(start of book 5, Crownless King.)

Yan Ling could tell that there was certainly a story hidden away behind the tinge of emotion that flashed through Yao Jun's eyes, but she was unable to ask about it as his eyes regained their usual calm almost instantly. With that being the case, she decided to instead ask about the question at the forefront of her mind.

"The crystal you gave him, where will it transport him? Is it gonna be far from here?"

Yan Ling couldn't help but be a bit antsy right now, she was the one who knew Liang Chen best after all. And if there was one thing she knew about him then it was that he was a highly dangerous person, far more dangerous than others could possibly hope to fathom. It was especially so right now where he had lost almost everything, there was no telling what he might do if something pushed him over the edge. As such, she wanted to meet up with him as quickly as possible, at least then she could act as a sort of anchor that stopped him from drifting away. But the response she got from Yao Jun was so far from any of her guesses that the idea had never even crossed her mind.

"No clue. I set it up so that it would bring him relatively close to his parents, his biological ones, oh and his sister I guess I gotta add from now on. But as to where those buggers are right now, I have no idea. I spend most of my time focusing on my own little multiverse so if I want to find out where he ends up I gotta spend a day or so checking."

Yao Jun spoke extremely casually, even shrugging his shoulders lightly, but his words left Yan Ling completely dumbfounded for a short moment. But she quickly collected herself again, somewhat disbelievingly pursuing what she had just been told.

"But Little Freak said that his parents knew that they were going to die, that's why they sent him through time and space, so that he didn't have to share their fate. Have they reincarnated and regained their memories? Or did someone revive them after they died?"

There were very few things that Yan Ling and Liang Chen hadn't shared with each other over the time they had spent together. As such, Yan Ling had long ago already heard about the memories that had been sealed within Liang Chen by his parents as they sent him through time. They realized that the Genesis War was lost and that they would die there, this was the entire reason they had sent their only son away, so that at least he could survive. But once again, Yao Jun shrugged his shoulders and provided an answer that she hadn't been expecting.

"They were indeed set to die back then during that little skirmish. But I've got a surprisingly decent relationship with those fellas so I rescued them before they were killed. But this Sphere of Existence is a bit of a bitch when it comes to people fucking around with time like that so they had to pay a bit of a price that set them back a fair bit. They've been living in relative peace ever since then, but due to their involvement with me, they ended up having to send their second child, their daughter, through time as well, paying the same price once more. I only recently managed to pick up their daughter, she arrived in the Rahu universe about a year or two ago and had taken up the name Xiao Ping. She thought her parents were dead so she was hellbent on reviving their race to make their spirits proud, funny little girl, a bit stiff though."

Yan Ling was surprised to see another tinge of emotion, guilt this time, flash through Yao Jun's pupils as he spoke about Xiao Ping. From the looks of it, there was probably more to the story than what he was telling her. But that was to be expected, they barely knew each other so neither of them had any reason to tell the other much about themselves. But those weren't the thoughts occupying Yan Ling's mind right now, she was fully focused on just the one simple fact.

"So Little Freak... Still has a family?"

Learning this fact, Yan Ling couldn't help but grow a bit worried and relieved. She was relieved because this meant that there were still others that cared about Liang Chen, but she was worried about what reaction he would have. He had a very simple view of his biological parents, he respected them and was thankful for what they had done for him, but his actual parents would always be the two people who raised him and were executed that day in Green Rivers city. If he met with his biological parents, just how would things unfold?

--

A terrible quaking overtook the ship as the silver ripple swallowed Liang Chen and his ship, the furniture ending up flying all over the place. Liang Chen was just barely able to stabilize himself, his toes curling and actually digging into the floor so that he didn't end up joining the furniture as it flew around, a strange sensation coursing throughout his entire body. The quaking only lasted for a few seconds before subsiding, an almost eerie calm replacing it as Liang Chen felt the eagle-shaped ship drift forward, the strange sensation only growing stronger.

But to his surprise, Liang Chen realized that he probably hadn't arrived in the major universe yet, the sensations he had felt so far were nothing like the spatial teleportations he had felt so far. Liang Chen's gaze unconsciously drifted to the windows on the ship, but they had all been barred by automatic metal covers to protect them once the ship started quaking, leaving Liang Chen unable to see his current surroundings.

His head felt strangely light so he reached up to touch it, but Yumao wasn't curled up there any longer, causing Liang Chen to start a little. He quickly swept the entire ship, but Yumao was nowhere to be found, it was as if he had vanished. It was only when Liang Chen check on the orb inside his interspatial ring that he could let out a sigh of relief, Yumao had somehow ended up inside it.

But as Liang Chen checked up on the orb and the people inside it, he discovered something strange, they were all frozen. Even the plants within the orb, and within his interspatial ring, were all still and unmoving, it was as if they had been frozen in time. Liang Chen tried to send part of his mind into the two items to nudge the people there, but he found himself unable to even get close to them, it was as if they were rejecting Liang Chen, or rather as if he was rejecting them and refusing to get close to them.

He extracted his mind from the orb in his interspatial ring, his gaze drifting towards the exit of the ship. The strange feeling coursing within his body was ceaselessly growing stronger, almost becoming unbearable. He uncurled his toes and started walking towards the exit of the ship, the feeling growing stronger and stronger with each step, his veins feeling like they were on the verge of bursting as the blood within them released an intense desire. His right arm was especially bad, it was itching more than it ever had before. Liang Chen quickly reached the door of the ship and opened it, his gaze finally landing on his surroundings as the strange feeling within him reached a crescendo.

It was a wasteland, no matter where he looked there was nothing but wastelands. His ship was currently gliding through the air above a vast barren continent, heading for a silver vortex that he guessed would take him to the major universe. The continent beneath him was covered in light gray, almost white, sand and there wasn't a single plant to be seen anywhere. A few solid and strangely craggy mountains rose up on the continent, each one made of black stone covered in small pores that made the mountains seem very brittle.

As Liang Chen looked at the wasteland that unfurled around him, he could feel the blood within his body resonate with his surroundings, a tremendous stream of energy constantly flooding towards him from all around him. As he was taking in the sight, the continent started to tremble fiercely, the sand and earth bursting open in countless locations as beings burst forth from the earth.

The beings resembled the shape that the dragon formed from his bloodline had taken after he absorbed the Void Born bloodline, they looked like wurms formed from black tentacles writhing around each other. The heads of the wurms were all a bit different and unique, but they all had large jagged maws filled with rows of sharp teeth, some of them even resembled lampreys.

Thousands upon thousands of these large wurms rose up from the ground and faced Liang Chen, a few much smaller humanoid-beings mixing in with them. Liang Chen didn't have to be told where he was or what sort of beings these were. He could feel it in his blood, in the vast energy flooding his body, in the intense joy released by ever inch of his being. This was the void, and these beings were the most primal forms of most Void Born.

The void was a place that existed although it shouldn't, and as Liang Chen was about to be transported through the void that separated universes, his bloodline reacted and brought him to this place that shouldn't exist, this place that no other non-void being had the right to enter. This was an utterly unexpected event, even Yao Jun wouldn't have been able to guess that his might happen, his calculations were that it would only take Liang Chen about a second to reach the major universe after crushing the crystal.

Liang Chen gazed at the thousands of Void Born that had risen from the barren earth, and they too were looking at him as if they were inspecting him. And then, one by one they lowered their bodies as if they were kneeling down and lowering their heads. As the Void Born lowered their heads, a soft chanting started to echo out from the barren continent, rising in volume until it had become an all-encompassing hymn.

The words were foreign and indecipherable, Liang Chen wasn't able to understand a single one of them. But he could understand the intent within the hymn, the purpose of it. The Void Born were singing for him, praising him and hailing the return of the ruler. It had been far too long since the void last birthed a new ruler so the Void Born were celebrating in joy.

The ship continued to glide towards the silver vortex while the hymn echoed throughout the void, spreading out as far as it could and causing more and more Void Born to join in on it. Liang Chen gazed at the kneeling Void Born beneath him, closing his eyes after a few seconds and putting his focus on his itching right arm. He felt that he could do it right now, he could use the influx of energy that the void was sending him to herald his birth.

The speed at which the energy entered his body suddenly drastically increased when he took control over it and started to voluntarily draw upon the energy of the void. The hymn only grew louder and louder as the energy flew into his body and flooded his right arm, the itching feeling turning into a searing pain.

His right arm suddenly vanished, it turned into his spear and vanished into his body, leaving behind the stump that remained of his shoulder. But the stump was wriggling and twisting unnaturally, small black tendrils starting to extend from it. The tendrils flickered with lightning, wind, water, and a strange gray mist, constantly changing color as they grew longer and longer.

The tendrils writhed and coiled around each other as they extended, growing thicker and thicker as they started to form the outline of an arm. Liang Chen's brows furrowed slightly as he looked at the outline, his left hand swiping his interspatial ring and taking out several of the resources he had gathered up after leaving his home planet. The resources were sucked into his body along with the energy of the void, invigorating the black tendrils and causing them to grow even thicker.

Flesh formed around the tendrils, veins, muscles, and bones quickly following. Skin covered everything up just as Liang Chen's ship approached the silver vortex, his lost right arm returning to normal. It had been erased by the void when he unleashed his strongest attack, and now the void had helped him rebuild it by giving him a nearly limitless supply of energy, even helping him slightly advance his body cultivation.

The hymn had reached its crescendo at his point, so loud that it was like thunder rumbling in the sky. Liang Chen's ship entered the silver vortex and vanished, the hymn abruptly stopping and the thousands of Void Born burrowing back down into the earth. They had hailed their monarch, now they just had to wait for him to return to them.