Free Web NovelChapter 20: The Eye of the Void
The black stone door opened.
Ethan and Laira stepped into the sixth floor.
The space before them was a gloomy forest, tall tree trunks stretching up toward a gray sky. Cold mist coiled around the ground, obscuring visibility within a few dozen meters.
A colossal black shadow charged out from behind the line of trees.
Ethan had just raised his head, hadn’t even gotten a clear look at the opponent —
Whoosh!
A blazing red light tore through the curtain of mist.
Laira merely flicked her right hand. A fire arrow so condensed it had almost turned into a solid entity flew out, piercing through the space in a single breath.
Boom!
The black shadow hadn’t even gotten the chance to howl before it was incinerated from the inside out, dissolving into a thin wisp of white smoke.
Laira waved her hand, dispersing the smoke still lingering around her fingertip.
Ethan: "..."
[Sixth floor cleared.]
Ethan looked at the cold system notification, silent for a few seconds.
He knew Laira was strong.
He also knew [The Sun-Fire Divine Seal] would make her even stronger.
But this strong, he still hadn’t expected.
Laira turned her head, her amber-red eyes carrying a touch of pride she hadn’t quite managed to hide. "Next."
Ethan nodded faintly.
The seventh floor door opened.
This time, before Ethan could even survey the terrain, Laira had already stepped forward.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Three streams of flame flew out in three different directions.
Three explosions rang out almost simultaneously.
[Seventh floor cleared.]
The eighth floor.
A rank B monster had just poked its head out of the cliff face, and before it could roar it was engulfed by a dark red fireball. The flame spread to even the lower half of its body still hidden in the stone. When the fire died down, even the ashes weren’t much.
[Eighth floor cleared.]
Ethan stood in place, silently looking at Laira’s small back.
Her long red hair drifted gently in the wind carrying waves of heat. She turned her head, neither satisfied nor bored. On her face was only a kind of composure — the composure of someone using a very small fraction of their power to deal with things not worth the effort.
Ethan slowly let out a breath.
It made sense.
Although [The Sun-Fire Divine Seal] was only at rank S quality, the effect of increasing fire-element power fivefold combined with weakening the target’s fire resistance by half was an almost merciless combination.
The Sage Skeleton on the fifth floor had possessed [High-level Fire Resistance], which was why Laira had needed to use a few parts of her strength. As for the three floors just now, the monsters were all of the physical or dark element, without any fire resistance worth mentioning.
Add to that the Dragon Race. freewёbnoνel.com
Add to that the fire element being her inherent specialty.
Add to that the Divine Seal.
Three layers of amplification stacked on top of one another, turning opponents of the same tier into target practice.
Ethan felt a bit of anticipation.
This was only the 5/5 layers of seal state.
If one day he accumulated enough energy crystals to remove the first layer of the seal, the Divine Seal would advance to Epic tier while opening the first Variant Flame —
How strong would Laira be then?
Ethan didn’t dare imagine too far ahead.
He only knew he needed to move even faster.
The black stone door of the ninth floor rose up out of the ground.
The moment Ethan stepped over the threshold, a notification different from every previous one immediately appeared before his eyes.
[Special floor detected.]
[9th floor: Anchor Point.]
[Clear this floor’s trial, and the player will receive a reward and establish an anchor point here.]
[After establishing an anchor point, the player may freely leave the Heaven’s Gate.]
[Warning: 30 days later, the player is required to return to the anchor point. Mandatory.]
Ethan read each line carefully.
Thirty days.
Not a choice, but an appointment that couldn’t be refused.
He wasn’t too surprised. In Aurora Academy’s basic documents, the concept of an "anchor point" had once been mentioned as a special mechanism of high-tier Heaven’s Gates — a way for the system to ensure the player couldn’t permanently retreat.
The system didn’t offer a choice.
The system only offered time.
Ethan put away the notification panel and raised his head to look ahead.
The ninth floor, in turn, had not a single monster.
The space before him was empty — no trees, no cliffs, not even air in the ordinary sense. The ground beneath his feet gradually vanished.
Then, time froze.
Ethan suddenly realized he was standing in the middle of a vast starry void.
Behind his back was no longer a door.
Beneath his feet was no longer ground.
In all four directions was endless darkness, dotted with countless small points of light — stars, galaxies, stretches of nebulae extending to places the human eye could never reach.
And before him —
An eye.
A colossal eye.
So large it couldn’t be conceived in units of meters, kilometers, or tens of thousands of miles. It was formed from a black hole, its outer rim a ring of light bent by gravity, its pupil at the center an absolute darkness that could swallow even light.
The galaxies revolving around it, as large as a Milky Way, at this scale looked only like small clouds drifting aimlessly.
Light-years had to be used to conceive the size of that eye.
And that eye —
Was looking straight at him.
Ethan’s heart gave a heavy beat.
His entire body immediately went rigid. Not out of simple fear. It was a kind of suppression coming from an entirely different tier of existence — like an ant raising its head for the first time and realizing that what was above it wasn’t the sky, but the sole of the shoe of a being it could never comprehend.
Ethan drew a deep breath.
In that instant, [The Eye of Truth] activated on its own.
His two pupils burned. A sharp pain like never before shot through his temples. But at the same time, a cold notification also appeared before his eyes.
[Warning: You have seen your natural nemesis.]
[The Eye of the Void.]
Ethan fell silent.
That was all.
No tier. No description. No attributes.
[The Eye of Truth] could normally see through the quality, weak points, even the death point of any existence. But before this eye, it returned only a single line of text.
Because everything else — the system didn’t allow him to see.
Or — couldn’t be seen.
Ethan didn’t move. He didn’t dare to move either. He didn’t know what to do. In his life, this was the first time he faced something where every plan, every calculation, every "death point" became meaningless.
One heartbeat.
Two heartbeats.
Three.
Then, that colossal eye slowly closed.
No roar. No pursuit. Not a single other line of information.
As if it had only happened to open its eye for a moment, happened to look at a speck of dust, then continued its slumber.
But Ethan knew.
He had been remembered.
Time returned.
When Ethan opened his eyes, he had returned to the familiar main hall. The ground beneath his feet was solid. The air carried the smell of cold stone. Before him, Laira stood half a step away, her red hair still swaying gently as if, in her perception, he had never left.
The system’s notification panel kept scrolling down.
[Ninth floor cleared.]
[Anchor point established successfully.]
[Conditions met to open Heaven’s Gate.]
[Proceeding to open Heaven’s Gate.]
A faint golden light radiated from beneath Ethan’s feet, rising into a complex magic circle surrounding him. Each pattern on the circle moved slowly, combining into a symbol of a gate floating behind his back.
The gate had no fixed size. In Ethan’s perception, it was at once as small as a sliver of light and as large as a whole sky.
[Heaven’s Gate opened.]
[Quality: Rank S.]
[Note: For every 9 floors cleared, the player’s Heaven’s Gate can evolve once.]
Ethan looked at the last line, his pupils contracting slightly.
Evolve.
Every 9 floors — once.
Which meant the Heaven’s Gate wasn’t a fixed number. This wasn’t an endpoint, but a starting point. fгeewebnovёl.com
He slowly clenched his hand, sensing the fresh energy flowing through his meridians. Unlike other Awakened, his energy was in no way noisy or explosive. It was quiet. Composed. Like a deep river, its surface placid but beneath it concealing an entire world.
Laira looked at him, her amber-red eyes narrowing.
"You’ve changed."
Ethan raised his head. "Can you tell clearly?"
"Not with my eyes." She tilted her head, then placed a finger on his chest. "It’s here."
Ethan was silent.
He thought of the colossal eye that had just closed in the starry void.
He thought of the single line [The Eye of Truth] had been able to give.
He also thought of the thirty days.
Thirty days to prepare for the return.
Thirty days to grow even stronger.
He slowly curved the corner of his mouth.
"Let’s go."
Laira blinked. "Go where?"
"Outside."
She let out a soft laugh, then took his hand.
"Then don’t forget my reward."
