Chapter 96: The Sea of Ruin? He appeared back in the Haven without a ripple, the familiar marble corridors and rose-gold clouds wrapping around him like an old memory. With a single thought, seamless as breathing, he reached across the bond and relocated all 100,000 subordinates into the Originat Haven. One hundred thousand souls blinked out of the Greater Chamber and reappeared on the endless rainbow plains of his inner cosmos, none the wiser, as their cultivation continued smoothly. He then exited the Greater Chamber and appeared in the main part of the Haven. As he landed here, he felt a bit of nostalgia... thinking of when he first attempted to enter the Greater Chamber and when he met Vaeloria’s silver eyes and defiant smile. He shook his head, wings rustling. "It’s finally time I create these two talents." He sat cross-legged in the center Haven’s plain, bronze skin glowing faintly under the soft light of the sun. When he had stepped into SSS rank, the Tear of Origin had granted him the right to forge two talents from nothing. He had waited because in the heat of the moment he would have made something merely strong... something that would perhaps be pointless in the next few years. However now he was prepared. He didn’t have to do much; it was similar to forging a skill, only deeper, more primal. Ash sat cross-legged for exactly one hour, wings folded, bronze skin glowing faintly with inner rose-gold fire. Then his notifications rang. [Origin Seeker - This talent turns the user’s will into an infallible compass for anything of value. Treasures, secret realms, hidden Law fragments, lost bloodlines, even specific people or emotions across even worlds; everything reveals its exact location, distance, and optimal path the instant you desire it. At the peak it can locate things that "do not yet exist" and guide him to the moment they will.] [Conceptual Sight - Fused permanently into his Eyes of First Dawn. The moment the user focuses on any phenomenon (Law, concept, array, skill, bloodline, divine artifact), perfect comprehension floods his mind. With direct line-of-sight, understanding is near-instant. Without it, a single breath is enough. No bottlenecks, no walls; only pure, limitless grasp.] The second talent was similar to his |Inspect| talent, but there was a big difference between the two. Inspect was used to allow him to copy things from reality or beings. It could also give him insight into the things he was studying but it would take time. What he wanted was something that could be.... well, a cheat. And that’s exactly what Conceptual Sight could be described as. As long as he put his mind onto something, comprehension will flow... and if he had direct sight on it then it would be near instant. "Good... now I won’t have to evolve every being I bring inside..." Ash murmured, rising smoothly to his feet, wings stretching once like living night. Yes, this was another reason he wanted this ability, it was because he didn’t want to evolve everyone who set foot in his cosmos. If he wanted something from them like a law or something similar... he could just comprehend it. Not everyone was worthy to undergo such an evolution.... they would have to earn it. Now that this was taken care of, he activated his both Inspect and Conceptual Sight as he took a good look at the Haven. Previously, in the S rank he spent months studying the Haven wanting to understand exactly what it was. However, then he didn’t gain much aside from a bit of insight into dimensions and realms. Now, as he looked at it he could see much more. The Haven unfolded before him in impossible clarity. Millions upon millions of golden threads shimmered into view (some thick as rivers, some fine as spider silk), weaving through walls, clouds, floors, and sky. They intertwined in perfect, infinite patterns, never tangling, never conflicting, each one pulsing with a different Law. Mana, Creation, Abundance, Gravity, Space, Time, Protection... repeating, reinforcing, amplifying. His status window flared like a supernova.... but he ignored it as he continued. [Law of Mana....] [Law of Creation....] [Law of Abundance....] [Law of Gravity....] [Law of Protection...] He couldn’t help but smile as he deactivated conceptual sight after a few minutes... In just five minutes he gained complete comprehension of five Laws and although they numbered in the millions.... most of them were the same Laws over and over. He deactivated Conceptual Sight but left Inspect burning in his blood-drop eyes. His gaze lifted to the ceiling... no, beyond the ceiling to the golden orb of pure energy that hovered at the very heart of the Haven. Every single thread converged into it like rivers into an endless ocean. Ash reached. Not with his hand but with his will. The core pulsed once, almost affectionately, then willingly detached and drifted down into his waiting palm before shrinking to the size of a fist, warm and thrumming like a second heartbeat. This was also an evolution to his eyes and his inspect talent... he was no longer restricted to mere traits... but now he could take the entire thing if he wanted. He simply smiled before sending the core into his inner cosmos, where it turned into a seed. The moment the Haven Core vanished from its cradle, space screamed. Cracks spider-webbed across the rose-gold sky like shattering glass. Marble halls buckled and dissolved into dust. The clouds that had cradled a hundred thousand cultivators for years turned to ash and spiraled away into nothing. Through the widening fissures Ash glimpsed it: an endless red sea, thick as blood, churning with faces that weren’t faces and teeth that weren’t teeth. Every instinct in his body... every drop of Primavus blood, roared a single word: RUN. Yet Ash stayed one heartbeat longer. He activated Conceptual Sight. The instant his gaze touched the red substance, his eyes bled..... Pain like molten nails driven through his skull. "FUCK!" He exclaimed once before his status notification rang. [Concept of Ruin – 10 %] That was all he needed. He vanished. The Haven imploded behind him....an entire realm erased in the space between one breath and the next. Where marble palaces and pink clouds had once floated, only the red sea remained. The crimson waters surged upward, coalesced solidified. A man took shape. Skin the color of fresh blood, long hair the same shade flowing like liquid down his back. Eyes blacker than the void between galaxies yet burning with something ancient and irritated. He stood alone in the center of the endless red ocean, a place not even the strongest beings in the Venia Galaxy would dare set foot in. "Why did I feel as if I was looking at Lust just now?" he muttered, frowning at the empty space where the Haven had been. SNAP! He snapped his fingers. The last lingering fragments of the Haven.... shards of marble, drifting petals of rose-gold cloud turned to dust and were swallowed by the red sea. The man stared at the spot for a long moment, replaying the fleeting glimpse of a face he had caught in the final instant. "Tsk... that’s definitely a male," he grumbled. But the aura... That aura had been undeniable. In fact, it had felt stronger... more primal, and hungrier than Lust herself had ever been. The red-skinned man’s frown deepened. Then he, too, vanished, leaving only the endless red sea churning in irritated silence. ------ Ash reappeared high above the floating island, blood streaming from both eyes in perfect crimson tears. The Nosferatu regeneration kicked in almost instantly... veins of rose-pink light raced across his bronze skin, knitting torn tissue, and sealing melted sclera. Pain faded to a dull throb, then to nothing. He blinked once, wiped the last of the blood away with a thumb, and pulled up the notification. [Concept of Ruin – The terminal corrosion that awaits all things which have ever existed or will exist. Not destruction, but the patient, inevitable unmaking that’s inescapable. Where it flows, Laws forget their names, bloodlines rot in the vein and even concepts themselves begin to bleed. At 100 %, the user becomes a living vector of absolute finality.] "Fuck... was that an entire conceptual sea?" Ash muttered, shaking his head with a wry grin. He had stolen ten percent just by looking. Perhaps... ten percent too much. His gaze shifted to the ten seeds orbiting him like patient moons. Seven glowed with the newly perfected Laws from the Haven and the two copied from Seris and Yonna. Two pulsed with Seris’s and Yonna’s refined bloodlines. The final seed was the Haven Core itself. He flicked a finger. The Haven Core drifted downward and sank into the center of the floating island like a key sliding home. And that it was.... when Ash made the Island, it’s cultivated time was so short because he left out a missing piece. With the core added he no longer, he didn’t need to recultivate it because it was always meant to be apart of it. HUMMMMMM!!!!! The island shuddered once, then began to terraform in a single, seamless breath. Rainbow grass deepened into continents of emerald and gold. Rivers of liquid mana widened into silver oceans.... Mountains of white jade and crimson crystal rose in perfect spirals; their peaks crowned with floating citadels of rose-gold light. Forests of night-blooming trees unfurled with petals that sang when the wind touched them, fruit that tasted of first kisses and last goodbyes. At the very center, where the Core had settled, a single tree grew its trunk was made of black marble veined with living blood, leaves of molten gold, with its roots drinking from the void itself. The Originat Haven was no longer half-baked. It was complete, five million kilometers of beauty. "Phew, now that’s done," Ash said, wings stretching wide. "I can return to Astralis. Not much time should have passed." He glanced once more at the eight cocoons still pulsing gently in the dawn-light. One more hour until his lovers and swords awoke as true Primavus. Then he vanished, the newborn cosmos rippling behind him like a king closing the door to his throne room.