Lord of Annihilation

Earth Alliance Frontier Base, Deatov. Inside one of the free combat training rooms.

A very handsome looking young man with black hair and black eyes, wearing a white combat training suit, stood in front of a holographic screen.

On the screen, a certain scene was being played.

{"For interrupting my meal....you shall pay with your flesh!"}

"Pause there." the handsome young man, indifferently instructed

Immediately upon his instruction, a burst of golden energy struck the control panel and the scene on the holographic screen immediately paused.

Looking at the frozen image, one would find an astonishing fact. The grey-skinned figure, which had spoken the above lines was missing! No trace of its body could be found anywhere in the frame.

"As I thought." a hint of realization filled Lucius' eyes.

"Rollback and increase the number of frames to the maximum. I want to see it in slow motion." Lucius instructed Ka'lor'ah who was operating the holographic screen.

The paused image rolled back and the scene from a few seconds ago was once again repeated. This time the grey-skinned figure on the screen moved very slowly. His actions were drawn out and long intervals were present in between his moves.

Lucius and Ka'lor'ah observed the actions of the grey-skinned figure with complete seriousness.

The scene resumed and the dialogue played once again.

Precisely when the grey-skinned figure completed his first sentence, the dark shadow beneath his feet started to expand upwards. It climbed up the legs of the grey-skinned figure and unexpectedly started to pull him down into the ground!

His entire body quickly sunk into the dark shadow beneath his feet and completely disappeared from the scene.

This time Lucius did not instruct Ka'lor'ah to pause the video. The frames continued to move before a change occurred in the scene. A tiny dot of black shadow suddenly appeared 15m away from where the grey-skinned figure had disappeared. This spot was directly in front of Alex's position.

Upon its appearance, the tiny dot quickly expanded in size, and a grey-skinned figure rose from within. Starting from its head, it rose all the way up until its feet were once again standing atop the black shadow.

"You can stop now" Lucius instructed Ka'lor'ah.

The holographic screen disappeared and silence returned to the room. Apart from the sounds of Lucius' breathing, no other sound was heard.

His body stood unmoving and his eyes were closed. After a few seconds, the sounds of his heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

Lucius' heartbeat continued to climb higher and higher. In heart rate which was originally at around 80 BPM, explosively increased reaching almost 600 BPM!!

At this moment a black shadow mysteriously appeared beath Lucius' feet. The shadow then started to climb upwards and started to encompass his legs. In under a second, Lucius' body started to sink into the shadow before all traces of his existence disappeared!

Looking at this scene Ka'lor'as was shocked.

Seeing something in a video could not compare to actually experiencing it in real life.

Although she had seen this exact scene happen to the grey-skinned Lucius inside the video, it was quite something to personally see it happen.

Shaking her body to be rid of her shock, Ka'lor'ah hurriedly expanded her senses. She used her [Area Detection] ability and scanned the entire room to find traces of Lucius.

She could find nothing! Not a single bit of Lucius' presence was found inside the room.

Question: Was it impossible for people to completely disappear and hide the traces of their presence?

Answer: Of course not. There existed myriad different ways to disappear and hide one's presence, known to the inhabitants of the Universe. In fact, it was basic knowledge to learn one or two presence hiding techniques if one wanted to survive in the Universe.

But the fact that a mere Stage 1 living being, managed to do this exact thing, right in front of her very eyes, shocked Ka'lor'ah. One has to remember that Ka'lor'ah was originally a Stage 7 existence. Her ability to detect other life forms is amongst the best in the entire Universe.

Just as Ka'lor'ah stood dazed in shock, a slender arm extended from behind her and caught her. She hurriedly directed her senses towards this hand. For the third time within a short period, Ka'lor'ah was astonished.

Lucius grasped the dark-gold crystal in his hand. The black shadow beneath his feet had once again disappeared.

"Teleportation..." Ka'lor'ah dazed voice mumbled in a soft voice.

"Were you able to detect me with your sense?" Lucius questioned.

"....No. From the moment you disappeared from my vision, all traces of your existence vanished. It was as if you were never here in the first place." suppressing her shock, she then replied.

Lucius directly nodded his head.

A few seconds passed and Ka'lor'ah's astonishment faded, only to be replaced by excitement.

"How did you do it?!" she exclaimed.

---

After Lucius had learned the truth about his origin, he had immediately sealed himself up in this combat training room. Over the past two days, he had untiringly practiced to freely utilize his racial abilities.

During his practice, Lucius found out that the key to using his racial abilities as a Void Eater laid in the greyish-black energy within his body. This 'Void Energy' existed alongside the pitch black-colored blood in his body.

Unlike soul power which could be controlled with a thought. Lucius had to manually move the void energy by controlling the flow of his blood. While difficult, it was certainly not impossible to control the flow of one's blood. Especially so for someone with Lucius' levels of experience.

With the method of control figured out, Lucius started on his abilities. Starting with the simplest racial ability which was also the signature skill of the Void Eater-[Devour]

This ability allows Lucius to turn into an all-consuming black hole. He could literally consume anything and turn it into void energy, which could then be absorbed back into his body.

He started with objects such as mud, rocks, metal plates, and other man-made objects. Although he was able to consume these materials, the amount of void energy he received was so minuscule that it wasn't worth using the skill in the first place.

After repeated trials, he finally figured out that he could generate the maximum amount of void energy when consuming objects which were rich in Spiritual Energy or Soul Power. Such as the bodies of the alien bugs or that of the ascended humans.

This was also when Lucius found out that he could also devour the souls of other living organisms. After the death of a living organism, there existed a five-second delay after which the soul of the living organism would disappear.

If he uses his ability in close proximity within these five-seconds, Lucius was able to convert the soul into pure Soul Power and Void Energy. This revelation had effectively solved his earlier question on how he had managed to devour the soul of the people, back in the Pit.

[Devour] could be activated by either enveloping the food with his black shadow or by directly consuming it through his mouth. It used the least amount of energy to activate and was the only skill that could allow him to recover his void energy.

The second ability which Lucius had learned was, [Void Hands]

This ability referred to the mass of black tentacles which extended from within his shadow. These tentacles acted as extra limbs, which he could control.

The maximum amount of black tentacles that he could currently create were 30. The tentacles could extend up to a maximum range of 15m, with his body being the center.

Unlike [Devour] which could be instinctively used and easily grasped, Lucius had quite the challenge at learning this new ability. Using [Void Hands] was similar to gaining 30 additional limbs. After a day and half of practice, Lucius could barely control the tentacles, limited to trashing them around.

His combat efficiency would explode if Lucius was able to precisely control every single one of the tentacles.

It cost 5% of his Void energy for one minute of activation.

The third and final ability of the Void Eater was the skill that Lucius had just grasped. It was called [Void Steps].

Using this ability, Lucius was able to enter the Void. Upon entering the Void, Lucius was surrounded by an empty space filled with absolute darkness. Nothing was present within this space, apart from his own body.

Closing his eyes, he was able to clearly sense his surroundings in the real world and could appear at any point which was within a 15m radius of his initial point of entry.

This was also the skill that consumed the maximum amount of void energy. Almost 25% for every activation.

In simpler words, [Void Steps] was a short-range Blink ability.

Apart from these racial abilities, all of which were very useful for combat, Lucius also felt his physical body strengthening by a large extent.

His musculature and skeletal structure were perfect, allowing him to efficiently transfer and receive force.

He had also discovered that his sense of taste had significantly improved. Eating food that tasted good uplifted his mood and made him feel oddly 'happy'. An emotion Lucius hadn't felt in a long time.

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