Chapter 1242 Another Beginning

There was also something else he had learned while manipulating the formation. Not everyone could simply walk onto the platform and decide to activate it.

The moment Michael interacted with the Subsidiary Territorial Anchor, he could clearly sense the authority structure built into it.

Permission was required. Michael, as the owner of the Universal Cornerstone, possessed absolute authority over the entire network.

At present, only two people possessed authority directly below his own. Their permissions were still considerably more limited than Michael's, but they could operate important functions of the territory in his absence.

This discovery immediately removed one of Michael's earlier concerns. An enemy couldn't simply capture this place, step onto the formation, and casually teleport straight into the Eternal Crown. At least not through ordinary means.

Michael looked toward the soldiers standing across the enormous formation. Most were visibly curious now. They still had no idea where Michael intended to send them.

Michael finally selected the destination.

[The Eternal Crown]

A second confirmation appeared.

[Targets: 9]

[Transfer Cost: 1,800 Energy Points]

[Current Energy Points: 8,720]

[Initiate Universal Transfer?]

Michael accepted.

[Confirmed.]

The change was immediate.

The countless markings covering the enormous magic circle lit up simultaneously. Multicoloured light raced through the engraved lines, starting from the outermost ring before rapidly converging toward the center.

The soldiers looked down in surprise. Aldric's expression became considerably more serious.

Space around the platform began to distort. There was no tearing sensation or unstable spatial crack. Instead, the entire area containing the nine soldiers seemed to become increasingly unreal.

Their figures blurred, becoming translucent.

Michael watched closely. Arianne stepped slightly nearer to him as the light intensified.

The formation flashed and nine figures disappeared. One moment they had been standing on the platform. The next, the entire formation was empty.

Michael immediately looked at the panel.

[Universal Transfer Successful.]

[Destination: The Eternal Crown]

[Energy Points Consumed: 1,800]

[Remaining Energy Points: 6,920]

At the same time, he opened the territorial panel for his territory in the Origin Battlefield and saw nine unregistered life forms had immediately been registered.

It was without a doubt. Michael had once again succeeded in bringing people out of the Land of Origin to another realm, but this time the will of the world acknowledged it.

For the nine soldiers, the experience was completely different from what the ones outside saw.

The moment the formation activated, the world around them vanished. One instant, they were standing beneath the enormous statue in the Land of Origin. The next, they were somewhere else.

Or perhaps nowhere at all.

Surrounding them was complete darkness.

Eight of the nine soldiers immediately tensed. There was no sky above them. No earth beneath them. No horizon. Nothing.

They were suspended inside what appeared to be a transparent spherical bubble drifting through an endless black space.

Several soldiers instinctively reached for their weapons. One of the weaker men took a step backward, only to immediately stop when he realized there was nowhere to step toward.

Fortunately, the transparent barrier beneath his feet still gave him something solid to stand on.

The soldiers quickly gathered closer together.

Only Commander Aldric remained relatively calm. His expression had changed, however.

He recognized this place. Or at least, he believed he did.

The void.

Aldric raised one hand and tried to gather energy, but nothing happened. His eyebrows slowly drew together. He could still sense his own power perfectly. The problem was the bubble.

His perception also couldn't penetrate it. Every attempt to extend his senses beyond the transparent barrier was immediately blocked, as though the sphere existed completely independently from whatever surrounded it.

Aldric had entered the second layer of the void many times. For someone who cultivated spatial abilities, it was unavoidable. The void known to most people within the Land of Origin was divided into two accessible layers.

Aldric had entered the Inner Void countless times. That was why he had assumed this darkness belonged to it.

But something was wrong. The scale felt different. The emptiness felt deeper. Even with his senses blocked, the instinct he had developed through years of manipulating space told him that this was not quite the Inner Void he knew.

What Aldric didn't know was that his confusion came from a simple limitation.

The people of the Land of Origin only knew of two layers. Those from civilizations outside understood that the void was generally divided into three.

The Surface Layer. The Inner Layer. And beyond both of them, the Deep Layer.

The third was fundamentally different. It was the layer through which the boundaries separating worlds and realms could truly be crossed. Ordinary spatial teleportation could move someone across a city. To cross from one independent realm into another required reaching the third layer.

And that was something the natives of the Land of Origin simply could not do.

Their civilization possessed spatial cultivators. They possessed secret realms, spatial treasures, and countless methods involving space. Yet there was an invisible ceiling above all of them.

To most inhabitants, there was nothing unusual about their world. The Land of Origin was enormous. Its territories seemed almost endless. Its resources were abundant. Why would they ever think of themselves as trapped?

Only those with knowledge of the greater universe could understand the truth.

The Land of Origin was miraculous. But for those born within it, it was also something resembling a cage. Its natives could explore its vast lands. They could grow stronger. But reaching beyond the world itself was another matter entirely.

Until Michael.

The nine soldiers standing inside the transparent bubble had no idea that they were currently experiencing something almost no native of their world had ever experienced before.

They didn't know that the darkness outside the bubble was carrying them through boundaries their strongest spatial experts couldn't cross.

They didn't know that the place waiting for them ahead wasn't another region of their empire.

It wasn't another continent. It wasn't even another hidden world attached to their own.

For the first time in their lives, all nine of them were leaving the Land of Origin.

They were about to see a wider universe.

This was only the beginning.