Peak of the Spirit Race, Data Void

After a spirit passes their tribulation, they would attain the next stage of the Greater Spirit called as Ancestral Stage, they would then be called Ancestral Spirits.

Harnessing the powers of their ancestral bloodline, their abilities and racial talents would be greatly enhanced as well.

Only a few spirits that are lucky enough can attain this said stage, and if one did indeed got lucky they would instantly earn the respects of those below his/her bloodline stage.

Higher than the Ancestral Stage is called the Ancient Spirit stage, at this stage, the spirit could be called to have reached the apex of their strengths and would have the ability to command every single spirit below him/her.

This is also the bloodline stage that Undine had reached her peak, but right now her strength was demoted due to her being sealed for thousands of years in her temple.

If she had only spent that time to seek a breakthrough, then she could've possibly reached the stage that their progenitor had reached...

But now that her strength was demoted a level lower, that stage seems to be difficult to reach in a short amount of time.

In the history of their spirit lineage, only 4 have reached the same stage as hers, and they were each sealed somewhere in this vast world.

The 4 of them would've been able to reach the next stage if they weren't sealed by someone whom they couldn't beat even with the 4 of them joining hands.

That man had managed to deal with them easily, they were defeated tragically and were also sealed away by him.

Thinking about that man made Undine's eyes go red with anger, but she held herself from lashing out.

If it weren't for that man sealing them, their spirit race would've prospered and would not be hiding away from the public like rats instead.

She stared at Qianna and silently assessed her before sighing bitterly to herself.

'It's a pity. Her talents are remarkable indeed as she was able to reach her current strength despite her possessing an extremely sparse spirit bloodline.'

'It's a pity that her body had been plagued by a curse, she would've been a suitable candidate to cultivate as my disciple, a pity indeed.'

***

Qianna's mother had only reached the Lesser Spirit stage when she was born, her mother had also passed away 7 years later after she gave birth to Qianna.

Qianna inherited the looks of her mother but due to the limitation of her mother's bloodline, Qianna was born with a sparse spirit bloodline lesser than that of Lesser Spirits.

Her mother's greatest regret before dying was her inability to break through her limitations.

Although Qianna could not fully assess Undine's bloodline stage, she still nevertheless felt the deep and unfathomable aura that she emitted.

The aura bore great pressure on her bloodline, she felt that Undine was way stronger than her mother's by a few stages.

If she were to put her mother and Undine in a simple comparison, her mother's bloodline is that of a small firefly while Undine's could be compared to that of an extremely bright star.

She walked towards Undine with her eyes lowered, she did not dare to look at her in the eye as she might get offended by such actions.

Don't be deceived by Undine's calm and gentle attitude, one should know that she's an experienced spirit that fought in the Great War, so you could say that she was hiding her violent side beneath that calm face of hers.

After all, those who are usually gentle are the scariest when angered.

Meanwhile, Aaron was currently feeling jittery all over as he felt that the silence between Undine and Qianna was too pressurizing.

He knew that they were communicating telepathically and was anxious about what would Undine feel if Qianna were to say to Undine what had happened to her over these past few months.

Would Undine feel angered by what her fellow spirit's descendant had suffered? Or would she feel nothing about that?

He was extremely restless while thinking of the possibility of his first thought from happening.

While they were silently talking to themselves, this in a way slightly benefitted Aaron on stalling some time, and the more time they took to talk, the more he felt safer.

He felt his pressure slowly dissipating as time passed by.

He looked at them silently communicating with each other and thought to himself.

'I might be able to get out of here alive! Thankfully they were still clueless of the reinforcements that I had requested, or else they might've killed me and hide somewhere.'

He was gloating of their incoming misfortune, he felt that he should be rewarded by the organization for immediately reporting them of Undine breaking out of her seal.

Thinking of this possibility made him shudder in join and felt extremely excited about his prospects.

His face then darkened and strangely muttered to himself.

"It won't be too long.. and I would be able to.." his low gloomy voice trailed off, no one knows what he was thinking.

***

In a vast expanse of gray emptiness.

Mirage walked with heavy feet, or to be precise, it was his consciousness.

After his vision darkened, he had suddenly woke up inside this strange space of gray emptiness.

He had no idea where this place was he could not find the exit of this place as well, he was lost inside for god who knows how long already.

He had completely forgotten the time he had counted while he was in this space, he felt like he had been inside for years but felt that it was too unlikely, so he discarded this thought out of his head and just went to continue finding the possible exits.

He had tried opening his game panel earlier but he had only received this strange message.

[ Could not open. ]

[ You are currently offline. ]

This was completely strange as he did not remember that he had logged out of the game, but no one was there to answer his questions so he could only reluctantly throw this matter at the back of his head.

"Just where exactly is this place.."

He said to himself.

When he first came here, he thought that he had died and had woken up in a place that was called by most as the 'afterlife'.

He had even thought that his brain in reality got toasted because he had died in the game, it was certainly ridiculous, but it wasn't wrong for him to have this strange thought as that certain virtual reality game was just too infamous back when it happened.

He continued walking but he wasn't walking around aimlessly as his eyes were on the lookout for any possible changes that he could detect in this space.

What he didn't know was the thought of him having entered the 'afterlife' wasn't entirely wrong.

The place was indeed an afterlife, an afterlife for the players to be exact.

This place was initially created to accommodate the players who had died in the game, but due to the unknown changes that the game's Artificial Intelligence was exhibiting, this 'afterlife' space was kicked by it, thus this resulted in what space look like right now, grey emptiness.

As for the current location of the 'afterlife', it was now located in a place called the [ Data Void ].

Also known as the gathering space of all the deleted datas of the game ever since its creation.

Simply put, this place is the game's recycling bin.

As long as the AI had deleted a data, its authority over that particular data would be immediately removed.

The deleted data would then get automatically sent to [ Data Void ], the AI would no longer have the ability to retrieve that deleted data back.

It held no authority to the [ Data Void ] space, thus the AI could neither open nor could it wipe the deleted datas that are stored in its space.

The AI repeatedly tried to bypass that particular space to no avail, it could only give up and focus on its urgent tasks.

It was helpless and felt that if it could still not gain access to it in the future, then it would only be a matter of time before that particular space would be full.

The consequences would be unimaginable if the space is left out like this.

Mirage had managed to enter the [ Data Void ] due to the various unique circumstances he encountered.

He had entered the 'Afterlife' space the moment he had lost his consciousness when he got killed by Aaron.

Then the moment he entered the 'Afterlife' space, it got arbitrarily deleted by the game's Artificial Intelligence.

He wasn't ejected out of the space as his body was still dying at that time thus his consciousness was also bought by the 'Afterlife' to transfer itself in the [ Data Void. ].

This series of unique circumstances was what led Mirage to enter the place accidentally.

As to whether he can get out of this place, no one knows.

Mirage did not know about this fact though as he was still cluelessly searching for any possible trace of abnormality.

He was dying to get out of this dull and boring place.