The entire process was busy and swift.
Both Goria and the Princess wore looks of inexplicable satisfaction as they gathered the diamonds. Perhaps these gems truly were an irresistible temptation for women, even deities.
Perhaps because he had seen far too many diamonds, Soren was already growing a little numb to them.
The interior of the Diamond Asteroid was rich in gemstones, probably almost rivaling the core of the Elemental Plane of Earth. In the heart of that plane, the Dao actually liked to eat gems. Besides these, the asteroid also contained large quantities of metal and astral sand condensed into silvery-white solids. By contrast, the soil and rock most common on the Material Plane were virtually nowhere to be seen, owing to the collapse of the elements. The composition of the semicrystalline solid material remained unclear. Cutting it felt rather like cutting tempered glass, though the material itself was not transparent.
Soren used divine power to open a passage straight into the interior. Cutting up the entire asteroid would take at least a month, but the Protection from Energy barrier could not last that long.
The deeper he ventured into the asteroid, the stronger the radiation he felt became. When he finally reached its interior, a strange black crystal appeared before him. It was an enormous mass of annihilation matter unlike anything he had ever seen, its original structure having completely collapsed and reformed. Soren parted the metal surrounding it, then cut it free. But when he reached out to touch it, his expression changed.
"Such powerful negative energy!"
Soren tried to move it into his Demiplane, but a terrifying weight bore down on him. His brows knitted tightly as he murmured, "This bizarre weight simply defies reason."
The strange black crystal was roughly as tall as a person,