Liang Chen stood in the air somewhat absent-mindedly, his body had been reconstructed but his mind still felt a bit scattered, spread out amongst his elements. But he quickly regained himself, the faint heat of the ring in his palm tugging at the pieces of his mind and pulling them back together. Out of everything he had, this ring had been with him the longest, he'd acquired this ring before he even got hold of Yumao's egg. And right now it housed half of his family, only Yan Ling was missing.
"Yooo... I get that you may be proud of it, but don't you think it's about time you cover up that weapon? It ain't exactly tickling my fancies, and the violent missus here doesn't look too interested either."
A voice snuck into Liang Chen's ears as he gazed upon the ring, drawing his attention back to the surrounding reality. Shen Fei and Li Zhao Xu stood in the air a bit away from him, Zhao Xu averting her gaze somewhat while Shen Fei smirked, using his eyes to gesture towards Liang Chen's lower parts.
It was only now that Liang Chen realized that he wasn't actually wearing anything, not even a single scrap of cloth. But perhaps something like that should have been expected, he had just taken a jumble of elements and used them to form a body, he wasn't exactly in a situation where he could bother with creating some clothing.
But he obviously wouldn't stay like this now that he had realized it, he slid on the ring and brought out a set of clean white clothes he could change into. His gaze then slid past the two and landed on Yumao and Sheng Lian, who were so drained that they were only able to stay afloat thanks to Li Zhao Xu giving them a hand. Then again, the same may be true for Shen Fei, Yumao had taken a fair bit of energy from him, but if that was the case then he was hiding it pretty well.
He raised his foot and stepped forward, his intention being to arrive by his two companions. But he vanished the moment he put some strength into his legs. He appeared again a few metres behind Yumao, stumbling through the air slightly as he corrected his balance.
"This... Alright, some adjusting will be needed."
Liang Chen glanced down at his own body, clenching his hands a few times as he spoke. He didn't feel all that different, at least not in the power department, but there was clearly a rift between what he was feeling and what had actually happened. He had just become an Elemental composed of a myriad of elements, two of which don't normally birth Elementals, it was only to be expected that there would be things he would have to learn on his own.
He turned and tried to move once more, taking great care to not put an excess of strength into his movements. It went a bit better this time but he still overshoot the pair a little so he was forced to try again a third time before he managed to actually reach them.
"Thank you, I would not have managed to pull through if you hadn't been there to supply me with energy."
Had it not been for the Nether God's Grasp then the scattered fragments of Liang Chen's consciousness would not have been able to maintain themselves in the elements, at least not long enough for him to gather himself again. His Void and Time aspects would probably have managed to last long enough, but he'd lose all his other laws, it would have been a heavy blow.
"Ahh... Father... Since when were you so sappy?"
Yumao raised his head weakly while smirking, or at least doing his best to emulate one with his serpentine body. Sheng Lian also tried to talk, but she seemed far too drained to even muster a single word. She wasn't like Yumao after all, who had been touched by Liang Chen's Void in the past, her bloodline and cultivation were a bit weaker so the strain was simply too much for her.
"Oh shut it, I don't need you to copy Ling'er even in this state. Go and get some rest, both of you."
He really took too much after Yan Ling, even spitting jokes when he was on the verge of collapsing like this. Yan Ling really had pulled a fast one on Liang Chen with how much she corrupted his little Yumao, so surely a bit of punishment would be in order when they met again, right?
He didn't give the two any chance to formulate a response, placing a hand on each and gently stroking their heads before he pulled them into his interspatial ring. He slowed down the time within the ring as much as he could, it would take longer for them to recover like this but it also gave him more time to act if something unexpected happened to them during the recovery.
"Are you a Voidborn?"
Zhao Xu seemed like she was done waiting for Liang Chen to settle his business, questioning him the moment he put away Yumao and Sheng Lian. The Voidborn were a race that wasn't viewed favourably so he expected her tone to become sharp, but to his surprise it seemed more inquisitive than anything else.
"That way of opening a gate to the Void doesn't match Uncle Long or Fiend Ying, it was too quick to have been done by the technique of Ancient Turtle, and there's no way the Fogswamp would be able to open gates that can resist the wrath of the Sphere Consciousness. So, tell me, are you a Voidborn, a Ruler one at that?"
Li Zhao Xu was the daughter of the exalted Divine Emperor, the level of the people she could come into contact with was far above anything most people would even believe possible. As such she could easily recognize the Void, she had recognized it the second he opened a gate to it. But the fact that she recognized the wrath of the Sphere Consciousness was not something Liang Chen had expected, not even Shen Fei seemed to have recognized it when they first encountered it in the past.
"No, I can't be counted amongst the Voidborn. Me being able to use the Void is just a coincidence, well, a string of coincidences actually. But if you want concrete proof then I can't give any so you'll have to rely on your own judgment."
Liang Chen shrugged his shoulders as he turned to face Zhao Xu. He didn't try overly hard to convince her, he laid out the facts as they were and left the rest to her. Whether or not she was convinced or believed him would be up to her, they weren't exactly terribly close so he couldn't say that it mattered much to him either way.
"No, I believe you, let's just call it my intuition. And if that doesn't ease any worries then there's no way you'd have connections with Uncle Long if you were actually a Voidborn, there's no way he'd allow your head to stay connected to the rest of your body."
Surprisingly enough, Zhao Xu straightforwardly accepted his explanation, sliding her finger across her throat to emphasize her final statement. As she mentioned it, Liang Chen realized that he actually had no idea what sort of relationship the rulers of this multiverse had with the Voidborn.
The Void King at least seemed to sympathize with them a bit, and if it wasn't directed at them then it was directed at the Void itself. The Bloodwind Emperor seemed to be more neutral towards them, he had pointed out their nature but also gone on to say that no power was truly evil, only the intent that drove it. As for the Ever-Changing King that he had met once, he simply seemed to be amused at the turn of events. And finally, the Nine Star Demon God hadn't shown much of a reaction either before dropping the topic.
As for the rest of the rulers, he didn't know much, if anything, about their relationship with the Void. The best he had was guesses, both of which were based on Zhao Xu's response. The first guess was that the Heaven Splitting King had a pretty poor relationship with them and the second was that the Divine Emperor was mostly neutral. If he had animosity towards the Voidborn then he would definitely have warned his daughter, she'd probably have inherited a bit of that animosity over the years. But the only thing she showed when faced with his Void was curiosity so it didn't seem like she had inherited any hatred.
"Alright, with the pointless questioning out of the way..."
Shen Fei inserted himself into the conversation with a casual wave of his hand, almost as if he was trying to gesture that he was brushing the topic away to move onto the next one.
"Your body, how is it now? Well, I guess asking 'What is it now?' is more accurate."
A mass of elements that had conglomerated under the pressure brought about by the Sphere Consciousness, it was technically in the realm of Elementals. But an Elemental like this should not exist, even an Elemental formed from just two merged elements was exceedingly rare. Had it not been for the fact that the laws were fused to begin with, and that each of the elements contained his consciousness, this end-result would probably never have come about.
"It's good, amazing even, I feel like I just woke up from a good nap. As for what it is..."
Liang Chen drew his finger across his palm as he spoke, his nail cutting a small wound into his flesh. A bit of blood poured out and dripped down, crackling with electricity as it fell. But it split apart before it could get too far away, sliding apart into Liang Chen's various elements as it disappeared.
"It's all like that, from my blood to my bones and organs. It's all just a mass of elements tied together by consciousness and pressure, like charcoal compressed into a diamond. It's technically unstable since it will fall apart once it leaves my control, but I don't have a core like normal Elementals so I am able to avoid having a single glaring weak spot."
Indeed, Liang Chen still lacked that one vital thing all Elementals had, a core. Perhaps it was because he fused both his body and soul into a single cohesive entity, or perhaps it was because the world didn't consider him among the ranks of its Elementals. Personally, he didn't really care, it meant that he didn't have to constantly protect that glaring weak spot from attacks.
No, as long as he absorbed enough energy and elements he could heal any wound, even a decapitation could be healed. After all, at this point his head was mostly just decoration, the form he had right now was something he only had because he pictured it. His true form right now would either be just a ball of energy or the serpentine dragon he became when last unleashed his true form, any other form would just be something he had because he chose it.
"Since you said you feel amazing, does that mean...?"
Perhaps it was by tacit agreement, but neither Zhao Xu nor Shen Fei said a single thing about Liang Chen's domain or how different it was from the Void they had been told about. Or perhaps they just assumed that something like that was to be expected of a domain that contained more laws than just Void. Liang Chen knew what Shen Fei was asking him, the corners of his mouth slowly curving upwards.
"Yes, the hunt is still on."
The journey was almost over, only three Wraths remained ahead of him. The Abandoned Heart's Wrath, the Land's Wrath, and the final Nine Wraths sect, the rest of them had all been buried by his hands. And now it was time to bury the last three, it was time to reach Purgatory.