# CHAPTER 25: The Static in the Void
Deep within the cold, outermost fringes of the cosmic void, millions of light-years away from Earth, space existed as a chaotic graveyard. This was the outer rim—a desolate territory stripped of dense cosmic energy, left to rot by the true behemoths who ruled the central galaxies.
Here, the **Myriad Beast Devouring Sect** held dominion. They were apex predators among ants, but in the grand scale of the cosmos, they were mere scavengers, forced to feast on the scraps of primitive, unawakened planetary cradles like Earth.
Inside a hollowed-out asteroid fortress, seven colossal figures sat in a dark semi-circle. They were the Sect's high elders, their consciousnesses projected via crude spiritual arrays.
Right now, they were staring at a flickering, three-dimensional spatial projection sent back by their vanguard scout.
On the screen, the data from the Sector 4 collapse played in a continuous loop. To human eyes, the rift had simply closed. But to the sect's high-frequency energy sensors, the reality was terrifying. A Tier-5 Abyssal beast—a biological weapon they had spent a century cultivating—had been instantaneously crushed into a localized singularity.
"What kind of arrays are those indigenous primitives hiding?" the Third Elder rumbled, his voice shaking the dust of the fortress. "Our vanguard was completely erased. The spatial friction lines plummeted to absolute zero in three seconds. That requires a spatial anchor beyond the mortal tier!"
"It isn't an array," hissed the Fourth Elder, her insectoid mandibles twitching. "Look at the energy displacement. The back-surge from the failing portal didn't detonate outward. Something drew it in. A localized vacuum... a perfect, multi-ton gravitational knot."
The Grand Elder, a towering silhouette shrouded in gray mist, remained silent. He leaned closer to the projection, his sweeping spiritual sense analyzing the microscopic signatures left in the fabric of the destroyed sector.
He didn't recognize the technique. He couldn't. The *Universe Origin Body Art* was a supreme, primordial path created in absolute secrecy by Krishak in his previous life—a secret that even the peak celestial powerhouses of the Central Cosmos had never been permitted to glimpse.
But the Grand Elder did recognize the terrifying mathematical signature of **Void-Iron**.
"This isn't an indigenous defense," the Grand Elder whispered, his voice sending a chill through the hall. "It is a collapsed gravity lock. A high-tier spatial expert from the inner or central galaxies has descended upon that cradle."
The other elders froze. To the outer cosmic sects, the Central Cosmos was a mythical realm of absolute terror—a place where real monsters lived, capable of wiping out entire star sectors with the flip of a sleeve.
"A central powerhouse? In a backward cradle like Earth?" the Third Elder growled, his confidence wavering. "Why would a celestial being hide in the dirt? What could they possibly want with a fractured planet?"
"It doesn't matter what they want," the Grand Elder said coldly. "Look at the scale of the manipulation. The spatial distortion was compact—barely stretching half a mile. If a true central powerhouse were operating at peak strength, a single casual blow would have shattered the entire continental shelf of that planet, if not the atmosphere itself."
He pointed a misty finger at the center of the crater on the screen.
"The entity is constrained. Either they are severely wounded, hiding from their enemies in the Central Cosmos, or they are operating through an underdeveloped, fragile mortal vessel. They are keeping their output minimal to avoid cracking the planet's macro-shielding."
The Fourth Elder's eyes gleamed with a sudden, greedy light. "If they are constrained or weakened... then this is our only window. If we can force this entity to exhaust their hidden reserves, we might capture a central celestial inheritance. Our sect could finally break out of this barren outer rim!"
"Exactly," the Grand Elder commanded, waving his hand to manifest six glowing coordinate maps of Earth. "We will no longer send isolated beasts to test their boundaries. We will open six Calamity-Class rifts simultaneously across the planet's major Ley lines."
He looked around the dark hall, his voice dropping into a lethal register.
"We will force their hidden expert to move. If their vessel is weak, the sheer atmospheric strain of closing six rifts at once will tear their flesh apart. We will bleed them dry from afar."
Back on Earth, forty miles inland from the quiet Jena estate, the afternoon sun had just begun to set, casting long, golden shadows across the grass.
Krishak sat on a small wooden bench in the estate's garden, a leather-bound book on *Advanced Aerodynamics* resting open on his small knees. To his mother, who was watching from the kitchen window, he looked like a precocious child studying his father's engineering texts.
Suddenly, Krishak's small hand froze over the page.
Inside his nexuses, the three **Obsidian Cores** let out a simultaneous, glass-shattering chime. The liquid-black spheres spun backward in a sudden, violent deceleration, their gravitational lines tensing.
Through his **Divine Sense (Level 4)**, Krishak looked up at the sky.
He didn't see the clouds or the blue atmosphere. He looked past the outer rim scavengers, past their crude asteroid fortress, tracking the universal layout. He saw the six distinct spatial anchors across the globe—in the deep Atlantic trench, the Siberian wastes, the African rift valley—all of them beginning to hum with a synchronized, predatory frequency.
A cold, elegant smile flitted through his ancient eyes.
*Six anchors at once,* Krishak evaluated, his permanent rings of blue fire shifting lazily beneath his dark pupils. *These outer void scavengers truly have no idea what they are poking. They look at my compressed gravity and mistake me for a standard spatial cultivator from the Central Cosmos.*
He slowly closed the textbook and stood up from the bench, brushing a stray leaf off his small winter coat.
Even in his previous life as a peak celestial being, mastering the *Universe Origin Body Art* had required rewriting the very rules of his soul. It was a path so dense, so fundamentally different from standard cultivation, that a lesser being's mind would liquefy just trying to comprehend the manual. These outer rim weaklings thought they could stretch his domain until his vessel fractured.
*They think six ripples can break the ocean,* the Sovereign thought, looking toward the horizon where the first faint crimson static was beginning to leak into the upper atmosphere. *Let them open their doors. My vessel may only be Level 4, but the origin of the universe does not bend to the layout of scavengers.*