someone use fragments of Eldritch Lord souls and blood to create some terrifying existence—a resurrected, incomplete Eldritch Lord?
Leon put away the magic book and rubbed his head. He’d originally thought Thornton Merlin was here, which was why he’d come to this planet—to meet the legendary figure of the Merlin Family.
But it turned out to be a diary, which seemed to record something incredible—yet the words were too vague to confirm anything.
“Let’s go. We’re leaving.”
The Void Owl floated on Leon’s shoulder. Hearing Leon’s words, it immediately began adjusting their spatial frequencies, bringing Leon back into the Spatial Shadow of the subspace. It seemed unwilling to spend even another second on that desolate planet.
Even for the Void Owl, leaving a planet with tens of thousands of times normal gravity required such effort. Flying straight off was out of the question—someone like Agalon might barely manage it, but for them, forget it…
Appearing once more in this low but endless subspace, Leon glanced back at the projection of the desolate planet and pointed it out to the Void Owl.
“Can you mark this place? So we can come back if we ever need to?”
The Void Owl sent a ripple of soul energy, indicating it was no problem—but it never wanted to return to that desolate planet again.
Leon smiled but said nothing. The resources on this desolate planet were extremely limited—there was only one type, and even the deeper resources turned into Obsidian Crystal once extracted.
If he ever needed a large supply of Obsidian Crystal and had no other source, this backup location would come in handy.
After walking some distance in the subspace, Leon finally let the Void Owl go find a safe planet.
It took several hours to find a low-gravity desolate planet, with no voidstorms or strong interference nearby, and no powerful Void Behemoths.
This kind of place was undoubtedly the safest.
The Void Owl brought them out of the subspace, emerging onto a yellow-brown desolate planet. Its surface was covered with reddish-brown rocks—ordinary rocks, really. The gravity was half that of Northend World, so walking felt light. With no stars for a great distance, the chance of Void Behemoths appearing was low.
Most Void Behemoths need starlight to survive. Their energy comes from devouring prey and consuming void energy—the greatest source of which is, of course, the stars.
Moreover, when breeding, they must find a suitable star nearby to build their nest…
Once he’d confirmed it was safe, Leon began setting up the alchemical array—a nine-layered array to solidify space and protect the outer layer, all for defense against unexpected situations and to stabilize the space.
Once the array was set, Leon and the Void Owl entered the Natural Semi-Plane, leaving a spatial anchor at the center of the array.
That was Leon’s entry coordinate for the Natural Semi-Plane. Whenever he entered, it would naturally remain in place, serving as the link between the Natural Semi-Plane and the outside world.
To a certain extent, this coordinate was Leon’s connection to the Natural Semi-Plane. That’s why Leon could enter it from anywhere—the coordinate was always him, no matter the location. To the Natural Semi-Plane, there was no difference.
Entering the Natural Semi-Plane, Leon appeared solemnly atop the Sky Pillar, eyes closed, sensing the entire plane. His connection to the Natural Semi-Plane was like countless invisible threads.
Among them was the thread Leon left outside—the spatial anchor. Drawing on the Natural Semi-Plane’s power, Leon’s own strength surged, and the two collided.
In an instant, the connection between Leon and the Natural Semi-Plane—one of those threads—suddenly snapped.
Leon let out a muffled groan as his mind buzzed, his soul seemed to tremble, and the Natural Semi-Plane shuddered gently in response.
In that moment, Leon could no longer sense the anchor outside. At the same time, his absolute control over the Natural Semi-Plane showed a crack—a flaw that, in many cases, would be a major vulnerability and could affect Leon himself.
Still, it was much better than expected. The essential growth of the Natural Semi-Plane always outpaced its expansion, especially with the Sky Pillar’s suppression—thousands of Runes of Truth had already merged into it.
Over ten thousand Runes of Truth not yet mastered were all inscribed on the Sky Pillar. Though they didn’t benefit the Natural Semi-Plane much, they made the Sky Pillar stronger—enough to suppress the plane’s tremors.
Leon’s vision went dark. After ten seconds, he recovered and sensed the spatial anchor at the Gilded Rose.
Without waiting to recover, Leon immediately activated the anchor, linking the broken thread to the new spatial anchor. Once connected, he vanished from the Natural Semi-Plane and appeared deep within the Gilded Rose shop.
Leaving the Natural Semi-Plane again, in less than five seconds the temporarily linked thread snapped once more. The plane autonomously fixed the anchor to Leon himself, restoring the original connection.
Leon’s face was pale—the Natural Semi-Plane bore his rules. If not for the terrifying power of the Sky Pillar, it would’ve been much worse than just pallor.
This disrupted the rules’ foundation. For a long time, Leon wouldn’t be able to repeat this—and with the plane’s tremors, he couldn’t set up another backup anchor until fully recovered.
Leon gave a bitter smile—he hadn’t expected such severe consequences. But compared to being lost somewhere in the void, the price was almost negligible…
He just needed time to recover, to regain full control over the Natural Semi-Plane and personally sort out its rules.
Thinking back on his experience at the Stellar Battlefield, Leon finally understood why, when discussing the Endless Void, the greatest danger was always said to be getting lost—not the environment or the terrifying Void Behemoths…
If you were swallowed by that little Void Behemoth, who knows where you’d end up. Even if you survived, it wouldn’t matter—you’d already be lost…
In the Endless Void, there were just too many ways to get lost—anything could leave you stranded forever…
Void Behemoths, spatial traps, voidstorms…
If not for the Natural Semi-Plane, the first time he set foot on the Stellar Battlefield—just reaching the edge—he would’ve been lost forever, never to return.
Even if you knew countless coordinates, it was useless if you were lost. After all, in the Endless Void, coordinates aren’t fixed—only when two points correspond do you get two coordinates.
Only by confirming your own coordinate can you calculate your position and maybe find a way back. If you don’t know where you are, you’ll be lost forever…
At its peak, Northend World heavily exploited the resources of the Endless Void. They began charting star maps, marking coordinates for every place. Within mapped areas, it was almost impossible to get lost—but the Endless Void was just too vast…
Still, many people got lost in the Endless Void, especially those who recklessly searched for new resources. Going out and never returning was common.
Leon appeared. Less than three minutes later, Farrow arrived.
“Lord Merlin, what happened to you?”
Seeing Leon’s condition, Farrow was alarmed. Before he could say more, Leon waved him off.
“It’s nothing—just some backlash. I’ll be fine after some rest. Go find me a magical pet with spatial bloodline—I need it.”
Farrow hesitated, worry on his face, but left.
The Gilded Rose has reached a point where, unless it’s something truly rare or priceless, almost anything can be acquired—especially magical pets with spatial bloodlines. For the Gilded Rose, that’s no problem; you can even find them in Neverwinter City.
In less than three hours, Farrow returned with three magical pets, none taller than half a meter.
One was a silver-furred leopard, another a color-shifting lizard, and the last a jet-black owl.
None of the three magical beasts were above level twenty. Their bloodlines were strong, but all were still growing.
Seeing the jet-black owl, Leon smiled. It looked like an ordinary magical pet owl—descendant of messenger owls used by many mages in their towers, known as Guardian Spirits…
This one, though, seemed to have mutated and possessed a trace of spatial power. If not for the magic-suppressing shackles, no cage could hold this owl.
Leon took the owl and returned to the Natural Semi-Plane. He summoned the Void Owl, asked Lord Shaun to extract its soul, then fused the Void Owl with the black-feathered owl.
Leon assisted, but Lord Shaun did the main work. In less than ten minutes, the Void Owl fully merged with the black-feathered owl’s body. Once they were completely compatible, there would be no issues.
With Lord Shaun’s mastery over souls, there would be no side effects. The Void Owl’s escape ability was unmatched—too bad this was Northend World, not the Endless Void.
Here, with proper preparation, it’s possible to catch the Void Owl’s soul or even defeat powerful Void Owls—there are plenty of strong individuals in Northend World.