Chapter 1279: Spatial Awareness

The moment the black panther sensed the surrounding space, his expression changed completely. He no longer had the luxury of wondering where he was or why I had brought him here.

His perception swept through the pocket dimension, and then his gaze returned to me with a trace of disbelief. He finally understood the difference between us. I was a High Demi-God, while he was only a Middle Demi-God, and the gap between those realms was already frightening enough before considering the level of Space Origin I had just displayed.

He did not waste another moment.

His body blurred and began sinking into the shadows beneath his feet, attempting to use Darkness Origin to escape before I could stop him.

I simply chuckled. The movement was so obvious that it almost felt insulting after everything I had just learned about Space. I lightly tapped my foot against the ground.

The surrounding space responded immediately.

The shadow beneath him suddenly twisted violently, and the connection between his body and the darkness was severed. He was forcibly thrown out of the shadow as though the darkness itself had rejected him. He flew several hundred meters before crashing into the void, blood spilling from his mouth as the spatial force tore through his body.

He struggled back to his feet and stared at me with a mixture of shock and fear.

I slowly walked toward him. "Why would you people align yourselves with the Eternals and willingly act as their lap dogs? You have reached such a high level, yet your behaviour doesn’t seem to match the power you possess."

The man coughed several times, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth before giving me a bitter grin. "Have you faced the Eternal Lord?"

"I have."

His expression became serious.

"Then you should understand. I did not surrender because I was weak or because I lacked ambition. I surrendered because after facing him, I had no doubt that resisting was meaningless. And that is without even considering his army. Have you seen how many Demi-Gods the Eternals command? They have enough power to roll over entire universes. Even if someone like you is strong enough to defeat a few of them, what happens when hundreds of Demi-Gods stand against you?"

He laughed quietly despite his injuries.

"One day, you will understand. When you see enough of their strength, you will make the same choice."

I considered his words for a moment before nodding. "I won’t deny that. After seeing overwhelming power like that, you really do need a spine to stand against it."

I stopped a few steps away from him and studied his wounded body.

"But you are going to die anyway, so why not make your death useful? Tell me some of their secrets."

The black panther’s grin disappeared. "I don’t know any secrets."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing worth telling you. I have nothing to share."

I shrugged. "That’s unfortunate."

I raised my palm.

The surrounding Space immediately compressed toward my hand, and countless spatial edges began forming within it. In the next instant, a gigantic silver-white palm emerged above the black panther. It was enormous, formed entirely from compressed spatial blades, with every finger containing countless microscopic cuts capable of slicing through the structure of Space itself.

The black panther’s expression changed.

He immediately abandoned his human form.

His body expanded violently until a gigantic black panther appeared before me, its enormous body covered in sleek, shining black fur. Darkness erupted from him like a storm as he opened his jaws and released a deafening roar.

A massive dark beam shot toward the descending palm.

The moment the beam collided with the silver-white palm, however, it began disintegrating.

The Darkness Origin that had been compressed inside the attack was sliced apart layer by layer, its structure unraveling as countless spatial blades tore through it. The beam disappeared before it could even slow the palm.

The gigantic spatial palm continued downward.

The black panther roared and tried to resist, but the palm crashed directly onto his body.

BOOM!

The surrounding void exploded.

The spatial palm shattered upon impact, but instead of disappearing, the countless blades embedded within it erupted outward. Thousands upon thousands of miniature spatial blades spread through the black panther’s enormous body, slicing through his flesh, bones, organs, and Soul Force from every direction.

His roar turned into a scream.

Within moments, the gigantic body was completely torn apart.

The darkness surrounding him collapsed, and his physical form dispersed into countless fragments before vanishing into the void.

Only two things remained.

His soul.

And a dense fragment of Darkness Origin.

I did not give either one a chance to escape.

Space folded around them, and a black hole instantly appeared within my Divine Core. The soul and Darkness Origin fragment were pulled inside together, disappearing into the depths of my Divine Core.

I closed my hand.

The entire battlefield became silent.

Another Middle Demi-God had fallen.

And this time, I had barely needed to move.

I remained in the empty pocket dimension for a while after absorbing the black panther, quietly sorting through everything I had gained and thinking about what I should do next.

I had already reached the High Demi-God realm, and my Space Origin had risen to fifty-seven percent, but I could feel that this was only the beginning. The Primordial Beast Universe had far more Demi-Gods than the Prime Universe, and somewhere beyond this universe existed the Eternals and their terrifying army.

If I wanted to survive what was coming, simply increasing my combat strength one step at a time would not be enough. I needed to raise all of my Origins as quickly as possible.

That thought made me remember the Origin Expanse.

The Origin Expanse was different from the ordinary universe. It was a place where the most original Essence of the Origins existed, far closer to their true source than anything found in normal reality.

If I could enter it, the amount of comprehension I could gain would be completely different from absorbing Origin fragments from Demi-Gods. I had already experienced how much a single ancient skeleton could improve my Space Origin, so I could only imagine what would happen if I directly meditated within a place where the purest Essence of every Origin existed.

I closed my eyes and activated my All-Knowing Eyes.

My consciousness immediately spread beyond the limits of ordinary perception, and I began searching for a way into the Origin Expanse of this universe. I did not know whether the entrance would be hidden within a secret realm, a forbidden region, or some ancient inheritance, so I simply allowed the All-Knowing Eyes to search through the countless possibilities.

A moment later, a vision appeared.