Chapter 107: Conquering The Ruined Undead Empire [3]

“How interesting, these interactions are really quite something. Zorba, did you know you could merge with your undead?”

“Ah, what? I-Is that possible?! I have never tried!”

“Wait, no…”

Louis quickly recalled a moment from one of his earlier regressions: Zorba fusing with his zombies into a monstrous human centipede. So Zorba knew the spell, but in this timeline he had never considered or attempted it, leading him to believe it probably didn’t work.

“So it has to be the same kind of Spell,” Louis thought for a moment. “Though it requires the Necromancer Incarnation as the bridge between the undead and the body. And I don’t know what the side effects could be. But having ten Ghostly Cores inside my body could grant me new powers… Well, I’ll experiment later. I’ll leave them as armor for the time being.”

“I agree. We can experiment more once we return to your Kingdom, my lord,” Zorba nodded. “But I am very pleased by the results. That Ring is incredibly invaluable! I have heard that the Dimensional Labyrinth holds all sorts of incredible riches, but to think it has things like these as well…”

“You’re right. Let’s press on.”

Louis wasted no time. He quickly returned to the surface, where the Salt Knights and the rest of the Undead were battling Ruin Eaters that had emerged to consume the fortress ruins. The enemies were being rapidly destroyed. The Crimson Shield and Sapphire Shield Guardians proved exceptionally strong and agile; their Fire and Ice Elemental Magic made them formidable, especially when fighting in tandem.

As for the Emerald Shield Fortress Guardian and the other Ghost Soldiers, they simply scattered and left little behind for reconstruction. Being purely ethereal souls, Zorba and Louis could not bring them along.

Resuming their journey across the Desolate Empire, Louis and Zorba sat atop Hecatoncheires’ shoulders. The golem had grown into a giant over thirty meters tall, composed not only of salt but also countless bones and hard ruinous stones from this Layer.

Louis paid no attention to Zorba, who murmured to himself while modifying enslaved souls. Instead he closed his eyes and focused deeply on his cultivation. The Spirit Bond Method grew stronger the more he practiced it with Belladine and Niflheim.

The Fake Dragon Heart progressed steadily, constantly enhancing the rest of his unified Cultivation Methods. Now, by using the Fake Heart as a replacement Spirit Orb for the Spiritias Cultivation Methods, he could keep it active at all times.

He concentrated intensely on the Heaven-Earth Harmonization Sutra and drew steadily closer to mastering it at Grand Perfection. This brought Louis to another method he had been attempting to learn the entire time—one the man who sold him the Heaven-Earth Harmonization Sutra had given him, claiming he was “compatible” with it due to his Void Affinity.

The Void Meridian Sutra.

Louis recalled what Kenzaki, the Zipangu merchant, had explained to him about this method.

“This is the Void Meridian Sutra. It was designed for those whose Essence flows against the current of Heaven and Earth. It teaches how to cultivate not by absorbing Elemental Essence, but by Refining Emptiness. By aligning your Internal Void with the External Chaos, I believe you can stabilize your Spiral’s hunger. This Method is rarely practiced, and it was created by the Great Void Immortal Venerable of Zipangu, an Ancient Figure now lost in time. It’s, as you can guess, incredibly precious because, even though it has weakened to the state of a Mortal Method, it is said to be capable of evolving into an Immortal Art once you reach Grand Perfection!”

A Method capable of evolving into an Immortal Art upon reaching Grand Perfection! Louis had been trying for a long time to learn it but had been unable to. Something was missing that the merchant had never told him about.

Then again, Kenzaki himself had admitted that even the greatest cultivators of Zipangu had been unable to decipher the true meaning behind this formula, unable to learn it, let alone master it.

However, unlike any of them, Louis possessed the Affinity for the Element of Void. It made sense that he could be compatible with it…

And yet why… why couldn’t he learn it yet?

“I have to align my Internal Void with the External Chaos…” He had been pondering this through two lives now. But he was finally beginning to unravel a bit more of the secret behind that Internal Void. “Wait…”

He quickly looked inside his Fantasy Heart. Aside from the visible landscapes, there was also a deep, vast void of nothingness.

He closed his eyes and began to manifest his Fantasy Domain around him, embodying this nothingness.

It had no substance, no power, nothing at all—it was simply pitch-black emptiness.

Slowly, he allowed it to interact with the world outside. The chaotic, dark energies flowing across the Desolate Empire Layer began to generate sparks.

“Hm?”

Louis’s eyes widened as he realized the Void Meridian Sutra was reacting specifically in this layer! Something Kenzaki hadn’t explained—likely because he had no idea—was that this “External Chaos” had to be the concentrated form of dark emotions.

“No, not dark emotions…”

Louis shook his head, realizing it held a much deeper meaning. The External Chaos meant all things unpredictable, all things beyond his control, all things he could not grasp—and at the same time, all the things he could not change. The unpredictability of chaos created by humanity, by an ancient humanity that had once perished, their resentment flowing like endless streams of dark energies through this layer.

These energies interacted. Black currents gathered around his body, beginning to combine with his Internal Void, beginning to create something akin to a small, miniature black hole. The black hole slowly floated toward the center of his chest—not his Fantasy Heart’s world, but his real body—and settled there, creating a profound hollowness within him.

But it didn’t feel painful or agonizing. Louis had always been hollow inside. He had started to feel this way the moment his dreams of becoming a dragon were shattered, and after experiencing his own death and the deaths of so many people he loved, this emptiness reacted beautifully with the method.

“I see… It is only now that I can channel this power, only now that I can learn this method…”

This black hole-like convergence of Internal Void and External Chaos slowly formed Louis’s Void Meridian. It allowed the dark energies to flow through his body, refining his Aura, Body, Spirit, Soul, and Mind.

“I finally did it!”

As he celebrated, feeling dark void energies course through his body, his golden eyes caught sight of a vast, ruined city. It was surrounded by thousands of Undead Soldiers, with two powerful presences residing inside a castle.

“We’re here.”

—–

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