Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent!

Thankfully the System at least showed some mercy by shutting off his spirit from his body, otherwise he would have to suffer the full brunt of the process.

The pain he was feeling now was only that which was directed at his soul, as his soul core was being upgraded.

If he was left to freely experience the evolution from a lower life form to a higher life form, even an experienced awakened like himself wouldn't be able to bear it and would die from the shock.

Apparently Alex had heard snippets from Principal Farnes that this was something that nobody could overcome through their own will.

No-one, literally not a single awakened across the entire universe and beyond, could endure the process of evolution while being awake.

Though, Alex didn't know exactly how true that was. The universe was a vast place after all, and he had already experienced quite some mysterious and strange phenomena despite not even scratching the surface of what it had to offer — even now he was experiencing one such strange phenomenon!

With nothing left to explore, Alex closed his eyes, allowing himself to enter a true slumber, letting his consciousness rest through this process.

***

Meanwhile, in the physical realm, Alex's body continued to sink into the ocean. The viscous liquid enveloped him completely, and as if through some sort of connection, it's pulsating rhythm gradually started to match that of Alex's own.

However, from the dark expanse of the Void dimension, Mira was worried sick.

She felt helpless watching him fight against the Lux from the confines of the Void, while at the same time having to watch out for any unforeseen events on her own side as well.

The Void was a dangerous place, as already pointed out to her by Principal Farnes a while ago, so she could never be too careful.

However, her heart twisted in anxiety when she watched the ground underneath Alex and the Lux collapse in on itself and suck the two of them into its depths.

It was at this point that Mira couldn't bear to watch from the side doing nothing anymore that she forced her way out of the Void Dimension and back into the physical universe. She immediately ran full sprint to the edge of the hole that had been created underneath Alex and the Lux's feet. Continue your saga on empire

But before she could even arrive there, the ground had somehow closed up on itself and within less than a second it was back to normal — good as new!

It was like nothing had even happened there in the first place…

Mira's heart tightened even further upon seeing this, and she desperately pulled out her own sword and started hacking at the ground where they had fallen into. But no matter how much progress she made or how deep she dug, there remained no evidence of any sort of underground cave or layer or anything of the sort.

She checked with her spatial perception and even over a hundred kilometres deep, it was still completely solid!

It didn't take much though to realise that something very, very weird and both concerning had happened to them.

But aside from her, everyone else was completely oblivious to what had happened.

They were all too encompassed in their own fights back on the hectic battlefield to notice the disappearance of 1 human and 1 lux.

With her much more advanced and attuned spatial perception than Alex, Mira began to probe. She wasn't one to give up this easily, and she was determined to find out what exactly had happened.

Using the same methods she used to detect the presence of any living thing back in the Primordial Expanse where the usual function of her and Alex's spatial perception failed, she began to scope out the innards of the planet.

Just like when she and Alex were stuck in the primordial Expanse, Mira scanned for any spatial fluctuations that living beings caused to the space around them.

No living thing could escape from this, unless they had some very special methods, and to Mira's delight she actually received some results from her probe.

'I can feel Alex's presence down there! But why does the space feel so… hollow?' Mira quickly assessed the information her spatial perception fed to her, but this only left her even more confused.

'So powerful!!!'

However, immediately Mira felt something pushing back against her probing, and it wasn't something that her power could be equalled to.

Her detected was squashed easily, without even a tiny bit of effort exerted on the other party's end.

But before she was cut off, she detected something that left her absolutely stunlocked.

She hadn't just detected one living being, aka Alex, down in the depths of the planet.

There was a second life signature that she was sensing as well, but this one felt infinitely more powerful…

Nothing gave her such a feeling like this before, not even Principal Farnes!

In fact, even Principal Farne's life signature paled in comparison to the feeling this unknown being gave her.

The only point of comparison she could think of would be two figures.

Phoenix was the first. Although Mira didn't quite get the opportunity to scan him with her advanced spatial perception since he kept his aura and pressure very well suppressed, and even if she did she wouldn't find anything anyway.

He was one example of someone who could hide even their spatial fluctuations.

But the other being that gave her a feeling like this one…

It was the Void creature she had encountered a while ago upon entering the void.

Back then she felt so terrified and powerless, and it was a matter even the System itself had intervened in, pulling her directly out of the Void dimension and the grasp of that being.

A sense of dread overcame Mira.

If what she had felt in that small instance was correct… then it wasn't just Alex that was in grave danger, but this entire planet was!