Mother of Aberration

As Ruoshui and the other War God powerhouses stood in stunned disbelief, Lu Yuan had already returned to his training room in Sky-Mending City.

He had broken off his comprehension state from the Heart of Laws earlier, and that state was no longer sustaining itself. Even so, he had been at the very final stage — some residual understanding still lingered within him.

Beyond that, the time between leaving Sky-Mending City and the end of the battle had been only a brief moment. Returning now, he could still ride those last remnants of insight and press forward.

He sat cross-legged and fell back into deep meditation once more.

Inside Sky-Mending City, Li Qinghe and the others watched the gray-white phenomenon gradually dispersing overhead, and all of them were left somewhat stunned.

"What's happening? The phenomenon disappeared so fast this time."

Anastasia frowned, puzzled.

"Could something have gone wrong?"

A trace of worry flickered in Si Tingxue's eyes.

"Relax, Little Xue. Ah-Yuan is so strong — how could anything go wrong? He probably just finished his comprehension, right?"

Rebecca reassured them.

The others exchanged glances, equally uncertain.

But only a few hours later, the gray-white phenomenon that had been fading began to return — and this time, the aura of deathly stillness was far more intense than before.

Li Qinghe and the others, who had been quietly worried, immediately brightened.

"Looks like everything's fine."

Si Tingyu smiled softly, the tension easing from her chest.

The others nodded in agreement.

Just then, Yeye suddenly paused and reached for her Communication Crystal. At almost the same instant, Anastasia, Shuangyue, and Li Qinghe all stiffened as well, each pulling out their own crystal.

White light pulsed across all four of them.

The four women stared at the crystals in their hands, equally baffled.

"What's going on? Why are we all being contacted at the same time?"

Shuangyue furrowed her brow.

Li Qinghe glanced at the name displayed on her crystal — *Grandfather* — and her expression slowly grew grave.

"Something big must have happened. Answer it, quickly."

They connected without hesitation.

In Li Qinghe's crystal, Li Xinghai appeared. The moment the connection opened, he spoke urgently:

"Qinghe, something terrible has happened — a Laws Rank Aberrant Beast has appeared!"

"What?!"

Li Qinghe cried out, her face draining of color.

She wasn't alone. Yeye and the others were receiving identical news from their respective elders through their own crystals.

Every last one of them held their breath, faces stricken with shock and dread.

Anastasia looked at Gladys in her crystal and asked:

"What's the situation right now? Ah-Yuan is still comprehending Laws — do we need to notify him?"

Not just Gladys — everyone on the other end of the crystals heard those words too. For a moment, their expressions turned peculiarly strained.

Gladys cleared her throat.

"No need. The report I received says Ah-Yuan already made a trip to the Mechanical Kingdom a little while ago and killed the Laws Rank Aberrant Beast."

Li Qinghe and the others: "..."

Their expressions shifted into something altogether strange.

A beat later, a collective wave of speechlessness washed over them. They had been so grave just moments ago, bracing for catastrophe.

And it turned out Lu Yuan had already taken care of a Laws Rank Aberrant Beast?

None of them were especially surprised that he could manage it. Their faith in Lu Yuan's strength had always been absolute. Every step of the way, he had never once let them down — his power had always been exactly that overwhelming.

Yeye spoke softly: "Ancestor, if the Laws Rank Aberrant Beast is already dead, why did you contact us?"

The Tianming Sage's voice came measured and unhurried from Yeye's crystal:

"According to Ah-Yuan, this isn't the end — it's only the beginning. The Laws Rank powerhouse that appeared is just the first of many. Even stronger ones are likely still to come. So I want all of you to train as hard as you can in the days ahead. It may not be long before the true war arrives."

The mood in the room sobered immediately.

They were right. The first Laws Rank Aberrant Beast to appear in hundreds of millions of years — how far behind could the next ones be?

And even if Laws Rank threats had Lu Yuan to handle them — what about everything else? What about the vast tide that would come?

Unease crept through all of them.

Yeye gave a solemn nod. "Understood."

Li Qinghe pressed a hand to her chest with quiet conviction. "Don't worry, Grandfather. We'll train hard."

"Good."

They exchanged a few more words, then ended the transmissions.

Once the crystals went dark, the group looked at one another. Si Tingyu broke the silence first:

"No wonder the phenomenon disappeared earlier — he must have left the Land of Origin."

Li Qinghe nodded, her expression complicated as she cast a glance toward the Training Hall. Then a small smile touched her lips.

"Little Yuan has been pushing himself this hard. We can't let him carry it alone. We have to train."

Her feelings were a tangle of pride and something harder to name. Of everyone here, she had known Lu Yuan the longest — she had known him even before his Awakening.

She had watched every step of his journey. From a wide-eyed newcomer to the titan he was now — a man who could kill a Laws Rank Aberrant Beast alone and stand as guardian of the universe.

Thinking back on every small moment they had shared along the way, something strange and bittersweet rose quietly in her chest.

Her expression firmed.

"Let's go train. We're going to break through — and soon."

Deep in Chaos.

Inside a crumbling Universe Bubble.

The membrane of this universe was riddled with holes. Every planet within had long since fallen into desolation. Aberrant Beasts bred freely inside, slipping in and out through the gaps in the Cosmic Boundary.

And at the center of this dying universe, an immense and incomprehensible mass of aberrant flesh held dominion — occupying roughly a third of the universe's total volume.

The creature bristled with tentacles beyond counting, every one of them thrust deep into the spatial void, as if drinking from something invisible.

Across its body and along every tentacle, eyes and mouths grew in uncountable numbers.

The eyes blinked at irregular intervals, their glow shifting through unsettling hues, strange phenomena rippling outward in all directions. The mouths opened and closed ceaselessly, releasing low, wordless murmurs.

At the very crown of the tentacle mass, flesh had slowly congealed into a grotesque, warped face.

Aberrant Beasts continuously separated from her flesh, each one growing stronger as it tore free, until it blazed into a streak of light and shot out beyond the universe's edge.

Then, mid-absorption and mid-separation, the Mother of Aberration suddenly went still.

Every mouth she possessed fell open at once — and from them rose a silent cry.

The already-broken Universe Bubble convulsed and tore, fresh fractures splitting across the Cosmic Boundary. Even the Chaos beyond the membrane churned wildly under the force of that soundless scream.

All her eyes ignited at once. In the warped face at her crown, something flickered — a trace of shock.

She had felt the death of the King of Flesh.

He had been one of her most brilliant creations — a Laws Rank being who stood among the greatest in all the Chaos Sea. A powerhouse of that caliber, sent merely to corrupt a newly born universe... dead?

There was something in that universe strong enough to kill the King of Flesh?

Fury flooded through the Mother of Aberration.

With it, her aura surged — monstrous, all-consuming — and the Universe Bubble seemed to teeter on the edge of total disintegration.

Then two of her immense tentacles writhed and tore free from her body, reshaping themselves into a pair of flesh creatures. Each was studded with eyes and tentacles, each bearing a face too unspeakable to name.

From the moment of their birth, the two creatures' auras climbed without pause, reaching Laws Rank within moments.

They gazed up at their immense progenitor and spoke in low, reverent tones.

"Great Master."

The Mother of Aberration's murmur answered:

"My children — go find the King of Corruption and the King of Destruction. Avenge my child."

"Yes!"

The two Laws Rank flesh creatures vanished.

The Mother of Aberration watched them go, then returned to her slow, ravenous consumption of what remained of this universe's Origin energy. It was nearly spent. She had originally intended to keep moving, consuming universe after universe — but now she had a new target in mind: the universe responsible for the King of Flesh's destruction.

Elsewhere in the Chaos Sea, in the Corruption Nest and the Destruction Nest, the King of Corruption and the King of Destruction shuddered in unison.

The King of Destruction — bones bristling across every inch of him — stared forward, the blood-red flames in his eyes leaping and writhing.

"The King of Flesh is actually dead? In that young universe? There's actually someone that powerful hiding there?"

He had already guessed a Laws Rank being existed in that universe when his own and the King of Corruption's Descended Avatars had been annihilated. But that a Laws Rank being could kill the King of Flesh outright — that, he hadn't anticipated.

Still, a cold sneer curled across his face.

*That fool was probably trying to shake us off and swallow that universe all to himself. And now he's dead. Serves him right.*

His expression hardened.

"Looks like I'll need to wait for the King of Corruption. And the Great Master has fashioned two Aberrant Touches — that should be enough."

Sky-Mending City.

The gray-white sky had grown heavier with each passing day, death phantoms drifting like embers through every district.

Lu Yuan was in the final stretch of comprehending Death Laws.

Without the guiding support of a Heart of Laws, even with the residual insight he had carried into this stage, it had taken him a full five years of Origin Time to reach this point.

As the gray-white mist of deathly stillness finally, slowly faded, Lu Yuan opened his eyes and exhaled a long, measured breath.

*Finally.*

He felt a quiet sense of relief. It was fortunate that he had already mastered four Laws before this, giving him a deep and well-worn familiarity with the nature of Law Force. And among those four was Life Laws — which stood in a complementary relationship with Death Laws, each nourishing and counterbalancing the other.

Without that foundation, having his comprehension interrupted and resuming with only residual insight would likely have required consuming another Heart of Laws to see it through, rather than completing it as he had now.

With Death Laws mastered, Lu Yuan now commanded five Laws in total. His power had taken another massive leap.

Even so, he had no intention of resting. The King of Flesh had already drawn close, and he had no way of knowing whether the Mother of Aberration herself might follow. There was no time to unwind.

He took out another Heart of Laws and turned his mind to what came next.

The Laws still before him: Mechanical Laws, Spatial Laws, Fate Laws, Temporal Laws, and Fantasy Laws.

Of these, Spatial, Fate, Temporal, and Fantasy Laws were all markedly difficult to comprehend. After some thought, he decided to begin with the simpler end.

For Mechanical Laws, his mind went immediately to the Mechanical Warriors of the Mechanical Kingdom.

If he could extend Mechanical Apotheosis to every Mechanical Warrior in the Kingdom, then even in an all-out war, their side — outside of himself — would at least have some capacity to fight back.

And of course, comprehending Mechanical Laws would also see his own power surge as Law Force washed through him once again. Each new Law mastered deepened his grasp of Law Force as a whole, which would in turn make the remaining Laws — Spatial, Fate, Temporal, and Fantasy — that much more approachable.

His mind made up, Lu Yuan activated the Heart of Laws and opened himself to Mechanical Laws.

Within the Law space, he drifted in perfect stillness. Before him, bronze gears of every shape and size materialized — interlocking, turning, assembling themselves into mechanisms of all kinds, each with its own distinct purpose and function.

Across every gear, intricate patterns flowed and shifted, the very essence of Mechanical Laws written plainly in every groove and tooth.

Above Sky-Mending City — now clear of the deathly gray-white mist — phantom bronze gears began to coalesce slowly in the sky.

With each additional Law comprehended, and with the twin support of the Heart of Laws and Cosmic Origin, Lu Yuan's grasp of Mechanical Laws deepened from the very first moment. The rate of comprehension was exceptional.

The Mechanical Warriors of Sky-Mending City had long grown accustomed to yet another shift in the Law phenomenon overhead.

After all, during this period alone, Lu Yuan had comprehended five different types of Laws.

The Gene Warriors with mechanical-type Transcendent Genes, however, were beside themselves with excitement, each one eager to seize the extraordinary opportunity this new Law phenomenon brought.

In the central district of Sky-Mending City, Ruoshui, Kro, Bu Chang, and Nuxing had all since returned.

At the sight of the bronze gears drifting through the sky, the four exchanged glances. Kro let out a booming laugh.

"Just as I thought — that kid isn't done yet."

Nuxing drew a slow breath. "With Lu Yuan advancing like this, we can't afford to fall behind. I hope we can manage some growth of our own."

Ruoshui and the others nodded.

At their level, they were all approaching the threshold where Laws comprehension became possible — but the distance between approaching and crossing was a chasm unto itself.

They could only give everything they had.

But watching Lu Yuan push himself this relentlessly, none of them could afford to be idle. The universe couldn't rest on his shoulders alone.

And so they stood vigil — guarding his comprehension, while each quietly studied the profundity radiating from the Law phenomenon above, searching for whatever thread might lead them to their own breakthrough.

Mechanical Laws proved roughly comparable in difficulty to Life Laws and Death Laws — if anything, perhaps a touch simpler.

In just fifteen years of Origin Time, Lu Yuan — seated cross-legged inside the Gravity Room — opened his eyes. Bronze gears meshed and revolved within his gaze.