Chapter 1288: Cosmic Rebirth [9]
Slowly, quietly, imperceptibly, something took root within Damien.
His mind and soul were rising in status with every passing second, and as Damien threw away everything he knew for the sake of his ambitions, the stubborn Heavenly Order had no choice but to acknowledge him.
Perhaps there was no man worthier than him for Divinity.
The manifestations in his soul that symbolized the singular aspects of his forming Divinity blurred and began to merge as they were swamped with a myriad of other concepts.
And as the process began, Damien's mind went black. "Thought" was no longer possible for him.
He was floating in an endless abyss, but, it didn't seem as colorless as it was. It felt so full of everything that there was nothing that could possibly represent it but blackness.
He felt bliss in this abyss. He allowed it to embrace him, and he embraced it back.
And as his mind was swallowed by the unknown, his body underwent massive changes as well.
The lightning baptism came to an end, and instead of furiously striking down as it had been, the Heavenly Order became calm.
Waves of gentle energy washed over Damien's body with every passing second, and as its league was heightened in an ethereal way, another force took charge.
Damien always had the connection.
He could always feel that there was an ethereal body mirroring his own connected to him.
That was the Void Physique.
The Void Physique had been with him since before mana even existed on Earth. When he awakened along with everyone else, it was the thing that stood in his way and forced him to remain at the bottom of society.
However, it was also his savior.
It gave him access to Devour and allowed him to survive the First Dungeon, it gave him access to Void Essence and gave him the qualifications to comprehend the Void, and it was the main backer behind his talent and strength from start to finish.
His connection with the Void was now far deeper. His soul was bathed in its essence, and his mind held traces of its will.
However, the root of his power was first his body and the Void Physique connected to it.
He was still unaware of what the Void Physique truly was.
It was easy to say it was just a symbol of his status as the Void's Apostle, however, that wasn't all there was to it.
The Void Physique was its own monster.
Because of it, Damien didn't even realize the kind of uniqueness he had.
Most people only had a single elemental affinity. Some would have two, and barely anyone had three, but nobody could ever have more than that.
It was partially a matter of Universal Law, but the main reason was something else entirely.
The vessel of a sentient existence simply didn't have the capability of housing so many laws.
Laws were concepts that had an impact on the fundamental workings of the universe in some way, no matter how small it was.
For a sentient being to harness their power was already going against the laws of reality, but because they could grow stronger, they wouldn't be affected by the negatives of such an action.
Those with two affinities had more expansive vessels than the rest which allowed them to carry more, however, even they usually ended up focusing on only a single one.
Elena and Rose could be used as an example of this. Elena had Life and Light affinities, but she decided to reach the absolute peak of Life instead of following the path of a Valkyrie that required her to focus on Light. Meanwhile, Rose chose to focus on Illusion, throwing away her Wind affinity because it couldn't benefit her much.
Those with three laws didn't even need to be mentioned, because, in the entirety of the universe's existence, only a handful of them had been born.
At the end of the day, no matter how much talent one had, no matter how strong they got, they would be bound by the limits of their vessel.
Introducing more than that vessel allowed would cripple them, or, in the worst case, make them implode from the inside.
But...
Damien controlled a myriad of laws.
Even when taking only the fundamental laws into consideration, there were more than five within Elemental, Space, Time, Life, Death, Creation, and Destruction.
It was unreasonable. No matter how talented he was, he was still a human. By all logic, his body should've been a bloody puddle of mush drifting around somewhere in the starry sky.
But it was not.
It was a vessel more whole than anyone else's.
And that was precisely due to the Void Physique's influence.
It served as his vessel and allowed him to contain any and all things without worry, and as if that wasn't enough, it promoted absolute balance.
Instead of being overwhelmed by his laws, Damien controlled them as their sovereign. And, instead of being crippled when he tried to manipulate them as he desired, he could seamlessly merge them into their greatest forms.
All of this was because he was the bearer of the Void Physique. It had so much impact that the system itself decided it deserved a title of its own.
Still, its true worth was yet to be revealed.
Damien had yet to gain the qualifications.
At least, that was the case before now.
His soul was transformed, his mind was in the process of transformation, and finally...
His body also gained the qualifications to ascend.
The Mana Heart in the center of his chest dispersed into particles of energy and merged with his true heart, becoming a single entity with two faces.
The Ananta Matrix disappeared from his body entirely.
It wasn't gone, but it didn't need a physical form anymore.
It had reached a level of evolution where Damien could intuitively control mana perfectly without the assistance of a mana utilization system.
His Bloodline Core, a strange thing that was created when he racially ascended to something the universe had seen before, dissolved as well.
Even it was too low for what Damien's body was turning into.
Like ink in water, a blackness spread through his body and polluted every part.
Damien's blood changed. The aspects of existing species left him entirely. Whether it be his draconic side, his demonic side, or even his human side, it was all washed away as a more powerful force started flowing through his bloodstream.
Ba-dum! Ba-dum!
His heart thumped consistently.
The changes in his body from this point forth couldn't be explained.
It could only be said that he changed.
The "Void Physique" in its current definition disappeared.
Now, the "Void Physique" was just Damien's body in its most standard form.
His body and soul finally reached harmony.
Damien's current state was somewhat in limbo. He had yet to form his Divinity in finality, but he was far beyond the definition of a lower existence.
But it was right around the corner.
As his body and soul started to synergize, as his consciousness floated in the abyss, so many processes took place in one that his state became incomprehensible.
But it became clear.
The significance of the Void Physique, that is.