Most of Lord of Madness—including its existence and its power—was formless. The enormous distorted structures in the universe were merely phenomena it had caused, while the tide-like derivatives were merely projections of it under specific conditions in the real world. And the attack currently assailing Giant Turtle Rock Platform... that was what had slightly touched Lord of Madness's true self.
Yet it was completely unobservable, at least to the naked eye.
The ship was under attack every second. The violent fluctuations in the shield system proved that much. Although there was no physical contact, every sensor was sending back signals that the ship had been damaged or that danger was closing in. The bizarre phenomenon was utterly baffling, but in Hao Ren's field of vision, he could see another layer of reality in this stretch of space.
A viscous, dark "substance" filled the gaps between those structures in space, entwining with them like clouds and mist. It was the ultimate void. Everything normal, rational, and orderly in the universe would rapidly disintegrate upon coming into contact with it. Matter was reduced to elementary particles, elementary particles to quantum fluctuations, and quantum fluctuations to meaningless clusters of information. That unknowable, immeasurable viscous darkness was actually Lord of Madness's true form.
It was an "information representation" born alongside the universe at the instant of its creation, representing the Return of All Things to Death.
As the ship passed between them, contact with them was unavoidable. As an orderly entity, the starship could hardly avoid being damaged by these things of nothingness.
Hao Ren tapped the console. "How are the shields?"
"The recharge rate is keeping up, so don't worry," Nolan replied, her voice full of confidence. "This ship can fly through the void. This little bit of chaos is nothing."
"I remember