Chapter 725: A Lively Void

The Void — and yet, not the Void.

There was clearly nothing here. Yet anyone who stepped inside would feel the space itself warping. Then again, perhaps it wasn't space that twisted — it was time.

Countless invisible streams of light converged and fused, intersected and split apart. Some ran parallel along the same line; others tangled and knotted. They surged toward an indiscernible future while circling back to an already-hazy past.

But no matter where these streams of light went or how they flowed, they remained trapped in this single corner — like prisoners shackled at the ankles. No escape.

It was like a cell. A bizarre cell. No screaming. No protest. Only mechanical distortion and eternal silence.

But that silence was shattered soon enough.

A pair of eyes painted with star-specks and spirals opened without warning at the center of this space-time. The instant They appeared, every invisible stream of light was stained by the brilliant stars within Their gaze — blooming into dazzling, multicolored splendor. Simultaneously, Their arrival made the streams churn and twist even more violently.

Only now — revealed at last — could these streams be perceived by the living. Only now could any consciousness beyond this space-time realize this wasn't empty Void at all, but a black hole that had seized hold of uncountable timelines.

That black hole had been lurking here, unremarkable. But with the arrival of those star-filled eyes, it instantly devoured every visible timeline in range, then violently contracted — transforming into a pair of black-hole eyes that opened directly across from the starlit gaze.

The bloodshot veins in those eyes resembled riverbeds of time — connecting unknowable numbers of futures and pasts.

"Long time no see."

He greeted the uninvited eyes.

But those star-specked, spiral eyes were so cold that merely opening without speaking had already whipped a howling frozen gale through the Void.

"Long time no see?

Do you remember your divine name is Time and not Deceit?

The Convention may forbid the gods from excessive interference in trials, but it doesn't forbid us from watching. You expended every effort to block My gaze from that trial — but did it ever occur to you that what is Fixed is Fixed? Even beyond My sight, My followers can still cross the fence and reach the far shore."

"...?"

A flicker of confusion appeared in the black-hole eyes. He seemed about to say something, but before He could speak, the other had already struck.

Destiny gave Time no time. Those frigid eyes plunged downward, and the entire Void began to collapse violently — dragging Existence into the infinite maw of the Void.

The streams of light within those black-hole eyes shattered and scattered, only to ignite again from past and future. He remained where He was, sighed softly, said nothing in explanation, and returned to silence.

His complete lack of resistance made Destiny's gaze falter — as if realization had struck.

And at that very moment, another pair of star-specked, spiral eyes opened above them both. These starlit eyes — eye-corners crinkled sky-high the instant they appeared — looked down at the two below with a gleeful cackle:

"Don't fight, don't fight! Though Time and Destiny are opposites, who says opposition has to be a blood feud? Perhaps being close as family is exactly the scene He most wishes to see.

We're all brothers and sisters in the end. No family feud is worth this much anger.

Hee~

Am I right?"

The words sounded like peacemaking. But the "watching the fun, the bigger the better" tone was absolutely unmistakable.

"It was you!"

Destiny suddenly realized who had prevented Her from observing the last trial. But what She couldn't fathom was: even if Deceit was rebellious, what reason would He have to help an Existence who wanted to approach Origin even more than Himself?

Existence's closeness to Origin was virtually undisputed. They bore Their divine names and descended in the new Era, spreading Their will from the very beginning of the age.

Time had carved out countless riverbeds of temporal flow, extrapolating innumerable worlds, hand-labeling every strand of time — all to present a more colorful universe to Him.

Memory was the same — plucking Time's labels from the Sea of Memory and placing them in the Collection Hall, unraveling the dead knots of countless histories, smoothing the doubts of countless memories — hoping to recapture His attention.

These two Existence deities stood in complete opposition to Deceit's rebellious nature. So why would a fellow member of Void "help" one of Existence against Her?

Was this right?

It wasn't. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn't.

And so Destiny raged.

When She raged, the universe might not change color — but the Void certainly would.

The entire Void froze in an instant. Everyone traversing the Void at that moment felt a horrifying pressure from its deepest depths — so crushing it nearly suffocated them, nearly shattered everything in the Void. Fortunately, the other Lord of Void intervened just in time, preventing the Void from collapsing entirely.

"You're serious?" Deceit blinked with faux innocence.

"Didn't you want to fight?

Come. Fight!"

Infinite freezing gales of nothingness materialized before Deceit, instantly encasing those laughing eyes in an ice sculpture.

Even frozen solid, He kept smiling.

The ice sculpture's eye-corners remained perpetually high — every line still dripping with mockery and ridicule.

But Destiny didn't care. She was long accustomed to cold stares and derision — especially from Her twin deity. Though Deceit's expression certainly stoked Her fury, She quickly dragged the entire Void into the battlefield.

"BOOM—"

That's right — the entire Void. She didn't even spare Time. She was ready to fight two-on-one.

"..."

The black-hole eyes, inexplicably dragged into a Void civil war, sighed. He clearly didn't wish to linger. So He acted — only, the direction of His action...

He solidified every inch of Void before Him into Existence — and used that to pin Deceit!

He was helping Destiny discipline the other Lord of Void!

"???"

Deceit was displeased. 'What's going on? I came to put in a good word for You, and You help My little sister beat Me up?'

The eyes within the ice sculpture glanced toward Time. A flash of contempt. Then He blinked with his ice-made eyelids — once — and vanished from before both deities. Simultaneously, sarcasm echoed from every direction of the Void:

"Oh my — I only said 'close as family' as a figure of speech, and you two actually go and become family?

My dear little sister — you join hands with Existence to ambush Me. Are you planning to ally with Time and defect from the Void?"

"ENOUGH!"

"BOOM—"

The Void that had been solidified into Existence shattered again. Countless shards of reality were swept up in waves of nothingness, surging in every direction — targeting the Deceit hiding beneath the Void's surface and... the Time who'd just helped Her.

Destiny, it seemed, was ready to spare no god.

"..."