Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

"Samsara..." Yan Zaizen felt mystified by its inborn abilities. As an Imperial Law that governed the life, death, and stability of a soul, he was even further shocked by its characteristics.

"You!" Abruptly, he became frustrated and enraged. His hands clenched into fists and the world quivered. This anger was justified.

As he continued to perceive the profoundness of this art, he attempted to see if he could glimpse into the Samsara Cycle of this world. If so, wouldn’t he be able to revive his parents or at least retrieve their soul? Yet...

"What is it?" Pinaka was startled by Yan Zaizen intense reaction. Even though she was interconnected to his soul, she didn’t understand the heavenly laws he cultivated. This was one of the limitations she possessed as an artificial soul.

After a long while, Yan Zaizen finally calmed down. "...If I want to revive a soul, I need the soul." His words was bordering on common sense, but how he said it left Pinaka unable to respond.

"It’s been thousands of years since my parents died, their souls are no long lingering in the heavens awaiting processing, but likely in hell."

"...oh..." Pinaka understood now. Due to the time difference, their souls had already fully descended to hell and awaiting their reincarnation. If this was the case, then obtaining the soul was nearly impossible.

"Wait..." Yan Zaizen’s eyes lit up, his hands relaxed and a smile formed on his lips. A light of dark-white flickered in his eyes. This light seemed to contain the ability to control all souls, their life, their death, and their destination.

Those eyes peered through space and an untold distance. It seemed that, as he looked forward, the world before him was no longer his world. Instead, it was a world of souls!

"I’ll find a way." As these words left his lips, he didn’t explain. His hands reached out. This hand may seem normal but as it reached out souls would tremble.

"Zai..." Pinaka felt her soul tremble slightly.

"I see!" Yan Zaizen stepped out, exiting chaotic space and entering the Border Expanse. His eyes shined even more brilliantly as he looked upwards.

He saw them.

It wasn’t a single lifeform but a myriad of lifeforms. These lifeforms were spiritual existences and even amidst these many odd and irregularly looking lifeforms, there was those planet-sized mouth-balls.

Pinaka, connected to Yan Zaizen’s sights, gawked as she saw an entirely different world. There were humanoid, animal-like, and creatures that could only be called monstrosities of creation.

"What...what is this?" Pinaka had heard that the Border Expanse was home to many ill-begotten creatures that could scare even heavenly cultivators for a lifetime, but seeing it now...

Yan Zaizen’s eyes blazed a deep spiritual light as he glanced around. The Border Expanse wasn’t dark. Instead, it was blindingly bright that it seemed to reach an extreme which makes it dark. This light seemed to act as a shield for these spiritual creatures, inducing all other lifeforms into a blind-state.

It was such an odd feeling. Before, Yan Zaizen had refined a soul regalia into his brain, enhancing his senses, but that was just like lowering that brightness from 100 to 99. Now, he could see it all.

"The Border Expanse is Hell?" As he said this, he spotted a three-armed demonic creature with no legs. Its skin was wrinkly yet its face was like a baby’s. This face had no eyes, with two ears that could be considered as replacing those eyes, and a nose with gas emitting from it.

Yan Zaizen was intrigued, but his previous thought felt incorrect. The Border Expanse was not hell. Instead...

"It’s..." Yan Zaizen felt his mind spiral as he looked around more. He felt his thoughts were impossible, inconceivable, but there was a bit of truth within. After all, he was capable of doing something similar.

"False Heavenly Universe..." Recalling Ezekiel’s words, he now saw why even Heavenly Gods felt this to be the case.

"That vision..." When he comprehended the Law of Samsara, he saw a small figure holding a staff with a blade. This figure stood atop a gear and there was faint trembling, as if it wishes to break free. It gave him an odd feeling, but it also shed a little bit of light.

"Interesting..." Yan Zaizen didn’t fully complete his thought, but felt like exploring the possibility even further. He was about to tap out, but reconsidered, his hand into a palm he blasted forth. This palm started to emanate a dark-white color and seemed about to grasp a soul.

Ting!

"Hm?" Yan Zaizen ceased his actions, cancelling his spiritual light and reaching into the Meteor Ring. At a corner was an oval stone that flicker with bright white color. "Yin-Yang Communion Talisman?" Withdrawing the stone, he connected his spiritual sense within.

"Yan Zaizen, here’s the location. When you arrive, support the attackers." Ezekiel’s voice rang out. Yan Zaizen furrowed his brows slightly as a Heavenly Map entered his mind with a specific location.

"Isn’t this remarkably close to the Central Heaven?" Yan Zaizen felt slightly baffled, but he didn’t hesitate. The Border Expanse exists everywhere, he had more than enough time to search for some answers. His priority is still to return home.

With a tap, he left an Astral Remnant on the planet and stepped forward. His body merged into the spatial void as his body emanated deep spatial heavenly might. With a speed that was astonishingly fast, he traversed the spatial void.

"Zai, that world?" Pinaka asked, her mind still slightly trembling at the world hidden within the world.

Yan Zaizen was like light as he shuttled through a spatial tunnel. His brows lifted at Pinaka’s question. "That ’world’ shouldn’t be a world like a heaven, but its possible its a collapsed universe." Yan Zaizen speculated, but he wasn’t exactly sure.

The only thing that’s truly certain is that 99% of the creatures in Border Expanse could not interact with those in the Heavenly Universe, and the other 1% shifted in and out like the mouth-balls. However, even that didn’t last.

"A collapsed universe? Like the Non Universe?" She was startled and faintly disbelieving of the notion.

"I can’t know for certain, but don’t you find it odd that the Non Universe and the Heavenly Universe are so greatly different?" Yan Zaizen said, pausing briefly he added, "It’s like the heavens are bubbles filled with restrictions and barricades within another world."

With a step, he evoked his False Grand Dao, amplifying the speed he shuttled through the spatial void. He had a very strange and urgent feeling in his heart, one that continued to get more and more intense as if his life would be derailed if he was just a second too slow.

"...I do feel like that but..." Pinaka was uncertain.

Regardless of Pinaka’s thoughts, Yan Zaizen didn’t rest and continued forth. Not to mention, even he wasn’t truly certain what he said was correct. He only had a few clues to base this off of, such as Ezekiel’s recounts of a Heavenly God calling the universe ’False,’ the segregated spiritual world, and the image of the gear. There was more, but these made him more uncertain.

Several minutes passed.

"There!" Yan Zaizen felt the location getting close and pushed forth.

Boom!

He was halted by a solid object, like a wall. He didn’t hesitate to deduce the situation nor was he shocked, "a spatial barrier? A war..."

Coldly snorting, he punched forth as his Heavenly Shrine erupted with six floors of spacetime energy! The heavenly might was like a spear to a marshmallow, unstoppable!

A hole his size was produced in the spatial void and he stepped in with maximum speed. In a blink, that hole closed.