Chapter 434: Taking Erebus as his servant Erebus did not hesitate. The offer Ethan had extended, a sanctuary within his own inner dimension, was more than a mere escape. It was a chance at survival. In the Negative Plane, Erebus was a hunted king, a remnant of a forgotten era bound by chains he couldn’t break. Without a word, the primordial shadow drifted into the shimmering rift Ethan had torn into the fabric of space. However, Ethan did not simply let the shadow wander freely through his inner world. This was a realm of his own creation, a sanctum where his laws were absolute. He directed Erebus toward the very heart of his dimension: the Origin Sea of Entropy and Energy. As Erebus crossed the threshold of the rift, the environment shifted instantly. Gone was the suffocating, cold void of the Negative Plane. In its place was a vast, terrifying expanse that defied every law of geometry and logic Erebus had ever known. He landed on a platform of solid, dark energy. Immediately, an infinite pressure descended upon him. It wasn’t just physical weight. It was the sheer gravity of a higher existence. Erebus, a being who had survived eons of isolation and torture, fell to his knees. His face, usually a shifting mask of shadow, turned ghostly pale. He stared at the floor, his breath coming in ragged gasps. For some reason, he was terrified to look up. Every primal instinct he possessed, instincts that had kept him alive in the most dangerous corners of the universe, was screaming at him. Do not look ahead. Do not witness what lies before you. But Erebus was a creature born of curiosity and pride. After a grueling struggle against his own fear, he slowly forced his head up. The sight made him physically ill. He leaned over and vomited a slurry of dark essence. Before him were two colossal oceans. One was a sea of shimmering, pure Origin Energy. The other was a turbulent, infinite ocean of Entropy. They existed opposite one another, swirling in a perfect, terrifying balance. Suspended precisely between these two infinite forces was a grand, simple throne. Sitting on that throne was a figure draped in calm authority. It was Ethan’s Primordial Spirit. He sat with one hand supporting his chin, a mild, amused smile playing on his lips. The oceans were the truly terrifying part. Erebus tried to probe them with his divine sense, attempting to find a shoreline or a bottom. But the moment his consciousness touched the waves, it was swallowed. There was no end. There was no limit. "How... is this possible?" Erebus whispered, his voice trembling. "How can a soul carry infinity?" In that moment, the realization hit him like a physical blow. The man before him wasn’t just a powerful cultivator or a lucky anomaly. Ethan was the manifestation of Infinity itself. To stand before him was to stand before the beginning and the end of all things. Without being told, Erebus moved. He shifted from his collapsed position into a formal, deep kneel. He pressed his forehead against the dark platform. "My lord," Erebus croaked, his voice filled with a new, fanatical devotion. "Please accept me as your subordinate. My life, my essence, and my shadow will forever belong to you." Ethan’s Primordial Spirit looked down at him, his eyes like twin galaxies. "Oh? A moment ago, you were a ’fallen king’ bargaining for your freedom. Why the sudden change of heart? Why should I take you as my subordinate?" Erebus didn’t look up. "My lord, I am the manifestation of the Concept of Darkness. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮 I was not born of any superior race, yet I am a life form from the Neutral Plane, an existence that shouldn’t be. Countless powerful beings have tried to force me into service. There is a prophecy in the high planes: If Erebus chooses a master, that master shall surely transcend." He took a shivering breath. "I live outside of any standard concept. Even the Law of Darkness is inferior to my true essence. That is why those beings feared me. That is why they sealed me away in the trash heap of the Negative Plane. But only Infinity is worthy of commanding Primordial Darkness. My true power can only be realized under your shadow." Ethan remained quiet, communing with his system. "Yumiko, is he telling the truth?" [Yes, Master,] Yumiko’s voice echoed in his mind. [He is an anomaly in his own right. His existence is a direct threat to the established order of the creators. I believe you should accept him. He will be a vital weapon when the time comes to face those who call themselves gods.] Ethan tapped his finger on the arm of his throne. The sound echoed through the infinite oceans. "Very well," Ethan said. "I am building a legacy. You shall be one of my Five Generals. Show me your worth, and I will show you the end of your chains." "I am eternally grateful, my lord!" As the words left Erebus’s mouth, a glowing fragment of his soul, a piece of the Primordial Dark, floated out of his chest. It drifted through the air and merged with Ethan’s Ocean of Entropy and energy. The moment the soul fragment merged, a violent explosion of information hit Ethan’s mind. It was the complete, unfiltered memory of Erebus’s entire existence. Ethan fell into a deep trance. He saw the birth of the cage. He saw Erebus emerging from the first patch of "nothingness" that appeared when light was first created. He watched as the "Creators", tried to communicate with this shadow anomaly. They wanted him to surrender his independence, to become a tool for their cosmic architecture. Erebus had refused. Out of a deep, inner pride, he chose to remain independent. In retaliation, the Creators placed a devastating curse upon him. They decreed that Erebus could never reach the status of an Absolute Continuum being on his own. He was trapped in a plateau of power, unable to ascend unless he chose a master. It was a failsafe designed to force him into servitude. Ethan saw the Neutral Plane through Erebus’s eyes. It was a place of staggering beauty and terrifying scale, where continents were the size of primirdial worlds and the air itself was thick with Origin Energy. He saw the "End-Timers" of the Apocalypse Race, watching them move like locusts through the lower dimensions. BOOM! Inside the inner dimension, a shockwave erupted from Erebus. Because he had finally chosen a master, and because that master was an anomaly of Infinity, the ancient curse of the Creators shattered. The "lock" on his potential didn’t just break. It vanished as if it had never existed. The Creators had never imagined that one anomaly would find another. The fate of anomalies exists outside the "River of Fate." No seer, no matter how powerful, could have predicted this union. Erebus’s soul began to undergo a radical modification. Fed by Ethan’s infinite essence, the shadow expanded, darkened, and refined. After three hours of agonizing transformation, Erebus stood up. He felt a surge of power he hadn’t known in millions of years. The seal on his Origin Energy sea, the Grade 4 lock that Ethan had been afraid to touch, had dissolved as a byproduct of the soul-merging. By accepting Ethan as his master, the seal had been "tricked" into thinking the debt was paid. Two birds with one stone. In the Neutral Plane, deep within the Ancestral Palace of the Fate Race, an elderly being suddenly bolted upright. His eyes, which usually held the calm of eternity, were spitting flames of pure rage. "Someone... someone unsealed my mark?" he roared. The palace walls cracked under his spiritual pressure. He immediately entered a state of deep meditation, casting his consciousness across the dimensions to find his prisoner. He searched the Negative Plane, scouring the secret folds of space. But there was nothing. Erebus was gone. More importantly, the person who had "unsealed" him was nowhere to be found. Because the seal had broken due to a master-servant bond and not a direct physical attack, there was no "signature" to track. It was as if Erebus had simply ceased to exist. "What is going on?" the being hissed. He reached out to a shimmering orb, contacting the other powerful beings. "The Shadow Anomaly has vanished. Find him. Now!" ... Even higher, in a plane of existence so refined that concepts like "time" were merely suggestions, a man was tending to a small garden. He looked like an ordinary farmer, wearing simple, mud-stained clothes. He stopped his work, leaning on his shovel. He looked down toward the lower planes, a small, intrigued smile appearing on his weathered face. "That shadow anomaly... he finally found someone to follow?" the farmer mused. He wiped the sweat from his brow. "Interesting." He stood there for a moment, contemplating the shift in the balance of the cage, of which he was one of the creators, before he shrugged and went back to planting his crops. For him, even the rise of an anomaly was just another season. Back in the physical realm, Ethan was unaware of the chaos he had caused in the higher planes. He had successfully crossed back into the Positive Plane, his body humming with the power of his completed evolution. He stepped through the air, appearing silently inside the Space Cube.