BOOM..!!
Alex's attention was drawn to his inner realm when the black hole let out a loud explosion-like pulse.
'Breakthrough?' Alex was visibly surprised, in a good way. Without delay, he delved back into his inner realm to see what changed.
Since the battle began with that void creature, Alex had allowed his black hole to go full throttle. For weeks, he had been insanely absorbing the surrounding chaotic and stable energies.
And with the speed at which his black hole absorbed energy, it wasn't surprising that he had another breakthrough.
But this breakthrough was special. The moment Alex delved inside his inner realm, he noticed the surrounding universe evolve to become an actual universe-- just like the real one.
Alex could count trillions of tiny specks in there which were representations of the various galaxies.
Mana was now present in his inner realm, put together in the same configuration as his universe, save for a few.
But the most impressive change of all was the black hole that lay in the centre of it all.
'Is that still a black hole?' Alex pondered. 'It's more like a core now…'
In place of the black hole was a spinning icosahedral core that glimmered in iridescent lights. A few colours stood out the most-- colours representing his abilities.
'But those colours aren't needed anymore.' Alex stated. 'I now know how abilities came to be. Well, it doesn't matter whether it stays that way.
'The core though… It feels like the multiversal core I saw in my vision.' It wasn't entirely similar, but it felt that way. 'Wait, is this what is in the centre of the universe?'
Despite his power level, Alex and the rest of humanity have not explored much of the universe since they began interstellar travel.
The universe was too big… at least for the old Alexander. Now, it didn't feel that way. 'I'll have to check that for myself one of these days.'
The connection he felt with the real universe had also changed completely. It felt as though the universe was his backyard and anything he wanted to do, he could do it.
His focus changed to his physical body where the mana vortexes also underwent a change. No longer were they vortexes, but had changed into something else.
The vortexes had become nothing… or the right word to use in this context was his body no longer felt like flesh and blood. Every part of his body had become something akin to pure energy.
There was still blood, tissues and bones, but in Alexander's eyes, they were just a manifestation of his self. The way he saw himself.
Gulp.
"This is scary," Alex murmured. "At this point, I don't think I am human."
Everything looked as if he had gone back to being a normal being. However, Alex could tell that his body was mostly an amalgamation of the laws.
'It's more like instead of laws putting my being together using energy, it used laws itself to build myself and the energies were simply used as a coating.' Alex reasoned. 'A few more laws to grasp and this evolution will be complete.'
Laws were abstract and difficult to grasp, and for this reason, although Alex pinpointed how the change felt, energy was what could be sensed if one was even capable of telling.
He didn't know how to feel about it, but this was him now. And despite this change, the way he saw some things didn't change.
'With all these changes, where does my strength lay?' Alex mused and turned to look into the true void. 'And that monster is gone now.'
He was curious to see how strong he was in his base form now. With the power to change his form/body whenever he wished, Alexander could increase his size to match anything.
The power flowing through him was insane. The tear he sat in trembled continuously from the sheer intensity of it all. His soul, however, would remain the same regardless.
'There will be more to be discovered,' Alex smiled in satisfaction and got to his feet, completely taking in his aura, and appearing as any normal being. 'It's time to go home.'
He set the absorption of energies within his inner realm back to passive mode and gazed into the distance.
Like a super zooming lens dialled up to infinity, his gaze passed through all energies and matter, arriving on the tiny blue dot that was Earth.
A small smile tugged at his lips and his figure disappeared, instantly arriving before the planet. A distance of billions of lights was traversed instantaneously.
'Just as I suspected, things are no more the same.' He looked around the galaxy, noting how people no longer lived but just existed.
There was a dark shadow looming above their heads, like people who had given up on life. 'I have to do something and fast.'
The damage from his fight with that creature had left a huge scar in the galaxy and in the people's hearts.
Alexander had a few ideas on how to change things and he was planning to do that soon. But a few experiments would be required first.
[Reconnecting…]
A notification appeared in his vision right at this moment. 'Looks like Xex is back online.'
There was no way Xex could keep up with what Alexander and that void creature went through.
Anything it could have done during the fight would have been useless as they were in a state of speed nothing in the universe could match.
"Welcome back, Xex." Alex voiced with a small smile. "Took you long enough."
[Uh.. yeah?] There was a bit of confusion in the AI's tone. [What happened? The last thing I recalled was you arriving before the unstable neutron star and then everything went dark.]
"Yeah…A lot of things happened." Alex began to describe everything while he slowly descended to Earth.
He noticed a few things on the two planets but chose to ignore them for now. Family always came first.