Void Veins: The Forbidden Ascension

Chapter 30. The Boundless Space

They were pulled across immeasurable darkness, then cast adrift into a realm with no walls, no floor, no ceiling — no boundaries of any kind. There was no true direction: no up, no down, no left, no right. Only blinding, endless white emptiness glowing from no discernible source, wrapping everything in a light that cast no shadows. Gravity had no hold here; their bodies floated freely, drifting apart, the distance between them widening with every passing heartbeat as if the space itself was pulling them away from one another.

Lin Ye moved his limbs, swimming through the thick, air-like substance toward his father, who receded slowly into the distance. "Father!" he called — but his voice did not carry; it dissolved the moment it left his lips.

His father turned, his face etched with suffering, his form already fading and growing translucent. "Do not grasp at anything too strongly, Lin Ye!" His voice sounded directly within Lin Ye’s mind. "This place reads your desires and fears. The harder you try to come near, the further it drives us apart. Empty your mind — just as Shen Kui taught you."

Lin Ye nodded slowly and closed his eyes. He drew a long breath, letting the tension drain from his body. He let go of anxiety, of fear, of the desperate need to save anyone. Gradually his drifting slowed, then ceased entirely. He hung motionless in the white light, becoming part of the space itself.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw clearly what surrounded them. Far off, Julian floated screaming silently, encircled by shadowy faces — the classmates he had betrayed, the people who had trusted him, now gazing back with hollow eyes. Elsewhere, Viper fought someone who stood before him: himself, a younger, simpler version, before bitterness and scars had hardened him. Shen Kui lay still and unresponsive, drifting passively as though he had surrendered completely.

And at the very centre stood Valerius — immense, radiant with an agonisingly bright white light, his form so pure it seemed no longer human. He smiled, watching Lin Ye as though he had been waiting for him all along.

"Welcome to the Core of Reality," Valerius said, his voice filling every corner without echoing. "Here, I am law. I am God."

Valerius raised one hand. From his palm sprang thousands of fine, luminous threads of pale white light, stretching outward to pierce the chest of every person there — his father, Julian, Viper, Shen Kui, and Lin Ye himself.

"I could erase you all from existence," Valerius said casually, as if commenting on the weather. "A snap of my fingers, and you would never have been. But that would be dull. I want you conscious. I want you to witness true ascension."

He tugged one thread — the one bound to Lin Ye’s father. His father screamed silently, his form beginning to dissolve into drifting particles of light.

"STOP!" Lin Ye cried, straining forward yet held fast by invisible bonds.

"Why?" Valerius spoke softly. "He has suffered for decades. Let me give him peace."

"This is not peace! This is murder!"

Valerius laughed gently. "The line is thin, young one. Now — watch."

He pulled another thread — one connected not to a person, but to something else. A link that spanned dimensions, anchored to the Black Jade embedded in the control panel back in their world. Even here, the bond endured.

Before Lin Ye, a portal opened — a window to his home. He saw Silent Peak collapsing, great rocks sliding into the valleys. The sky fractured, violet cracks spreading from horizon to horizon. Shadow-creatures poured through, descending to the earth, scattering in every direction.

"This is my gift to the world," Valerius declared. "Pure chaos. And from that chaos, I shall build a new order — with me at its summit."

Lin Ye felt a paralysing helplessness. Trapped here, powerless, while everything he knew was unravelling.

But then something stirred — not outside him, but deep within. A faint, steady vibration. Not from Mo Yuan — the jade was gone. This was entirely his.

A memory rose: the first time he had held that jade, alone and lonely. The promise he had made — never to be a victim again. The realisation that he had survived not because of the stone, but because he had refused to break.

True power comes not from what you hold. It comes from who you refuse to become.

Lin Ye lifted his head. His eyes shifted — not black, not white, but pure grey: the colour of balance, of neutrality, something no one could control.

He did not strike Valerius. He struck the thread binding his own spirit. With utter clarity and purpose, he severed it. Agony tore through him as though rending his own soul — but the thread snapped. He was free.

Valerius flickered in shock. "How… nothing can break my threads!"

Lin Ye drifted toward him, not with physical strength, but with a sudden, immense weight of presence. He was no longer part of Valerius’s design. He was something unplanned, unpredicted — an anomaly.

"Because I was never part of your pattern," Lin Ye said calmly. "I am your mistake."