"What the hell is going on?" roared a senator of the Crystal race, but the divine birds, Aizel and Firin said nothing, only glaring at the image up in the air.

The rift between the birds was not new. In fact, what very few living beings knew was that from the very beginning of the Crystal realm, these two birds had played a significant role in shaping the realm itself, as well as its laws.

Aizel and Firin harbored different ambitions, wanting to grow their faith, and specifically designing the realm to favor them. It was no accident that the entire Crystal realm depended on the Sol and Frio birds for light, without any other celestial body high up in the air, the template most realms normally developed. To further cement the need for their light, long ago, when they had newly discovered the divine path, they had persuaded Vinei to become a Deity as well, and make the darkness his vessel of faith.

So began one of the greatest cons of the Crystal realm, and the first real division between the birds. It was just that neither Aizel or Firin had imagined that Vinei would become so powerful, able to contest against both of them despite becoming a Deity later.

"Do not be alarmed," Firin, the Sol bird, said. "Whatever he's doing, it will eventually be to combat the outsiders. As long as the pressure they face is great enough, sooner or later they will have to accept our terms. They cannot rule this realm without our support."

The Frio bird nodded, in agreement.

"Besides, the realm is on the verge of ascending to the Heaven Immortal level," she said. "It is no longer of the scale where one individual can control it, or alter its foundation. Whatever he is doing, the result is bound to be limited. After spending millions of years in isolation, it is too late for him to control how this realm develops, regardless of how many monsters he has under his control." The senator continued to stare at the projection, looking at Lex, and feeling doubtful. Although the Crystal race and the two divine birds had a cooperative relationship, it was a fact that Kusur, the Crystal Deity, was in the Primordial Garden, not the Crystal realm. Despite having a deeper foundation and greater backing, within the Crystal realm itself, they could only negotiate with the divine birds, and sometimes even had to take orders from them.

"The senate has been telling you for years that it is unlikely that the lord of darkness spent all his time only meditating. If he has spent the last many years preparing, then if today he wants to do something big, we'll be caught unprepared," the senator complained.

"He is not the only one with a connection to this realm. He cannot do anything without..." Firin began saying, but froze. It was true that the two divine birds were also innately and closely connected to the realm, but it was only now that he tried to leverage that connection that he realized that through some unfamiliar defilement, their connection to the realm was temporarily severed! "Defilers!" Aizel hissed, realizing what the familiar energy was. "How is this possible? We made sure to eliminate them from the realm! No Defiler can enter this realm without alerting us!"

"It does not matter. No matter what he's doing, we only need to block him," said Firin as he began gathering his divine energy to forcefully break through the barrier and return to their hidden temple.

Lex was much stronger than the two Deities, but the ability of Divine energy to create miracles was not something he could simply negate. Fortunately, he did not need to. While every single realm in the universe developed its own, unique laws to dictate how the realm operated, they also had to adhere to the laws of the universe itself.

"As you can see," Lex's voice rang out from the vision, "I have permission from the realm owner to carry out an extermination operation. But don't you worry, the extermination only covers the Kraven, and not you students from Ventura. So, once I'm done, you'll be free to go."

While the Hellions around Lex were frozen, there were many others in the realm watching the vision who were not. Some of the smarter ones realized that the situation was quickly getting out of control for Lex was displaying a level of power they could not contest. They also couldn't afford the eradication of the Kraven they had worked so hard to nurture.

Although they were all students of Ventura, some were naturally smarter and better than others. Immediately realizing the situation, they tried to retreat from the realm to inform their branch headmaster... but they could not.

The entire realm... was covered in a powerful storm of energy and laws the likes of which they had never witnessed. Nothing could go inside the realm, and nothing could go out, because the realm itself was undergoing some kind of drastic change. It was just that the consequences of that change had not become apparent yet, so most had not noticed.

How could they? They were all distracted, watching the vision of Lex.

"Now you might be wondering how I plan on exterminating all the Kraven in the realm," Lex said to the Hellions, who were still frozen under the might of his Domination. "Since you're students of Ventura, let me give you a lesson. I could travel across the realm and eliminate them one by one, but that would take too long. So how can I do it much faster? I could use some kind of law to eliminate them across the realm, but specifically targeting Kraven wouldn't be easy to do. So how do we solve that? Anyone?"

Lex looked at the Hellions, almost as if expecting them to answer. They, of course, did not answer him.

"Using Foundational laws would make the task much harder, so in that case, wouldn't it be more convenient to use Relational laws? But for that, I would need to enter the Heaven Immortal realm, right? So let's start a tribulation."

Lex looked up at the sky and saw dark clouds gathering, as if heralding something dark and devastating. The strange thing was that as the people from the rest of the realm looked up, they too saw dark clouds gathering, gradually blanketing the entire realm in darkness.

How could that be possible? There was no way an Earth Immortal's tribulation clouds could cover an entire realm!

"Oh right, I just remembered, if I become a Heaven Immortal, I'll be transported out of the realm," Lex said as he snapped his fingers, as if he truly encountered a serious conundrum. "Oh well, I have no choice then. Might as well bring the whole realm with me when I go."

A profoundly chaotic aura bled into the realm's air, its weight pressing down upon the lands with the certainty of inevitable calamity.

Lex's smile grew wider as he felt the Pineapple cracking on his forehead. Until the Pineapple completely broke, his tribulation would not begin, which meant the clouds covering the realm were not from his tribulation. No, this was a tribulation for the whole realm itself - or at least that's what Vinei had told him. Meanwhile, the other Divine birds were the only ones who truly realized what

was actually happening.

"That accursed monster is kidnapping the whole damn realm!" Firin exclaimed in shock, anger, and disbelief!