Chapter 1235: Waking of the Void

Night passed strangely quickly over Hell’s Paradise Island.

Darkness had swallowed the horizon hours ago, yet as midnight deepened, the black surrounding Paradise became preternaturally complete; it gathered over ocean and island alike until the entire smug little sanctuary of monsters, ancient families and glittering wealth appeared sealed beneath a primordial dome, cut away from the rest of the Earth Realm by nothing more remarkable than night.

Only the cities resisted with towers of glass burned with millions of lights. Highways wound across the island in radiant rivers, and distant districts shimmered against the dark like constellations mortals had dragged from heaven and rebuilt according to more profitable architecture.

But suddenly every light disappeared.

The darkness did not spread from one district to another or even buildings flickered and no rolling blackout crossed the island in convenient stages but Paradise Island suffered an instantaneous extinction of light.

Millions of windows went black together... roads vanished beneath cars whose headlights no longer produced illumination, signs died above crowded streets and the light pouring from palaces, hotels and private estates disappeared before it touched the ground.

Within one breath, the island ceased to exist to ordinary sight, even the lake could no longer be distinguished from the sky.

High within the Infinity Chaos Hotel, Maya opened her eyes.

She had never truly been asleep and her body had rested beneath the covers beside Mother breathing softly enough to imitate sleep while another part of her remained awake, spread throughout the hotel and far beyond it with the quiet vigilance she had maintained ever since deciding that the people surrounding Phei required watching.

Mother slept peacefully beside her, entirely unaware that the enigmatic woman sharing her bed had spent most of the night listening to things no ordinary perception could reach.

But after the darkness swallowed everything, for the briefest instant, Maya’s eyes turned red.

The color appeared without warning, deep and unnatural, staining her usually gentle gaze with something that belonged to a far older existence but then it vanished, leaving behind the familiar eyes everyone around her knew.

"Phei..." she whispered.

Maya rose upon the bed as her perception unfolded even though the Void that arrested the entire world rendered even the most powerful unable to sense anything in its presence but Maya was Maya!

Maya’s awareness stopped respecting distance and the entire Infinity Chaos Hotel fell beneath it first:

Every floor opened before her. Sleeping guests, patrolling guards, hidden formations and the ancient mechanisms buried within the structure appeared with astounding clarity. Her perception continued through the surrounding districts, crossed the island, touched the ocean and reached beyond it until people separated by prodigious distances stood within her awareness almost as clearly as Mother sleeping beside her.

Melissa was alive, so were Patricia, Dravenna and Elena at the Ashford mansion.

Maya passed over them almost immediately and searched farther; Phei’s other women, his family and everyone currently entrusted to Sienna’s protection remained unharmed and none were under attack... no one appeared to be dying, and no obvious calamity had descended upon the groups scattered across Paradise.

Sienna was safe but she was also awake.

While most of the others slept through the impossible darkness without understanding that something fundamental had shifted around them, Sienna had already risen; the ancient violet burned inside her eyes with that unmistakable sovereign brilliance which never looked entirely human, and her expression had settled into a portentous stillness.

She had felt it too!

But she couldn’t feel Maya’s senses on her!

Maya’s attention lingered upon her for a moment before moving again:

Hidden within another fold of Paradise’s now absolute darkness brought by the waking Void was Selene.

The little child of darkness had sensed the disturbance before Maya consciously searched for her; Selene remained concealed from ordinary sight, believing herself buried safely within shadow, yet Maya’s perception passed over the darkness without disturbing it and found her already awake.

Her small body had become unnaturally motionless.

The shadows around her quivered in the coming Void.

Farther away, another concealed presence rested beneath Maya’s awareness.

The Fallen Angel.

Something about her had changed after the party. The alteration and changes in her Soul remained subtle enough to escape almost anyone else, yet Maya had noticed it some time ago. The Angel’s presence carried a different stillness now, as though something inside her had quietly shifted its allegiance while leaving the shape of its cage untouched.

Then there was Lucienne.

Maya had been aware of that dangerous existence around Paradise for roughly a month and a half. Lucienne had never been particularly difficult for her to find, despite how completely the Monster could disappear from nearly everyone else.

Tonight, Lucienne had abandoned her pretence of indifference.

She had felt it too!

So had the woman who was emerging from the ocean where Danton was being held.

Far beyond the dead cities, where the dark sea stretched beneath an equally dark heaven, the water parted around a female figure rising from its depths. Black waves now touched by the Void, rolled away from her body without foam or sound. Water streamed from her long blue hair and slipped over the golden fabric wrapped around her, yet the gown itself appeared untouched by the sea.

A slit along one leg revealed the familiar rose and dragon tattoo, its colour catching the last remnant of light before even that reflection disappeared beneath the deepening black.

She had felt exactly what Maya had.

The fury of the Void.

Paradise was darkening further with every passing second before the absolute darkness spread far beyond the island.

Although, ordinary people witnessed no catastrophe after the lights disappeared; there was nothing dramatic for them to feel like earth shaking much less explosion tore through the night, and no celestial phenomenon opened across the sky to provide a comfortable explanation.

But perception and senses itself of powerful cultivators had began to fail.

Spiritual senses bled into the pitch black and clawed back empty.

Anyone who dared to force open their mind for a glimpse beyond screamed as their perception collapsed into nothing, shattering their senses before a single answer could form. When the strongest among them cast their consciousness outward, hoping to feel the heartbeat of the world, they struck only a bottomless, swallowing void.

Just a brutal, infinite absence that offered nothing to hold onto, rendering everyone utterly helpless. The rest of the world had not just gone dark around them; it had ceased to exist and the rest of the Earth Realm might as well have ceased to exist too.

The weakest never realised anything had been taken from them.

Only monsters noticed that reality had gone blind.

Maya, Lucienne and the tattooed woman standing half-emerged from the ocean noticed.

Across Paradise and far beyond it, hidden existences turned towards the same impossible direction. Some awakened beneath mountains while others raised their heads inside sealed estates, submerged temples and old territories hidden behind the civilization occupying the surface.

Each discovered the same thing.

Something had spread across the Earth Realm that neither light nor ordinary perception could enter.

Sienna and Selene had no right to stand among the monsters capable of sensing that far.

By all laws of cultivation, their realms were too shallow, their foundations too weak to peer into that tier of cosmic scale.But they were more than the sum of their energy channels.

Sienna was the Nether Goddess, the absolute Empress of Death while Selene carried a pitch-black abyss of True Darkness written so deep into the marrow of her soul with the Seed, that this incoming, swallowing absence felt almost like kin.

More than that, they were bound to Phei—entangled by heavy, jagged tethers that defied standard cultivation.

Especially Sienna.

The moment the void struck, it didn’t just rattle the world; but it violently yanked on her soul.

Meanwhile, Maya needed less than two seconds to sweep the area.

Her mind tore through the immediate surroundings, cataloging every vital sign. Only when she verified that Phei’s women and their immediate circle were still drawing breath did she let her full, unfiltered perception whip around toward the epicenter.

Her awareness launched south where Phei was!