The Tale of the Void Emperor

Lily, Mimi, Huarin, and Dreevindo roamed for a while before entering another multi-colored rift portal at Atomix-grade.

With the Ark, they had an easy time stealing and getting resources.

After staying in this rift dimension for eight days, they left. Naturally, the treasure beast appeared on the eighth day, everyone gathered to defeat it, but Lily stole half of the rewards.

This treasure monster was on top of a mystical giant volcano, and after it was finally killed, eight peak Atomix-grade catalysts were produced from the volcano. Since Lily was right under the treasure beast while staying inside the Ark, she stole four peak Atomix-grade catalysts and disappeared before everyone could attack her.

Inside the Ark space...

"Alright, we have gathered a lot of resources in this rift dimension. Now it's time to use them," Lily said with a smile, "let's lookout for a Lerento portal and leave through it."

...

After three hours of traveling, they finally encountered a Lerento portal and entered inside.

After going through it, they arrived in another Firmament Chams, but it was different.

This Firmament chasm has countless colorful square check box phenomenons littered everywhere in the sky and bottom. Other than that, there were many grey orbs with different colors of patterns on them floating everywhere. Some were a few meters big, while some were kilometers big.

"Woah, which Lerento is this?" Lily asked as she looked at the scenery of this Firmament Chasm.

"I don't know," Dreevindo shook his head, "I've never been here before. But let's find the exit platform and enter the actual Lerento to find where we are."

"Why don't we check out those orbs?" Mimi spoke curiously, "A faint light is coming out on top of each orb; that light is exuding space energy, so we might be able to go somewhere if we go on top of any grey orb."

"Grey orbs with different colors patterns on the....," Dreevindo murmured, "let's go and check; I am also curious."

"I don't see any people here as well," Huarin said as she looked around and then asked Dreevindo, "didn't you say that Firmament Chasms are filled with people?"

"Indeed, but numbers decrease if we go higher or lower since most of the people would spend time inside dimensional rifts."

Suddenly, a blinding orange spark appeared several hundred kilometers away and became big as its bright orange light spread everywhere.

"What's that!!?"

"Oh my god...such a big portal?" Lily spoke with a dumbfounded expression.

Huarin, Lily, and Dreevindo were also dumbfounded.

However, they suddenly felt immense pressure on them and saw giant silhouettes with different mixed colors aura around them at the portal as they entered inside.

"Legendary...," Dreevindo muttered with wide eyes, "they are all Legendary beings! Even a gaze of theirs could kill us!"

"Legendary?" Lily murmured as she looked at that grand scenery, "how powerful..."

"Hohoho, kids...what are you doing here?"

Suddenly four of them heard a voice behind them and shivered. They didn't even sense the presence and were still not sensing anything. If they didn't hear any voice, they wouldn't even have known that someone was behind them.

Lily was going to Ark space and disappeared with everyone, but she didn't do it as her brain's gears turned fast in this situation, 'It's better to not attract the attention of this powerhouse by disappearing like this...there's a chance that she might discover the Ark's existence if I use it.'

'Since she didn't intend to kill us when she could and opted to talk, I shouldn't risk it either,' Lily thought.

Lily, Mimi, Huarin, and Dreevindo slowly turned around and saw a slim middle-aged-looking lady with long-snow white hair looking at them with an amusing smile.

"How did you end up here?" the lady asked with an interesting expression.

"S-senior...we entered a Lerento portal from a Firmament Chasm of 2nd Lerento and arrived here," Dreevindo said. His voice and expression were both nervous.

"Oh? That's rare!" The lady spoke and chuckled.

"Rare? Wait...," Dreevindo said before a light bulb lit up in his head as he asked with a shocked expression, "don't tell me we are in a 6th or 7th Lerento?"

"Indeed," the lady nodded with a smile, "it's very rare that one would enter 6th or 7th Lerento's Firmament Chasm through another 1st to 5th Firmament Chasm's Lerento portals unless..."

The lady paused as she glanced at Mimi, "unless it was affected by something."

"Me?" Mimi pointed at herself with confusion, "but...I've never been to 6th or 7th Lerento's Firmament Chasm."

"Hohoho, then I don't know," the lady chuckled and shook her head, "anyway, I am getting late, so here is a portal. You are at the very deep part of this Firmament Chasm, and it will take a lot of time to encounter the exit platform. So...," the lady said and winked, "enter through this portal for a shortcut."

After saying that, she disappeared in front of them.

There was a portal in the potion where she floated, however.

"Should we use this porta?" Huarin asked with doubt.

'Come close to me and fly towards the portal,' Lily said with a stoic expression, 'however, don't enter inside the portal.'

Everyone was surprised as to why Lily sounded so serious. However, they followed her instruction.

After moving towards the portal, Lily took one step forward to enter while putting Mimi, Huarin, and Dreevindo inside the Ark space.

And...just as Lily saw different scenery with her eyes, she also entered inside the Ark space and disappeared.

These portals didn't have another portal connected to them, but they were like teleportation porta. After entering inside, they would appear at the intended location, but not from another portal. The rift portals were like that as well.

After entering inside the entry rift portal, they would randomly appear inside the rift dimension, and after leaving through the exit portal, they would randomly appear outside that was near their entry location.

...

Inside the Ark space...

Everyone was looking at the lively scenery through the cloudly screen.

"We should have asked that lady which Lerento was this. 6th or 7th?" Huarin asked.

"I don't know anything about 6th or 7th Lerentos because I've never been there," Dreevindo said with a wry smile.

Lily had a frown on her face and was in deep thought.

"What's the matter, sister Lily?" Mimi asked seeing Lily's current state.

Lily snapped out of her thoughts and spoke, "that lady said that something affected the Lerento portal, which caused us to arrive at such a rare location...

"I think...," Lily paused before she stretched her arm as something appeared in her hand.

That thing had a lotus-like base with a square on it with a single hole on all of its sides. There were also colorful patterns on the square. The lotus was shining black as even though it was black, it gave off a faint black shine with a hint of very faint gold in it.

"This..., "Dreevindo narrowed his eyes and muttered, "is this Ark of Exordium's core control Artifact? I have seen records and ancient carvings in some library, and this matches it."

"Yep," Lily nodded and continued, "I also think that the reason we ended up here in this place was due to the Ark of Exordium."

"It could also be a coincidence," Huarin said with a smile, "that lady said that was rare to come there through the Lerento portal; it was not impossible."

"Yeah, that could be the case as well," Mimi nodded.

Lily revealed a hesitant expression and nodded but then shook her head, "that could also be possible, but I just have that faint feeling that it was because of this Ark. Also...I don't know why, but I felt that it would be bad news if I used Ark's power in front of that lady. That's why I didn't use it."

"Also, that lady clearly knew about Mimi's identity or rather her race. She readily saw through the disguise," Lily continued.

"Yeah, the way she looked at me, I felt like she was looking at my forehead," Mimi nodded.

Lily looked at Huarin and Dreevindo as she hurridly sent through telepathy thoughts, 'You both already know about Mimi's situation, so we will have to stay cautious from now. We also can't stay in this dangerous Firmament Chasm.'

...

"Lily, you should stay inside for now while me, Huarin, Dreevindo go out and use the exit platform to leave this Lerento," Lily said as she patted Mimi's head, "once we enter a city and find Blessed Houses, you can come out, okay?"

Mimi smiled wryly and nodded, "I understand. It seems that my identity is a bit sensitive, but why?"

Lily hesitated, but then she smiled and pointed at Athan-cocoon, "I will tell you once Athan wakes up and come out of that cocoon, okay?"

"Alright, then I will start training here while you all find the Blessed Houses," Mimi said as she raised her eyebrows and nodded as she went to her bedroom and started training on top of the bed.

...

Lily, Huarin, and Dreevindo came outside and moved towards the exit portal after buying the ticket.

When it was their turn, they went on top of the silver disk.

Dreevindo turned to his left side and asked a stranger, who was also a dwarf-like him, "Hello, brother. Do you know which Lerento is this?"

The other dwarf had a long and thick beard that reached his toes. Hearing Dreevindo's question, he spoke in a cranky-thick voice, "6th Lerento. Why you don't even know something like that while being here?"

Dreevindo smiled wryly and said, "eh....we entered through a Lerento Portal so..."

"Oh...alright.. Have a good productive day."