1578 Heart Of The Universe

It was a view that transcended all imagination.

What registered in Varian's mind slipped away as soon as it was percieved, leaving him with an empty mind.

The sight was surreal, the feel was out of the world and the experience was beyond words.

Varian's breath, thoughts and movements all stopped.

Like a statue that had been standing there since the beginning of time, he stood there, watching the grand sight that unfolded in front of his eyes.

What was it? What could it be called? What name would even suffice to the grandness that existed here?

These were the questions that would've come up had his thoughts not ceased.

It was an opening, a gap, a hole.

Coming from something. Nothing. And it wriggled outward, pushing the very existence of reality, the fabric of space and time with such force that it'd tear apart an entire kingdom into pieces.

Something was pouring out of it. Something clearly familiar. Something that the whole universe was permeated with.

Varian's eyes shook for the first time. And his mind registered the material for what it was.

Aura.

Aura was pouring out of the gap like water gushing out of a hole in the dam. It was fierce, chaotic and dangerous. The sheer momentum of its flow pushed the opening outward, causing it to widen.

But how much aura was it really?

Once the question sparked, Varian's mind which dulled due to the grand sight kicked its gears.

'Aura is always flowing from inner space to outer space. I'm inside core space, which is even deeper than inner space. And aura is flowing from core space to inner space. And that aura…'

Once the realization struck, Varian's mind blanked out due to the sheer shock.

Core space was much, much smaller than Inner space. And this was the place where all of the aura was coming from. And all the aura in core space was originating from this location.

In other words…

'All the aura of the universe is originating from here.'

It was a scary thought that in itself. One that would've caused even divine rankers to seriously consider everything they knew about the divine paths and aura itself.

But that's not the scariest part.

No. Not by a long shot.

'H-He…He…He…'

Varian's eyes shook and his teeth chattered. With emotions he didn't even know how to describe, his gaze shifted to the center of the opening.

The silhouttee of a man was visible.

A tremendous power, far beyond anything he'd experienced washed over him just by looking at him.

It was as if an ant watched a dinosaur for the first time. The difference in their levels wasn't just obvious, it was insurmountable.

The pressure he felt from Aphosis felt like a headpat compared to the feeling here. Aphosis was strong. Heck, he was one of the strongest beings to exist today.

But this man, this being, he's above and beyond anything that existed today and for billions of years in the past.

Just by staring at him, Varian simultaneously saw a man and a fusion of space and time. Was he really a being or was he a force of nature?

The space-time revolving around him had reached a level that Varian couldn't even think of and it worked on the opening.

The opening destroyed. He repaired.

One was a cosmic phenonemon.

The other was a cosmic being.

'G-God Emperor!'

He alone was facing the pressure from all aura and he was suppressing the expansion of the cosmic opening.

Thanks to him, the cosmic opening, which should've violently tore apart the layer of reality was only able to slowly expand.

Even though he opened the gate, even though the saw the opening, it was very, very far from him in reality.

If Varian tried to reach there, he'd take millions of years to even cross half of the distance. The distortion of space-time in the middle was unimaginably high.

Despite looking close, the God Emperor was far away from him. And so was the opening.

And that's why he managed to survive the tidbits of aura that flowed here after thousands of years.

What he was seeing was also the reflection of something that had already happened thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of years ago.

Varian gulped down his saliva and clenched his fist. This wasn't a place he should've come. But he did. And he could not unsee what he already saw.

'I have to leave. Now.'

He turned around without hesitation, mustering all of his might for that one movement and charged his feet with power he didn't even know he had.

Like a missile firing off, he shot out of the gate. And while he did, the chaos caused by his aura attracted bits of something he didn't notice until he returned.

Boom!

The gate closed naturally.

When Varian looked at the cracks on it, he had nothing but respect for the structure which withstood the cosmic waves for billions of years.

"Eh?" He noticed something glowing on his palm. "What's this?"

It was a string of obscure symbols, symbols that felt familiar but not really.

Come to think of it, he didn't even pay attention to his surroundings inside as he was entranced by the grand sight. But now that he thought back, these things were floating around like dust and must've stuck to him when he was leaving.

[You can leave through the portal]

The text which appeared long ago was still there, so was the portal which opened a route to the borders of the pala kingdom.

This time, Varian did not hesitate. He jumped straight in.

The space around him distorted and the time fluctuated. It was an exquisite construct, one which demanded a great mastery in the field of space-time.

He wouldn't have recognized before. But he did now.

This was constructed by God Emperor himself.

And this whole mission of God's Eye was also his doing.

The opening's expansion was accelerating despite his efforts. If left unchecked, it would expand God's Eye or tear the space-time, leading to unknown consequences.

So, he directed the bits of space-time fluctuations that leaked despite his efforts and used the so-called geniuses to clean off the mess.

If divine rankers were used, their consumption of aura would create an aura vacuum here and prompt faster expansion.

At least, that's his guess. Perhaps there were more reasons. But he didn't have any more information to speculate.

"Haaa…"

When Varian came to his senses, he returned to the outside world, the real world.

And he realized something crazy.

'Wait, how much time passed…?'