The southern continent of Elyndor had always been the quiet shadow to the north's storm-lit glory.
Rolling golden plains, ancient qi academies carved into emerald hills, sprawling merchant cities where silk and spirit herbs changed hands under perpetual sunshine. For centuries it had styled itself the "Heart of Civilization"—stable, cultured, far removed from the brutal frontier wars of the Frostfang Pass.
Now the heart was rotting from within.
Deep beneath the Leyline Nexus of the Grand Southern Plains—a convergence point of a dozen major qi veins that had fed the continent's prosperity for millennia—something black and patient finally stirred.
The Oblivion Seed, planted in secret during the height of the Cycle by the last failed Sovereign who chose parasitism over ascension, cracked open like an overripe fruit.
Black tendrils—thin as spider silk but stronger than void iron—spread through the ley lines. They did not corrupt the qi; they hollowed it. Where golden energy once flowed, now only echoes remained. Cultivators in nearby sects felt their cores stutter, their breakthroughs stall, their lifespans inexplicably shorten by days at a time.
The Remnant Conclave acted swiftly.
In a hidden cavern beneath the city of Aurumveil, the spectral woman who called herself Mirage-Who-Was (her true name long devoured along with her original body) gathered her lieutenants.
Seven figures—each wearing a different stolen face—knelt in a circle of dying starlight candles.
"The Sovereign has left the north," Mirage-Who-Was intoned, voice a chorus of the devoured. "He and his Moonlit whore wander the Ebonsea Expanse, chasing ghosts of lost worlds. The northern citadel is strong, but the south is weak. We bloom here. We consume the ley lines. When he returns… there will be nothing left to return to."
She raised a hand.
The black crystal at the circle's center pulsed once.
Oblivion Bloom – Phase 1 Initiated
Across the southern plains, black flowers erupted from the soil—petals of absolute nothing, stems of hollowed qi. Wherever they bloomed, reality thinned. Space grew brittle. Time stuttered. Living beings within a kilometer felt their existence fray at the edges—memories flickering, cultivation bases destabilizing, bodies aging decades in minutes.
The first city to fall was Luminara, a trade hub of jade pagodas and floating lanterns.
Screams rose as the black flowers bloomed in the central square.
Cultivators at Foundation and Core Formation realms tried to resist—unleashing firestorms, qi blades, aura shields.
The flowers drank it all.
Petals opened wider—devouring techniques, absorbing energy, growing taller.
Within an hour, Luminara was a ghost city—buildings intact, streets empty, only faint echoes of final screams hanging in the air.
Word reached the Origin Citadel within minutes via emergency array.
Elaric and Elowen had returned from the Ebonsea only two days earlier—laden with sealed jade slips from ancient Sovereign tombs, fragments of lost Daos now quietly integrating into his One With Origin class.
He stood on the rebuilt spire, scanning southward with Origin Omnipresence.
Black flowers bloomed across his awareness like ink in water.
Elowen joined him, her Moonlit Warden senses confirming what he already knew.
"It's the Oblivion Seed," she said. "One of the Cycle's fail-safes. If a Sovereign ever severed the iteration, the Seed would activate in the world's most stable region—devour stability itself until nothing remained but hollowed husks. The Remnant Conclave must have triggered it early."
Elaric's expression did not change.
"Then we end it early."
He turned to the assembled northern alliance commanders—now swelled with defectors from southern houses fleeing the bloom.
"Prepare teleport gates. Full legion deployment. We march south at dawn."
Dawn came with storm clouds that had not existed an hour earlier.
Elaric stepped through the first gate—alone at first.
The southern plains greeted him with silence and black petals.
He walked forward.
Each step—Dao Authority imposed a simple law:
"Oblivion cannot bloom where origin walks."
Black flowers withered at his approach—petals curling inward, stems dissolving into harmless ash. The ley lines beneath his feet began to glow again—golden qi returning like blood to starved veins.
But the Remnant Conclave was waiting.
Seven spectral figures materialized in a perfect circle around him—Mirage-Who-Was at the center.
"You come alone," she said, shifting faces: a long-dead Sovereign, a betrayed lover, a screaming child. "Arrogant. Perfect."
They attacked as one.
Seven different stolen Daos:
1. Crimson Devourer – bloodline-eating mist
2. Azure Extinction – mana-nullifying void wave
3. Golden Soul Reaper – qi-core shredding chains
4. Violet Intent Obliterator – killing-thought blades
5. Obsidian Reality Fracture – spatial collapse spheres
6. Emerald Life Leech – vitality-draining vines
7. Mirage-Who-Was – illusion-identity theft nexus
All converged.
Elaric did not raise a hand.
Singularity Event – Test Activation
Cooldown: Epoch-limited – first use free
He simply willed it.
A point of absolute black appeared between him and the Conclave—not void, but the absence of everything except origin potential.
The seven Daos rushed toward it—and were pulled in.
Crimson mist collapsed inward.
Azure wave folded into nothingness.
Golden chains shattered into motes.
Violet blades turned on their wielders.
Obsidian spheres inverted and consumed their casters.
Emerald vines withered to dust.
Mirage-Who-Was screamed—a dozen voices at once—as her stolen identities were peeled away layer by layer.
The singularity drank them all.
When it collapsed, only seven piles of colorless ash remained.
Mirage-Who-Was's final face—her original, long-forgotten—stared up at him with something like relief.
"Thank… you."
The ash scattered on wind that carried origin light.
DING!
Remnant Conclave – Eradicated
Seven Stolen Dao Fragments Absorbed
Origin Depth +0.7 → Current: 1.7
New Passive: Dao Digestion – Devoured Daos permanently integrate into Origin Core, granting conceptual authority over their domains.
The black flowers across the south began to wither en masse.
The Oblivion Seed—its guardians gone—shriveled at the source.
Elaric exhaled once.
The ley lines sang again—clean, golden, alive.
Later that night—back in the Ebonsea library's deepest vault.
Elaric sat cross-legged among floating jade slips.
Elowen rested against his shoulder, reading an ancient marriage rite from a lost Sovereign era.
He felt the surge.
Origin Depth Progression Milestone
Level Equivalent: Beyond Measurable
Singularity Event Mastery Reached
He tested it consciously.
A small sphere appeared above his palm—black, perfect, humming with unborn potential.
He willed it to birth something simple: a single silver-white lotus.
The singularity bloomed.
The lotus floated upward—petals of origin light, stem of condensed space, scent carrying peace.
Elowen laughed softly.
"You just created life from nothing."
"No," he corrected. "I allowed nothing to remember what it could become."
He closed his palm.
The lotus drifted toward her—settling in her hair like a crown.
She kissed him—soft, certain.
"Whatever comes next," she whispered, "we meet it together."
Outside, the Ebonsea waves sang.
New threats would rise—lost Sovereign tombs awakening, forgotten Daos stirring, perhaps even fragments of other Cycles bleeding through from parallel realities.
But for now—peace.
The Sovereign and his consort had time.
Time to explore.
Time to grow.
Time to decide what eternity looked like when no one else wrote the rules.
End of Chapter 14.
The south is cleansed. The Conclave is dust. Singularity is mastered. The Ebonsea still holds deeper secrets.