Chapter 266: Ch 266 : New Companions

Cai Zhen vanished. In one heartbeat, he was a fragile figure drifting meters away. In the next, he was beside Thera, his movements defying the very laws of the multiverse.He caught her collapsing form with one arm, his touch gentle but firm. He checked her pulse, feeling the faint beat of a goddess pushed to the brink of extinction. Instinctively, he began to channel a healing technique, a skill drilled into him over centuries of cultivation. But there was no Qi here.

Instead, he reached for something else. He tapped into the unfamiliar wellspring that had just ignited in his dantian, Faith.

He poured this strange energy into Thera. It circulated through her meridians, as a gentle, revitalizing light.

With every cycle, her pale skin regained a hint of color, her shallow breathing deepening.

He didn’t stop. He turned his gaze toward Angra, the Demon God who was currently pinned by the swarm of divine swords.

Cai Zhen reached into his spatial ring and drew his sword. It was a simple, elegant blade of blue steel. He closed his eyes, centering himself in the chaos.

When he opened them, the world seemed to freeze. The swirling swords, the thrashing demon, the silent stars; everything slowed to a crawl. Only he moved.

He raised his sword. It wasn’t a fast movement. It was slow, yet heavy with the weight of a dead world and a murdered family. He locked onto Angra, the beast kilometers away.

"Divine Void Slash."

He whispered the words, but they resonated like thunder. His hand fell.

The world parted. An invisible, razor-thin line of force bisected the fabric of space itself. It moved at the speed of thought, a silent executioner.

Angra, caught in the grinder of swords, didn’t even see it coming. The slash passed through him effortlessly.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, a thin red line appeared down the center of his massive chest.

His body split perfectly in two. A fountain of dark blood erupted into the vacuum, and the force of the impact, delayed by a microsecond, blew the two halves of the demon god away like leaves in a hurricane.

Cai Zhen lowered his sword. He sighed, a shuddering exhalation. The strange power, the Faith born from his mother’s memory, vanished as quickly as it had come, returning to nothingness.

Weakness crashed back over him, his knees buckling.

But he didn’t fall. Thera, revitalized just enough, wrapped her arm around his waist. She leaned into him, her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes closing in relief.

For a moment, amidst the debris of a demon god and the silent, watching stars, the two broken deities found comfort in each other’s embrace.

’I have protected her, Mother,’ Cai Zhen thought, a tear sliding down his cheek. ’And I will continue to do so, until my last breath. Thank you.’

Far away, in the cosmic space between multiverses, a very different scene was unfolding.

Beru, the crown Prince of the Zerg, watched a seemingly ordinary coin spin upward into the eternal darkness.

It kept going. And going.

"How stupid of me," Beru muttered, chittering in annoyance. "There is no gravity here."

He flicked his violet tail, sending a shockwave of force that struck the coin at its apex. The coin changed direction, spinning wildly as it descended back toward him.

Heads or Tails? Black or White? Life or Death?

Beru caught it. He opened his hand.

It was White.

He let out a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding. As the coin had fallen, an irrational dread had gripped his heart; a certainty that if it had shown the black side, he would have simply ceased to exist.

Seeing the bright side, he relaxed his guard, looking around the empty void. "Well? What now?"

The coin answered.

A flash of blinding white light erupted from the metal disk, engulfing Beru completely.

Before he could even react, space folded around him. The sensation of travel was instantaneous and disorienting.

"Where am I?" Beru gasped, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness.

He was no longer in the cosmic space. He was in a star-filled region of space, illuminated by a dazzling, crimson light.

Floating in the distance were thousands of red swords, forming a deadly, silent sphere. And in the center of that sphere, two figures were embracing.

"What’s this?" Beru hissed, his antennae twitching. He had been teleported... to a battlefield?

Sensing the intrusion on their peace, Thera and Cai Zhen snapped their eyes open.

Their moment of peace shattered instantly. They became vigilant, their bodies tensing.

Thera’s eyes flashed. The ten thousand Divine Annihilation Swords, still active and thirsty for blood, swiveled in unison. Ten thousand points locked onto Beru.

A chill ran down the Zerg Prince’s spine. He looked at the crimson blades, dripping with dark, viscous fluid. He looked at the two figures; one a pale, beautiful female, the other a sharp-eyed male.

’Are these... demons?’ the thought flooded his mind. He had never seen a human before. His multiverse contained only the Swarm. To him, bipedal, soft-skinned creatures with such killing intent could only be one thing.

And the swords... they reeked of a demonic aura.

Beru moved to flee, but the swords were faster. They swarmed him completely. They entrapped him in a sphere of death, cutting off every escape route.

These were divine weapons. They had a long cooldown, but while active, they were nearly unstoppable. They were the manifestation of annihilation itself.

Beru dodged, his body twisting with grace, evading a thrust by millimeters. But the swords learned. They anticipated his next move, cutting off his path before he even took it.

"DEMONS!" Beru screamed, his voice a roar of rage and grief. "I WILL KILL YOU!"

His aura flared, a violet shockwave shattering the space around him, buying him a second of breathing room.

Thera paused. She raised a hand, halting the swords. Confusion replaced the killing intent on her face. She looked at Cai Zhen.

"Aren’t... you a demon?" Cai Zhen asked, his voice weak. His senses were dull; he couldn’t distinguish the Zerg’s aura from the demonic residue lingering in the area.

"Demon?!" Beru spat, his mandibles clicking furiously. "I hate them! They killed my father and brother! Why would I be a demon?!"

"We hate demons too," Cai Zhen replied slowly, a small smile touching his lips. He finally understood.

"You can’t deny you are a demon!" Beru shouted back, still vigilant. "Your aura... it reeks of them!" He pointed a claw at the swords.

"So, that is the misunderstanding," Cai Zhen said, nodding. "Do you sense that aura from us... or from the blood on the swords?"

Beru paused. He focused his senses. He looked closely at the crimson blades. It wasn’t red steel. It was blood. Dark and foul demonic blood.

"That’s... blood," Beru realized. "Is that... the blood of a Demon God?"

"Yes," Cai Zhen confirmed. "Just moments ago, we killed one. That is why the air smells of them."

The tension in the vacuum vanished as if it had never been. The swords, their purpose fulfilled, faded into particles of light and returned to Thera.

"Where did you come from?" Cai Zhen asked, studying the strange, powerful insectoid.

And so, amidst the wreckage of a battle, two Gods, one a fallen cultivator, the other an orphaned Zerg began to talk.

They shared their stories. They spoke of the Demon Lords, of Ichor and Maledictus, of worlds lost and families slaughtered.

A bond, forged in shared tragedy, formed between them. They were refugees of the same war.

"My destination is the same as yours," Beru said, pointing a claw towards the distant, blindingly bright cluster of lights that marked another multiverse. "The Giant Ball of Light. The biggest multiverse of them all."

They decided to travel together. Beru, seeing the weakened state of his new companions, didn’t hesitate. He expanded his size slightly, offering his broad shoulder.

"Hold on," he said.

Cai Zhen and Thera climbed onto the Zerg Prince’s back. With a powerful beat of his wings, Beru launched himself into the space.

He flew with a speed that felt unreal, fueled by a new hope. They were no longer alone.

And with this speed, perhaps they would reach the light before the darkness caught up to them.