Void can’t really be given a verbose explanation because it quite literally was what it meant. A complete absence of anything and everything. If any spacetime existed; it was not void. If any dimensions existed; it was not void.

If freely moving great runes existed; it was not void.

And that initiated his reason for giving up when it came to analysis as the crystal certainly appeared as void when under inspection of an external power, but his consciousness instead saw a glaring mass of great runes within this high level object. Any supreme tier item contained hundreds of thousands of such runes though, going up to millions on the upper end.

“This can’t be void. How can Exeter level material just appear like this? And why void of all things… It's too much of a coincidence! But the runes were–” Heart pounding, his voice cut off as he immediately dove deep into his Soul once more. It took a fragment of a second to cross that distance as a hint of obsession rooted itself into his thoughts, a powerful emotion that could be feared if taken too far.

The innocent-looking crystal sat in place without any reaction or care as he approached closer and closer, not just beside the black fragment but zoomed in so far until his surroundings darkened.

Not entirely dark though, as within the black mass he saw flickers of faint blue and white light. Very rarely, large bursts of light appeared as well, revealing clear and defined great runes. However, without more detail he couldn’t come to a firm conclusion on his own, speaking to himself, “I can see some… So tell me the truth.”

Back outside, mana surged into his blank jewel-like eyes to produce a beam of light through himself. The light continued beyond, but he hardly cared in favour of revealing the runes deep within that black crystal.

His consciousness, still within his Soul, indeed saw a wave of light cover the multicoloured innards. The white orbs of Providences completely ignored their effects.

But when his Eye of Truth landed on the crystal… The light disappeared.

No deeper runes appeared, nor did the unknown thing change in any way, and so he promptly gave up once more. None of his means worked on it! And with a complete admission of failure, the Nexus finally provided its knowledge on the subject. Internally, he half-expected to just see another ‘Classified Information’ and be forced to completely give up on any answers. Luckily, that didn’t happen this time.

[How to describe this without breaking any filters… It should first be fine to mention that this item utilises and works with the universe’s laws in all regards. As for the reason you come across a void whilst scanning it, that’s because your scan was too weak. The item’s latent power instantly destroyed any energy which attempted to pass over it]

“So not an Exeter class object, but still incredibly powerful. I really should’ve asked how gods relate to them back then,” he replied while grimacing. While he knew that gods and Exeters were technically at the same ‘tier’ by the Nexus’ standards, an actual measurement of power pretty much guaranteed an Exeter’s victory over a god at that same level.

He just presumed that this item came from a god though. The Nexus never actually mentioned any other sorts of powers distinctly above supreme tier in the past, so he always focused on these two.

[It is unrelated to gods, by technicality. These are ‘Planar Existence Shards’ and are born when large sub-realms or dimensions die completely. Much like a star’s collapse, the plane’s will may die and in turn the plane collapses in on itself. These almost always end in supernovae like larger stars, except the substance spat out are these remnant shards]

“That actually answered almost all my questions, for once… So what does it actually do?” Back in the cave, outside his Soul to be pedantic, he stared at the box with text and awaited his next message. The Nexus gave a full description of an unknown item no weaker than Exeters, it was a miracle no information was blocked due to his low Authority level!

[That would in fact be classified information. What we can say is that it is in your best interest to leave that shard alone for now]

“Can I at least know why? Would it harm me? Or would I lose some sort of benefit?”

[We cannot mention exactly why. We can confirm that the shards are unable to harm you. In this case, it jumped towards you because of your weird bloodline mix]

It once again came down to his bloodline, although this relaxed him greatly for a while compared to the previous concerns of void. To know the real reason for this merger, as well as his strange self-scan results, what more could he do but follow the Nexus’ advice once more?

He’d be a fool to ignore knowledge where he understood so much less.

Settled from information, a hearth of curiosity lit once more as he still wished to investigate deeper into the usage and nature of these shards. Just moments after moving back to his soul training array, he couldn’t hold back the next question and asked, “Right, you said its latent power just destroyed my scan instantly? What sort of level were these planer wills to do that after death?”

[There is no name for them in the current zone, so we will default to internal levels. With supreme tiers regarded as tier 8, as you know, gods and wills of smaller sub-realms are considered tier 9 beings. However, this only refers to low, mid, and high rank godhoods. The plane’s which produce these shards are exceptionally large and powerful, regarded as tier 10 beings. Only Overgods are on par with them]

“Surely the various magical planes would be tier 11 then? And where does the universe itself lie?” He immediately asked two more back-to-back questions. Barebones logic suggested the two facts anyway, but he knew the latter one wouldn’t provide an answer.

[No, magical planes are all part of the universe itself. And there is only one tier 11 existence]

While just his imagination, a strange cold filled the room all of a sudden. For the first time in years, a cold which made him shiver and grow wary of the very fabric of space around him. The dimensions so close by also appeared more apprehensive and unwilling to work with him…

That was still his imagination right?

[It would do you well to remember that since its inception, we have always been the strongest and most active law of this universe]

With a methodical gulp, he nodded submissively. In no way were those feelings just an absent thought, it truly took a casual action for the Nexus to turn every part of the universe against him. That message from long ago still rang out in his head, one where it mentioned a fact which left stunned. That served as his foremost reminder to never truly anger the unknowably powerful being which managed a whole universe.

It once asked if he naively assumed they hadn’t killed several Exeters, but he really had to wonder how large that number was. Double digits? Triple?

In Billions of years he couldn’t possibly fathom how many powerful individuals died to the Nexus’ hand as they stepped too far out of line. And this came from an absolute being that didn't even care about species like demons, those who systematically devoured countless worlds all across the universe!

The incredible level of damage required to force a response went over his head entirely.

“How is anything ever going to be capable of helping you?” Head shaking, he spoke rhetoric in disbelief as he questioned if a combination of even the most unbelievable bloodlines could ever get him to their level. A better question would be if he ran dry of lifespan due to the number of evolutions required for that.

[Worry about it when you reach tier 10. There are a good variety of bloodlines to assimilate]

With that said, he felt the dimensions around him relax back to their usual state with space no longer against his existence. And while he found the odds of reaching tier 10 in his favour, significantly in his favour at that, it really seemed like the unimaginable leap from these top level beings to the Nexus could not be bridged by just a collection of bloodlines.

Maybe he felt a bit too stressed out about it though?

A realisation of his thought process came through to him, and really it all originated from one particular fear. “What will happen if I fail to reach that level?”

[Nothing. We shall wait until someone else shows promise in obtaining our goals]

With a powerful expulsion, his whole body deflated as every knot of tension melted away. Consequences of failure were the only thing which scared him at the end of this all, and since the Nexus didn’t wish to silence him, he just followed its suggestion. Worry about it all when he got to that level…

Unless it lied, but he really doubted any such possibility.

“Back to training I guess,” his voice lost most of the emotion present over the past few hours as the investigation of the unknown shard ended with a conclusive yet generally unfulfilling answer. And without that curiosity to push him away from monotonous tasks, he activated the element injecting array beneath him, and continued to build the mimicked blood vessels as before.

Nothing about one wing’s completion sped up the process as well, whether 99% finished or just starting at 1%, it always required the same amount of time to process and complete a connection.

Then obviously came the side effect of his weak palace showing cracks under the force of every merger. Very few beings began their Inner Creation before an Adept mind palace, and the way his dutiful golems worked endlessly to patch up all that damage showed it. They just had to move condensed mana into any damage sites, and smooth it out with their hands before moving on. Every palace absorbed whatever material formed the respective part to repair itself at will. It was just a shame that his Undying Body had yet to merge with his other two core components.

Besides random thoughts like these, he pretty much sat in place for days on end as the connections built more and more.

Nothing happened in the outside world to take note of, and while Raccelline came to play every few days, the group generally focused on themselves with strict priorities. Mala’s body finally triggered an evolution given the variety of potions and substances consumed, Darak had yet to evolve on account of limited materials. A shocker, but he required one of the few types of items dragons rarely collected.

A divine soul crystal, named for its literal application of divine power to one’s soul. While these very rarely went on the market as wizards experimented with them, almost all of these came from the hands of various churches who maintained strict lists to obtain one. He applied a couple months ago for one, but with the upcoming war, the number of Mature Priests who sought a crystal exploded ten-fold in the last year… Unless a circumvention came about, he would be waiting up to three years for his chance.

While just a grade 1 material, no dragons dealt in such a thing. And they went out of their way to check the Dragon God, who possessed similar means to create these crystals. However, this religious order filled with dragons was almost a separate existence to the clan as piety rarely spread about.

And what god just casually gave out rare resources to other races when their own also required such things?

At least Raccelline powered up with age alone, as she now overpowered most weaker master tiers in power or skill. But with magic involved, she more often lost than won. She never utilised her Exeter powers though, a win in exchange for hours of unconsciousness wasn’t a worthwhile trade.

Amazingly enough, it approached winter once more with the world in constant focus of an upcoming war. They remained still in the Dragonlands at most times, on the edge of their seats day by day, but still no one pulled the trigger and attacked.

The eternals seemingly waited for something, and in the meantime most of the continent initiated a grand-scale plan to block all three wells of darkness on their landmass. Countless arrays and troops stationed between them could firebomb half the continent if arranged differently, but even then, many considered it a bare requirement to stop a suicidal charge up the wells.

No outwards movements against the elves ever appeared though, in fact, Korridan specifically heard that even their existence across the continent went unchanged. And for his life, he couldn’t tell if this was a ploy or just arrogance as they didn’t take the elven threat to mind.

Akevorax’s Inner Creation reached roughly 65% completion, the walls and second floor of his Mind palace’s new mansion stood strong in the winds and constant snowfall of his mental space, and at some point along the way, he created an array to just forcibly slam his heart crystal together for rapid compression. The progress was stunning.

In just a couple months, he completed the third transformation, fully. And in no more than 6 months, he knew that a completed Inner Creation and Adept mind palace awaited him.

Unfortunately, a sudden message took his immediate attention. The voice which simply appeared in his head, bypassing a few master tier barriers around the group’s cave with ease, spoke nobly, “Akevorax, report to the central mountain’s peak. The Clan Lord wishes to see you.”

A message from the First Elder directly… His body teleported out of the mountain instantly and stepped on a teleporter straight away. However, the tingling on his back from his Auric Spirit and disturbance across his soul from the True Will said enough.

This would probably end quite painfully.