Immortal Kingdoms

Buzz!

Leonardo directed the energy into opening a channel between the corporeal and ethereal spaces, following his connection to the sub-dimension as a minute crack in space formed for a split second.

This crack wouldn't fit a finger, much less a person. However, it was more than sufficient to thrust the soul pearl into, which was precisely what Leonardo intended to do.

With a light shout, he pushed the soul pearl through, immediately feeling as though a portion of his soul had been forcibly torn off, blood spilling from his nose, eyes, ears, and mouth with a violent fit of coughing.

The sudden tug on his spirit shook his sea of consciousness so hard that the fabricated illusion of a blank sea of consciousness crumbled apart, a black sea flooding in through the cracked gate in a stampede of tsunamis.

Although this seemed like an impending crisis, in actuality, each splash of black water seemed to mend a crack in Leonardo's consciousness and very attentively at that, quickly patching up the backlash from isolating his soul pearl— especially since a thread of his soul was residing within.

However, that moment of danger quickly passed as the soul pearl successfully made it into the sub-dimension, descending like a shooting star to merge into the fragment of the Infernal Throne, and very seamlessly at that.

The entire sub-dimension shook as the core of this dimension, namely the black orb condensed from the eternal night martial intent, and the revolving nebulas around it were drawn into the boundaries of the soul pearl.

As expected, a physical substance as the core of the sub-dimension was a better option than having four swirling masses of energy complement one another while sustaining the sun-dimension from collapse.

With a portion of his soul now residing within the sub-dimension, it would be much easier to connect instead of using worldly energy as a medium to establish the same connection, and it could even be done in ways undetected by rebirth realm cultivators.

After all, while the worldly energy would leave obvious traces in the borders between the physical and ethereal planes, the soul purely interacts through the ethereal, a realm beyond the capabilities of rebirth realm cultivators— not even a star lord can dabble in the laws of the ethereal yet.

Leonardo wasn't paying attention to his own condition or the sea of consciousness at the moment as his spiritual sense swept out with the soul pearl as a medium, immediately permeating through the sub-dimension as he began to imprint a clear image of the place in his mind.

The last time when he left a spiritual mark in the sub-dimension, he couldn't get a clear look at the place since his energy was already exhausted. This time, however, he had the sufficient energy and means to mend some of the fragmented laws while simultaneously inspecting the current conditions.

Blue rays of ether that were redirected from the ether pillars rushed into the sub-dimension, compensating for the deprivation of worldly energy that spanned for thousands of kilometers of deprivation.

Floating land masses, broken mountains, cracked landscapes, everything floating aimlessly in a stretch of darkness within the boundaries of this sub-dimension.

The sheer imbalance of laws wreaked havoc as some parts of the sub-dimension were warm, some were cold, some were moist, and some were beyond dry.

Tangible threads of ether lashed out at everything in the vicinity indiscriminately, explosions rocking the sub-dimension as Leonardo brought everything except for the throne fragment to utter demolition.

Since everything was deprived of worldly energy and ether, the constructs were as brittle as rotten wood— the slightest exposure to a ripple of energy was enough to utterly destroy them.

Even gravity was destabilized by these explosions as the fragmented laws did little to maintain the world order, Leonardo's spiritual energy manipulating the ether to wrestle control over the floating lands, bringing them down after their destruction.

In no time at all, the only thing intact was the towering fragment of the throne, erected like a divine pillar— albeit a black one.

With a rumble, ether swept out and began to draw the rubble and debris from all over the place to construct a new landmass with the pillar at its center, stationed in the middle of the sub-dimension.

A flat land that stretched toward the four extremities of north, east, south, and west. Then, the remnants of rubble and dust galvanized towards the pillar and piled up into a mountain that reached the border of the sub-dimension in height, immediately spreading into consecutive mountains thereafter, erecting a splendid mountain range.

Threads of energy spread from the tallest mountain, forming an intricate underground network that spread to the four directions while pumping ether into the land, giving it some vitality and spirituality.

The previously fragmented laws at a constant clash were also drawn into the soul pearl, for now, Leonardo's innate martial intent going at full throttle to deduct, derive, supplement, and fix these laws.

To Leonardo's surprise, the fragmented laws were pertaining to chaos and creation— life and death, the sixteen elements of chaos, time and space, and many more.

[Author Note: the 16 elements of chaos from DnD lore are: fire, water, wind, earth, vacuum, ash, dust, salt, lightning, steam, minerals, radiance, ice, smoke, ooze, and magma.]

The unfortunate thing was no matter how high Leonardo's understanding of these laws grew, he couldn't incorporate them into his techniques unless they had a direct affinity with a martial intent he cultivated.

He might be able to command these laws while within his sub-dimension or domain once he achieved rebirth— but that was only limited to the domain. Furthermore, fixing these laws is a must if he wanted to achieve rebirth, and he truly had no idea how many thousands upon thousands of years it would have consumed of his time if he didn't have the eternal night martial intent.

The idea truly gave him the shivers.

Luckily, he didn't need to actively focus on fixing these laws as he had split a portion of his martial intents and soul when forming his soul pearl, it could be even considered a second body of consciousness, working on these laws.

The only drawback here is that he could no longer multitask while roaming the uncharted wilderness, and he would need to obediently enter seclusion and focus whenever he needed to go about deducting and or creating new techniques.

What astounded Leonardo was the affinity between the desolate martial intent and the laws of chaos— especially time.

But thinking about it, this made sense judging by the nature of the Exiled Paradise— Leonardo even suspected that it wasn't a mere pocket dimension but an independent or perhaps a fragmented plane that somehow ended up in a Stellar World.

With the continuous channeling of ether thanks to Leonardo's efforts of connecting the ether formation to the soul pearl prior to thrusting it into the sub-dimension, some traces of vitality and durability finally surfaced in the dimension.

It slowly began to take the shape of a sturdy mainland, but it lacked aesthetics like a clear sky, verdant trees, rivers and seas— and most importantly life.

But that has to wait until the rebirth realm where the dimension receives the baptism from the heavenly retribution, attaining the recognition of universal laws.

After making sure everything was running smoothly, Leonardo slowly withdrew his main conciseness and allowed the soul pearl to take control while he planned to finally perfect his bloodthirsty armament.

Even though he would need to change its name afterward— perhaps naming it the Regal Armament would do it some justice.