The Tale of the Void Emperor

Athan and others continued flying for thirty minutes more before a black-purple rift suddenly appeared two hundred meters in front of them.

Athan's eyes gleamed as he spoke, "let's go!"

Athan, Lily, Huarin, and Mimi flew towards it and entered inside while Dreevindo stood there dumbfounded. However, after a second, he snapped out of his thought, hurriedly flew towards it, and entered inside while cursing, "Fuck it!"

Athan and others arrived in a nightly world filled with glowing stars and seven moon-like things in the sky. The atmosphere was very cold and chilling. They arrived near a waterfall with shining black water with sparks flowing in a river towards deep into the jungle.

"Sigh..."

Athan and others turned to look at Dreevindo after hearing the sigh.

"What happened?" Athan asked with a frown seeing Dreevindo's expression.

"My bad, I forgot to tell you about the color of dimensional rift portals," Dreevindo said with a wry smile, "there are several colors, and among them, this black-purple combo is connected to devil realms. So, we will mostly find devilish races."

"What do you mean?" Lily asked with a frown.

"Eh...It's like this, the black aura from the portal represents devilish realms, while the purple aura represents epic-grade. So we will find Epic-evolution powerhouses and monsters here," Dreevindo said.

"What's with devilish realms? I saw some devils or demons, whatever they are called in the city as well," Athan said as he raised his eyebrows.

"It's not like that; the devilish realms are the realms where powerful devil races stay. There's no race discrimination or anything, but they prefer to stay there because it's more comfortable for them. After all, it is their birthplace.

However, black-purple combo means that this dimension rift will give more advantage to devilish people because of this atmosphere," Dreevindo said with a weak smile, "And If we encounter any epic-evolution devilish people, then we will have to run or give up our resources to them."

"Brother Athan, I found this in the river!"

Athan and others saw that Mimi was standing near the river with a black shining crystal in her hand. The crystal had red vein-like patterns inside it.

"That's...it's an Umbra-catalyst crystal," Dreevindo said in a surprised tone, "It's an epic-grade resource that people of Epic-stage use to progress in their Genealogy path."

"Whatever it is, it's filled with the powerful energy of some kind," Lily said as she inspected the crystal.

Dreevindo nodded, "those devilish people would kill for it since this crystal gives them more benefit."

"Take it, sister Lily, and evolve it further with Ark's power," Mimi said as she threw the crystal towards Lily before saying to Athan, "I'm sure brother Athan can make use of it."

Lily caught the crystal and disappeared.

"Dreevindo, there's no need to worry since we have arrived here. Just keep on the lookout for us from now on while we gather resources and train."

However, suddenly, everyone heard a sound of air ripping apart as they saw two people coming out of the jungle and stopping as they saw Athan and the gang.

Everyone became cautious.

The two individuals were a man and a woman. They had a slim build, white skin, black horns, red eyes, and eccentric, dark red patterns on their body.

"Where is it?" Arunki, the woman asked as she looked at Athan and others while keeping her flying form in some sort of stance as if she was ready to attack any time.

After she finished speaking, the man followed up with a sneer, "we have sensed its energy since whatever you got is very compatible to our genealogy path, so don't try to fool us and obediently give it to us."

'Support me from behind,' Athan said telepathically to Dreevindo, Mimi, and Huarin before he consumed ten Abyssal Blood Crystal and activated all three of his void frames, such that he could change any part of his body to a different void frame's structure when he wants.

'It's time to go all out,' Athan thought as he disappeared from his location and appeared beside the woman in his void frame: Extremity Drifter, while his right hand had turned into a cannon of his third void frame: Xeno Arcane.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM....*

Athan used a fully offensive skill of his third Void Art: Theurgist Ravage as a black spiral beam with blood patterns shot from his hand cannon.

The woman couldn't even scream before her entire trace of existence was erased.

Right after that, Athan's body turned bulky and very muscular, his height increased to two meters tall, a pair of horns grew out of him, and black scales appeared over his body.

The current him looked more devilish than any devils.

"Y-you...HOW DARE YOU!" The man shouted with red eyes and pointed his palm forward at a breakneck speed before a black orb materialized. However, a phantom holding a red scythe also appeared over the man and attacked Athan.

At this moment, Dreevindo and Mimi attacked the man while a barrier honeycomb barrier also appeared around Athan, obviously by Mimi as it was her power.

The barrier blocked the orb's blast while the scythe of the phantom cracked the barrier.

However, Dreevindo's attack, which looked like a giant hammer, hit the man squarely as he flew away several kilometers away while spewing blood.

Athan once again disappeared as he wanted to devour the soul of that man.

On the other hand, Dreevindo was sweating waterfalls, 'what the heck? Those two were almost as powerful as me, just one step away from being the peak of Atomix-realm. However Athan...he, he...instantly killed one of them, although there was surprise element since he took the initiative but still...'

Dreevindo then remembered the words of Athan when he took on Athan's attack, 'so he was not kidding. The power he showed previously was really not his full strength. Damn, what a freak!'

On the other hand, Athan was actually very pressured right now because using ten Abyssal Blood Crystal was his limit, and that put a lot of pressure on his entire body and soul. However, he wanted to test his full strength and decided to do it given the opportunity.

After blasting off the head of the man, Athan devoured the soul and started refining it while returning, 'Let's see how much improvement I get from the first soul of Orchos Firmamament.'