CHAPTER 346: THE BIRTH OF A DOMAIN

Far away from the central Hollow, deep inside one of the Resonant Chambers constructed by the Nullcarvers, Morris Grey stood in solemn silence.

He had meditated for hours. His hands rested on his thighs. His breaths were long and calm. His body was steady—but beneath that stillness, a maelstrom of power churned in his core, like a dragon coiling in its den.

Around the perimeter of the chamber, three skilled Nullcarver warriors had formed a triangle and were constantly reinforcing the layered Qi seal barriers—transparent yet radiant domes of condensed energy meant to isolate a volatile outburst.

The walls of the chamber pulsed faintly with ancient engravings, drawing power from the Hollow itself to reinforce the containment.

But inside the dome, Morris was changing.

"It’s time..." he murmured to himself.

A bead of sweat slid down his temple.

Then—his core flared.

And in the blink of a heartbeat, a pulse of unfiltered mana surged outward in a shockwave that shattered the inner seal.

BOOM!!!

The three Nullcarvers were blasted backward as if hurled by an explosion. They hit the chamber walls with violent force, coughing up blood mid-air before slumping to the ground, dazed but alive.

---

In an area not too far away from the Hollow, Guinevere sat cross-legged near one of the jade lanterns, meditating and observing the tranquil flow of mana between the statues from a distance.

But the moment the shockwave hit, the entire Deadroot Forest trembled.

Birds took flight in a frenzy. Ferocious beasts howled in distant terror. The trees bowed from an unseen force, their leaves scattering into a whirlwind of silver-green light.

Guinevere opened her eyes—and immediately felt it.

"What... is this mana?" she whispered, staggering to her feet.

The atmosphere twisted violently around her, as if gravity itself had warped. Sweat instantly coated her brow, and her knees almost buckled under the pressure of Morris’s mana.

"T-This is..." she gasped.

Her own mana core surged in reaction—Inferno, the blazing domain fused with her Amaterasu flame, instinctively igniting to form a protective shell of blazing mana around her.

Her body flared with heat, the ground around her cracking from the intensity. The infernal aura she emitted kept the crushing presence of Morris’s mana from flattening her entirely.

"He awakened it... his Mana Domain..."

---

Inside the broken Resonant Chamber, where light now bent and space warped, Morris Grey stood in the eye of the storm, his eyes glowing with iridescent hues of blue, green, red, and gold.

Around him floated countless rotating mana runes, each representing an elemental law—fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, and more esoteric ones like mist and magnetism.

The very air itself had split into layers of essence—like reality was being rewritten.

His skin shimmered faintly, his veins glowing like circuits of raw magic. The mana in the air wasn’t just emanating—it was obeying.

"This is... my world," Morris said softly, his voice resonating like a chorus.

Then, above him, the full manifestation of his Mana Domain bloomed.

A massive, circular sigil of rotating elemental rings appeared in the sky above the chamber—visible even to those miles away in the Hollow. Like a floating spell-matrix etched across the heavens.

It was breathtaking.

Naena, who was still observing Kaelen, Kelvin and Ethan’s trial, turned to the sky and narrowed her eyes.

"So... that boy has achieved it," she muttered. "A full elemental domain... I haven’t seen this since the Eternal Era."

---

As the trembling slowed and the mana storm began to subside, Guinevere and several Nullcarvers arrived near the broken chamber.

The runes in the sky slowly dissolved, like stardust, fading back into the atmosphere.

Guinevere approached, her Inferno still burning low around her shoulders.

"He made the whole forest shake," one of that Nullcarvers muttered. "Felt like the laws of nature were being rewritten..."

Guinevere stared ahead, eyes fixed. "That... wasn’t just a domain. That was a declaration."

At that moment, the cracked doorway to the chamber opened.

Morris emerged, covered in sweat, his robes half-burnt, but his body glowing with life and power. His footsteps were silent—but each one left a faint trace of glowing mana underfoot.

"So you felt it," he said casually.

Guinevere gave a half-smile. "Felt it? You almost crushed my lungs."

"Congratulations though... ’Elemental Matrix’, huh?"

Morris nodded, his voice low. "Yeah. That’s what it told me."

"Told you? Who told you?" Guinevere quickly asked with a confused look on her face.

"To be honest, I don’t know myself, I just heard the name in my head" Morris replied with a helpless smile on his face.

Naena finally stepped forward, expression unreadable. She placed a hand gently on his shoulder and spoke with a rare softness.

"You’ve stepped into a realm few ever reach, Morris. Protect that gift well... it will be tested sooner than you think."

And as for the Hollow, though calm now, would never forget the mana that had shaken it to its roots.

––––

Meanwhile.....

Kaelen, Kelvin and Ethan found themselves standing on a series of floating lily-like platforms, suspended above a vast and bottomless ocean that shimmered like mercury. Nothing remained still. The water churned and twisted, reacting to their smallest breath. Even their thoughts seemed to ripple the surface below.

Kaelen was the first to feel it—the weight of expectation, the demand to move only with purpose, not force. He leapt to the next platform—only for it to dissolve into liquid the moment his form stiffened. He plunged waist-deep into freezing waters that immediately tried to drag him under.

Ethan and Kelvin faced similar challenges. Each step had to be not only precise, but reactive. One moment the platform was solid, the next, ephemeral. The wind above constantly changed direction, carrying whispers, dissonant voices, illusions of loved ones screaming for help, enemies taunting them, fake images of allies begging for rescue.

This trial was mental acuity, emotional mastery, spatial control, and adaptive intent all at once.

---

For Ethan, the chaos was oddly familiar. The dissonant whispers, the illusions—they reminded him of the mist he had cultivated. He stopped leaping. Instead, he inhaled... mist into mist. He began moving not forward, but with the fluctuations, letting his form dissolve slightly at times to flow between the shifting gaps of reality.

His mana followed. With subtle, delicate tendrils of mist-like essence, he began weaving patterns that flowed between the chaos, stabilizing platforms momentarily, or turning illusions against one another. His expression was calm. Detached. He no longer resisted the test. He was becoming part of the trial.

"Adaptation is not opposition," Ethan whispered, "It’s cooperation..."

---

Kelvin, meanwhile, struggled. The wind was chaos. His mind was chaos. And yet—he had learned to harness that very chaos. His Orb of Chaos pulsed wildly in his chest. His Qi, blood-red and turbulent, rebelled against the idea of "precision"—and yet it was Kelvin’s very nature to dominate.

And then, realization struck him.

To adapt, he had to tame the chaos, not silence it. To be precise, he had to make space for disorder, and channel it.

So, with clenched fists, Kelvin finally reached inward and slowed his heartbeat. Each chaotic pulse from the Orb was now transformed—its energy compressed, controlled. His scythe no longer swung wildly. Instead, its every arc became deliberate. Like a dancer of death, Kelvin began cutting through illusions, slicing through voices, and rebalancing the platforms with blade movements that seemed to command the air itself.

"I’m not a slave to chaos," he snarled, "I’m the god of it."

---

Kaelen had fallen again—soaked, drained, his thoughts drifting to Lila, to the Celestials, to Endless, to the broken Blade of Eternity.

His hands shook.

"I can’t do this like before," he muttered.

And then... the memory of Naena’s voice during when they just got into the trial echoed in his mind.

"Flow is the secret to balance. Not just reacting, but choosing when not to move. Sometimes, precision is in inaction."

Kaelen stopped.

He stopped everything.

The platforms danced, spun, and disappeared, but he no longer chased them. Instead, he stood perfectly still—within himself—even as he stood atop nothing.

And the water beneath him obeyed.

Adaptation through stillness.

A shimmer rippled through him—his liquid mana subtly responding to his command. Blue strands laced with gold Qi emerged from his palms, and with surgical finesse, he began constructing new paths between the lily pads using sheer precision and flow manipulation.

He wasn’t resisting. He was guiding the current.

Eventually, the ocean began to still.

The platforms became firm.

The illusions disappeared.

And Kaelen, Ethan, and Kelvin stood on the central stone, breathless—changed.

The statue of the Flowing Waters Juggernaut glowed brilliantly as a mark etched itself onto their bodies in translucent ink—a flowing spiral symbol on their right forearms.

Naena opened her eyes outside the Circle and exhaled slowly, deeply.

"They’ve done it," she whispered. "They have become the current... and the blade that sails within it."

As the Circle of Resonance dimmed, the three slowly stepped out—Kaelen first, his expression unreadable but resolute. Kelvin followed, smirking faintly, his steps light like a man newly in control of a storm. Ethan came last, a swirl of mist subtly curling around his ankles.

And without a word, the Hollow seemed to breathe again—as if acknowledging that the river had finally learned how to cut stone.