As he walked through the portal, he looked around. The ground and sky were red. The sky a blood red, while the ground a orange-like red. Looking into the distance, that's all that he could see. One thing he felt was how little mana there was in the air. Trying to purify here would be like when he had to get the last 1% on the first stage purification. It would be better to just absorb any creatures and save the purification for the future.

When he spread his mana sense out though he spotted something. 100,000 kilometers to his right was a creature with around 1,000,000 units. it was shaped slightly like a bear, only about 1 kilometer long.

Seeing it, he took out his sword and launched forwards. In half an hour, he had arrived. Using his earth magic, he caused large curving pillars of stone to jut out from the ground and collide with the creature. While they didn't do much damage, they did manage to push the creature around a bit, causing it to lose balance and fall face first into the ground.

Gripping his soul weapon, he changed it into a 100 meter long blade and swung downwards. The blade penetrated a couple meters into the beasts neck before getting caught in its muscles.

He quickly made the blade toothed, and yanked backwards, tearing flesh and muscle out of the beats's body.

As he did so, the beast roared, and the ground shook. Stone walls, thousand of kilometers tall, sprang up around Sear, boxing him in from the light. There was no sun, so he didn't even know where the light came from, but he left that for later.

As the walls came together around him, millions of iron spikes shot out towards him.

Quickly spreading his arms out, he created a shield. Just as he managed to project it around himself, the first metal spike collided. The spike evaporated when it came in contact with the shield, but slowly more and more spikes began to make contact.

After a few minutes of holding on like that, he got tired. Using his own earth magic, he sprang up walls of stone hundreds of times denser than iron around himself. Gathering air magic between his palms, he let it all out.

The spikes slowed down and even began to go back to the walls where they came from, the wind powerful enough to fill up such a large space.

Once he finished, he quickly ran over to the nearest wall, which was a minute's travel away, before punching a hole through it. His physical strength, which he hadn't used in a long time, came out as he not only destroyed the potion of the wall in front of him, but destroyed the ground in front of him for hundreds of kilometers.

Jumping out, he saw the bear-like creature standing there. Summoning his sword once more, he imbued it with water magic. As he swung the sword, a large, boomerang shaped crescent blade launched off of the sword towards the bear. It quickly stomped it's hind foot down, causing a wall to appear before it.

The attack collided with the wall, turning it into very thick mud. While he did this, he prepared his next attack. Throwing his sword into the air, he prepared another glyph. A glyph, as large of the one he used to kill Zedrin appeared above him. It all condensed down into a circle.

As the blade fell through the circle, it changed. The blade became hundreds of times longer, while still weighing the same. Before, when he changed the weapon to 100 meters long, he felt it weight him down. But with this glyph, and not it's special abilities, he was able to surpass the weight. He gripped the sword's hilt, which was shrunk down to his size took a stance. The sword was over 300 meters long, yet it's far end moved faster than even Sear's eye could see.

That's the power of a 300 meter long weapon that weighted the same as one 1 meter long.

Swinging it, he smiled as pieces of the bear got ripped off. After a few final grunts, and an attempt to entomb Sear underneath a mountain of metal, the bear finally died.

Smiling, Sear walked over to the beast before absorbing it. Looking into his inner self, he smiled, seeing the one percent increase in his soul purification.

*If i just run around fighting beasts, I should be able quickly increase my soul purification and my total units should also go up very quickly. I won't purify here, but I'll see how high up I can get before I have to leave. I;m pretty sure I am one of the only people with a ability like my mist that can devour things and turn it into mana, so If I stay here I should be able to gain large amounts of mana fast.*

*He said earlier that when we come out we will be taken to the main area of the group. Knowing how greedy people are, I won't be surprised if they try to take my ability somehow. I must become stronger in order to escape from them.*

Imbuing himself with mana, he launched off at full speed, using his mana sense to try to find any other beast.

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One day later...

*Damn, he wasn't kidding when he said this place was large. By now I could have gone around my old world at least 100 times. All I see is the same damn barren wasteland. Red rocks, red dirt, red sandstorms. Wait, maybe it'll go faster if I'm in space...*

Changing his trajectory, he flew straight u through the atmosphere. As he felt himself begin to heat up, he collided with something. He got launched off of it at the same speed he hit it with, launching him back down at the ground. Stopping his descent, he looked at what he hit.

There, all over the sky, was a barrier. It was invisible, but when something collided with it, you could see faint traces of distortion.

*Damn... Seems like they were serious when making this...*

Flying back down, he continued his journey around the barren wasteland.

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5 days later...

*Finally, I've found another creature. It has..... nevermind. I can't fight that*

The creature was shaped like a crab, and had 6 wings attached to it's back. When he tried to measure how many units it had, he couldn't. It wasn't that it didn't have any, it was that the number was so large he couldn't fathom it. The creature was multitudes stronger than even Prodikous. And that's not mentioning its most likely heavenly defense.

*First thing I find in who knows how long, and it's something that can kill me by breathing on me. Thankfully it seems to be sleeping now. I should leave while I can.*

Making sure not to create too long a noise in fear of waking it, he sped off to another direction. If those creatures would be the things he had to fight, then he was much too weak currently. And that thing was also probably just in the Third Realm. Anything above that and he would be like a current of wind trying to push a mountain.

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Another week later...

"Damn this!" - Sear

Screaming, Sear flew down and began punching the ground with his full strength. Quickly, craters began to form on top of other craters. Soon, the area around Sear was completely destroyed. He had probably dug down a few hundred kilometers, but nothing changed below the ground either.

*Damn. When the guy said he was stuck here for 4000 years, I thought he was kidding. Its been 13 days, and I've seen the same shit over and over again. Didn't he say something about not having to fight to improve soul cultivation? How the fuck do I do that? Damn it... think...think. Wait, Yes! I can finally do something while moving.*

He quickly summoned his weapon and began running full speed. As he was running, he began swinging his sword and cutting into the ground. Soon, he was changing shapes and flipping in mid-air while keeping his momentum.

*He said creativity helps, so if I keep cutting things in different ways I'll slowly improve.*

He continued this for a few hours, slowly adding more and more weapon shapes to his techniques. One thing he had found, was that when his soul purification went from one stage to another, you gained a small ability. His was to be able to create extremely large weapons, as he had with the 100 meter sword.

Since he didn't know how to use it very well, he decided to practice it while moving. Even if this didn't purify his soul at all, it would help him learn how to better fight with his weapon. And that's just as useful.

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After a few days of continuing that, he noticed a change. His purification didn't change at all, but he still had hope. But what did change, is how he moved. He could now alternate between large and small, scimitar to dagger, almost seamlessly, and his movements became more fluid.

Stopping for a bit, he sat down by a rock. While his mana would never run out while flying due to his regeneration, his stamina wasn't unlimited. A few days of doing what he did and even he would have strain.

Sitting there, on that rock, he began to think of the past. If it would really take this long for him to leave, then everyone he knew would probably be dead. Hell, his minions would probably have evolved once more. If he ever made it back, the world would probably look completely different then how it is today.

*I would leave as soon as possible, but I'm still too weak. No matter what, I won't leave before reaching the Fifth Realm, even if it takes me a million years.*

Closing his eyes, he laid down. Setting up an alarm around himself, he decided to do something he hadn't in a long time. Sleep.

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"Kill...them...alll...you know...you want...too" - ???

*Huh!*

Awoken from his dream, he looked around, wondering what had just talked to him. He was dreaming of his life back at the village he came from. The village he was thrown out of, the village that thought he was hell incarnate. And then that thing... whatever it was, told him to kill them all.

*Am I going insane? Damn... I guess it's better to not sleep.*

Getting up, he took out his weapon once more before continuing to do what he had been doing.

At certain times, he would stumble, maybe didn't pay attention to where he was going and would trip on a rock, ending up tumbling across the barren ground.

After a few more hours, he decided to have some fun. He wanted to get stronger, but if he didn't take any breaks than he would end up going crazy.

Placing his hands on the ground, he flattened the area around him. Using nature magic, he created grass and trees. On one side, he created a lake using water magic. A few meters away from the lake, a large palace made of dense iron built itself out of the ground. Around the small forest and lake 10 meter tall walls sprang up all around, connecting to the palace.

He slowly walked over to the lake and created a chair made of tree roots, before sitting down and closing his eyes, relaxing.

*You know, this isn't actually that bad. If i do this every now and then while training, I should be able to keep myself sane. Only time wil...*

As he was talking, he felt someone staring at him. Turning around, he found who it was. A bipedal being, with 4 arms. It had sculpted muscles, and in all four of its hands there were dual-sided swords. He was wearing black scaled pants and nothing else.

But that didn't scare Sear, what did was his power. It was nonexistent. Somehow, they could completely hide their presence. He didn't even feel the natural fear he felt because of Prodikous's greater evolution. If the person wasn't standing there looking at him, he wouldn't even know he existed.

"Hmm. Here I thought it was some strong being deciding to create their own town. It's just an ant. Here's a tip, don't do this again. The stronger ones will believe you're trying to create a group, and they will kill you. If you're not part of a group, go towards that hill over there. There's a town 50,000,000 kilometers away from here. Tell them LL sent you." - ???

Before Sear could even say anything, the area around him was flattened. Even to his eyes, which could see and process things slower than a millisecond, everything happened in an instant. The palace, the trees, the grass, and the lake, just disappeared. And the person, without even making a sound, vanished.

*What. The. Actual. Fuck.*

After just sitting there for a few hours, and taking everything in, Sear decided to move. If people like that existed around here, he would need to be in a group. The town the guy talked about was just over a week away from Sear if he flew, so that's what he did. He was currently much, much too weak to go solo.

PURIFICATION STATS AND MANA STATS

Mana Units: 6,610,500 units

Mana Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete

2nd Stage: 37% Complete

Soul Purification: 1st Stage: 100% Complete

2nd Stage: 19% Complete