Chapter 426: Chapter 426: Not So Wise Chapter 426 – Not so Wise Noah’s mind was swallowed by darkness. He found himself with nothing inside his self except nothing. His whole being was sinking into deep emptiness, one he had never felt before. His mind was being crushed, his body feeling like a mad scientist was enjoying too much his experiment on him. It was like he was being cut, stabbed then recomposed again. There was no thought pulsing inside his mind. He was void. And void was him. Yet Noah, even amidst this weird state, somehow felt something cracking his skull. A voice. It was indeed a voice, but a muffled one, as if someone was speaking behind thick walls. Not knowing why and only following his instincts, he strained himself to listen. In the beginning nothing could be made out of the words of the voice, but after some time, understanding began to dawn inside his fragmented mind. Words began to whisper inside his head. [Wake up!] Noah snapped his eyes open, his mind now less sagging and his consciousness beginning to reboot. He groaned, feeling an aching pain behind the back of his neck. Cursing, he craned his neck around, absorbing the sight of darkness with a hint of white–silverish light surrounding him. It was not the darkness of the void. This was something else. Something familiar yet different. "Where am I?" He hissed under his breath, fully confused and most importantly lost about all that was happening. His mind, Noah felt, was slow. [You are fusing with the Authority of the Void Lord.] Providence’s worried voice echoed inside his head, making Noah remember his last restless act. [You need to overcome his Authority or you will be swallowed by him, Noah.] 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚 Noah frowned, "How?" [I don’t know for certain, but...] Providence’s voice was filled with frustration, [You must overcome his authority. The simplest way is to use your own. But the Void Lord’s authority is stronger than yours.] "Is there—!" Noah suddenly closed his mouth, swallowing back his words. He lowered his head, staring at his body and found out that his left leg was already no more. But not only, his right leg too was slowly disappearing, making Noah understand the stake of the current situation. He shivered, then snapped his head to one side of the strange place, his eyes resting on the Void Lord watching him with a bizarre smile. "I didn’t expect this." Void Lord said, voice honeyed with contentment, looking at his own body in awe. He could sense an unfathomable power slowly — but steadily — seeping into his being. This time, it was not only Noah’s Providence he was absorbing. The Void Lord was taking everything from Noah, including his bloodline and numerous titles. He was fascinated. And by taking all of those from him, the Void Lord was usurping the whole identity of Noah. Already, the Void Lord could feel the weight of Noah’s existence and with that, the dawn of understanding of who Noah was. But it was not all. Added to that, something began to scratch at his mind. If he continued to absorb Noah’s existence without controlling the process, then he would end up being unable to bear the whole weight of his own existence added to Noah’s existence in his body. He would burst. Immediately after that understanding, the Void Lord began to take the process into his hand. He made the decision to discard the dark side of Noah’s existence, taking the most pristine one. Noah watched this scene with a quiet almost lazy gaze. His eyes were not looking at the Void Lord himself, but at something deeper. There, he noticed something. He cracked a smile. "You are quite a confident one, aren’t you?" Noah said, feeling his existence slowly being drained. "Naturally." The Void Lord shrugged with confidence, "I don’t know what you did, but you have made things even easier for me. By trying to take over my authority you paved a smooth path for me to infect your very existence." He smiled, showing blinding white teeth, "I just need to devour you whole, and everything would be mine." He said, "and you must already know that you can’t do anything. The Void concept is stronger than your power of what... Providence, you called it? Quite unique, but still nothing in front of Void." His aura was getting stronger, and Noah was disappearing even more. "All of that being not the end, there is also the fact I have better grasp of my authority than you. Tell me, what can you do to avoid yourself being devoured?" He didn’t wait for an answer. "Nothing, I daresay, Noah Vaelgrim, Progenitor of Elysiari, Third Abomination." He finished, understanding more and more of Noah the more he absorbed his existence. At that instant, only the upper half of Noah’s body was left. All the rest had disappeared. Yet, he was looking at his opponent calmly. A little bit too calmly for his wife’s taste. [I hope you are calm for a reason, Noah. If you die here, you will hear me loud and clear.] Providence threatened, her voice soaked in worry. At her words, Noah chuckled, ’I wouldn’t mind that. But oh well, how can I die this easily?’ His eyes began to blaze with searing light. "You have fueled it enough." He said, "So let’s begin, shall we?" With only his arms remaining, Noah used the strand of purple hair that he had injected inside the Void Lord’s body. Strand that was now strong enough, with all his power absorbed by the Void Lord enriching its potency. But also, it was strong enough for the Void Lord to finally notice it. Yet it was far too late. The Void Lord found himself completely immobilized, eyes widening, unable to do anything. "Providence Law: Gift of Fate." Noah whispered. At his voice, something began to happen inside the Void Lord’s body. At first he was merely perplexed, but as time passed, his expression slowly became veiled by an overwhelming dread. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came except soundless gasps of pain and shock. There was something Noah realized inside the void beasts, and it was simply the fact that they were fateless. And naturally, Noah had been curious about it. So while slaughtering the void beasts like pitiful chickens, he began to experiment with them. And the first thing he asked himself was: Could he transform these fateless void beasts into beasts with fate? The question refused to disappear, so he acted upon it to find an answer. The first time was an embarrassing failure. But Noah was a fast learner, and he immediately understood the root of the problem. The universe itself didn’t want the void beasts in its stomach, so it rejected them. But here was the thing: Noah didn’t yet have a full universe within him... but he had the foundation of one. So what did he do? He created fate threads from his own self, and with the essence of his Buntu, linked them with the void beasts. It worked. Noah created beasts that were linked to his budding universe. Meaning these beasts could affect his Buntu on a deeper level and affect even its path. That was his breakthrough. And that was what he used in the fight against the Void Lord. Before even the fight, Noah knew danger was coming, and as a man with Providence, it would be foolish of him to start something without peering into the future to grasp the ending. As the wise once said: Begin with the ending in mind. But as a being with strong power himself, and facing beings with overwhelming power, his peering was always unstable and unclear. But in his task, Noah found out one future where he died. That was shocking, but Noah was not one to cower. He used that future to his advantage. Noah had taken that future when he died and transformed it into a strand of his purple hair. The same strand of purple hair that now existed inside the Void Lord. The same strand of purple hair that was fed by his own power thanks to the Void Lord absorbing his existence. The Void Lord was fateless, so in a normal case, what he was planning wouldn’t work. But here was the wonderful effect of causality: "You have absorbed my power, so you are now fated, linked to my budding universe." The Void Lord suddenly found himself able to have fate, and the only fate thread Noah gave him with his Law, Gift of Fate... ...was his purple hair. A purple hair that hid within it the fate of death. And with that, "Now can you die?" Noah said with a wide beaming smile, "And with you dying, it means I get to devour you instead of you devouring me." Noah cackled and the Void Lord’s eyes became wider and wider in fear, ’H-How?’ He struggled to even form full sentences, his body and mind and soul dying slowly and with a chilling inevitability. He, the Void Lord realized, could do nothing about his condition. His fate was sealed, as one would say. His Void Law was not working, already unstable by the existence of Noah inside him and that strand of hair. It was far too late. "Void is stronger than Providence?" Noah said, "It’s not wise to mock my wife." "Now come, little bastard." The Void Lord’s body began to deconstruct and flow toward Noah. "Let me welcome you within me. And contrary to you..." His grin widened. "I can shoulder your existence. After all..." "Fusion." He activated his skill once more, and this time... The very Void Lord would be fused with him, and that by discarding anything harmful in him. The process started, and the Void Lord was still confused, not understanding what was happening or how any of this was even possible. A valid question. But that was how fate worked. How could one know the design of Fate? Always elusive, always sneaky and yet... ...always inevitable. —End of Chapter 426—