The instant Alex understood what was happening, he increased the force of the black hole, driving it to go faster as the blankness was devoured.
'It can call forth void energy even if I'm not in a veiled space. With this, I can grow my strength and they would be none the wiser.' He thought with an inward smile.
But then what appeared to be light particles appeared out of nowhere and streaked into the black hole, almost like stars in the night sky spiralling into the black hole.
Following that, Alex heard something like the tearing of the fabric of spacetime as a veil tear appeared in the realm.
The sudden appearance of the veil tear made something within him feel connected to it, like he could call it to himself and so he did.
He stretched out his hand towards the veil tear and made a grabbing motion and the veil tear rippled as it let out a wave of energy that rushed towards him, explosively increasing the void energy he felt around him.
'Hm… this doesn't just feel like opening a tear in the veil and drawing out its energy.' The feeling was almost too real. He was snapped out of his thoughts when his outside senses picked up the loud blaring of alarms.
Initially, he thought it was just his imagination, but the ringing continued until he left the inner space of his void core.
'Wait, I can feel the void energy coming and not just in the inner space!' the discovery left him flabbergasted.
He opened his eyes only to see red flashing lights everywhere, the researchers gone with Jason being the only person left with a conflicted look.
He instantly understood what was happening as he could literally feel the void energy coming towards him, and fast.
'Hehe… you're abandoning the place, aren't you?' he wanted to tease the man but remained quiet. But he couldn't help the smug grin appearing on his face.
He watched Jason receive a message about the incoming waves as Jason clicked his tongue and bolted out of the lab.
"No, you don't," Alex said through his ventilator and turned the dial on the siphoning, instinctively knowing that he sped up the incoming cosmic wave.
"Haa… Here we go again." He muted again, but this time with a determined look. "This time, I will come out on my own terms.
"Your actions have sped up my growth… For that I thank you…" Casting a last glance at the equipment around him, he made a final observation and a pledge.
"Someone put them up to this and I'm going to find out who…"
Alex then turned to look ahead as he watched the waves wash over him a few seconds later, swallowing him and everything in his surroundings back into a veiled space.
.....
Alex opened his eyes to the familiar dark and lightless space and promptly switched to his spectrum vision.
All around him was the vast quantities of void energy he was familiar with, but he was still trapped in the stasis pod in the research facility.
The facility had become a wreck as electricity flashed above the ceiling and from the buzzing equipment. The place was turned upside down and unrecognizable.
With a deep breath, Alex ripped off the cables and wires connected to his body and then drew a sliver of void energy that was tainted gold as his right hand blazed with an aura blade.
In one fluid motion, he pierced the special glass material as the fluid spilt out, taking spherical forms. With no gravity, atmosphere or external pressure, the fluid couldn't take its normal flowing property.
A few swipes of his hand broke the pod completely as Alex floated out of the pod, spread his arms out and took a deep breath of the energy around him.
'Feels like home,'
He conjured a flame around him, vaporizing the pants he wore along with the remaining fluids left on his body, put on his armour but left the helmet back.
'The armour is weak, so let's do this,' Alex conjured a thin film of light he moulded to fit his armour, giving it an extra layer of defence fit for his level—whatever it was now.
Even as he floated there, his core swallowed the energies around him. Mana was siphoned into his mana vortexes, while void energy went to his void core, plunging in deeper till it was taken by the black hole.
The veil tear and lights were gone, leaving only the incoming void energy. His consciousness tuned to his mana vortexes.
'Hm…Do the mana cores also have hidden domains within.' A thought sent a sliver of his consciousness—something he had come to realize he could also do—to one of the mana vortexes but couldn't delve deeper.
'Maybe it's just for the void core?' Alex wasn't sure but it was something he would have to research. That would require time to do, but right now, he was on a mission to leave the veiled space.
His gaze pierced through the walls of the facility. 'Wow, this place is bigger than I expected.' But as much as the place was spacious, there was something else that caught his attention.
Right outside the facility where some of the ships remained, Alex spotted an army of void creatures swallowing all the debris, tearing apart the ships with their attacks and swallowing them whole.
In fact, all around the base were void creatures with the majority of them in the B-Tier and a few in the A-Tier.
"That's good. At least I have something I can punch in the face." He was also glad his captors failed to escape.
"And good riddance."
He had never claimed a human life before, but if this was counted, there so be it. He wasn't going to lose sleep over something like that.
"I bet that Jason fellow managed to escape…. No matter, sooner or later, we'll meet again." Alex swore in a sharp tone.
Then his figure flickered as he disappeared from the lab and appeared right above the huge base, floating in the centre as the army of void creatures sensed his overwhelming presence.
Alex completely let go, allowing his aura to gush out in waves and the very space around him trembled from the power he gave off.
All around, Alex heard the snarls, growls and screeches of the void creatures. He counted three A-Tier void creatures, hundreds of B-Tiers and thousands more below that.
One of the A-tier void creatures appeared humanoid with long appendages that ended in sharp claws that could tear stars apart in one swipe.
The other two were more beast-like—one had the appearance of a long worm with numerous tentacles, each the size of a train and told just how massive the creature was.
The last one looked like an arachnid with greyish pulsing eyes that were too disturbing to look at if one had the mentality of a normal mortal.
Yet against such overwhelming odds, Alex showed no signs of fear—instead, he revealed an excited smile and then conjured his favourite weapon from his light ability and took a fighting stance.
"Alright uglies, let's dance."