MIGHT AS WELL BE OP

Chapter 1206: He Felt…

Anthony felt as though his senses had gone haywire. He could sense everything and anything at the same time. One moment, his life seemed to flash before his eyes; the next, it vanished. One moment, he saw the stars, the constellations, then they vanished. One moment, he sensed absolutely nothing, yet he sensed something within that nothingness, before even that something vanished.

He sensed Time before Time tore through his senses. He felt as though he had grown old, then died and restarted life without his memories, before Time itself vanished.

He felt Space. He felt free. He felt unbound. Then he suddenly felt caged. He felt trapped. He felt claustrophobic. He felt chained. He felt restricted. Then Space vanished as though it had never existed to begin with.

He felt sane. He felt intelligent. His mind felt clear, clearer than ever before. His brain seemed to have opened itself to permanent Enlightenment. Then he felt insane. He felt mad. He felt deranged. He felt broken. He felt mentally fractured. He felt bipolar. Then it all stopped and vanished as though it had all been a lie.

He became hopeful. He grew ambitious. He had purpose. He had goals. Then he felt empty. He felt alone. He felt forsaken. He felt rejected. He felt abandoned. Then it vanished yet again as though he had merely dreamed it himself.

He felt peace. He felt harmony. He felt tranquility. He felt equanimity. He felt serenity. Then he didn’t. He felt war. He felt conflict. He felt hostility. He felt suicidal. He felt maniacal. He felt like a serial killer. He felt like a mass murderer.

He felt himself. He felt whole. He felt his existence. He understood himself. He felt his life. He felt his destiny. He felt his purpose. He felt his journey. He felt his destination. He felt his path. Then he felt lost. He felt foggy. He felt forgetful. He felt deluded. He felt depersonalized. He felt fractured. Then it all vanished into thin smoke.

He felt loved. He felt cherished. He felt blessed. He felt happy. He felt accomplished. He felt fulfilled. He felt satisfied. Then he didn’t. He felt hated. He felt loathed. He felt cursed. He felt sorrow. He felt imbalanced.

He felt satisfied. He felt content. He felt gratification. He felt complete. He felt justice. Then he didn’t. He felt greed. He felt hunger. He felt evil. He felt insatiable. He felt gluttonous.

He felt Omnipotent. He felt Omniscient. He felt Omnipresent. Then it all vanished. He was a nobody. He was a loser. How dare he feel such things? He was a mere plebeian.

He felt the peak. He felt the ultimate. He felt the heavenly. He felt perfection. He felt as though he had achieved the state of the Unchanged. He had attained the Throne. He felt Infinity. Then it all shattered. He was nothing. He was a worm. He was lower than a worm. He was but a grain of sand. He was filth. He didn’t deserve to be anything.

Anthony’s brain screamed. His senses, his mind, and his Thought Compartments, numbering in the millions, amplified everything he felt millions of times over as his very existence threatened to collapse. It overloaded him. It tested him against his will. It clawed at his mind. It chewed at his sanity. It bit into his depravity.

Mana? System? Romulus? Protection over his mind? What were those? They didn’t exist here.

Anthony felt the fundamental concept of existence itself flowing through his senses, the very senses that had guided him until now. He felt as though he had been here for eternity. It whispered to him to break. It whispered to him to surrender. It whispered to him to return to wherever he had come from. It whispered into his soul, promising more power if he yielded. Promising everything and yet nothing specific if he accepted the futility and pain woven into the concept of existence.

The whispers asked in hushed voices, Who are you? What are you? You are nothing. You are beneath nothing. They answered their own questions.

Each whisper, each thought, each concept his senses perceived overlapped, cascading into one another, moving to cut off his path, to taint his soul, to twist his senses. To twist his very sense of self. Each one sought to twist whatever he was into something he could have been, yet never was.

Then suddenly, it all halted. It all ceased. It all paused. It all vanished. Erased. Nullified. Forbidden.

A voice came, calm, collected, whole, firm, and unshakeable.

“I Am Null Anthony.”

With those four words, whatever was happening seemed to collapse upon itself as though its purpose had finally been fulfilled.

Anthony felt his senses calm. He felt as though he was standing upright once more. He felt his skin against itself. He felt his own hair. He felt… returned.

Anthony’s eyes fluttered open, light flooding into his sky-blue eyes. He didn’t speak. He simply stood there for a moment in utter confusion and bafflement.

‘What just happened?’ Anthony thought to himself.

He remembered his own brain, mind, and senses going mad as though the curses placed upon him by the Demon King were finally taking effect.

‘Was that the Ascension test? A test of the mind?’ he asked himself as he stood in silence.

Anthony immediately tried to feel the mana in the air, but to his surprise, there wasn’t a single mana mote to be found. It wasn’t only that; there wasn’t a single unit of any type of energy present. Anthony immediately decided to inspect everything about himself. As he had feared, he had lost everything. His Sense Dome, his Death Blesser ability, his mana core, his infinite mana, his All Seeing Eyes. None of them responded to him, as though he had left them all behind in the Acarnis Lower Galaxy.

‘System,’ Anthony called out, but the familiar chime never came.

‘Romulus!!! Unbound!!!’ Anthony called out to them through his soul and thoughts, but none of them answered, as though they too had abandoned him upon this new path of his.

Anthony took a deep breath before slowly exhaling. Although this was the first time he had experienced something like this, he didn’t panic. He had always made sure to remain calm throughout any situation.

Anthony finally decided to inspect his surroundings. If anything attacked him now, all he possessed were his physical abilities and his sharp mind, nothing else.

As Anthony’s sky-blue eyes took in the area before him, all he could see was pure white… no, utter whiteness, as though he had entered some sort of Heaven spoken of by religions back on Earth. He couldn’t see the end of it, as it stretched into an endless expanse of pristine whiteness. Anthony’s gaze shifted downward, and beneath his feet were white clouds that seemed to possess an impossible density and weight.

Scattered clouds drifted lazily in every direction, making it appear as though he had stepped into an endless white sky with neither beginning nor end.

‘Should I call out to anything?’ Anthony thought to himself. But he quickly shook his head at the idea. Making your presence known in an unfamiliar territory was a recipe for disaster and death.

As Anthony was about to take a step forward into the endless sea of whiteness and clouds, knowing he couldn’t simply remain standing there forever, a voice suddenly echoed throughout the boundless expanse.