Chapter 381: The Grand Universe

Liam wasn’t able to process the view in front of him before a crushing pressure immediately pressed down on him.It started as a sensation similar to deep-water diving, as a gradual increase in force pressing against his chest, his skull, every surface of his body. But within seconds, that comparison became laughably inadequate. This wasn’t water pressure. This was something far more fundamental, more absolute.

His lungs seized. The simple act of drawing breath became a monumental effort, each inhalation requiring conscious force of will to overcome the invisible weight crushing down on him. His enhanced physiology struggled against a pressure that operated on principles his body wasn’t designed to withstand.

The Voidling noticed immediately. Its massive eyes fixed on Liam with something that might have been alarm, and its protective field intensified around him, the bubble of stable reality growing thicker, denser.

But it changed nothing.

"I cannot help you," the Voidling’s telepathic voice carried genuine distress. "This pressure is not physical force that can be blocked. It is the combined wisps of aura leaking from the entities that occupy the Grand Universe. Their powers..." The creature’s mental voice faltered. "Their powers are beyond what even I can shield you from. You must endure this alone."

Liam forced himself to take a deep breath despite his protesting lungs. The pressure continued building with each passing second, accumulating like water filling a sealed chamber. His heart hammered against his ribs, working overtime to push blood through vessels that were being compressed from all directions.

He saw the helplessness in the Voidling’s eyes and understood perfectly that this burden was his alone to carry.

The system had warned him this place would be dangerous. He’d expected hostile entities, perhaps environmental hazards, maybe spatial anomalies. Physical dangers he could fight or evade or endure through his enhanced capabilities.

This was something entirely different. This was the passive, unconscious emanation of beings so powerful that their mere existence created pressure waves through reality itself. They weren’t even aware of him, weren’t directing any attention or hostility his way. He was simply too weak to exist in proximity to their presence.

It was humbling in ways that made every previous challenge look trivial by comparison.

Blood began seeping from his nose. Not the slow drip of a minor injury, but a steady flow that spoke to vessels rupturing under stress. His eyes felt like they were being pressed back into his skull, and he tasted copper as blood leaked from his tear ducts, staining his vision red.

His enhanced healing tried to compensate, sealing ruptured vessels only to have them burst open again moments later. The pressure was relentless, escalating beyond what his regeneration could keep pace with.

[Host, take out Blade of Tiamat. It will help you withstand the pressure.]

The system’s voice cut through Liam’s consciousness like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. He wanted to ask how a weapon could help him withstand metaphysical pressure, but his current condition didn’t allow such luxury. Questions could wait. Survival couldn’t.

He reached into the Dimensional Space, his will grasping for the Blade. His fingers closed around the hilt, and reality rippled as he pulled the weapon into existence.

The Blade of Tiamat materialized in his hand and the moment it touched his skin, everything changed.

The crushing pressure vanished. Not gradually, not fading away over seconds, but gone—instantaneously erased as if it had never existed. The relief was so sudden and complete that Liam gasped, his lungs expanding fully for the first time since entering this realm.

The bleeding stopped. His ruptured vessels sealed themselves properly, his overwhelmed healing factor finally able to function without constant re-injury. The red haze cleared from his vision, and he could see again without blood obscuring his sight.

Liam exhaled a deep, shuddering breath of pure relief. "Thank you," he whispered, though whether he was addressing the system or the Blade itself, he couldn’t say.

The Voidling’s massive eyes widened in a gesture of profound surprise in, with its attention fixed on the Blade, studying it with an intensity that suggested it perceived far more than Liam’s limited senses could detect.

"That weapon," the Voidling’s telepathic voice carried notes of confusion mixed with something that might have been awe, "should not exist. The energy signature, the fundamental essence it carries—beings from the Dark Energy Universe cannot possess artifacts of that caliber. The laws prevent it. Yet you hold it as if it belongs to you naturally."

The creature’s eyes shifted from the Blade to Liam himself, and he could sense a fundamental reassessment occurring. Whatever evaluation the Voidling had made of him previously was being completely overwritten.

"You are not merely surprising anymore, human. You are something else entirely."

But Liam barely registered the Voidling’s words. Finally free of the crushing pressure, he could direct his attention to what had brought him here in the first place—the Grand Universe itself.

And it was magnificent beyond anything he’d imagined.

The scale was the first thing that struck him. He’d thought he understood cosmic scale after seeing Jupiter up close, after witnessing the Voidling’s massive form. But this... this redefined everything.

Directly ahead, piercing up from a planet that dwarfed any celestial body Liam had encountered, rose a tree. Calling it massive would be like calling an ocean slightly damp. The tree’s trunk was wider than Earth’s diameter, its bark visible even from millions of kilometers away. It rose upward through the void of space, passing beyond the planet’s atmosphere without diminishing, continuing higher and higher until Liam’s enhanced vision lost track of it entirely.

The planet itself—the world from which this impossible tree grew—was at least a million times larger than the Sun. Liam’s mind struggled to accept that scale. A planet that size should collapse under its own gravity, should ignite into a star from the sheer pressure of its mass. Yet there it sat, stable and apparently thriving, its surface a vibrant green that spoke of abundant life.

He could also feel the aura emanating from it even across the impossible distance. He could feel vitality and life force so intense it pressed against his consciousness like a physical presence.

The tree wasn’t the only impossibility. A massive tortoise—easily the size of a standard planet, perhaps larger—swam through space as if the void were an ocean. Its shell was continents unto itself, covered in what might have been forests or cities or things Liam had no framework to categorize. It moved with deliberate grace, each motion creating ripples in space-time that Liam could perceive as subtle distortions in the starlight behind it.

Beyond the tortoise, other shapes moved through the void. A serpent of impossible length coiled around what appeared to be a star, its scales reflecting light in colors that hurt to perceive directly. A massive eye—just an eye, detached from any visible body—drifted past, its pupil rotating as if surveying the cosmos with ancient intelligence.

Each entity radiated power that made the Voidling—a cosmic administrator capable of casual reality manipulation—look modest by comparison. And he’d nearly died from the mere leakage of their unconscious auras.

Liam understood now, with visceral clarity, exactly how far he still had to climb. The power he’d achieved, the enhancements that had made him superhuman by Earth standards, the system abilities that had let him accomplish impossible feats—all of it was nothing here. Less than nothing. He was an insect contemplating mountains, a spark attempting to comprehend suns.

But now that he’d survived the pressure, now that the Blade of Tiamat protected him from casual annihilation, he could finally proceed with what he’d come here for.

"System," he asked internally, keeping his mental voice steady despite the overwhelming sights around him. "What do I need to do? Is there a specific location I need to reach? A world I need to land on?"

[No, Host. Your current location is sufficient. Simply speak the word "infuse" and the process will begin automatically. The fusion will draw the necessary energies from the Grand Universe’s ambient essence.]

The system’s voice carried a note of warning. [The process will be extremely painful. Your body will undergo complete restructuring at the fundamental level. However, you will not die from the process itself, provided no external entity attacks during the fusion. The Blade of Tiamat will protect you from ambient pressure, but direct assault would be catastrophic in your vulnerable state.]

Liam nodded slowly, processing this information. He turned to the Voidling, meeting those massive yellow eyes. "I need you to protect me. What I’m about to do will leave me vulnerable. If anything approaches—anything at all—I need you to intervene."

The Voidling’s body shifted, positioning itself between Liam and the nearest visible entities. "I will guard you, human. Whatever transformation you’re about to undergo, I will ensure nothing disturbs it. You have my word."