Online Game: Starting With SSS-Ranked Summons - Chapter 564

564: Aether’s Domain 564: Aether’s Domain Inside his own trial, Aether looked around curiously with his big, round eyes at the surrounding area.

His small kitten-sized form floated in what seemed like endless nothing, his wings flapping experimentally to test if he could move.

“WOOH!

Is this the area that Winter Beast friend was talking about?” Aether’s voice echoed strangely, as if the space around him couldn’t quite decide whether to carry sound or absorb it.

“Is Master around here somewhere?

Why can’t I see him?

Hm…

Maybe he is in a different place like this, I suppose!” The void dragon’s naturally cheerful disposition remained intact despite the disconcerting emptiness surrounding him.

Unlike Arthur’s trial, which had thrust him into darkness filled with hostile beasts, Aether found himself in something far more absolute.

Complete void.

Not darkness-darkness implied the absence of light, which still meant something existed to be dark.

This was the absence of everything.

No light, no shadow, no up or down, no reference points whatsoever.

Just infinite nothingness stretching in every conceivable direction.

Aether’s obsidian scales shimmered faintly, the only source of anything in this empty expanse.

He tried to teleport, more out of habit than actual intent to go anywhere, and found himself still floating in the same relative position.

Space itself seemed meaningless here.

“This is kinda boring,” Aether muttered, his tail swishing back and forth.

“Master’s trial probably has cool things to play with.

Aether just has…

nothing!” But then something changed.

In the infinite distance-though distance had no meaning here-Aether spotted something.

A tiny point.

So small it might have been his imagination, except it was the first thing besides himself that existed in this void he was in.

“Ooh!

What’s that?” The point began to expand.

Slowly at first, then faster, growing from infinitesimal to merely tiny to small to visible.

Aether watched with increasing fascination as the point continued its expansion, becoming a sphere of unimaginable density and temperature.

The sphere pulsed with contained energy, radiating colors Aether had never seen before-hues that existed beyond normal perception, wavelengths that shouldn’t be visible yet somehow were.

His void dragon senses, attuned to spatial manipulation and dimensional forces, detected something profound building within that sphere.

“It’s getting really, really, REALLY big!” Aether exclaimed with childlike wonder.

The sphere continued expanding, its growth accelerating exponentially.

What had been distant was now closer.

What had been small now filled a significant portion of Aether’s field of view.

And still it grew, the energy contained within reaching critical mass.

Then it exploded.

Not with sound-there was no medium to carry sound-but with pure, overwhelming force.

The sphere detonated outward in all directions simultaneously, unleashing energy that had been compressed into impossible density.

Aether watched, mesmerised, as creation itself burst forth from the expanding wavefront.

Matter coalesced from pure energy.

Fundamental particles formed and combined, building the basic building blocks of reality.

The void that had been absolute nothingness began filling with substance, with existence itself spreading outward like paint on an infinite canvas.

“WOOOOW!” Aether’s eyes grew impossibly wide as he witnessed the cosmic spectacle.

“That’s so cool!” Stars began forming in the expanding cosmos.

Vast clouds of hydrogen and helium collapsed under their own gravity, igniting nuclear fusion at their cores.

Light-real, visible light-blazed into existence for the first time, brilliant points appearing throughout the growing universe.

Aether watched a nearby stellar nursery coalesce, gas and dust swirling together under gravitational attraction.

The proto-star at its center compressed further and further until suddenly it ignited, fusion beginning, a new sun born from accumulated matter.

“Baby star!

It’s a baby star being made!” Aether chirped excitedly, watching the newborn sun settle into stable fusion.

But the cosmic show didn’t stop.

Time seemed to accelerate around Aether, or perhaps his perception shifted to witness eons passing in moments.

The stars he’d watched being born aged rapidly before his eyes.

A massive blue giant nearby exhausted its fuel, its core collapsing while its outer layers exploded outward in a spectacular supernova.

The shockwave rippled through space, triggering new stellar formation in nearby gas clouds even as the dying star’s core compressed into a neutron star.

Another star, this one red and ancient, expanded into a red giant phase before shedding its outer layers in beautiful planetary nebula.

The exposed core cooled into a white dwarf, the stellar remnant slowly fading over impossible timeframes.

Stars were born.

Stars died.

The cycle repeated endlessly throughout the expanding cosmos Aether witnessed.

Galaxies formed from countless stars bound by gravity, their spiral arms rotating gracefully.

Some galaxies collided, merging into larger structures.

Black holes lurked at galactic centers, their gravitational pull shaping the cosmic architecture.

Aether observed with sudden insight.

“It’s like a super big circle that keeps going!

Things are created, then they are destroyed, then more things come.” Then, without warning, something fundamental shifted within Aether himself.

A massive surge of energy erupted from his small body, so powerful it made his scales glow like miniature stars.

The energy poured out of him like a dam breaking, flowing into the surrounding void in currents of raw spatial power.

“Wha-what’s happening to me?!” the small dragon squeaked in surprise, watching the energy flow from his body.

The energy didn’t dissipate.

Instead, it began coalescing, forming patterns, taking shape.

It moved like gas, swirling and condensing, building something enormous from Aether’s own essence.

The shape grew rapidly, expanding to dwarf Aether’s kitten-sized form.

Wings spread wide, each one large enough to eclipse stars.

A serpentine body coiled through the void, scales forming from solidified spatial energy.

Massive claws materialized, sharp enough to tear through dimensional barriers.

Within moments, an ancient dragon had formed from Aether’s released energy-but this was no ordinary dragon.

It was impossibly vast, its presence seeming to occupy multiple dimensions simultaneously.

Its scales shifted between existence and non-existence, as if the creature existed partially outside normal reality.

Eyes like collapsed stars gazed down at Aether with unfathomable depth of knowledge and power.

“Wooooah…” Aether breathed, staring up at the colossal being formed from his own energy.

“Are you…

Are you me?

But bigger?

And way more scary-looking?”