Chapter 681: The new world
"Perfect." Kayden was the first to go. There were no other words. Jordan was left behind in the air as Kayden flew at high speed toward that hole in space. This was going to open a new world for him.
Getting close to the portal was a completely different experience. It wasn’t just like teleporting. Kayden felt every small piece of his body being fragmented and reconstructed in the blink of an eye.
The world that opened before him...
The world beyond the portal was incomprehensible to Kayden, as if his senses could not decipher reality itself. The laws governing that place bore no resemblance to anything he had ever known, and each instant felt simultaneously eternal and fleeting. Space and time bent in impossible ways, creating landscapes that could not be seen, only felt. Even without sight, Kayden perceived the living presence of an order that transcended any mortal logic.
It was different from where he had been before. Here, the laws were not so solid, not so organized. Each small law could exist unattached, and even the fundamental ones could drift loosely. It was a strange kind of enigma, a world that seemed freer, a world where Kayden could, for example, see multiple faces of the same square.
The laws of this world were malleable and unpredictable. Each principle could shift its form or vanish without warning. Even the fundamental rules behaved like loose fragments, generating a structured chaos. It was a place where logic had no boundaries, and every phenomenon could reveal multiple faces at once.
This place was absolutely perfect, simply because Kayden could analyze and study every parameter, every interaction. It was practically like solving a Rubik’s Cube while having small pieces of the step-by-step guide available to him.
Kayden took a deep breath and began to feel everything he could. This world was small, yet still large enough that his spiritual sense could not encompass its entire extension. It took him only a few seconds of analyzing all he could to find clusters of living beings—it was a relatively well-populated city with tens of billions of people.
Kayden flew quickly toward this city. It should have been instantaneous, but he ended up being diverted dozens of times in only a few minutes. Various laws opened before him in different perspectives. One example was a space where the law of fire was inverted with the law of cold. That made no sense. Kayden was only able to see it for a few seconds before everything vanished from his sight.
"Beautiful," Kayden commented, continuing his journey at high speed, with occasional stops for study.
The city spread out like a living mosaic, with buildings that seemed to fold and transform according to the mutable laws of the world. Billions of inhabitants moved in patterns that defied any logic, coexisting in a dance that was chaotic and organized at the same time.
Since there were only mortals here, Kayden had no hesitation. He went directly toward the strongest aura in that city and extended his own across all directions. His titles covered everything like an eclipse. His presence seemed to block out the small sun of that world. Kayden, even as a mortal, had more presence than a star king.
"Who are you?" An elder appeared, floating in the skies.
The old man hovered serenely, his eyes reflecting eras of knowledge beyond mortal comprehension. His silver hair and beard flowed like strands of energy, distorting reality slightly around him.
It was amusing how a mere mortal in this place, without great power, was capable of holding vast amounts of knowledge. For the first time in his life, Kayden found himself in an environment where knowledge was not directly proportional to power. Most mages here had great understanding of the laws, but were incapable of turning that directly into strength.
A very simple analogy was that outside this world, mages did not have all the pieces of the puzzle and could not fully assemble it. But here, they had absolutely all the pieces available and could assemble much of the puzzle. However, the small gaps that remained were ones they could not connect. They had large separate chunks, while outside, people had medium-sized pieces already linked together.
"Kayden Heart," Kayden did not hide his name or his titles at that moment. "I need information. Where am I?" Kayden had no compassion as he applied his aura directly over the elder. The question was both a request and a threat.
The old man shook his head and trembled slightly—it had been a long time since he had seen such a frightening being.
"Kayden Heart, you are in Eryndor, the central city of the Atherion Empire, ruled by Emperor Valerian."
"Where is the empire’s main city?" Kayden did not want to waste time in random parts of this world. The elder gave him some scattered directions, and the boy simply rose into the air and flew away, leaving an entire city watching his back. Most there already knew the legend of Kayden Heart. As soon as he left, the old man ordered the information to be spread and sold to anyone possible.
A few days later, Kayden was still traveling. This world was much more complete than he had expected. He even came across fragments of karmic lightning. That made no sense whatsoever—but they were there, lost amid random laws. Probably no mage was capable of sensing them easily, only Kayden, who already held a portion of it, had that ability.
"This place is truly insane." Jarvis suddenly awoke and spoke within Kayden’s mind, surprising him—the boy had nearly forgotten about that god still residing within him.
"Now I understand a little of what Orpheus explained," Kayden replied to Jarvis. In just a few days of travel, he had seen mortals who defied logic, mortals with strengths he had never seen outside.
Any mortal considered a genius in here would be capable of completely suffocating the greatest geniuses of the major organizations of Atherion. The difference in strength was simply enormous. But to compare them to Kayden was like comparing a river to an ocean—there was simply no comparison.
Kayden took about two years to finally arrive at the city’s center. In that time, he made countless stops to study laws and refine his knowledge. The progress he managed to make in so short a period was insane.