The portal flared behind me as I stepped through it, the familiar distortion of space folding away as the battlefield came into view.
Another Hollow Star base floated ahead.
Like the others, it had been carved into a drifting asteroid. The long black tower rose from the center of the rock, surrounded by smaller structures arranged in a tight circle.
The moment my feet touched the ground the alarms began.
Red lights flashed along the tower and the surrounding structures as the members of Hollow Star realized someone had arrived through the portal.
Phantoms poured from the buildings almost immediately and along with them were two Eternals.
The phantoms launched forward the moment they saw me standing alone on the platform, their bodies surging across the ground with deathmist trailing behind them.
As I watched them rush toward me, a strange sensation came over me. It felt as though I had somehow moved away from the moment itself, like someone observing events from a higher vantage point rather than standing within the battlefield.
The feeling came suddenly.
The world around me seemed to slow almost to a crawl.
I saw the Eternals’ black glass-like eyes scanning me carefully.
The deathmist drifting around the phantoms moved like slow curling smoke, and the faint horizontal glow across their faces brightened as their energy gathered.
I could sense the laws churning around the base, subtle currents pressing against one another in the space around us. Even the constant struggle between the System and the barrier surrounding the base became clear to me, the invisible force of the System pressing against it again and again while the field resisted its entry.
For a moment I simply stood there, observing everything with perfect clarity.
Then I understood, it was because my level had finally reached four hundred and ninety-nine. I was standing at the threshold of Saint rank. The realization passed through my mind just as quickly as the strange awareness had appeared.
And then, in the span of a single blink, everything returned to normal.
I raised my hand slowly.
A faint ripple spread from me, subtle but absolute, and the entire asteroid trembled under the pressure of my will. The defenders felt it instantly as their movements slowed under the invisible force pressing against the space around them.
I muttered.
"Stop."
Every phantom, abomination and even the Eternal stopped where they stood. Some had been mid-charge, others were already forming attacks. All of them locked in place as if their bodies had been trapped inside solid stone.
I did not even need to summon my domain this time. The pressure of my will alone spread across the battlefield and held everything in place. The charging abominations halted mid-movement, their twisted bodies locked exactly where they had been rushing a moment earlier. The traitors scattered across the base found themselves frozen as well, their weapons half raised and their expressions still caught between rage and surprise.
Millions of abominations stood motionless across the ground. Hundreds of traitors remained trapped in the same stillness. Not one of them could move even an inch.
For a brief moment I simply stood there and felt the extent of what I had become.
Power coursed through me in steady waves, calm and overwhelming at the same time. The space around me obeyed without resistance.
In that moment I felt powerful. For that brief instant, I felt almost invincible.
A strange feeling rose within my chest, quiet at first but growing stronger with each passing second. It was not something I had planned, nor something I had consciously thought about doing. It was simply a desire that appeared from somewhere deep inside me.
And without questioning it, I followed it.
"Return," I muttered.
The effect spread instantly.
The frozen bodies across the battlefield began to change. One after another the abominations and traitors locked in place started to crumble, but this time they did not turn into dust. Instead their forms broke apart into countless tiny particles of pure Essence that drifted through the air like glowing grains of light.
Even the phantoms were affected.
The deathmist that formed their bodies suddenly collapsed inward, breaking apart and releasing a vast amount of Essence as the mist dispersed. What had once been dark and corrupted now transformed into streams of raw energy that joined the rising flow around me.
With a small wave of my hand, the drifting Essence responded.
The particles gathered together and surged toward me in a swirling current. Green light poured into my body and flowed directly into the Dawn Core where the Abyss Core waited.
The moment the Essence entered, it was absorbed.
The process happened almost instantly. The enormous quantity of Essence vanished into the core, disappearing as though it had always belonged there.
Within seconds the entire base was empty. I stood there quietly, staring at the silent battlefield, still processing what I had just done. The alarms continued to echo across the structures, but the defenders who had triggered them were already gone.
I turned my focus inward and looked into the Abyss Core.
The core burned like a black sun inside the Dawn Core, its surface churning constantly as thick streams of deathmist surged outward and folded back into it again. The motion never truly stopped, like a dark ocean caught in an endless storm.
But now there was something new inside it. A very small spot of green essence floated within the vast sea of swirling deathmist. It was tiny compared to the enormous energy surrounding it, almost insignificant, yet it remained clearly distinct instead of dissolving into the black currents around it.
I blinked in surprise.
"What is going on..." I murmured quietly.
To test it, I raised my hand and drew in natural essence from the surrounding space outside the asteroid. The green currents responded easily to my will, gathering in front of my palm before flowing into my body. I guided that energy directly toward the Abyss Core.
But the moment it reached the core, something unexpected happened.
The Abyss Core simply ignored it. The natural essence drifted there for a moment and then passed by without being absorbed, as if the core had no interest in it at all.
I frowned slightly.
"Are they different?" I muttered.
Until now I had assumed that the green essence I absorbed earlier had simply been natural essence released from the bodies of the enemies. But perhaps it wasn’t. If the Abyss Core accepted one and rejected the other, then the energy I had just devoured must have been something else entirely.
"I will need to test it further," I said quietly.
The thought lingered in my mind as I pushed the observation aside for the moment. Whatever that green essence truly was, it clearly behaved differently from the natural essence that filled the environment.
But that was a question for later.
I turned away from the empty battlefield and looked toward the force that had arrived with me through the portal.