Chapter 177: 177 - Shook

The heavens, enraged by Cale's stubborn defiance, refused to relent.

Hovering menacingly within the turbulent storm, the golden hand suddenly shifted its tactics.

Right at the center of its massive palm, the very fabric of space violently distorted and tore apart, giving birth to a pitch-black hole.

'Is that... what I think it is? No way, right...?'

Swirling with luminous rings of scarlet energy, the dark void acted as a terrifying black hole, unleashing an overwhelming and inescapable gravitational pull upon the ruined lands below.

The suction instantly ripped massive boulders, shattered debris, and ambient spiritual energy from the world below, dragging everything upward into the endless dark.

The oppressive vacuum locked directly onto the pristine Astral Sovereign Body lying upon the ground, attempting to forcefully rip the newly forged divine vessel straight from beneath Cale's battered form and swallow it to erase its existence.

Desperately anchoring his half-crippled mortal body against the violently shaking ground, Cale dug his bleeding fingers into the shattered stone, refusing to let it steal his body.

A calculated and smart man knows when to give up. But a smart and greedy man doesn't.

He pushes his will onto the world till the very second he gets what he wants.

The body floated, being sucked into the void. Cale held desperately, but it still got pulled.

"Argh! This motherfucker! I'm gonna—"

Despite Cale's desperate, bloody grip, the suction of the black hole proved too overwhelming.

The Astral Sovereign Body was ripped from the world, rapidly floating upward toward the void.

Frantically reaching out into the darkened expanse, his battered body struggled helplessly as the white-robed vessel slipped further from his grasp.

'Sigh... high risk, high returns, I guess.'

Refusing to surrender to the heavens, Cale pushed past his crippling injuries and forcefully activated the maximum limits of his domains.

A massive surge of deep purple and black qi erupted around him, swallowing the surrounding space in an impenetrable darkness of his own creation.

From the depths of this overwhelming aura, many ethereal beast phantoms materialized, their massive forms and piercing luminous eyes dominating the landscape with terrible beauty.

"Go!"

Thrusting his hand outward, Cale shouted to the terrifying phantoms and his interwoven domains, commanding them to violently lash upward.

They created an immense, opposing gravitational force to desperately drag the floating body back.

The effort of warring against the Will of the heavens pushed Cale's broken mortal body past its absolute limits.

Massive, jagged chunks of rock and shattered wood were violently ripped into the chaotic purple and black void around him. The agonizing strain finally forced him to his knees.

"Kugh!"

Sesrir had already fallen unconscious a long time ago.

Cale clutched his chest as violent tremors wracked his frame, coughing up a fresh, heavy mouthful of dark blood that stained his pale, battered features.

Suffocating clouds of dust and residual essence swirled around his trembling, bloodied form.

What could he do? He absorbed that too, converting the divine energy into nourishment to heal himself constantly. It wasn't enough — it was never enough, but it kept him conscious.

His physical strength was entirely spent. His organs were shattered beyond repair. Yet, as he slowly forced his head up to glare directly into the void, his eyes burned with an unyielding, ferocious resolve.

This wasn't a greedy man anymore.

This was wrath itself, forcing its way onto the world. A reminder not just to peoples' hearts, but to the heavens itself, of what the true wrath of a single man could do.

A human, not even an Emperor, not even properly a hundred years old — striking the heavenly will with his wrath materialized...

Blood dripping from his chin, Cale bared his teeth at the crushing pressure that sought to dictate his fate.

"Hahaha... is that all?" he rasped.

Refusing to submit, a chilling, bloodstained glare settled upon his face.

He raised both his arms to his sides and looked up at the sky with eyes closed. The world was out of order, but his heart wasn't. It was light. It was tranquil. It was serene.

A gentle smile curved his lips.

"Then come on..."

Spreading his wings wide open, he looked like a fallen angel staring at the heavens who had banished him for desiring something beyond his limits and status.

Consumed by his desperate, bloody defiance, Cale remained utterly oblivious to the true scale of the mess he had ignited.

The clash between his domains, the black hole, and the Will had pushed the physical world of this inheritance far beyond its breaking point.

At the end of the day, it was only made by a Divine Stage Cultivator.

High above the pulverized lands, the very fabric of reality had violently fractured, tearing open massive, jagged spatial rifts that rippled out into the vast unknown.

Through these tears in the void, the silent, heavy gazes of countless hidden powerhouses were now fixed entirely upon the crippled man.

Terrifying consciousnesses from distant, higher realms and many other continents were forcefully awakened by the unprecedented anger of heavenly wrath.

Peering through the shattered dimensional walls, these supreme beings watched in silence.

To them, the sight was incomprehensible: half-crippled and dripping with his own dark blood, ferociously spitting in the face of death, warring against the heavens themselves to protect a forbidden vessel.

The universe held its breath, bearing witness to a defiance that would be etched into the annals of eternity.

Unknown to Cale, amidst the silence of the countless beings observing through the fractured void, one single consciousness reacted differently.

Deep within an isolated, shrouded domain far away, a solitary figure sitting upon a throne leaned forward. A slow, exhilarating smile curved across their shadowed features.

As they watched Cale's bloodied, defiant roar echo through the dimensions, their pitch-black eyes widened in anticipation.

A long-forgotten thrill violently sparked within the enigmatic watcher's chest.

For the first time in decades, their heartbeat raced. It thundered wildly in their chest as their stagnant blood surged with a fierce, resonant battle-lust that they'd thought had died with their youth.

Gripped by the intoxicating gravity of the moment, the figure's hand clamped down on the armrest of their chair.

The unimaginable, subconscious pressure of their grip instantly pulverized the indestructible material into fine, ethereal dust.

Only to instantly reverse the destruction, seamlessly reforming the armrest a fraction of a second later beneath their trembling fingers.