The void

Only after Unimon left did Zheng Fan raise the Night Dawn Sword and slowly begin to move. He performed another sword dance. This time, it did not generate a powerful field, but it seemed to stir up a tremendous storm somewhere unseen.

"Azure Dragon Sword, Sky Splitter!" What should have been a graceful, fluid sword dance was repeatedly interrupted as Zheng Fan thrust his sword into empty air. Apart from his digitized arms and legs, every bone, muscle, and inch of skin in his body was torn apart by the backlash. Blood flowed through his torn skin and was instantly forced into data energy by the Digimon World, shrouding him in a thick blood mist.

Everyone knew that among the Four Symbols Divine Beasts, Vermilion Bird soared through the heavens, White Tiger held dominion over the land, and Black Tortoise subdued the vast seas. With sea, land, and sky already divided among them, what was left for Azure Dragon? Thus, Azure Dragon's fundamental power was space. The spatial power of dragons was immensely strong. To give a specific example, if a mighty cultivator did not want anyone opening their coffin to examine their corpse after death, they would use the Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin method to travel endlessly through space. Of course, even mighty cultivators dared not use living dragons, so this method could only employ dragon corpses. It relied on the corpses' spatial instincts. One could only imagine the spatial power of a living dragon consciously directing it.

Azure Dragon Swordsmanship was created by a mighty human cultivator after watching Azure Dragon travel freely through space. Its third form, Sky Splitter, disturbed space where no spatial ripples existed. Zheng Fan's Sky Splitter dance threw space into chaos, stirring up untold void storms, yet only a few spatial nodes barely emerged on Infinite Mountain-the very spots he had pierced. As the nodes shattered, the spatial barrier would shatter with them, and everything would fall into the void.

"You two can die!" With that, Zheng Fan swung the Night Dawn Sword at the deity. Huge black cracks appeared in midair, instantly becoming black holes. Using Azure Dragon Swordsmanship, he directed them to swallow the deity. Neither the deity nor Devimon had any way to evade them. But Zheng Fan could maintain control for only a single breath. Then his strength gave out, and he collapsed, swallowed by the shattered space.

"Is this the void, or somewhere else?" If the void could be said to have a color, it could only be darkness. There was no light in the void, so the eyes received no information. After reaching the Spirit Level, however, spiritual perception became one of the main sources of information, allowing one to sense the void's rich variety.

The most beautiful sight in the void was the destruction and rebirth of spaces. No world's sense of beauty could reject such a wonder, and cultivators would go mad for even a sliver of insight from it. Of course, these spaces that constantly perished and grew were all exceedingly small. Whether any of them held histories spanning trillions of years, no one knew.

The dangers of the void were also endless. Void storms were its most common disasters. Spatial chain reactions, meanwhile, were disasters without form or trace. When Zheng Fan used his Azure Dragon sword dance atop Infinite Mountain to force spatial nodes into existence, there was no telling how many disasters he caused in unknown places. Likewise, if an immensely powerful cultivator tore space apart somewhere far away, the effects might reach him. Though the sheer size of the void made the chances of encountering such chain-reaction disasters extremely small, they were happening all the time.

With his abilities, Zheng Fan had no trouble surviving in the void. After all, he had been born in Buzhou. An expert of the same level from the Cultivation World, however, could not have survived there. Still, his strength only allowed him to protect himself in ordinary regions of the void. Disaster zones or leaving the void were things he could consider at his current level.

Zheng Fan was still exploring the void when he suddenly sensed fluctuations of energy beside him. Alarmed, he hastily backed away. Who knew whether this was a warning of an eruption in the void? If it really was, though, his turtle-like speed would never let him escape.

"This place feels so familiar." Devimon-it was actually Devimon who appeared out of nowhere. Zheng Fan could sense countless tiny specks of data energy emerging in the void and assembling into Devimon.

"Zheng Fan, you're Zheng Fan. But I've never seen a Digimon like you," Devimon said, without the viciousness he had displayed during their battle. Zheng Fan replied, "I'm human. I don't know whether you've heard of us."

Devimon studied his surroundings in the void, murmuring the word "human." Something seemed to occur to him, and he said, "I know where this is. We passed through a place like this when we left our homeland, and we also have to pass through one to reach the Dark Ocean. What a wondrous place. But didn't humans go extinct long ago?"

Zheng Fan explained, "This is the void. We believe that each world is an enormous, independent entity within it. When people like us leave a world, we enter the void. What do you mean about humans going extinct?"

After hearing Zheng Fan's explanation, Devimon said, "Then I understand what's going on. I think I know what I should do now. But humanity's extinction doesn't have much to do with you, so I won't explain it."

Zheng Fan did not press the matter. Devimon's words alone gave him a rough idea of what had happened. Though the extinction of the human world filled him with sorrow for those who shared his fate, only personal strength could carve a way through the tides of events.

Zheng Fan and Devimon wandered through the void for a long time. Devimon was deliberately moving in one direction, and Zheng Fan followed him. They encountered plenty of dangers along the way. Devimon was one formidable Digimon: even when a void storm tore his entire body apart, he could reassemble himself. Of course, Zheng Fan could also withstand small void storms with his body alone.

They traveled like this day after day until, at last, something immense appeared within Zheng Fan's spiritual perception. Naturally, Devimon sensed it too. A world? Is it a world or a Domain? Zheng Fan wondered.

Within the void, there were roughly three categories: worlds, Domains, and Planes. Earth belonged to a world. Only the influence of the Primordial World had allowed it to develop into such a vast universe. Worlds such as the Cultivation World were similar exceptions, rather than the norm. A world was ordinarily the largest unit within the void. Had Earth not been an entrance to the Primordial World, its world could ultimately have grown only to the size of the Milky Way. A Domain was a place that could receive the power of the Sun and Moon but possessed no complete celestial bodies. It could ultimately grow only to the size of the solar system. A Plane depended on a world and drew on the power of the celestial bodies within it, possessing a complete, clearly defined boundary.

To Zheng Fan as he was now, both a Plane and a world were immense.

Devimon reached the boundary before Zheng Fan. Astonishingly, he shattered his own body outright, turning into fragmented data energy and entering the world. As Devimon broke apart, Zheng Fan could sense his mocking air.

A world's barrier could not be shattered by external force. Even so-called world-destroying experts could not break it.

Zheng Fan had long since heard his elders speak of how terrifying such a barrier was. Anyone who failed to meet its requirements could not enter a world through the void, no matter how heaven-defying their cultivation. Now, for instance, he could sense that this barrier admitted only Digimon, or more precisely, data energy. But out in the void, even if he was willing to turn his body into data energy, he had no way to do so.

"No. I have to find a solution." Sensing the power of the world's barrier, Zheng Fan began moving along it.

The void truly was an excellent place to train. The high spiritual pressure deep within it could help stabilize one's foundation, the destruction of spaces could provide insight into spatial laws, and void storms could allow body-refining experts to improve rapidly. Zheng Fan already knew all of this. Now he also learned how low the spiritual pressure was at the boundary between the void and a world. He could use many Spirit Level and even Law Level techniques here, greatly improving his mobility outside the world's barrier.

"What is this place?" Time had left no mark on Zheng Fan. He felt no signs of its passage in his bones or skin, and he did not even know how time was reckoned in the void. Perhaps during a single breath of his, some world had already passed through tens of millions of years of history. Mainly, however, this was because he carried Earth's fundamental laws and was unaffected by the void's chaotic time.

What appeared before Zheng Fan were cards. Each card depicted a kind of Digimon. Countless cards fluttered through the small space. He knew they were Digimon cards because he could sense their auras: the courage of the card depicting Leomon, the imposing dominance of SaberLeomon's card, and the discipline of Andromon's. There were also many Digimon he did not recognize.

"What's this?" Zheng Fan reached out, and a card flew into his hand. "Leomon, Ultimate, Vaccine-type. Special move: Skyward Strike."

Zheng Fan suddenly saw a scene unfold: a Leomon was fighting on a grassland against an eagle-like Digimon. "Leomon, take my Red Sun!" Red light shot from the eagle's eyes and pierced straight through Leomon's chest.

"Damn it! If I could fly, you'd be nothing!" Leomon shouted, clutching his chest as he fell. Just as Zheng Fan grew anxious, the Light of Evolution descended from the sky. "Leomon, digivolve to... Leomon!" "Is this a brand-new evolution? I can fly!" Although Leomon no longer had a humanoid body, a human form was merely humanity's preference. Digimon did not care about that.

Was this the evolution Leomon wanted? Zheng Fan thought with a smile.

So this was the Digimon World's refuge. Every Digimon evolution was recorded by the world, and Ancient Digimon would additionally have a card like this formed as a reward. Every single card fluttering through this space represented an Ancient Digimon.

These cards had originally been inside the Core of the Digimon World. But because of the Darkness Invasion, the Core of the Digimon World had been forced to transfer all its records. The void was the refuge the Digimon World had chosen.