The Human Domain.
It was a place that birthed many heroes in the past and a place that many adored as the most prominent force in the war against the Nox 10,000 years ago.
In that Great War, humanity was the sole reason the universe was able to survive and keep 9 Sectors of space. The other 8 dominant races could only be thankful for humanity's presence in the universe.
This was the reason why humans were never mistreated in different sectors of the universe. Even if they had low status or were enslaved, they'd never be placed in those horrifying conditions that some slaves were forced into.
Even if these human slaves couldn't appreciate this grace due to their thankless circumstances, it didn't mean that it didn't exist.
The Human Domain of the current era couldn't match the one of old, but that didn't mean it had changed. It was still a place where heroes rose to any challenge that appeared.
And currently, there was another Great War about to begin. The Nox had destroyed the Elven Domain and they'd destroyed Eden. While a war continued in Eden, the Soul World and Beast Domain were slowly being targeted by the Nox as well.
For this race's end goal was merely destruction. They didn't care to conquer, and thus had no reason to fight for territory with the universe's denizens.
This put the universe's forces in an objectively worse position that was hard to overcome with strength alone.
The Human Domain, unfortunately, was heavily disconnected from the rest of the universe. Only through Parciel had they recently gained access to the universe's information, but they were still a long way from becoming a part of it again.
After all, the Dimensional Leaderboard still hadn't shown up, nor were there any teleportation arrays connecting the Human Domain both internally and externally.
After the raid on Niflheim and the destruction of the sector's Infected Source World, the main forces of the Human Domain gathered in the Cloud Plane, using it as their main headquarters.
Tian Yang took the lead of this new cumulative force as the Void Old Immortal and organized the Human Domain's forces into a true army.
After that came the training.
It was a hellish training that even caused death for some weaker trainees. It was a terrifying experience that none ever wanted to experience again.
But it granted strength at unimaginable speeds. Tian Yang's methods ignored personal safety and prioritized power leveling and elemental comprehension above all else.
And among the training zones he'd picked, there was a certain location that was all too familiar.
It was a zone of pitch blackness that stood out even in the darkness of outer space. It was a place where nothing could exist, not life nor mana or even the Laws of the universe.
This was a Dead Zone, specifically, the Dead Zone created by Damien and the Fifth Primal Sovereign at the end of their clash.
Here, two women sat silently.
The atmosphere was still. Their bodies embraced this stillness as if they were in stasis, not even a single hair moving out of position.
These two women, one white-haired and the other pink-haired, were in the midst of what must've been the most dangerous training regimen Tian Yang had designed.
The Dead Zone was a terrifying place. Without the lack of natural elements, it was impossible for life to survive. There was no air for humans to breathe. In a situation like this, only coating the body in mana could allow one to survive.
Yet, in a Dead Zone where mana ceased to exist, it was impossible to replenish one's mana supply. This meant that entering a Dead Zone was only a slow walk to death.
A walk that couldn't be avoided.
The lack of foundational laws in a Dead Zone erased concepts that all beings took as commonality. Concepts like distance, time, or even life and death were extinguished entirely.
And this was exactly what Tian Yang's training was modeled around.
The concepts of life and death were equally missing, the concepts of all things were missing. In this empty space, no matter how close one got to death, as long as one believed they were alive, one would never truly die.
It was a mysterious phenomenon, something that could never be understood by someone who hadn't experienced it personally.
As for the purposes of this training? There were two.
The first was the most simple mental training. This empty environment left one alone with their thoughts in a situation where they needed to constantly exercise complete control over their psyche. This was an incredible mental exercise that could boost one's spiritual world to a completely different level.
As for the second benefit, this was more esoteric. It was a matter of elements,
Comprehension of Laws and elements didn't come easy, and while universal forces were great for grasping the foundations of elements, they didn't quite help as one's path diverged to become more personal.
At that point, the commonness of universal law would actually become a hindrance. If one focused too much on it, their own laws would be convoluted.
In a Dead Zone where laws didn't exist, the only fluctuation of elements that one could sense was their own. This gave a far more personalized comprehension experience, allowing one to look deep within themselves and truly realize what their path to strength would be.
Every practitioner was different in that regard. Even if two people practiced Ice Laws, furthered their Ice Laws to specifically focus on the permafrost concept, and then fought using the exact same skills with the exact same comprehension, the results they outputted would still vary.
Rose and Ruyue, as they sat in the Dead Zone for months at a time, were finding their paths.
The two of them didn't have it as easy as others. Just like Damien, they didn't have streamlined paths.
Ruyue's yin element was vast enough to encompass all negative forces. Instead of a single element, it was more an amalgamation of countless others. For her to find a path with this element was exceedingly difficult, not to mention the ever-elusive moon affinity that gave her Celestial-like powers.
Rose, on the other hand, had illusion and wind affinities. Neither of these affinities were particularly special, but when they ended up in Rose's hands, they were transformed entirely.
Rose mostly stopped utilizing her wind element. As she grew, its use decreased to a negligible level, becoming something she only used occasionally when she needed a quick offensive counter.
Her illusions, however, were far greater. And unlike Ruyue, Rose had been moving towards a goal from the very beginning of her journey.
To turn illusion into reality and vice versa, to become someone who could manipulate reality at its seams using illusions as a medium.
Despite the differences in their journeys and end goals, the two were both chasing goals of extreme difficulty, goals that prevented them from receiving Baptism even until now.
But at the same time, this left one thing certain: when the two women finally received their Baptisms, they'd become monsters unlike any before them.
They might even reach a level where they surpass the Human Domain entirely.
