Chapter 218: Ch 218 : Breaking barriers

Far beyond the borders of Sunny’s known multiverses, in a different multiverse, a man and a woman sat across from each other.

They were in a garden of impossible beauty, a place where the flowers were forged from light and the trees from a shimmering, non-wooden material.

“So, you are saying you are from another multiverse?” The woman’s voice was a melody, a perfect, harmonious sound that seemed to resonate with the very air around her.

She was a being of flawless, celestial beauty, a holy maiden whose every minute movement sent subtle, almost imperceptible ripples of power through her surroundings. This was Thera, the Goddess of this multiverse.

The man sitting opposite her was her equal in appearance, his facial features so perfectly sculpted they seemed to defy nature, his long black hair bound in a simple clasp, his deep eyes holding the memory of a thousand years.

He was Cai Zhen, a God from the multiverse of cultivation.

He nodded quietly, his brow furrowed, his body thrumming with a little anxiety. This place felt wrong.

He, a being who had forged his divinity through continuous hardship, who had absorbed the spiritual energy of the heavens for three thousand years, was sitting in a world that had no spiritual energy to absorb.

The air was empty. He was suffocating from the absence of Qi, and the woman across from him had no idea.

“Now,” he said, his voice calm despite the growing panic in his soul, “can you help me?”

Thera, the Goddess of Divine Annihilation, studied him with an intense curiosity.

Her multiverse was sealed and protected by a barrier, And yet, this man, this “Cai Zhen,” had torn his way into it, appearing like a comet, a being of a power she had never felt before. A power that was now… diminishing slowly.

“Help you?” she repeated. “You are a God. I am a Goddess. I sensed the power you used to breach the barrier of this multiverse of mine. Why would you need my help to leave?”

She gestsured to the crystal-clear sky above them and said, “The edge of the multiverse is that way. I am not like you. I cannot traverse my entire realm in a matter of years like you spoke of. For me, it would take thousands of years”

“Goddess Thera, I have a… complication,” Cai Zhen said, his pride warring with his desperation.

“My Walker of the Space technique, the one I used to travel here, requires an immense amount of a specific energy. An energy your world does not possess. We call it Qi. Without it, I am… stranded.”

Thera’s perfect eyebrows rose. “No Qi? No power? Still you will be a God, you can try to live without powers here”

“I am a cultivator,” he explained, trying to find the words. “My body, my very divinity, is forged from the Qi I have absorbed over three hundred thousand years. I am a vessel of that power. But this place… your air is empty. My vessel is not being refilled. In fact, it is leaking.”

He looked at his own hands, which, to his horror, seemed a fraction less divine, than they had a day ago. “If I stay here, I will regress. My cultivation will fall apart. I will revert from a God to a demigod, and then… I will become a mortal. And I will die of old age.”

Thera was truly, profoundly shocked. A God who could regress? A divine being who could just… die… from being in the wrong place?

Her own power was innate, a talent gifted to her by the multiverse. It was a part of her soul, as inseparable as her own consciousness.

This man… he was a different order of being entirely. A God whose power was a resource, not a right.

“I… see,” she said, her mind racing. He was a puzzle, a being from an outside world, and he was dying.

She felt a prickle of something, a twinge of… bad karma, as he might call it. “I cannot have you die here. It would disrupt the balance of my world.”

She leaned forward. “If you have no energy, and I cannot take you, then you are truly stuck. However, if you have around hundred thousand years left to live, you can take one of my fastest spaceships.”

Cai Zhen smiled bitterly. “I cannot survive that long…”

“How… fascinating,” Thera mused. This changed everything. He was not a powerful invader she thought he was; he was weak.

A predatory yet curious glint entered her eyes. “And yet, you came to me for help. What payment could a powerless God possibly offer me, I can just take away anything you have of value?” she said, as she remembered the promise of Cai Zhen when he asked for help.

The promise stated that he would give her something valueable.

Cai Zhen met her gaze, his calm returning. “I can give you something you cannot take, even if you were to strike me down right now,” he said.

“I can give you my knowledge. The secrets of cultivation. The art of breaking the barrier of a multiverse. These things are locked in my soul, in my memories. You can kill me, and you will gain nothing. But help me… and I will teach you.”

Thera’s interest was piqued. She thought of her own ultimate talent, Divine Annihilation. It was a power that allowed her to create a thousand divine swords from nothing and obliterate any target.

But it had a cooldown. It was a skill she could use only once per day. This man, this cultivator, he spoke of power as a resource he could wield at will, as long as he had this “Qi.”

He was on a different, perhaps a more efficient, yet controlling path towards godhood.

“As much as I would enjoy a new… companion,” she said, her voice a low, alluring purr, “I do not want a dying mortal in my garden. ”

She stood, her form radiating a new power.

She held out her hand to him. “I will help you. I will use my own power, my own high speed talent, to carry you to the edge of my multiverse. It will still take time, but just around a thousand years.”

“Thank you, Goddess Thera,” Cai Zhen said, a wave of relief washing over him.

“But I do not want your gratitude,” Thera said, her voice hardening, the warm maiden replaced by the cold Goddess. “I want payment.”

She leaned in, her flawless face just inches from his. “You broke into my multiverse. I want to know how. In return for my help, you will teach me your art. You will teach me how to break the barrier of a multiverse.”

Cai Zhen looked at her, and then past her, his mind’s eye recalling the journey through the endless, terrifying void between multiverses.

He remembered the moment, just before he had found Thera’s realm, that he had seen it.

A different multiverse, a colossal sphere of light so vast, filled with a chaotic and immense power that his own multiverse felt like a dim candle in comparison.

He had felt a strange pull from it. A pull of fate. But Thera’s realm had been closer, and midway. Thus he decided to take a breather in this multiverse and refill his reserves only to find the world doesn’t have any qi.

He had to get back to the void. He had to find that bright multiverse.

“I accept your terms, Goddess Thera,” he said, his gaze fixed on that distant hope. “Help me reach the end of the multiverse and I will teach you how to break the barrier”

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