Chapter 10: Chapter 9 - The Crown of Cosmos

CHAPTER 9

The Crown of Cosmos

Dark grey clouds covered the sky.

Thundred rumbled, and the earth trembled. Strong wind blew from the north, carrying a dense smell of blood.

Yuriel stood straight, bellow her feet bloody corpses. Some were headless, some armless, some feetless, some just pieces of fingers, arms, and calves. Yuriel’s black warrior robe was drenched in blood, and her glittering purple-colored soft armor was dyed crimson.

As she gazed into the horizon, she could see numerous figures dancing a never-ending battle, singing a never-ending war song.

“You see? This is the future,” she said in a bitter tone. “Your parents and family are all dead, your comrades, friends, and even strangers you barely know are also all dead. And A-Jue is also gone... All except you.”

“If you don’t want this to happen, then after you wake up, you must never stop cultivating. Even if you have to climb mountains of blades and swim through seas of fire, you must reach the Heavenly Emperor rank before you turn twenty-five. Remember, Zhang Yujin. The fate of the whole of humanity rests on your shoulders.”

Reaching this point, she sighed, “I’ll help you regain your Crown of Cosmos power ahead of time, but of course I will seal the majority of it, as the current you won’t be able to bear its full power. However, this will result in a change of your destiny. Now, before I take action, I must first ask you a question—”

“If the day comes when the heavens illuminate the sky, the earth immersed in prosperity, even though you are unmatched in the world, you are destined to guard the cosmos for eternity. And when you turn around, there won’t be memories left—your are the cosmos, and the cosmos is you...”

“When the time comes, will you still feel like it is worth it?”

For a moment, Yuriel closed her eyes and smiled wryly, seemingly knowing what was going to happen. Sure enough, a few minutes later, somewhere inside her mind, Yuriel could sense a will, somewhere deep in her soul, that seemed to say,

‘If the decision I make today can save the world and everyone I hold dear... then I will never regret it.’

Yuriel once again sighed, but the smile on her face was now peaceful.

Then, she let out a long shout filled with endless pain and grieve, yet also relieve, and slowly, her body broke down into millions of glitters of sparkling purple-gold light.

“ZHANG YUJIN, YOU DARE!” a man’s deep roar reverberated from the distance, accompanied by a wave of terrifying dark-blue light.

However, before the light wave could reach the purple-gold glitters of light, the surrounding space rippled with a mystical, multicolored crystalline light, trapping the purple-gold glitters of light in a frozen time.

A split second later, the multicolored light disappeared, along with the purple glitters of light, leaving behind an expanse of dark-blue.

A moment later, the entirerity of the area was swept clean.

From cloud to dirt, all gone.

“NOOOOO!!!”

The man’s roar, full of frustration, shook time and space.

***

It was dark. In fact, everything was pitch-black.

Yuriel’s consciousness floated about aimlessly in a sea of nothingness. Sometimes, she would feel scorching-hot pain, as if she were melting in a sea of fire. Another time, she would feel as if thousands of years had gone by, and she would hear voices calling from a distant time, the end of the river of time.

She couldn’t see anything, however—she couldn’t even feel her own body or anything at all.

Hundreds of thousands of years surged, drowning her in an unstoppable torrent of time. It raged, tearing her consciousness apart, submerging her with endless knowledge, that made her feel as if she were as insignificant as a drop of water in the middle of the boundless sea of cosmos.

“Yu’er.”

Suddenly, a deep voice echoed. The voice sounded so ancient, as if it had passed through the endless river of time, echoing from the distant past, from the beginning of time.

“Crown of Cosmos, wake up.”

Another voice, a woman's one, reverberated, piercing through the darkness. As loud and shocking as a flash of thunder in a clear day, yet as ethereal as the fog of dawn. Unforgettable, yet hard to grasp.

Countless scenes flashed past. Hundreds thousands of years flashed past. However, Yuriel couldn’t seem to grasp onto any one of them. She couldn’t remember any of them.

Following this, the boundless darkness around Yuriel rippled like mirage. The tides of the great cosmic ocean rapidly receeded, revealing the reality she was currently in.

There was a ceiling, pristine white.

Dim warm-white light twinkled.

Suddenly, a beam of purple-gold light shot out of the center of her forehead, and stopped a few meters above her. The light converged on that one point, becoming more and more brilliant by the second.

Over time, one could faintly make out the outline of a crown within the blinding light.

Eh? Crown...

The Crown of Cosmos.

These words instantly appeared in Yuriel’s mind.

Right as her mind uttered those words, scenes flashed past her eyes. Millions of voices and scenes rushed into her mind in torrents, filling her brain with countless of information—or memories.

The beautiful goldish-purple crown suddenly disappeared, along with all goldish-purple light.

The electricity in Hermes’ secret base also disappeared, making the enormous underwater base completely dark.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

For a moment, everything was silent.

A sense of oppression and primal fear hung in the air, as if something terrifying was arriving, speeding through time and space.

A low hum shook the space around Yuriel.

BOOM! A terrifying aura blasted out of Yuriel’s body, along with that purple-gold light, submerging everything in a radius of several hundred meters around her.

Unsettling silence and stillness passed for who knew how long.

Within a blink of an eye, the purple-gold light suddenly retreated back into Yuriel’s body, and everything returned back to normal.

***

Meanwhile, in the living room, Lee Jihoon and Tie Li were lying unconscious on the sofas, enveloped in complete darkness. It wasn’t until a few hours later that they finally woke up.

“Arghh!”

“Who the hell are you?!”

“Stop punching me!”

White light shone in the darkness, illuminating the living room. Lee Jihoon and Tie Li stared at each other. The two laughed.

Suddenly, from the corner of their eyes, they saw an ethereal figure glowing with pale-gold light approaching them.

They exclaimed. They embraced each other.

“Hey, what’s happening?” the glowing figure asked confusedly.

“Y-y-you—!”

“You, what you? It’s me, Edward.”

Realizing who the glowing figure was, the two guys quickly separated in embarrassment whilst blowing out a breath of relieve. Edward chuckled.

“What exactly is happening? And why am I glowing so brightly?” he asked again, sitting down on a sofa—still shining.

Lee Jihoon shrugged. “It should be related with Yuriel’s awakening.”

“Let’s check on her.” Tie Li suggested.

“Yeah, but I must teleport you manually—the electricity’s gone.”

Before the others could react, cyan light had already flashed, teleporting them to the corridor in front of the cultivation chamber Yuriel was in.

“Shining Prince, lead the way.” Lee Jihoon said, the light of his shining hand dimming away.

Edward huffed. “Nerdy Hermes, you’re getting bolder, I see.”

But he still led the way, in the end. He approached the tall white double-door looming in front of them cautiously. He didn’t know why he was acting so cautiously—he just felt that he had to be vigilant, as if something terrifying—something primordial—was right behind those doors...

“Um, guys?”

In unison, Edward and Tie Li whirled at the master of technology. The guy swallowed hard. The others held their breath.

It was quite obvious that they could all feel that unsettling feeling coming from behind those doors, and were all nervous.

“Should we go back?” Lee Jihoon grinned nervously. “I mean—Yuriel could be in a critical point of her awakening and mustn’t be disturbed...”

The others stared at him. Edward turned his attention back at the double-door and continued his cautious advance. Tie Li did the same. Poor Lee Jihoon could only whimper in silence.

Taking a deep breath, Edward slowly pushed the door open...

Right at this moment, everything stopped, all things freezing. Regardless of whether it was space or time, all seemed to have entered an eternal silence.

In that instant, the three experienced something that would forever be etched deeply in their souls. An unforgettable experience that would traumatize them for the rest of their lives.

This type of stagnation, this type of halting-of-time-feeling, made all three of them feel a type of deep void, one that was incredibly distant, and incredibly ancient. There was a feeling of great changes, heaviness, as well as a type of boundless darkness, and a feeling of absolute nothingness.

In that instant of nothingness, they seemed to be unable to feel anything, unable to recall who they were, unable to even remember their own existence—this was nothingness, like in the beginning of creation.

The space in the cultivation chamber was rippling and shifting bizzarely. At times, everything was normal—pristine white walls, ceiling, and floor. But at other times, the whole room was submerged in luminous, noble-purple, with ethereal golden light flowing like starlight.

And on the platform floating mid-air at the center of the spacious cultivation chamber, a figure lied horizontally.

Her long silk-like hair was deep-purple at the roots, but gradually became silvery-gold toward the tips. Her fair skin was clear, exuding starlight-like light. A set of white flowing long robes outlined her slender figure. It rippled with a majestic silvery-gold iridescent light, and embroidered here and there, patterns of golden and purple stars twinkled with mystery.

Above her, a crown silently sat on the void. It was majestic, formed from deep purple, blue, silver, and golden lines which interwove into intricate patterns that formed the shape of the crown. It looked like it was formed from the very essence of cosmos, its gemstones sparkling with ethereal light seemingly containing the entire creation. Ripples of terrifying aura spread out, and even space itself trembled under the pressure.

At this moment, the purple-haired young lady laying in mid-air opened her eyes, which were purple-gold, sparkling with the mysteries of cosmos.

Slowly, she sat up and floated down onto the ground, landing on her snowy-white bare feet. Her beautiful eyes scanned the room she was in, and quickly found the three young men standing frozen still on the gateway.

Her gaze flickered, looking somewhat relieved. She then turned her head and gazed at the majestic crown above her. As her gaze landed on it, the crown immediately turned into a stream of purple-gold, surging into the center of the young lady’s forehead, forming a purple-gold crown-shaped rune which gradually faded away.

Following this, the young lady’s appearance underwent a drastic change.

Starting from the tips of her hair, the purple-gold color receeded rapidly toward the roots, leaving behind the waterfall-like black hair flowing gently. Then, her beautiful white robes turned into a set of black warrior robes. Lastly, the goldish-purple color of her eyes converged inward toward her pupils and disappeared, leaving behind a deep-black color on her irises and pupils.

Finishing her transformation, she looked much more recognizable.

Wasn’t she Yuriel?

Currently, she didn’t look much different from how she was normally. The only difference to her was her demeanor and aura. She felt more composed and wise—more mature. And when one’s eyes landed on her figure, she seemed so ethereal, shifting between reality and mirage.

Oh, and she had grown taller by about two inches.

The space in the cultivation chamber gradually stopped rippling. Everything went back to normal, and even the unsettling feeling disappeared.

“Wake up.” Yuriel said.

Her clear voice was coated with powerful mental power, shocking the three young men across her awake. They all collapsed, landing on their backs. They desperately gasped for air with a bewildered gaze. Lee Jihoon was even wheezing. He lied on the floor, shivering as if suffering from hypothermia.

Poor guys. Yuriel smirked—pityingly.

The three weren’t going to recover in a short time, but it wouldn’t take that long of a time, so Yuriel decided to just wait for them.

She skipped onto the floating platform with her hands clasped behind her, then sat on the edge with her crossed feet hanging over the side. The force of her seemingly casual little hop was quite incredible, considering that the platform was floating at least three meters above the floor.

She rested her chin on a hand, somewhat dazedly staring at the three guys not far down there. Here they were, breathing and panicking. Yet it felt like only a few minutes had passed since she saw them, with her own eyes, falling down one by one onto the cold ground.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

“I will change the future,” she muttered. “I will. And I must.”

She ended up waiting for more than a quarter of an hour for the three young men to return to their senses.

“Yuriel, you...” Edward stared at her cautiously.

She smiled softly, nodding. “I’ve succesfully awakened my power.”

“So you’re a Star of Cosmos now?” Lee Jihoon asked, breathing heavily.

The three all stared at her, waiting for her confirmation.

“Yes and no,” Yuriel smiled. “I’m the Crown of Cosmos.”