The Tale of the Void Emperor

After forty seconds of flying, Athan saw a vast blanket of darkness in front of him.

It was the forest of darkness.

Once Athan entered the border of the forest, a sudden force tried to suppress him.

Since his void field was activated, he managed to resist but only for a second as he plummed downwards.

*BANG!*

"Hehe, I told you that you won't be able to fly after entering the Forest of Darkness," Nina giggled, "you can fly but only inside the forest, not on top of it."

"Fine, fine," Athan stood up and shrugged before he said, "I can actually try to fly over the forest as well, but I will likely consume all of my Abyssal Blood Crystals by the time I reach the ascension platform."

Athan narrowed his eyes and looked at the trees and plants that were colorful, but all of them were glowing with darker shades of color like dark green, dark purple, dark blue, dark gold, etc.

"However, I can stampede through this forest and reach the end," Athan grinned as he changed his void frame into Arcane Lord.

His body transformed as he became taller, and mystical grey curved pipes appeared in his arms and legs along with eccentric patterns. His entire body had tiny of those pipes used to channel potent energy to execute condensed projection energy attacks of Arcane Lord.

Primo, Taezin, and Pixilote also came outside as they hovered around Athan.

"Master, what do we do now?"

"Taezin, create a pentagon barrier around me with your power, and Primo, you will try to redirect as many attacks as you can with your portal power and from monsters around me so that I consume less of my energy," Athan said.

Primo and Taezin nodded as Taezin conjured a Pentagon Barrier of Earth, Fire, Water, Wood, and Metal formation around Athan as they complicated each other with their cycle.

"What about me, Master?" Pixilote said with a pout.

"You will watch my back, and if any monsters who are better with soul power try to attack me, then you will block them and stop them with your dream power," Athan said with a smile.

"Leave it to me," Pixilote said with determination.

"Everyone, ready?" Athan said as he floated one meter off the ground.

"Ready!"

*BOOOOOOOOOM....*

Athan rushed forward as he broke any trees or plants blocking his path.

*ROARRRR..*

A dark amethyst lion roared toward Athan in the front, but Athan grinned as he pointed his right arm forward and released four simple beams worth of 1 ABC towards the lion's legs.

*ROAR...*

Before the four beams reached the lion, it also conjured a prism-shaped amethyst crystal with fast-moving purple lights whirling around it. This crystal shot towards Athan at a fast speed as well.

*AWOOOOOOOO....*

But right after that, the four lasers hit the lion's legs and crippled it. As for the attack released by that lion? Primo time opened a portal before the attack, while the 2nd portal appeared in front of another monster wolf that suddenly pounced on Athan.

*BOOOOOOOM...*

Athan didn't even stop for a moment during this exchange of attacks and continued after dealing with two monsters.

"Good job, primo," Athan said with a smile as things were going as he expected.

Taezin's Pentagon Barrier was used to destroy trees and mountains coming in their path. He could do that easily and quickly with its myriad of nature; Taezin controlled his barrier and changed its elements according to situations making it easier.

Nina was sitting on Athan's shoulder and suddenly poked Athan's cheeks.

"Ahem, Athan," Nina smiled and said, "five minutes have passed, and those six people have started attacking the Ruler of Labyrinth."

"Six?" Athan raised his eyebrows, but he didn't stop flying and continued as they dealt with anything coming on their way.

"Yep, six," Nina nodded, "one more person just entered the 1st floor."

"How long will it take me to reach the ascension with my current speed?" Athan asked.

Nina looked at the front and measured Athan's speed before saying, "approx seven minutes."

"However, Those six people are all at the peak Anarchy plane, so they will need at most one hour to defeat the Ruler of Labyrinth," Nina said.

Athan nodded and didn't say anything as he focused on moving. More monsters were arriving, and he was saving his Abyssal Blood Crystals by only crippling their movement with his attacks. This way, they won't be able to bother him or slow him down.

Taezin was also pushing monsters aside by producing boulders and waters from his Pentagon Barrier while also maintaining it to clear the path. Primo and Pixilote were dealing with monsters' long-range attacks from sides and back.

'I really need to create some utility and control techniques,' Athan thought while moving forward, 'I also need to make a technique that can increase the flying speed of my wings.'

...

After six minutes, Nina suddenly spoke, "Alright, we are close. Do you see that giant titan monster? The ascension platform is right behind it."

Athan narrowed his eyes as he looked at the ten-meter tall black crystal giant with dark green patterns and spoke, "And it won't budge from its position unless I kill it, right?"

"Yep," Nina nodded with a smile.

"Oh well, then...," Athan muttered as he consumed 7 Abyssal Blood Crystals to make the total ABC energy in his body to 20 since he already had 13 ABC worth of energy running in his body and then released a technique from 3rd Void Art.

Mayhem of Arcane but an improved version of it.

His entire Arcane Lord body glowed as ABC energy coursed in those pipes before Athan pointed his right hand forward and released an orb.

The orb had countless linear grey lines going crazy inside it.

*ROARRRRR...*

The Titan monster roared and punched towards the incoming orb, unaware of its dangers.

The orb hit the fist of the giant before...mayhem occurred.

*BOOOOOOM...*

The monster was instantly enveloped inside a grey bubble before those linear grey lines caused chaos inside. They arbitrarily pierced the monster while continuously bouncing off the bubble, creating millions of holes in the entire Titan monster's body in just one second before the monster turned into motes.

The Anarchy symbols around Athan reached 41,800 when he released his Mayhem Of Arcane, indicating that on the power scale, this technique was his most powerful one so far.

And it was the case as well since the time he took to create the Arcane Lord void frame was more than the other two void frames.

All techniques of the Arcane Lord void frame were also more complicated and refined to bring out more power of Abyssal Blood Crystal's energy.

"Let's go," Athan said after the Titan monster turned disappeared and walked into the Ascension platform.

He infused his soul energy in the altar before a portal appeared, and all of them entered inside the portal before arriving on the first floor.

*ROARRRRRRR....*

They arrived on a floating stone platform, and there were also other floating stone platforms around them.

A giant ten kilometers tall monster with four hands and two legs was fifty kilometers away from them.

The monster was a humanoid with a dark gold metal body that had eccentric red patterns. It wore wild clothes that only hid its middle pirate part while its upper body was bare with explosive muscles.

Ruler of this Labyrinth, Kinkou Mountain God!