[POV: Supreme Heart]
“Eh, worth the try,” muttered the Supreme Heart as Da Wei, Alice, and Joan vanished toward the enormous dark sphere hanging above them.
Formation arrays ignited across the Hollowed World. Vast geometric patterns spread through the heavens, weaving together into a tapestry of divine laws. Space twisted around the colossal realm as it slowly slipped away from its original coordinates, escaping there sky. The forces Da Wei had gathered had already grown into something formidable. Given enough time, they would be capable of waging war across the stars themselves. Fortunately, there was no reason for the other Supreme Beings to learn that little detail.
Heart turned toward his daughter.
“Sorry, sweetie, but it looks like your groom ran away from you.”
The radiance surrounding Aixin dimmed.
Her colossal divine body shrank rapidly until she stood at roughly the same height as him. The garments she manifested were little more than sheer, clinging wisps of fabric that caressed every lush curve, barely covering the generous swell of her breasts and the flare of her hips, emphasizing raw, intoxicating beauty over any sense of dignity. The sight sent a heavy pulse through Heart’s temples, his blood roaring at the shameless invitation of her body.
“Don't do that.”
Aixin blinked innocently.
“What is wrong, Father?”
Heart stared at her for several long seconds.
“That you don't know what's wrong is also part of the problem,” he complained under his breath.
Aixin immediately dropped to her knees.
“Father, this daughter has sinned. Please forgive me. I shall reflect upon my mistakes and accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate.”
The sight might have softened another person's heart.
Unfortunately for her, Heart's heart had long since hardened against such displays.
The cathedral surrounding them erupted into noise.
“You have failed Father again!”
“You were entrusted with an important duty!”
“Shameful!”
“Father showed you favor and this is how you repaid him?”
“You do not deserve his affection!”
“Why must Father continue tolerating your incompetence?”
The accusations grew harsher with every passing moment.
Hundreds of voices poured from the pews. Every person seated there was one of Heart's children. Their eyes burned with desperation, envy, admiration, and worship. They denounced Aixin while simultaneously trying to elevate themselves in his eyes.
The spectacle sent an unpleasant chill crawling down Heart's spine.
With a wave of his hand, reality folded.
The cathedral unraveled into countless motes of light. Walls, pillars, stained glass, and pews dissolved before being swept into his pocket dimension. The noise persisted for a moment before Heart finally lost his patience.
“Enough!”
His voice thundered through existence.
Silence fell instantly.
“I said enough. Must every gathering become a contest for my approval? You are giving me a headache.”
Not a single child dared to speak afterward. Heart pinched the bridge of his nose. The truth was that he loved all of his children. Some occupied a larger place in his heart than others. Aixin, troublesome as she was, remained among those he cherished most dearly.
The kneeling girl trembled.
Heart released a weary sigh.
“Aixin's exile is hereby ended.”
The surrounding children looked up in shock.
“Welcome her back into your arms as your sister. Furthermore, she has performed her duties admirably.”
Aixin's eyes widened.
“Father... this daughter does not deserve such praise. I failed once again. I could not bring Da Wei back with me.”
Heart smiled faintly.
“You did bring him before me.”
Aixin froze.
“The outcome of our meeting was merely unfavorable. That is a different matter entirely. The important thing is that I was able to meet the Holy Emperor face to face. That alone made this endeavor worthwhile.”
Relief flooded Aixin's expression.
The other children exchanged uncertain glances but dared not challenge his judgment.
Heart turned away from them.
His thoughts immediately began weaving one scheme after another. Possibilities unfolded inside his mind like an endless chessboard. Da Wei's appearance had introduced possibilities that would reshape countless futures. New opportunities existed. New threats as well.
Yet before he could sink completely into contemplation, a familiar ache surfaced within his chest.
Heart frowned.
His gaze drifted toward his children.
Coldness entered his eyes.
The source of his discomfort was not difficult to identify.
They loved him far too much.
His citizens loved him because of his accomplishments. They loved him because humanity flourished beneath his protection. Their affection was built upon gratitude, admiration, and trust. His children were different. Their devotion bordered on obsession. They worshipped him. They crossed boundaries. They elevated him above reason itself.
Every action they performed revolved around earning his approval.
It was a burden he had never wanted.
Aixin was merely the most extreme example among them, which was precisely why he had exiled her in the first place.
Just thinking about it made him sigh.
Before the uncomfortable train of thought could continue, a voice echoed across reality.
“Supreme Heart. An emergency meeting has been called.”
Heart's expression immediately became serious. The universe never allowed him a moment of peace.
He turned back toward his gathered children.
“I will be absent for some time. Continue your duties. Protect humanity. Guard our people. Work hard, and do not create additional problems for me while I am gone.”
“Yes, Father!”
The unified response shook heaven and earth.
Heart nodded once, and then he vanished.
Heart disappeared from the Hollowed World and returned to his pocket dimension.
The ability to freely enter and exit one's own pocket dimension was an exceedingly rare skill. Even among Rulers of Laws, very few could replicate such a feat. Most could create separate dimensions. Some could anchor them to reality to create secret realms. Almost none could move through them as naturally as breathing.
Using his consciousness projection technique, Heart arrived within a vast throne room.
Six thrones stood in a circle beneath an endless void.
Heart dropped onto his seat.
His current appearance was miserable.
His body resembled a mound of living mud. Chunks of flesh slid from his arms in sluggish streams before crawling back into place. Parts of his face melted and reformed every few moments. The curse imposed by the other Supreme Beings had transformed his glorious appearance into something that looked as though it had crawled out of a swamp.
A harsh cackle echoed through the chamber.
"Hahaha! By the Abyss, look at you! I've seen rotting corpses with more dignity. Did you lose a fight with a sewage pit?"
The owner of the voice materialized upon another throne.
The Supreme Taboo.
His skinless body glistened wetly beneath the darkness. Horns erupted from every conceivable angle. They burst from his shoulders, his spine, his ribs, and even through portions of his skull.
Heart glanced at him.
"You are uglier."
Taboo's laughter stopped and the throne room became quiet for a moment.
Then another booming laugh erupted.
"Hahaha! He's got you there!"
The Supreme Monster shook with amusement. His body resembled an ancient tree of impossible size. Roots wrapped around his throne and vanished into the void beneath. Entire ecosystems seemed to thrive upon his bark.
"A muddy body might be too light a punishment after all," Monster said between laughs. "Maybe we should have peeled your skin off too."
Heart snorted.
"Honestly, this shit is pretty bad. Congratulations, by the way. You've officially recruited me into the ugly club."
Monster laughed harder.
Heart glanced down at a piece of mud sliding off his arm.
"You know, I used to think those rumors about divine punishments giving people terrible skins were exaggerated. Turns out they weren't. Whoever invented this curse was a professional asshole."
His tone remained casual, but the curse was far more dangerous than he let on. The muddy flesh was merely the visible symptom. The true punishment lay deeper. His thoughts moved slower. His concentration suffered. His ability to process information experienced subtle interference.
For Supreme Heart, whose greatest weapon had always been his mind, the consequence of the curse was driving him insane.
"Can we stop behaving like children for five minutes?"
A calm voice interrupted the argument.
The Supreme Fate had arrived.
Unlike the others, Fate possessed no discernible features. His body resembled a perfect stone statue sculpted into a vaguely humanoid shape. No face existed. No eyes. No mouth. Yet everyone could somehow tell where he was looking.
Before anyone could continue bickering, another presence drifted into the throne room. A miniature star floated above the fifth throne. Golden radiance illuminated the darkness. It was the Supreme Hope.
"Before we begin," Hope said softly, "I believe we should dedicate a few moments of silence to mourning Supreme Death."
The chamber fell quiet.
Heart's eyes drifted toward the final throne. It was empty. For countless ages, that throne had often remained vacant. It was because the bastard rarely attended meetings. Now, it was empty for an entirely different reason.
It was because he was gone.
The silence lasted only a few seconds before Taboo rolled his eyes.
"Oh, come off it. There is still no confirmation that he's dead."
The others stared at him.
Taboo spread his arms.
"I'm serious. Think about it. We're talking about Supreme Death. The unkillable bastard. The cockroach of existence itself. The Underworld getting destroyed means nothing. Plenty of things have destroyed the Underworld before. Death always comes back. For all we know, somebody is playing tricks on us."
Heart remained silent.
Internally, he strongly disagreed. Supreme Death was very dead. He knew that better than anyone present. The challenge was making sure nobody discovered why. His entire plan depended upon maintaining the illusion that Death's existence still lingered somewhere beyond perception.
If the truth emerged too early, countless complications would follow.
Fortunately, Fate chose that moment to speak.
"He is dead."
Taboo immediately turned.
"And how sure are you?"
Fate answered without hesitation.
"I am certain."
"Why?"
"Because I was there."
The throne room became still. Heart carefully suppressed his reaction. His consciousness brushed against his Supremacy Trait. Absolute control settled over every aspect of his behavior. His heartbeat, breathing, and thoughts remained steady. The beings gathered here were among the strongest entities in the Greater Universe. One careless expression could unravel hundred thousand years of deception.
Fate raised a hand and threads of light spread through the air.
A projection formed above the thrones.
"This is what I witnessed after pulling upon the strands of destiny and projecting myself to the origin of the conflict."
The vision expanded and a battlefield appeared. There was the Great Beast, Da Wei, and the Abyss.
Everyone watched silently.
Fate narrated as the memories unfolded. "The Great Beast bears the primal core of the Supreme Death itself. As we all know, the Supreme Death’s sole remaining wish in his final eons was to extinguish his own undying existence. Perhaps, in his mad pursuit of that ending, he ultimately turned his own body and soul into this… abomination. Of course, this is merely my speculation. It is not impossible that some hidden hand is weaving illusions to mislead us all. However, one truth cannot be denied: the final remnants of the Supreme Death’s will and origin are sealed within this Great Beast, bound for all eternity. Imagine, what the Great Beast's death would mean, if not the Supreme Death's death, himself?"
The scene continued.
Da Wei dragged the Great Beast into the Abyss.
The clash shook reality, then came complete and irreversible destruction. The core that represented the Supreme Death shattered. The remnants vanished along with it and nothing remained.
Fate lowered his hand.
"As you can clearly see, the Supreme Death is no longer with us. However, that is not the greater issue."
The projection shifted and the Abyss appeared once more. Instead of showing Da Wei's death, it displayed something far more troubling. His survival. The Holy Emperor emerged from the impossible depths, alive.
Even among Supreme Beings, surviving the Abyss was not an achievement many could claim.
Fate's featureless face turned toward the gathering.
"As you can see, the thorn continues along the path required to fulfill his destinies."
A heavy silence followed.
"Did you just sigh in relief?" asked Taboo as he suddenly pointed at Heart.
Heart blinked. "What? Excuse me?"
Taboo narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I swear you sighed in relief."
Heart stared at him back, finally exploding in fury.
"You horn-covered sack of malformed garbage, are you seriously trying to start shit right now? You look like somebody lost an argument with a cactus field and decided to wear the result as fashion. I've seen failed biological experiments with more credibility than your accusations. If stupidity generated energy, we'd solve the universe's resource crisis by strapping a generator to your skull. Sigh? Did you hear me sigh? No, I didn't sigh, you fuggin' idiot."
Taboo clearly threw that bluff out to test him, and it didn't work.
Monster nearly fell off his throne, laughing his ass off.
Even Hope looked amused.
Heart jabbed a finger toward Taboo.
"And stop fishing for reactions, you glorified pile of forbidden geometry. Every meeting you either troll somebody, curse somebody, or accidentally create a civilization-ending incident. Shut the fuck up. You are not hot shit, you smell piece of shit."
"..."
The meeting continued.
Minutes became years.
Years became centuries.
Centuries became millennia.
Within the throne room of the Supremes, time held little meaning. Entire civilizations could rise and collapse while they discussed a single topic. Outside the chamber, however, not even an instant would pass.
They spoke of many matters—the prophecy, the thorn, the Lost Supreme, the lingering mysteries surrounding the Supreme Death, the Abyss, the Hollowed World, and the increasingly alarming tendency of reality itself to misbehave. Every subject led to another, and every answer generated ten new questions. At some point, the discussion devolved into another argument between Heart and Taboo, as usual. Taboo threw shade, and Heart retaliated with his asshole, quite literally and figuratively.
The Supreme Taboo had spent several centuries attempting to provoke him. Heart eventually responded by manifesting a colossal muddy rear and planting it directly toward Taboo's throne.
The resulting argument lasted nearly eighty years.
Nobody learned anything useful.
Eventually they returned to productive discussion.
After countless tangents and several thousand years of debate, they finally arrived at the true reason the emergency meeting had been called. For most of the gathering, Hope had remained silent. Now, the floating star finally spoke.
"Where is the Hollowed World?"
The throne room became quiet.
Several Supremes exchanged glances.
Nobody answered.
Heart leaned back as he answered nonchalantly. "Oh, that one is easy. Da Wei figured out how to use both the Dark Veil and the Hollow Star at incredible mastery."
Silence followed, and then everyone started talking at once.
"Impossible."
"Absurd."
"That cannot be correct."
"Those artifacts predate recorded existence."
Heart rolled his muddy eyes.
"The Dark Veil possesses an innate ability to conceal itself from existence itself. It doesn't merely hide. It removes information. Detection? Observation? Causality? You can stare directly at the damn thing and still fail to notice it. Combine that with the Hollow Star, which can draw ridiculous amounts of energy from primordial emptiness, and you've got a mobile fortress capable of crossing absurd distances."
Monster's branches creaked. "And your source?"
Heart stared at him. "Did everybody suddenly forget I took a little stroll around the Hollowed World?"
Nobody responded.
Heart smirked. That excursion had earned him a muddy body and a curse. He might as well extract some value from the experience. "There is more. I watched him manipulate the Hollowed World's reincarnation system like it was a toy. He resurrected souls by the millions. He wasn't forcing the system. He wasn't exploiting loopholes. He understood the thing. Every process. Every function. Every mechanism. He's become the system. Now, imagine what he can do if he have the entire universe at the palm of his hand. He'd be quite literally a god, not the fancy ones that call themselves as such. Not even us can compare. Isn't that... just sad? What would become of us if his conquest succeeds?"
That was the alarming part.
Artifacts such as the Dark Veil and Hollow Star weren't supposed to be understood. Not completely, and certainly not by anyone. The only beings who should have possessed that level of mastery of the artifacts were the Supreme Void himself, an entity possessing a similarly absurd level of cognition, or someone with an eternity available for study.
Da Wei somehow satisfied enough of those requirements to accomplish the impossible.
The discussion resumed for thousands more years. Arguments rose. Counterarguments followed. The topic shifted repeatedly. Eventually, the gathering reached the inevitable conclusion that nobody could agree on.
Three factions emerged.
The Supreme Monster and Supreme Fate shared the same position.
"We should destroy the Hollowed World," Monster declared.
"Even if doing so risks releasing the Supreme Void," Fate added.
Heart thought they were both insane. Then again, they probably thought the same thing about him.
Heart and Taboo surprisingly occupied the same side.
It was an event so rare that it even surprised Heart himself.
"We should negotiate," said Heart. "Makes the most sense to me."
Taboo nodded. "Invite the kid into the club."
Heart glanced at Taboo. "Preferably before someone does something stupid."
Hope remained unconvinced. The star pulsed gently as he answered. "The Holy Emperor destroyed the Underworld. He unleashed consequences that threaten the entirety of the Greater Universe. He should be apprehended and judged in a fair trial."
The disagreement lasted another few hundred years.
In the end, nothing was resolved as usual.
The meeting finally adjourned, the projections vanished, the thrones faded, and the Supreme Beings departed. Heart found himself once more within his pocket dimension and released a long sigh, his patience beginning to wear thin. He needed Da Wei. The Holy Emperor occupied an increasingly important position within several of Heart's plans, and every delay only complicated matters further.
Heart closed his eyes and expanded his consciousness, awakening countless formations hidden throughout reality as he followed an invisible trail.
When the Hollowed World had interrupted Aixin's wedding, he had not been unprepared. Beneath the skies, beneath the earth, and beneath reality itself, Heart had concealed layer upon layer of formation arrays. Most existed solely for observation, but one of them was a tracking spell. It was an exceptionally nasty one. The Dark Veil excelled at concealment, while Heart's formation excelled at persistence. Combined with the enormous tower he had conveniently jammed into the Hollowed World as an anchor, the realm remained visible to him despite all efforts to hide it.
A grin spread across his muddy face.
"Found you."
Before acting, however, Heart took lots of precautions. He erected anti-divination formations, anti-fate formations, anti-prophecy formations, and anti-observation formations, then added even more just in case. One could never be too careful around the other Supremes, especially Fate. That bastard's eyes were horrifying, and Heart strongly suspected Fate could accidentally spy on someone merely by thinking about them hard enough. Once every precaution had been completed, Heart finally left his pocket dimension. His destination was clear: the Hollowed World. Threats had failed. Manipulation had failed. Intimidation had failed. Well, mostly failed.
Heart cracked his neck.
"Alright, Da Wei."
A grin spread across his face, more manic than ever.
"Let's try this shit properly."
The Supreme Heart he vanished into the void between worlds, heading directly toward the hidden realm. This time, he intended to negotiate for real.
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