Across the distance before Aeth, two rifts in the void tore open simultaneously, and from each emerged a figure.
To the left, a bulky man nearly two meters tall stepped out cautiously, his sharp gaze fixed warily on the second rift.
To the right, an elderly man with flowing white hair and a long beard strolled out with calm composure, his right hand resting lightly on the hilt of the sword at his waist.
"Someone from the dragon race?" Aetherion knitted his eyebrows, looking at the bulky man on the left.
After thinking about something for a while, Aetherion shook his head and mumbled softly. "Let's wrap it up quickly before it escalates any further."
With a single step, Aetherion vanished from where he stood and reappeared right between the raging clash of an enormous fire dragon and the old swordsman.
The instant he arrived, the intense battle came to an abrupt halt as the old man and the dragon looked at Aetherion with a cautious expression.
"Any last words?" Aetherion smiled calmly.
"Boy, don't you have any manners toward your elders?" The old swordsman frowned and looked at Aetherion in anger.
"Boy, my ass. You weren't even born yet when I was already standing at the apex." Aetherion snorted unhappily when he heard it.
Without another word, he flicked his hand lazily. The surrounding space instantly constricted, imprisoning the old man in an invisible grip.
A razor-thin slash of spatial power followed, slicing cleanly through the void—decapitating the old swordsman in an instant as his head tumbled and hovered weightlessly in the empty expanse.
The dragon was stunned, eyes widening in disbelief as he turned to Aetherion with visible fear. He immediately bowed his head and pleaded, "Senior, please spare this junior's life. The dragon race will be eternally grateful to you."
"Alright, accepted." Aetherion nodded his head lightly.
"Thank you for your mercy, senior. This junior will take his leave first." The dragon bowed his head once again before immediately turning around and fleeing frantically.
However, before he could run far away, the space around him suddenly froze, and he couldn't even move an inch.
Aetherion waved his hand, then shrugged his shoulders innocently as he muttered to himself. "Well, I meant I accepted his plea as his last words."
Snap!
Subsequently, Aetherion snapped his fingers, and two dead bodies instantly appeared in front of him.
"Let's save these in case they are needed in the future." Aetherion nodded his head and opened a huge spatial rift before tossing the dead bodies inside.
He then glanced around briefly before opening his palms upside down. In the next instant, two distinct halos materialized.
Above his left hand, a nebula-blue halo swirled into existence, while below his right hand, a twilight-violet halo shimmered softly.
Aetherion clasped his palms, combining the two halos instantly, and the halo immediately burst out and spread outward in an instant.
Without hesitation, Aetherion clasped his palms together. The two halos collided and fused as one, releasing a radiant, translucent white halo that erupted outward in a blinding surge, spreading across the vast expanse and beyond in the blink of an eye.
"Hmmm… It seems that I need to wipe it out of the river of time too." Aetherion raised an eyebrow and put his fingers on his chin as he thought about something.
…
Inside the main hall, Ash's body trembled violently as the energy tore through him again.
"AGHHHHH!" He screamed in agony, his knees slamming to the ground.
Veins bulged across his skin as glowing violet-blue patterns began to spread over his chest and limbs—markings that pulsed with the rhythm of space and time.
His internal organs liquefied under the pressure, then instantly reformed as they became stronger, more refined. His bones fractured over and over again, yet were immediately reconstructed by the system's healing functions.
[Ding! System healing function activated]
[Repairing host's physical structure…]
[Remodeling cellular structure to match Eternal Void Chronobody…]
[Refining Dragon Bone Structure…]
The draconic pressure intensified.
Suddenly, a shadow of a colossal Western dragon emerged behind Ash. Its massive wings unfurled across the sky like celestial banners, and its body was covered in galactic-patterned scales that shimmered with the hues of deep space.
Its glowing eyes, one blue and one violet, burned with ancient might. The dragon reared back and let out a silent roar that rippled through the void.
That moment, as time itself seemed to slow, Ash's scream turned into a roar. His body lifted from the ground as a powerful light burst from within his body. His skin glowed faintly, and his hair fluttered wildly as a radiant wave of energy pulsed outward.
BOOOOM!!
An immense crater formed beneath him, and the roof of the mansion exploded into fragments, sent flying through the void.
[Ding! Voidwalker Dragon Bloodline integration complete.]
[Ding! Eternal Void Chronobody integration complete.]
[Ding! Congratulations to the host for surviving the Primordial Bloodline and Physique awakening process.]
As the phenomenon began to subside, Ash slowly descended to the ground, smoke rising from his body. He knelt for a moment, panting raggedly before slowly standing up again.
His eyes opened, and for a second, they glowed with the twin colors of nebula blue and twilight violet, just like Aetherion's.
Crack!
The very space around him distorted slightly as he took his first step forward.
Ash exhaled a long breath and looked down at his hands, flexing and clenching them repeatedly, as if trying to grasp the immense strength that was now pouring through his veins.
"I feel like I could tear the sky apart."
His voice was calm, yet the world itself seemed to quiet in response.