Chapter 126: Nine Progenitors
Victor took a deep breath as he broke through the spatial barrier of the eighth realm, stepping into the absolute pinnacle of the known astral world: the ninth realm.
Instead of the chaotic storms of energy or endless plains he had seen on the previous floors, the ninth realm was a domain of serene, timeless vastness. Floating in the middle of this quiet void were nine colossal castles, each forged from unknown, divine materials that seemed to exist beyond the concepts of time and space. Some were carved from solid starlight, others from pitch-black cosmic ore, and some seemed to be woven from eternal, burning flames.
"What do we have here?" Victor became curious instantly.
Before he could take another step toward them, intense beams of white light gushed out from the nine castles, shooting directly toward the sky and piercing the realm itself. The light was so bright that even Victor had to narrow his eyes for a fraction of a second.
The nine massive castles vanished into thin air, and in their place stood nine majestic beings, each possessing an aura that made the entire ninth realm tremble under their weight.
A huge black dragon with nine sharp horns crowning its head floated above, its dark scales absorbing all light. Next to it hovered a crimson phoenix, surrounded by dark red fire that burned without needing fuel or air. Standing on a floating landmass was a humongous titan over ten kilometers tall, its skin looking like ancient cosmic bedrock etched with glowing golden runes. Beside the titan stood a nine-tailed void fox whose tails spun like miniature galaxies, throwing off sparks of silver starlight.
Floating lazily in the air was a leviathan of the deep astral ocean, its body spanning hundreds of miles with scales made of pure indigo crystal. Next was a four-armed arch demon, its body wrapped in hellfire and six wings of pure shadow spread behind it.
Beside it shone a golden celestial sovereign, glowing with divine, holy light and wielding a spear made of condensed law energy. Then came a world-eating behemoth, a giant creature resembling a horned wolf with fur made of dark matter. Finally, there was a World Serpent of Hundreds of Kilometers long.
Victor was mesmerized by their majestic looks, observing every detail of their divine structures with his evolved technique.
"Wow. They really look like supreme beings," he thought to himself.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
All nine of them landed around Victor in a massive circle, their heavy footprints causing shockwaves that echoed across the vast realm. They were all radiating a brilliant golden potential, a completely new level of existence that transcended the gray, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and violet auras Victor had seen on the lower floors. The golden aura bathed the entire realm in a warm, suffocating light.
"Oh? We have a visitor for the first time?" they talked to each other, their voices echoing like thunder across the floor.
"Yeah. Look at how blindingly he is glowing. How is this possible? Even if he reached here somehow, he should have exhausted all his potential by now. He is an anomaly."
"He is a human, right? I do not want to follow a pathetic human, even though he found his way to come here."
"Yeah. He looks so small and fragile."
They continued discussing among themselves, completely ignoring Victor as if he were nothing more than a curious insect that had wandered into their sanctuary.
"Umm guys, I can hear you," Victor suddenly said, crossing his arms over his chest.
The nine majestic beings suddenly froze. Millions of miles away, inside the dark palace, the monarch and his two subordinates also froze in complete shock.
"How is this possible? How can he speak and understand the astral language?" they were shocked to their very core.
"How can you understand us?" the crimson phoenix asked in a majestic, echoing voice, its dark red flames flaring up in surprise.
"Well, I have my own ways. Now can you tell me who you are?" Victor asked calmly.
"We are the Progenitors of all astral races," the black dragon replied, its deep voice vibrating through Victor’s very soul.
Victor was shocked. He was actually meeting the nine supreme progenitors who birthed every creature across the endless astral world.
"I am Victor Walker. It is nice to meet you. Now, would any one of you like to form a contract with me?" he asked with a faint smile.
"No way. Not a human."
"Never."
"You are not worthy."
"You should choose someone from the eighth realm."
"We are just too overpowered. Even if we go out, we are not sure your universe can hold our presence."
They all denied him one by one without hesitation. They looked down at Victor with subtle disdain, treating his request like an absurd joke. Even though they tried to hide their arrogance, Victor could clearly read it in their golden auras.
As soon as he saw that disdain, an unimaginable pride surged in his bloodline like an ancient thirst that could not be satiated. It was not his conscious mind, but the deep, dormant instinct, reacting to being looked down upon by mere creatures.
"Is that so?" Victor’s eyes suddenly turned dark as the void.
Then, suddenly, his astral body started changing. The blinding white light vanished, replaced by pure, absolute darkness. Countless distant stars, swirling nebulae, supermassive black holes, and birth-bursts of whole galaxies appeared directly inside his soul body. He transformed into a towering, humanoid-shaped universe, pulsing with the weight of infinite space.
He looked like Alien X from Ben 10.
Boom!
His unbound, terrifying aura erupted instantly. The sheer weight of his cosmic existence descended upon the area, crushing the nine progenitors straight to the ground. The ten-kilometer titan collapsed to its knees, fracturing the floating landmass beneath it.
The nine-horned black dragon was slammed flat onto the dirt, unable to even lift its massive head. The phoenix’s dark fire was instantly extinguished, and the remaining progenitors were pinned down, whimpering under a pressure so absolute it defied the laws of the astral realm.
Victor felt completely omnipotent in this form, feeling as though he could extinguish their immortal lives with a single, fleeting thought.
Yet, he did not pay much attention to the terrified progenitors beneath his feet. As soon as he transformed into this cosmic state, his senses expanded exponentially, piercing through the hidden layers of the astral world.
He felt that there was another hidden realm far beyond this ninth level. Looking straight through the cosmic barriers, he could clearly see a massive black palace and three ancient beings watching him. Among those three, one sitting on a throne was radiating an unbound, terrifying aura.
"You are not worthy to become my summon," Victor said calmly, his voice sounding like the simultaneous echo of a billion collapsing stars.
With a thought, he returned to his original soul form. The crushing pressure vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
The nine progenitors lay on the ground, gasping for breath, completely drenched in cold astral sweat. They did not dare to look up at him, their bodies still shaking uncontrollably from the brief glimpse of his true, horrifying existence.
Inside the deep palace, the monarch and his two subordinates were frozen solid, their minds completely blank.
"What just happened? Who is he?"
Even Victor himself could not fully explain what had just transpired. It was that exact same mysterious feeling he had experienced when his chaos body first awakened, a glimpse of something sleeping deep within his origin.
Instead of lingering around the terrified progenitors, Victor turned his eyes toward the hidden layer of space he had just discovered.
"Let’s go meet these three first."