1585  Stable realm

"Daoist Burhan, I regret that this will be the last time we meet," Jotun said, ignoring the blood dripping from his forehead into his eyes. That was the sole injury on his body - mainly because the rest of the injuries were on his tenets, and on his soul.

He was not nearly as unharmed as he appeared to be. Yet compared to the Fiery Mammoth who was sprawled on the ground in front of him, he was doing much better.

"You cannot be human," Burhan said hoarsely, a delayed sense of horror gripping his very being. It was unfortunate that only now did he begin to feel fear. If he had even an inkling of what a monster Jotun was, he would have never agreed to this war.

"Oh but I am, Burhan. I am very much human. It's just that the universe has forgotten what a human can really do. After all, we are one of the most adaptable races in the universe."

Jotun stepped forward towards Burhan's fully grown body, appearing like an ant in front of an elephant. Yet appearances meant little, for in this situation, it was the ant that was the victor.

He placed one foot onto Burhans body, and then bent down to place his hand as well.

"Farewell, Burhan, and thank you for the gift," he muttered, before activating Black Hole!

The Fiery Mammoth's body did not move. It did not shrink, nor did anything appear to change, save that the fire that covered its body was being sucked into Jotun's hand!

Jotun closed his eyes, almost as if lost in a trance, and continued to use his ability till all the fire was consumed, and Burhan fell limp on the ground, causing an earthquake.

Oddly enough, the quake carried beyond the arena of the Death Match, and entered the Midnight Realm. A furious clap of thunder roared across the realm, threatening to destroy everything with pure sound alone, as the sky turned a deep shade of red - almost mimicking Abaddon.

Jotun slowly opened his eyes, his pupils unfocused, as if recovering from a haze.

Slowly, he raised his hand and whispered, "Ember."

A small, orange flame appeared in his hand, a far cry from the roaring Starfire he had absorbed from Burhan. Yet this orange flame was so much more devastating, for it was another of the eight ruling laws of the universe - Ember!

With this, Jotun now had mastery over three of the eight ruling laws, and so was ready to enter the fourth level of the Celestial Immortal realm.

With a tribulation awaiting him, Jotun no longer cared about Burhan's corpse, or the fight between galaxies, or anything else. He departed from the Midnight Realm. When he returned, he would be even stronger.

The once silent Midnight Realm was now embroiled in a tumultuous uproar. It was not the people of the realm causing the noise, but the realm itself. The death of a Celestial Immortal was, by no means, an insignificant matter.

Their existence was connected to the deepest, most fundamental laws of the universe. They could influence everything beneath the Dao, and as a result, they were also containers for the universe's most powerful laws.

An Immortal, whether they were Earth, Heaven, or Celestial, got their immortality not from themselves, but from the universe itself. They were technically not immortal - it was just that their life was as long as the universes, which might as well be the same thing.

This was because, by becoming strong enough to get in touch with the laws, and some of the secrets of the realm, they also acted as an anchor for the universe's stability. These were secrets few knew, for it hardly even mattered.

The point, however, was that the reserve of power within a Celestial Immortal would be released upon their death. Yet the Midnight Realm was too low level to contain the power of the eight ruling laws which was unleashed upon Burhan's death.

Though, for some reason, the amount of energy released was far less than expected. Not that it mattered.

Unlike an ordinary realm, which would strain and even fracture under the duress of such power, the Midnight Realm was reinforced by the System, and made stable by the actions of the Galactic Sovereign Turtle.

The Midnight Realm itself had a special law that allowed a Heavenly Tree to control the energy of the realm, yet the law was not complete, so as the realm came under stress, the laws began to rapidly advance.

Instead of a single tree managing the energy of the realm, the law adapted to allow any Mythical or sufficiently powerful tree to carry out the necessary actions. The Void Stabilisation Sequoia trees that the turtle had planted throughout the realm kept its space stable, and did not allow a single crack to form.

The Bodhi tree sapling, which he may or may not have stolen when he turned Zuri into the Bodhi tree, began to grow by absorbing the ruling laws. The Bodhi tree could grant enlightenment even to immortals, yet as it grew, it granted enlightenment to the Lotus who had fused with Menara, the continent on which the Midnight Inn was built. As the Lotus entered enlightenment, it too began to absorb some of those additional energies running amok in the realm.

The Peach tree of Immortality, the seeds of which it had taken from some mischievous monkey, began to sprout suddenly.

While the turtle had not managed to get its hand on the saplings for the other Trees of Heaven, it had created the perfect conditions for those seeds to spontaneously form on their own so… a Yggdrasil sapling suddenly appeared, given birth to by the quickly growing realm.

Yet the changes lasted only for a few seconds,for the energy from the Celestial body was too little for the whole realm to absorb since most of it was missing.

None of the guests noticed the changes at all. At most, they felt like the laws of the realm were a little stronger.