With each passing moment, not only did Avrin feel the immense pressure on his body growing lighter but he also noticed that his skin and bones’ durability and strength were increasing. In addition, the dark matter within his Dark Space was changing from a paste-like goo to a more liquid-like state.

Kneeling forward, his eyes slightly opened, as his lips parted revealing his tightly clenched teeth. While bulging veins emerged on his arms and his hands pressed against the ground, causing cracks to appear. Meanwhile, a 70% powered Phantom Pulse formed around him subconsciously.

Deeper inside his body and soul, the Dark Heart and the God Essence Equipment orbiting around it began to pulse madly as if they had suddenly been given a burst of energy.

The black pulse of energy rippled outward and engulfed the God Essence Equipment, causing the spheres of energy to twist and turn as the equipment continuously caught and absorbed it. After completing the absorption process, the God Essence Equipment, now in a normal state, began to emit a black hue of light with a more chilling form of energy.

Then, Avrin took a deep breath, but suddenly, his stomach began churning and shifting, making Avrin unwell and ill. His facial complexion suddenly turned a dark purple as his body started to twist and contort. His particles began running rampant, and he wasn't sure why this was occurring.

Feeling a sharp pain in his right arm, Avrin quickly shut his eyes and

reentered his inner workings; then he saw something that made him gasp with amazement and instilled him with a tinge of fear. A small particle had ruptured and transformed into a little rift that lasted a dozen or so seconds before vanishing from existence.

What instilled him with fear was that several other particles were repeating this process as well.

“-Rifts?...-” Avrin quickly began to focus on his inner workings. Avrin had suspected this outcome, but had not been sure that it would actually occur due to lack of evidence and knowledge of the process.

He guessed that his particles would condense and implode into small openings in space similar to rifts, but he was unaware of the fact that if he failed to focus and manage his particles quickly enough, he might very well die from his entire body slowly imploding out of existence.

Although Avrin was oblivious of his dangerous situation, the intense pain from the ascension process gave him a strong enough clue of the dreadful outcome should he be negligent of his chaotic particles. So, he immediately began to organize his C.Particles while he still had time by first giving them each a bit of his energy and a few instructions to perform a Phantom Pulse individually. Although feeble, it would hopefully be enough to help his particles through the dangerous change.

With some effort due to the constant pain across his body, Avrin sat back down cross-legged on the stone floor, and the moment he resumed his position, he focused his Divine Sense unto himself and then engulfed his Dark Space with a Phantom Pulse.

The rifts formed from the particle implosions would usually self-destruct, but using his Phantom Pulse, Avrin would prevent that and keep the rifts open.

This method, however, was a temporary solution as he had no idea what would happen once all his particles became rifts; as even his C.Particles were no exception to the implosion metamorphosis. But, knowing that once his body experienced a change, the book in his inner workings would aid him with a viable solution to his dilemma, he quickly focused his attention on the book that had assisted him greatly in his advancement so far.rift

Willing the book to open, Avrin discovered to his astonishment that there were not just a few new pages as he expected but hundreds instead, which instilled him with a feeling of great excitement, but he saved the majority for later as he searched for any helpful information.

"-Rift particle. A greater stage particle that’s created with a small dark space of its own. If one fails to complete the Rift Particle stage, the individual’s body will lose its corporeal balance and will fall apart. After full conversion to Rift Particles, maintaining a stable physical form will become much more difficult. Only when the Rift Particles have stopped maintaining their spatial vortex and enter into a half-dormant state will one be able to revert them back to their physical form.

The best method of creating a stable rift particle is to simply pour enough of one's energy within each vortex while simultaneously encasing them with a corresponding amount of energy at the same time. Doing so will thus contain/entrap the particles in a field generated by the circulating energy surrounding each rift, and charge the small sub-dimension to the point where a slight manipulation of both the miniature rifts and the dimension becomes feasible.-"

Leaving the book, Avrin checked the state of his inner workings to see if it was still stable, because he was certain that if he lost his focus, the chaos within him would continue.

He willed the dark matter from his Dark Space to surge towards one of the imploding particles, and after circulating the dark matter into and around the new rift, it seemed to hold itself open almost immediately and began to absorb the dark matter at a rapid pace. It was only after a few moments that he discovered that the grayish white rift had turned to a black-purple color, now twisting and distorting. After a few more moments, Avrin cautiously released his Phantom Pulse from the rifts and glanced at it.

Sure enough, after the rift had been filled, it no longer absorbed anymore dark matter but merely swirled, almost like a small whirlpool. Avrin felt relief upon seeing this but understood one thing.

"-The amount of dark matter I need for all these particles.... Even with the Radiant crystals, the Dark Cores, and the staffs, I'm not sure if I have enough. The stabilizing method for these particles is simple but only at first glance! The energy required is ludicrous! The other Spectrals wouldn't need as much but for me…is this not picking and choosing?-"

Avrin tried to make light of the matter with a little joke to relieve his stress from facing this dangerous dilemma. Then he began to focus on the particles, seeing them as babies waiting to be fed.

As Avrin subconsciously drew mana from the surroundings into his body, converting it to dark matter; his body along with the space around him was beginning to distort, almost like a mirage.

Inside his inner workings, Avrin’s body comprised of billions upon billions of particles similar to the ones from several labs that he had often visited in past life, especially when it came to the potential cures for the Ziox Virus. He knew that human bodies were made of Atoms, but his body had no atoms, while it was built on a foundation of particles, they had formed into something different.

He was sure there were those who would have a blast if they could dissect him. Nevertheless, there were things he could learn from this later on, and it gave him an idea that he would try out later, that may potentially increase his strength again.

Little did Avrin know that there were many advantages in him being the Spectral who possessed the Dark Matter Heart. Contrary to his beliefs, it was, in fact, the other way around; there were many disadvantages for Spectrals striving to reach the higher stages because of their bodies’ innate inefficiency.

The Type 14 stage had been one of the easiest stages for him to advance so far, since having the required amount of dark matter, ensured a smooth transition. But his current advancement also required great focus, in addition to an obscene amount of energy. He couldn’t afford to be disturbed during the process, but he faced no problems regarding this.

"-10%.....15%.....34%-" Avrin slowly noted his progress towards completion. He could feel a deep change in his body from his flesh to his bones. In general, his body felt more durable and lighter, and even his blood flow felt more vigorous. Clenching his teeth, he could feel that he barely had enough dark matter in his dark space.

"-70%, 83% 96%!!-” The chamber soon began to rumble chaotically as a massive vortex was forming with him at the center. Noticing this, Avrin could tell that this was bad. Seeing this inevitable disaster, he had no choice but to act quickly as he could not stop after coming this far, and prolonging his progress would put innocents in danger.

He attempted to Divine Step away and managed to teleport 20,000 miles away to an isolated area, a plain with vegetation and animals, but thankfully there were no sentient beings present, but doing so in this state stressed his organs and destabilized his body. Nevertheless, he rapidly began to recover while the vortex of mana being converted to dark matter grew larger and larger. Soon, a terrifying aura of dark matter surged around him, and then the ground slowly turned black, breaking apart almost as if it was decaying.

Although the area was absent of sentient life, for the life forms still around him, their end was nigh, as the vortex grew massive enough to engulf and affect the entire environment.

The flowers and grass began to wither due to the mana being rapidly siphoned from them, and the animals that were unlucky enough to be on the decaying ground shared the same fate as a strange darkness engulfed their entire bodies, and in seconds their bodies solidified into black figurines, that after a few moments dispersed into black dust, leaving no trace of their existence, not even the dust of their bones. Spreading outwards from Avrin, the darkness continued to spread quickly covering hundreds of meters with each passing minute as it were a living plague.

The sky above Avrin began to distort as the clouds were forced to converge above his position, giving off a blue hue that represented gave away the significant amount of mana condensing in the atmosphere. The clouds soon descended downwards, slowly turning purple as they were converted into dark matter without the need to even enter Avrin’s body.

This was because the Rift Particles inside him grew more rampant the closer he was to completion. Avrin’s veins bulged under his skin, pressing against his flesh, and he gritted his teeth and punched towards the ground with both hands, creating a fifty-meter crater around him from the point of impact. The pain he was feeling was extremely excruciating as if he were entering a forced Augmentation.

Spreading further, the darkness had begun to approach populated places, but Avrin, of course, could do nothing about it as he was at a critical junction. The blue hue then vanished from the sky, its previous aura was replaced with a purplish aura, and the clouds’ grey color darkened even more, whilst emitting a purple static that fired rampantly, striking the land at random intervals and without aim, leaving scorch marks that would decay anything it hit, including the ground.

The area around Avrin emitted a miasma of a dark purple Nebula Mist as it circled him. A few moments later, a small but rapidly growing cyclone emerged, that began to grow at a dangerously rapid pace. This turn of events was so dangerous and out of control that the general populace were in great peril.

Meanwhile having noticed the chaos the Deities of the region could not help but notice that something was amiss. Many of them felt an eerie premonition, causing them to heads towards the source of the anomaly they had detected.

While the corruption spread even further, Avrin slowly tried his best to will the decaying ground to stop expanding and finally, he forced the expanding corruption to come to a halt. Although, the decaying corruption had been his body’s emergency reaction to the extreme need for energy. Avrin tried his best to focus on the surrounding area to avoid the loss of humanoid life. And thankfully, the corruption was still a few miles away from the nearest village.

"What's going on!?" Many mortals were unsure of what was happening. The air had grown colder, and a sense of impending doom had struck them all. They feel an inexplicable urge to flee but weren't sure how they could even escape, and they knew not where to flee to; it felt as if they were surrounded by something, something unnatural and dreadful.

Suddenly, not too far from Avrin, a flash of blue light shot forward before hovering in the air. This individual was adorned in an azure magician's robe that was lavishly decorated. In his hands, he held a strange wooden staff that emitted a water attuned mana. The staff head even had a giant blue pearl that shone like a radiant gem. The man glanced at Avrin with shock and confusion.

"I don’t know who you are, but are you trying to make enemies of the world?! Stop what you're doing!" This Deity resides nearby the decayed area. He ruled a small closed off kingdom with many great followers, and being a mid-level New Deity, he had gained some reputation over time and cared for his people whom he felt were being threatened by this stranger.

"PISS OFF!!!" Avrin’s voice roared out carrying with it a ghostly tone to. At the same time, a tyrannical Phantom Pulse shot outwards with such power it has a visible black hue. The Deity was stunned and quickly cast a spell to protect himself with a conjured mana barrier, but the moment the Phantom Pulse came in contact with barriers, they shattered like a hammer hitting glass and launched him away like a broken doll. Flying into the distance, he crashed into the ground while coughing out blood from his injured organs.

The man had unfortunately been smashed into the decayed ground that rapidly began to absorb his mana. However, despite being gravely injured, he knew the danger of remaining in the corrupted area any longer, and with all the strength that he could muster, he quickly made his escape.

Many Deities soon arrived as Avrin’s Phantom Pulse was used and they witnessed the event. Of course, many of these Deities were aware of each other’s identities and understood each other’s strength. So, for a single attack to effortlessly repel a mid-level New Deity, every Deity present believed the entity must be a high-level New Deity at the very least.

"What's he doing? What evil magic is this?" A Deity spoke to one of the others that arrived.

"I'm not sure, but I can feel the mana around us being rapidly devoured by him. If this keeps up, I'm not sure what the effects this may have on us or the villages. We need to stop him!"

Hearing his words, the other Deities present and those who just arrived all felt that the aforementioned solution was the only one. With eight of them currently present and more soon to come, they all began to cast various spells. Avrin, of course, knew of them and felt it was a good thing. "-These last few steps have nearly drained my reserve…I need more…!-" He glanced at them with a dangerous glare, causing many to falter for a moment with a feeling of dread.

Several powerful spells of different magic systems were fired at him. However once the spells were within the decayed lands, they rapidly diminished in strength as the mana that powered them was quickly converted before being absorbed into Avrin.

Raising his right hand, while trembling uncontrollably as his body became unstable due to the lack of dark matter, he formed a Stygian Bacillus that caught several of the spells in one go before shrinking and converting them to a Dark Core that he willed into his mouth to consume. This instilled Avrin a deep, overwhelming hunger as if the ‘meal’ had merely been a droplet.

His body suddenly began to shift and transform as if he were morphing. His body gave off a dark black hue, and his features now morphed into something unrecognizable. His head and arms grew elongated. Two black horns grew from his head that curved around, and the strange thing was that two small vortexes, like rifts, were in the center of those curved sections.

Both sides of his cheeks cracked open; allowing his mouth to open, even more, revealing a darkness within it, as if within him was the deepest abyss. And then another large black rift with static flowing through it formed within his mouth.

As his arms grew longer, his hands widened as they turned into claws. His legs and feet changed, looking nothing like they once had. Now, Avrin was a bizarre pitch-black glowing creature with rifts scattered across his body, and his eyes were flashing between purple, green, pink and orange. Not only that, Dark matter began dripping from his body, and as it touched the ground, the ground dissolved and was then reabsorbed back into him as if nothing was to be wasted.

Seeing this, the other Deities were petrified, feeling an incredibly ominous premonition from Avrin. Several of the spells they casted, in their eyes, dissipated so rapidly they were left dumbfounded from the scene. “DON'T STOP!” A high-level Deity who recently arrived and witnessed the course of events. He suddenly raised his staff as he glanced at Avrin with critical eyes.

Not wanting to take risks, he decided that he would not hold back as his staff crackled with lightning, swirling around the staff and causing the entire area to shake and roar out dangerously. Above the clouds decayed by Avrin’s influence, new dark gray clouds formed and began to rumble with a torrent-like fury as a light flashed within.

“Damned evil spawn…BEGONE!” He shouted. The moment after his declaration, a powerful beam-like blue lightning bolt smashed down, puncturing through the decayed clouds with ease before continuing down towards Avrin who was still undergoing metamorphosis.

At this stage, his particles were 98% completed, and he felt a deep hunger for dark matter. This desire, this hunger, left him both crazy and delusional and deprived him of almost all sense of reason, leaving only the desire to kill and consume anything around him until his hunger was sated.

As the lightning bolt flew towards him, Avrin turned to face it with his mouth split inhumanly wide apart, revealing an abysmal rift within. The rift expanded in size, quickly growing until it formed a vortex four times the size of his body. The lightning bolt smashed against this vortex-like rift and was converted into dark matter at a pace so fast it didn’t even touch Avrin. This only made him want more as it had helped him.

“-...99%...-” He wasn't sure anymore what that meant as this dark ghostly tone sounded out from within his mind. Caught off guard for a moment, another bolt smashed down towards him, and this time, it didn't strike him directly but struck the ground beside him, exploding with flashing lights and scattering debris in all directions as a massive land-shaking explosion took place.

Avrin was blown back several hundreds of meters from the force, but the only injuries he received were scratches on his strange skin that quickly healed. He glanced over at the hole in the ground with cracks surrounding it, still emitting smoke from the hit. Avrin then glanced at the group of Deities.

The high-level Deity who had used that spell was a man who commanded several other New level Deities, with hopes to one day establish his seat of power in the 5th universe. He felt that this incident was a great chance to bolster his reputation, but he didn't expect to see that Avrin would be unscathed for the most part.

“Comrades, I need your help! Lend me your strengths!” He spoke with worry and quickly began to recast the same spell he had just used against Avrin. One of the most dangerous aspects of those in the 5th universe that put them ahead of the others when it came to war potential was how individuals could channel and combine their spells with one another, making them significantly stronger than one mage casting any spell alone or allowing the possibility of casting a powerful ceremonial or composite spell.

Viewing Avrin as a strange being that must be killed, the New Level Deities felt that they had no choice, but to aid the leading High Deity. This time, clouds no longer gathered above the sky, but above Tya’shara a mist of mana was forming from the collective concentration of these Deities. It even attracted the attention of those further out of the Sarlez region.

The mana began to gather, forming a thick cloud that rumbled with power and caused the planet to tremble for a moment, and moments later, a tyrannical white lightning bolt shot downwards towards the planet. It was powerful enough that for a moment the sky turned white.

Even in his current state, Avrin knew that this merged spell was dangerous. However he knew that it could be beneficial. Allowing his instincts to guide him in his frenzied state, his body shook before he turned towards the sky, facing the incoming spell.

He suddenly roared out, causing a shockwave to spread across the land, and he unleashed a large Phantom Pulse that hurtled towards the attack. His intent was not to negate it but to slow it down. A screeching sound then echoed throughout the region as the energy bolt trembled for a moment and faltered slightly before shooting back down.

Seeing this, Avrin’s mouth again expanded to reveal the little rift that began to grow outwards, and the miasma-like mist around him surged around and was pulled towards the vortex-like rift. A split second later, the white lightning bolt collided with it. Avrin felt his body shudder as his demonic feet were pressed against the ground, causing it to split.

However, the strange thing about this magic attack was how it didn't dissipate at all from his dark matter. It was an incredibly unique channeled lightning bolt, something only Deities with high merits and deeds could learn. It was also this High Deity’s most powerful attack, and greatest source of reputation as the mere fact of even possessing the spell would attract others to join him.

He smirked after seeing his attack connect and force Avrin down to the ground, but his smirk soon turned to a panicking frown. He felt the bolt shrinking thinner and thinner, while Avrin’s skin began to radiate with dark miasma.

“More!! We need more mana, or we can't slay this evil creature! If we kill it, its valuable materials will be ours!” His words excited their hearts as it ignited their greed. Then suddenly, they all surged with mana, pouring their energies towards the High Deity’s spell while causing the air around them to tremble as the aura of mana surrounding them grew thicker and stronger.

The bolt grew thicker again, but as it did, Avrin was absorbing more mana. “-Moooooooooorrrrrreeee!!! I need more!!-” Avrin thought to himself. His body suddenly trembled as he raised both his hands, and both hands twisted and suddenly imploded, forming two more rifts that expanded out and also began to absorb the lightning bolt, shrinking it even more at a faster pace. Seeing this, fear and despair crept into the Deities’ hearts as sounded out amidst the chaos.

“T-this is dangerous!” One of the Deities spoke before turning tail and fleeing.

“You fool! Don't leave while we still have the chance!” The leading High Deity called out, but they found that to channel such a powerful attack, their mana pools were nearly depleted. Thus, many concluded that continuing this would be detrimental because if they had no mana, they would be weak and could no longer flee when needed. Many others stopped lending their mana, and the spell grew weaker as Avrin absorbed more.

When the other Deities decided to flee, Avrin’s left eye turned and glanced at them. “STOP!” His voice resounded out, instilling profound terror as the spell shattered like brittle glass.

The rifts on Avrin’s hands dissipated and twisted around, imploding into themselves before his hands rapidly regrew to its previous demonic state. He quickly bent downwards and exploded with enormous force and speed, the ground beneath him blowing downwards while exploding a sonic boom.

In a single breath, he appeared behind a Deity who had just turned around to flee the scene. Avrin reached over and gripped on the metal rod staff the Deity held in his right hand.

“YOU DAMNED-!!!” The Deity was infuriated from Avrin’s insult. After all, to a Mage Deity, one’s staff was their most valuable asset and essentially their partner. Seeing some abomination touching his staff offended him greatly. However, the moment he finished speaking and tried to pull his staff back, he found that not only was his staff gone, but his entire hand had also been ripped off.

“AHH!” He cried out in pain as he held the bleeding stump, and he looked at Avrin. Glancing into those flashing eyes, he no longer wanted to remain here and quickly fled, fear-scarred in his heart. The other Deities that remained saw this scene and tried to leave with as much speed as they could, but Avrin wouldn't let them go without some form of compensation.

He was about to finish the completion of his Type 14 C.Particles and the new Rift Particles that replaced his regular particles. One Deity tried to fight back but was smashed away, leaving behind a wooden staff with a fiery diamond embedded near the tip.

Another Deity felt it wasn't worth the danger and reluctantly threw his staff away, hoping Avrin would leave him for his staff. Of course, it was what Avrin wanted and did so. That was when Avrin rushed towards the High Deity’s direction which was a mile or so away. His speed compared to Avrin’s was like comparing a slug to a rabbit.

Turning behind him as he used his remaining mana to flee, the Deity was sweating bullets.

“-What in the Four Heavens is that thing!!?-” He then turned to look in front of him and trembled. That was because Avrin was in front of him. He had Divine Stepped there. It caused his body to twist a little but not as badly as it had before.

“Hand me that staff! Now!” Avrin called out, and the Deity's face twisted with anger. “Over my broken corpse!!” The Deity angrily refused as he raised his free hand, forming a flood of runes. He had intended to create a barrier around himself.

However, giving a crazed look, Avrin smashed down the spherical barrier, his claws on his hands gripping onto it as he and the Deity slam downwards into the ground that cracked as if suffered a tremendous earthquake. The High Deity was petrified, certain he would die here by the demon’s hands.

“Little Animal, Begone...” A powerful mana bolt struck Avrin’s side, blowing him away several hundreds of meters and smashing him into several boulders, splitting them apart.

Forty meters from where the spot Avrin and the Deity were struggling, a pale man withered looking man with his right hand pointed towards the area was seen standing. The space around his hand emitted a mirage-like effect, almost as if it was otherworldly. This man was the Ancient Deity sent by the Artificer Consortium. He had picked up on this strange event and had been watching for a while until now, deciding to intervene.