BOOM..!!

    Alex''s attention was drawn to his inner realm when the black hole let out a loud explosion-like pulse.

    ''Breakthrough?'' Alex was visibly surprised, in a good way. Without delay, he delved back into his inner realm to see what changed.

    Since the battle began with that void creature, Alex had allowed his black hole to go full throttle. For weeks, he had been insanely absorbing the surrounding chaotic and stable energies.

    And with the speed at which his black hole absorbed energy, it wasn''t surprising that he had another breakthrough.

    But this breakthrough was special. The moment Alex delved inside his inner realm, he noticed the surrounding universe evolve to become an actual universe-- just like the real one.

    Alex could count trillions of tiny specks in there which were representations of the various galaxies.

    Mana was now present in his inner realm, put together in the same configuration as his universe, save for a few.

    But the most impressive change of all was the black hole that lay in the centre of it all.

    ''Is that still a black hole?'' Alex pondered. ''It''s more like a core now...''

    In place of the black hole was a spinning icosahedral core that glimmered in iridescent lights. A few colours stood out the most-- colours representing his abilities.

    ''But those colours aren''t needed anymore.'' Alex stated. ''I now know how abilities came to be. Well, it doesn''t matter whether it stays that way.

    ''The core though... It feels like the multiversal core I saw in my vision.'' It wasn''t entirely similar, but it felt that way. ''Wait, is this what is in the centre of the universe?''

    Despite his power level, Alex and the rest of humanity have not explored much of the universe since they began interstellar travel.

    The universe was too big... at least for the old Alexander. Now, it didn''t feel that way. ''I''ll have to check that for myself one of these days.''

    He set the absorption of energies within his inner realm back to passive mode and gazed into the distance.

    Like a super zooming lens dialled up to infinity, his gaze passed through all energies and matter, arriving on the tiny blue dot that was Earth.

    A small smile tugged at his lips and his figure disappeared, instantly arriving before the planet. A distance of billions of lights was traversed instantaneously.

    ''Just as I suspected, things are no more the same.'' He looked around the galaxy, noting how people no longer lived but just existed.

    There was a dark shadow looming above their heads, like people who had given up on life. ''I have to do something and fast.''

    The damage from his fight with that creature had left a huge scar in the galaxy and in the people''s hearts.

    Alexander had a few ideas on how to change things and he was planning to do that soon. But a few experiments would be required first.

    [Reconnecting...]

    A notification appeared in his vision right at this moment. ''Looks like Xex is back online.''

    There was no way Xex could keep up with what Alexander and that void creature went through.

    Anything it could have done during the fight would have been useless as they were in a state of speed nothing in the universe could match.

    "Welcome back, Xex." Alex voiced with a small smile. "Took you long enough."

    [Uh.. yeah?] There was a bit of confusion in the AI''s tone. [What happened? The last thing I recalled was you arriving before the unstable neutron star and then everything went dark.]

    "Yeah...A lot of things happened." Alex began to describe everything while he slowly descended to Earth.

    He noticed a few things on the two planets but chose to ignore them for now. Family always came first.