When Deemo altered the energy flowing into Yuan, his consciousness flickered, and he blacked out for a brief moment before slipping into a half-conscious state, akin to being caught between sleep and wakefulness.

Although Yuan screamed in agony, he wasn’t even aware of it, and his cries were nothing more than a raw, instinctive response to the overwhelming pain.

’Where am I...?’ Yuan wondered to himself as it felt like his soul was aimlessly drifting in space, similar to when he was in the phenomenon during his ascension to the God Ascension realm.

However, unlike back then, he couldn’t control where he was going.

’Damn... what the hell did that bastard do to me? Did I die?" Yuan started to wonder if he had died and his soul was traversing through the river of reincarnation, where those who died with their souls intact must go to begin their cycle of reincarnation.

Unfortunately, even if he really died, there was nothing he could do but wait for his reincarnation.

After drifting for what felt like millions of years, Yuan suddenly sensed a presence in the distant void. Though it had only just entered his awareness, its power was unfathomable—growing ever more overwhelming the closer he drifted toward it.

However, the moment he reached a certain distance, Yuan was abruptly halted, as if he had run headfirst into an invisible wall.

There was an invisible barrier before him, one that was similar to the ones he had to break through during his ascension. Yet, it felt fundamentally different and not something he could forcefully bypass.

<You have discovered the Path to Eternity>

A familiar sound suddenly resounded inside Yuan’s head.

’Path to Eternity...? As in the path of becoming an Eternal?’ Yuan wondered to himself.

After receiving the notification, Yuan’s consciousness began to sharpen, and he could suddenly sense the presence beyond the barrier with far greater clarity.

’This presence! It’s the same as the one beyond the 1,000th layer during my ascension to the God Ascension Realm!’ Yuan quickly recognized this presence.

Suddenly, Yuan felt his consciousness being dragged back to his body.

<Your Demonic Awakening has evolved, becoming Transcended Demon Awakening>

<You have begun walking the Path to Eternity>

<Progress: 10%>

Yuan opened his eyes, a vicious, ruthless light flickering within them, giving him an aura of infinite malice.

He glanced down at himself, and the first thing he noticed was that the crystal that was embedded in his chest had vanished. Yet he could still feel its energy coursing through him, as though its power had been released and merged entirely into his body.

His skin grew paler, resembling Selena and the others. His hair returned to black, but it became so dark it seemed to devour any light that touched it. As for his eyes, he had to use his divine sense to see them, and they had turned almost entirely black, with golden pupils.

’I look even more demonic than before... No, I look exactly like Selena and the others. Does this mean I have turned into a Transcedent? I don’t feel much different, though,’ he thought to himself, not feeling any different than before.

Then he lifted his head to look at Deemo, who was hovering a few meters away from him. Despite Deemo’s featureless face, Yuan could somehow tell that he was smiling at this moment.

"Looks like you have succeeded in your ascension," Deemo remarked.

"However..." Deemo continued after a brief moment of silence, "Something feels different. You look like a Transcendent, but you do not have any of their powers. In fact, besides your appearance, I cannot tell if anything has changed."

Yuan narrowed his eyes at Deemo and said, "Maybe it has something to do with you changing the energy. What the hell was that, anyway?"

"It’s fundamentally similar to the original energy but would theoretically create something even stronger—more perfect than Transcendents."

"I thought Transcendents are already perfect beings!" Selena suddenly said.

"While you are above humans, I would not call you perfect beings. In fact, you are quite far from it."

"Then what the hell are we?!"

"A being beyond humanity, yet not a god—an existence that exists between the two," Deemo said calmly. "You are also a successful experiment, but not necessarily an ideal one."

"That doesn’t make any sense!" Selena shouted angrily.

"I’m not surprised. This is beyond your understading, after all." Deemo shook his head before turning to look at Yuan again.

"Anyway, we can figure this out later... once you survive your fight against Zaaran—if you can."

Yuan’s body trembled after being reminded of his fight with Zaaran.

"Is he here?"

Deemo nodded.

"I will take you to him now."

Without any warning, Deemo teleported Yuan into the starry sky to where Zaaran was waiting.

"Tian Yang!" Zaaran unleashed a deafening roar after seeing Yuan and snapping out of his daze.

"Zaaran... I was expecting you to come here with your real body, not your avatar. I hope it’s not because you are underestimating me," Yuan narrowed his eyes at Zaaran, who took the form of an avatar.

"Don’t give yourself too much credit, you bastard. It would take too long and too much effort for me to come here in my real body, so I came here in my avatar. Although I won’t be able to use my full strength in this form, it will be more than enough to deal with an insignificant ant like you!" Zaaran explained.

Yuan silently analyzed Zaaran to the best of his abilities. From what he could tell, Zaaran’s avatar was definitely stronger than Saaruk when he fought him. However, he couldn’t tell by how much.

Meanwhile, Zaaran was also examining Yuan. Although it did not show on his face, Zaaran was shook to the core by what he saw.

’This bastard! It hasn’t even been that long since we last fought, and he’s grown this much?!’

It had been at least several hundred million years since Tian Yang fought Zaaran, who had taken full control of Kulas’ body. While that span was enough for many eras to rise and fall and for the cultivation world to advance tremendously, it was little more than a fleeting moment to an Eternal, who had existed for billions—if not trillions—of years.

When Tian Yang fought Zaaran back then, he’d just entered the recently discovered God Ascension Realm, and while Yuan was at a similar cultivation right now, his actual prowess was countless times stronger, so much so that he could easily kill a thousand Tian Yangs in the blink of an eye.

Not only that, but Yuan’s aura was entirely different.

’It’s not the same, but he has a scent that is similar to us Eternals! How is that possible?!’ Zaaran cried inwardly as he continued to discover new things about Yuan through his examination.

’Don’t tell me he’s acquired an Eternal’s body—or is in the process of completing one?!’

"So... when are you two going to fight?" Deemo suddenly spoke aloud, interrupting their thoughts.

"What’s the rush?" Zaaran coldly sneered. "It won’t take even a minute for me to kill him."

Yuan pretended to clean his ear with his pinky as he responded to Zaaran’s provocation, "You talk too arrogantly for someone who’d already lost to me once."

"That doesn’t count!" Zaaran shouted. "I was not only in someone’s body, but I couldn’t even use a single percent of my prowess back then!"

Yuan shrugged, "A loss is a lost, regardless of the circumstances. Once you lose to me again in this fight, you won’t be able to make any more excuses."

"And once you lose, I will turn you into my slave and force you to fight for me for the rest of your pathetic life!" Zaaran bellowed as his aura surged with an overwhelming amount of Eternal Essence.

"We’ll see about that!" Yuan laughed as he made the first move, striking at Zaaran with Eternal Essence and nearly eighty percent of his full strength from the very start. He knew he couldn’t afford to hold back against an Eternal, especially not without Absolute Power’s protection.

"This is—!" Zaaran’s eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

He’d known Yuan could wield Eternal Essence from the very beginning, but he hadn’t imagined he was capable of commanding so much of it. In fact, he’d initially planned to meet Yuan’s strike head-on, yet abandoned the idea at the very last second and dodged instead.

It wasn’t just Zaaran who was stunned by Yuan’s Eternal Essence either, as even Deemo visibly flinched when Yuan revealed it.

’He’s wielding about a trillion years’ worth of Eternal Essence, but his soul is nowhere near that old!’ Deemo cried inwardly.

Unlike humans, who measured cultivation in levels and realms, Eternals measured their strength in terms of time—how long they’d cultivated Eternal Essence. In most cases, the older an Eternal was, the stronger they were, simply because they’d had more time to cultivate. Moreover, unlike humans, most Eternals were born equal in talent and thus advanced at roughly the same pace.