Return to the Warp!

Crack-

"Aaaaaah!!"

As the intense sensation of falling hit her, Hana Ye screamed over and over, her little hands flailing wildly, but it didn't do a damn thing.

In that instant, the whole world began to spin.

It was like someone had pressed the flush button on a toilet.

Their bodies plummeted uncontrollably.

And it wasn't just them. A huge swath of buildings and streets around them also fell into that empty darkness as reality collapsed.

Whoosh-

A tentacle instantly wrapped around her little body and pulled her straight over.

By now, Hana Ye had completely forgotten her fear of Lin En's twisted form. With an (ΩДΩ) expression, she clung tightly to his enormous eyeball, her curly hair streaming upward.

"What the hell is going on?!!"

The skeleton wrapped in Lin En's tentacles said in terror:

"Your rank of existence is too high! The Surface World simply can't withstand your leaking aura. Once it reaches the critical threshold, reality shatters immediately! This is also why many Spirit Realms couldn't remain manifested in the real world for long after Eternal Night!!"

[First Layer of the Spirit Realm]

Everything spun.

An enormous rift abruptly appeared in the ash-strewn sky.

Crack-

"Aaaaaah! (ΩДΩ)!"

They fell out of thin air onto a fog-shrouded street. Billowing ash drifted through the sky, and their surroundings looked much the same as before, but every building was extraordinarily dilapidated and eerie, as though they had fallen into an isolated dead city.

Lin En's eyeball rotated as he looked around.

"What is this place?"

The skeleton trembled.

"The Spirit Realm! This is the first layer of the Spirit Realm!! It's also the place closest to reality. Thank goodness... if we've only fallen here..."

But before he could finish-

Crack-

With another deafening crash, cracks once again spread through the scenery around them.

"This is bad!"

In an instant, amid Hana Ye's screams, their surroundings shattered like a mirror again, and they fell once more into that mysterious realm of darkness.

This time, the sensation of falling was far more intense than before.

It was like someone had grabbed your stomach and kept wrenching and shaking it on a roller coaster, trying to shake every last drop of acid out of your body.

"It's triggered a chain reaction!! I should have realized!! My lord!! Hurry and rein in your aura!!"

He howled, the flames in his eye sockets and nostrils streaming upward.

"With your rank of existence!! If this keeps up, we'll definitely fall to the very bottom of the Spirit Realm!!"

"Shut up! You're too damn loud!!"

[Second Layer of the Spirit Realm]

Crack-

Another violent shattering sound rang out as the sky split apart.

On the ground below, a group of Terror Demons were noisily squabbling over a rotting corpse, tearing off mouthfuls and feasting.

Boom-

Lin En's indescribably horrifying body came crashing down again, smashing the entire group of Terror Demons to a pulp.

"The second layer! We're on the second layer!!"

The skeleton trembled.

But the moment the words left his mouth, the surrounding space began shaking violently and uncontrollably again. Clearly, even this layer couldn't withstand the aura constantly escaping from Lin En's body.

Lin En immediately understood as well. This wasn't something he could solve simply by reining in his aura. This body of his had already reached its critical limit.

It was like a cup.

Its maximum capacity was only a few milliliters, yet you were pouring a hundred kilograms of liquid into it.

The end result would either be an overflow or an outright explosion, the cup shattering and the liquid spilling everywhere!

It was too full!

Nothing more could fit inside!

"Hana Ye!!"

Lin En instantly reached out a tentacle and swept up the little girl whose hair was already standing on end, then ripped a huge opening in his own body.

He forcibly stuffed her straight inside.

Hana Ye immediately cried out with an (ΩДΩ) expression, "Aaaaaah! What are you doing!!"

Lin En ground his teeth in exasperation. "Why all the damn questions?! I have to go back for a while! Remember, stay inside my body until I return! If you get eaten otherwise, don't blame me for not showing any affection for my wife!"

Crack, crack, crack, crack-

The space around them was about to collapse again.

Lin En instantly opened his panel and looked at the [Dismiss projection] button.

[Ding! Your current manifestation time is 24 hours and 53 minutes. Would you like to force a return?]

"Yes!"

Without any hesitation, he confirmed it.

But in the final second before his return, Lin En abruptly turned, grabbed the skeleton's skull, and, beneath his terrified gaze, snapped it off and seized his soul.

"I wouldn't feel too comfortable leaving you here."

Hum-

Just one second before space collapsed a second time, that calamitous aura abruptly vanished.

Under Hana Ye's horrified, stupefied gaze, Lin En's thrashing tentacles fell limp, and the freshly detached skull tumbled to the ground.

The cracks in space disappeared, and their surroundings instantly returned to deathly silence.

"Lin... Lin En? What happened to you?"

There was no answer.

On the ground shrouded in thick, blood-red fog, only that vast, twisted form with its winding tentacles remained standing in place.

"Are you dead?"

The moment his skull was detached-

He felt everything spinning, his consciousness filled with piercing roars, as though he had crossed the barriers and gaps between worlds in an instant.

He felt the flame of his consciousness gradually dying out.

Am I going to die?

After all, whatever the reason, he had offended such a terrifying powerhouse. There really was no reason to spare him.

But at that very moment, his mind abruptly cleared.

No!

I'm still alive! Could it be...

And when he instinctively looked around, he saw a sight that instantly chilled him to the bone, made his hair stand on end, and almost shattered his soul outright.

Right before him, an enormous rift spanned the heavens, stretching from the distant darkness all the way to the edge of his vision.

Dreadful and endless.

Within that enormous rift, he could faintly see a distant land spread out before him.

And behind him-

There was nothing but boundless, dense darkness. The flowing black mist looked as though the slightest touch would instantly scatter his soul and tear him apart.

"Wh... what is this..."

He was chilled to the bone, utterly aghast.

At that very moment, he abruptly turned his head. Far in the distance, he saw a blazing Sun, almost large enough to blot out the sky, burning with roaring golden flames. It hung above the enormous rift, radiating endless light and heat.

Its light merely brushed him.

Sssss-

His soul instantly began emitting wisps of smoke.

[Ding! Skeleton Lord Salgon's Sanity -60!]

Almost immediately, he ducked behind the "shelter" at his back in terror. His soul, burning with a tiny wisp of ghostly flame, nearly dissolved.

"Could that be... could that be..."

"The Sun!"

At that moment-

An extraordinarily terrifying and outrageous conjecture surfaced in his mind.

The great golden Sun spanning the sky, together with that enormous rift tearing through the entire heavens...

Boom-

His consciousness instantly went blank, as though struck by a massive hammer.

"[The Warp]..."

He murmured that forbidden name.

Could it be...

At last, he turned his head little by little, as though using every ounce of strength he had ever possessed, and stared blankly at the "shelter" behind him.

It resembled an enormous cocoon formed from countless tentacles wrapped together, covered in sticky walls of black flesh. He could faintly sense the calamitous transformation taking place within, just like the terrifying aura that had escaped from that young man's body on the street and collapsed reality itself.

Hum-

His consciousness instantly went blank.

"An Outer God."

At this moment, he no longer had any questions or doubts.

If he had harbored even the slightest shred of doubt before, every last one of those doubts had now been utterly shattered.

Because He had brought him to the [Warp] beyond the heavens...

But wait!

He instantly shuddered.

If the [Sun] is still here, what about that Valkyrie?

That goddess who personally ended the Eternal Night Era and ascended as the real world's last deity-could she... already be dead?