NOVPUBSterl sat silently on his throne, feeling the vast mental power that filled his soul. He suddenly realized that his mental strength might now rival the raw physical power of the wildest beasts.
And this was merely the additional effect brought by the enhancement of his soul. With his soul level reaching 99, the most crucial part was that he had finally met the key conditions for the cheat's evolution!
"Just three thousand more pieces of Fortune."
He muttered to himself, his words filled with a sense of indescribable excitement.
After all, the cheat had been his greatest asset and reliance throughout his journey. Though he didn't know how the cheat would transform after evolving, the current abilities of the cheat were already promising, and it would undoubtedly meet his expectations!
Then, Sterl's thoughts shifted, and with the authority of being the World Overlord, he began to gather the power of Fortune.
Compared to soul level, for a true powerhouse, the power of Fortune wasn't exactly a rare treasure.
Being powerful meant having status and power, and those two things were essentially the condensed form of vast amounts of Fortune.
Soon, pieces of Fortune were forcibly gathered, floating around him, looking like golden bands of light—delicate and splendid.
Before long, three thousand pieces of Fortune were assembled. After sensing the remaining Fortune, he realized that if needed, it would be as simple as gathering tens of thousands more.
At that moment, an indescribable sensation surged within him.
The instant the two major conditions were met, something mysterious seemed to have been activated deep within his body and soul.
Then, the three thousand pieces of Fortune floating around him suddenly surged into Sterl's body.
However, these pieces of Fortune weren't absorbed by him—they were devoured by an unknown force.
Boom!!
Suddenly, a thunderous sound erupted from deep within his consciousness. Sterl then felt as though his mind was being pulled by an invisible hand, dragged toward some mysterious place.
"Is this... Endless Void?"
Sterl was momentarily stunned as he looked at the surroundings.
He saw worlds radiating vast auras, one by one, passing by him.
At this moment, time seemed to accelerate a thousandfold. Every world he passed through gradually withered, crumbled, and collapsed... until it transformed into a brilliant singularity that exploded with a thunderous burst!
A massive amount of energy and matter spread out from the explosion of these worlds. Under the power of time, they gradually reformed, creating new worlds—giving off a strange and beautiful sensation, almost like the rebirth of all things from the fall of a giant whale.
Among these worlds, some are weak, and some are strong. The weaker ones are like fragile glass spheres, shattering with a single touch, while the stronger ones are even larger and more majestic than the [Transcendence] world itself!
But without exception, these worlds are caught in an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. Even the powerful beings born from these great worlds, who became so strong they could transcend the concept of time and space, did not escape this fate of reincarnation.
For, after breaking free from the time and space of their world, there remains an even greater time and space, along with rules, that bind everything.
Yet, as Sterl observed all of this, he felt like a bystander from another dimension, unaffected and undisturbed.
On the contrary, after every world collapsed, a small fragment containing the world's essence would be captured by Sterl.
Although these fragments were not even a fraction of a world, they were indeed pieces of a true world—worlds from the Endless Void!
The worlds here aren't mere planets; they are more akin to separate universes, containing countless worlds and countless powerful beings, worlds that have existed for billions of years!
In theory, even with Sterl's current soul and mental strength, he should not have been able to handle such an overwhelming amount of information.
It should have instantly scattered his self-awareness, turning him into a living corpse.
But under the protection of the cheat, not only did he remain unharmed, but he also absorbed the information contained in these different worlds at an incredibly fast rate.
At this moment, the knowledge and insights he gained every second were equivalent to studying and researching for tens of thousands of years!
Originally, due to his rapid rise in strength, the theoretical foundation was somewhat lacking, but now, at an astonishing speed, it was being filled in.
He didn't know how much time had passed or how many worlds he had absorbed the essence from before their destruction.
The knowledge, traditions, and insights stored in his mind were now richer than an entire world. Just a small fraction of it could stir countless powerful beings and make them envious.
With the influx of all this knowledge, the previous gaps in his understanding of his power systems had been completely filled and even evolved to unimaginable heights.
Fortunately, with the cheat's protection, even after absorbing such a massive amount of information, his self-awareness remained intact. In fact, as the flood of information washed over him, his self-awareness became more vivid, more resilient, and more perfect, unaffected by anything.
Since his transmigration to this world, growing and becoming stronger with the company of his family... Every warm moment, every detail he had even forgotten, began to resurface in his mind.
At this moment, Sterl's impulse to become stronger was no longer as intense. Instead, the longing for his family surged like a tidal wave.
He suddenly remembered that when he first began his journey into cultivation, his original goal had been quite simple—to make life better for his family, to live with his loved ones in peace, free from worries, disturbances, and threats.
At his core, he was such a pure person.
But in this world, there were so many unforeseen events and factors that pushed him to keep moving forward, to keep growing stronger. Now, he had no chance to stop and rest. If he wasn't careful, everything he had could vanish along with him.
"I just... want to live peacefully, that's all..."
Flashes of images kept flickering through Sterl's mind, eventually settling on two gentle faces—Rayna and Linna!
'Alright! Little Sterl, from now on, you'll stick with us.'
'We've all decided! We'll go train outside the base with the official group, and once we officially become players, we'll save up some money. Then we can buy a bigger house, one with a front and backyard.'
'Sterl, haven't you always wanted to raise a pet? When we have the money, you can pick a non-leveled brown bear or a cheetah...'
'That's amazing! I've always known you were special, Sterl!'
The words of the two women felt as if they had been spoken just yesterday, continuously echoing in his ears.
In the 18 years before his talent was awakened, the three of them had always relied on each other. Even though he had been a complete idiot when it came to skill cultivation, he had still lived with Rayna and Linna.
At that time, everyone had thought he was useless. Only those two family members had stayed by his side, never abandoning him. Even when they believed he hadn't awakened any talent, they never mocked or rejected him. Instead, they comforted him with all their hearts, dreaming about their future life.
"Without realizing it, I've ended up on the opposite path."
Sterl's eyes were filled with nostalgia and longing.
Thinking carefully, from his time as an undercover agent in the Orichalcum Kingdom, to his descent into Hell, and now in Dreamland, his meetings with Rayna and Linna had become fewer and fewer.
And as his strength increased, even though they didn't show it, he could clearly sense the occasional disappointment and anxiety that slipped through their facade.
This was not the life he wanted, nor was it the life he had once dreamed of.
"Heh, so what if I fail? So what if there's a great calamity? With my strength, I could just create a new world and start a new life."
He suddenly realized that he didn't need to be the so-called strongest.
The reason he had become this way was because of the increasing number of shackles placed on him.
Factions, Earth, the human race, even the Alpha 8 world, and now the Nightmare Clan...
These things, tangled with power and status, had caused his ideals to become less pure. Naturally, he had unknowingly started to pursue these things.
After realizing all of this, a feeling of enlightenment surged from his heart.
At that moment, the unchanging scenery around him suddenly began to shift.
All the surrounding worlds vanished, and the dazzling colors in front of him transformed into a peaceful, pitch-black space.
Within this space, a colorful river ran through the entire world.
Upon closer inspection, the river resembled tree roots, branching into countless tributaries. Each tributary led to unknown distant places.
In some of the closer tributaries, there were bubbles floating, seemingly moving slightly, looking incredibly strange and mystical.
The moment he saw this river, a flood of information poured into his consciousness.
"This is... the Mother River?"
The Mother River was the name of this brilliant, colorful river. Sterl was no stranger to it.
Through the vast amount of world essences he had absorbed, he had learned about the Mother River. It seemed to be an existence even more mysterious than the Endless Void and the Myriad Worlds.
In the worlds that had perished, the Mother River was called the supreme, the beginning of all things, the origin of all realms.
Suddenly, Sterl seemed to realize something. He turned quickly, only to see behind him, a tributary shimmering with brilliant colors, and at the end of the tributary was another bubble, just like the one before!
"I came from… here?"
A look of astonishment appeared on Sterl's face. Before he came here, he had been in the Endless Void!
Did this mean that the vast, boundless Endless Void, the Myriad Worlds, was actually just one tiny bubble!?
