Temple of God.
The name of the structure was grandiose, to put it mildly. But those who studied history, especially history concerning the very fate of the universe, would argue that the name was apt.
This place saved the Alliance, Eden and the cosmos.
"This temple was the countermeasure to the ever expanding God's Eye. No one is sure of the fine details, but it stopped the expansion." Mencius said as they walked down an impossibly wide corridor with no ends in sight, both in
width and length.
None of their powers worked properly--no teleportation, no superspeed, no avatar substitution. They had to walk. And walk they did.
Varian looked around the majestic structure. Only its high ceiling far above their heads and the floor under their feet was truly visible.
"Huh!" Desmond jumped high into the air to touch the ceiling. For a pseudo divine, distances of even light years would be within ease of access. And that ceiling definitely wasn't higher than a few thousand miles.
But like magic, the higher Desmond reached from the floor, the farther the ceiling went from him.
The man tried and tried, pumping out his aura, propelling himself upward at a rate that would shatter outer and even inner space to catch the ceiling.
Yet, five full minutes of full-fledged attempt and the distance widenened to an unimaginable degree.
Desmond landed, his feet unsteady for a moment causing him to stumble.
"This place is older than all our tribes put together. Better respect it." Mencius shook his head.
"Grhh." Desmond growled like a tiger whose tail was stepped on. But he refraind from any more attempts.
Since ceiling was out of bounds, Varian checked the floor. It was a pitch black floor with white vein-like lines running all over it.
'Material? No, it's condensed space…and time.'
That meant the space inside was special and so was time.
It's one thing to achieve a feat like this but to keep it for who knew how many billions of years?
Forget an extraordinary structure such as this, even keeping a normal aura-less structure for a few thousand years was considered great.
But a billion?
A thousand of thousand of thousand?
Barring the God Emperor whose limits were unknown, even the strongest divine rankers alive today wouldn't be able to achieve half of a billion, much less multiple billions.
"Why did the God's Eye expand though?" Varian asked, inserting himself in the conversation for the first time.
Immortal snorted in contempt while Lilith studied him with a sharp eye. Desmond ignored him, just like he did from the beginning.
"No one knows." Mencius' gaze on him was intense for a brief moment. "But it expands. There used to be a dwarf galaxy here. It was all sucked in. And poof, it was gone."
Varian adjusted his steps to match the thin man's and raised a brow. "Like a blackhole?"
"Blackholes are nothing. You can jump into blackholes. Heck, there are a lot of gravity species that live in its depths.
And even if something falls into the blackhole, it's possible to extract the disintegrated matter and rearranged it back into its original structure.
Nothing is lost in blackholes.
But this place!"
He pointed to the seemingly unending expanse of the milky eye-shaped cosmic structure.
"Once you fall in, it's the end. We don't know what happens here. If you're gone, you're gone. Your matter, energy, soul? All gone!" Mencius' expression grew frantic as he got to the end.
He slammed the thick cover book strapped to him and looked at the four. "Just imagine, if this place keeps expanding!"
Varian's breath halted for a moment. "It'll swallow all of cosmos."
"Exactly!"
Their discussion seemed to have pissed off Desmond who stood in between the two and snorted.
"You can drop this oh-so-important bullsh*t. Whatever is happening here has been happening for hundreds of millions of years.
People like us were coming and going for forever. Nothing happened. Nothing will happen.
And even if something is to happen, it's not in our capacity to do anything about it.
So, you two would better shut your loose mouths and do what we're supposed to do."
Varian didn't show any immediate reaction but Mencius adjusted his spects and narrowed his eyes at the large man.
"I haven't known you very well, Desmond, but I must say you are a very arrogant man."
"Hahahaha. Which man wouldn't be arrogant if he had the strength I did?" Desmond burst into a loud laughter and slammed his chest.
"Then why did you act so meek in front of that guy…Sloan, yeah. Where did your arrogance go?" Mencius poked with a polite but sharp smile.
"…"
Desmond's prideful face darkened and he lowered his arms. He leaned down to bring his huge head, which was at least thrice as large as Mencius to the latter's eye level and said in a cold tone.
"Sloan is not stronger than me, but he is strong. I have my plans on dealing with a dangerous foe. I am arrogant, not stupid. If you think you can provoke me into doing something rash against my interests, then think again."
"Tsk, I thought all muscle heads are stupid. How disappointing." Lilith placed her hand on her forehead with a dramatic expression, as if her heart was shattered by a heartless man. "My whole life has been a lie! Mencius, I hate you. Oh and you brute, I don't hate you."
"Huh?"
Desmond raised an eyebrow in confusion. What had he done to not garner the scorn of this stupid and prideful woman? If he at least learned about it, he'd stop doing it.
He didn't like her. And he didn't like to be in her good books.
"Why don't you hate me? I fucking hate you. Just staying close to you is disgusting. My skin crawls."
"Heh. My hatred is reserved for people I think worthy. So, I don't hate you. I despise you."
Her words were even more humiliating.
When it seemed like a fight would break out, the corridor ended.
"Guys…just look at…!"