Chapter 2398

2398 - Material

*Hoom* Sakaar passed through the Gate.

Then he heard Robin's voice echoing in his head, "Come to my side, we don't want to be dragged into pointless battles." Then he smiled, "And tell me how you feel."

Immediately, Sakaar began moving away to Robin's side, his focus falling on the Gate and its surroundings.

The atmosphere on the other side was extremely strange...

Although he had been following everything happening through his soul sense, it was closer to watching a recording, but now he actually began to notice what was going on, noticing the colossal sizes moving around him.

Beside the Gate there was an enormous number of space beasts, millions of them, and nothing prevented them from entering and destroying the Universe except that the access opening was small, allowing only the smaller beasts through one at a time, which made the operation somewhat easier for the Imperial Guard.

Regardless of those beasts of varying sizes, there were other rows of beasts in the back, each one roughly the size of a planet, and some large enough to swallow planets in a single bite.

He couldn't smell them in the air no matter how hard he tried, but his soul sense felt them moving, felt them trying to push away the annoying things circling around them at tremendous speed.

...There were five of them at the Law Dominator Realm, their movements appearing random, yet with some observation one could detect that their movements were extremely precise, standing as a Barrier between the large and small beasts, harassing them to fall back and not reach the Gate where they might attack The Other Side or destroy it directly.

"I feel..." Sakaar finally began to answer The Master's question, "that I am watching a battle from a prehistoric era."

"Hmm, perhaps." Robin nodded, "but that was not what I asked about." Robin pointed toward him, "How do you feel physically?"

"Huh?"

"The pain suppressant was stopped the moment we crossed to this side, how do you feel?" Robin repeated the question.

"...?" Sakaar raised both hands and began examining himself, "I feel perfectly fine."

He could still feel his bones breaking and his muscles tearing, but the pain had turned into mere stings, one could even say they had become pleasurable.

"Do you feel any discomfort of any kind?" Robin asked again. "Here there are no Heavenly Laws; the laws governing bodily vital processes stop entirely. The heart won't beat, the intestines won't move, and the eye won't capture light automatically here—everything must operate manually. Every one of those who entered here has to devote 80% of their focus to keeping themselves alive before they even enter any battle."

Then he pointed to the Gate. "That's why you saw that Law Dominator cross in that state, and if we delay any longer, you'll find one after another fleeing for their lives." Then he crossed his arms again. "Do you feel any of this?"

"...No." Sakaar went back to examining himself. "The blood moves through my body, and my vital processes are operating efficiently." Then he turned to Robin. "Is this because I'm a plague?"

"No." Robin shook his head. "If we brought a Law Dominator demon from another nest and placed him in the ordinary space between planets, he would feel discomfort due to the absence of air and gravity. But you're here, outside the entire Universe, and you feel like you're at home."

Then he continued with a smile, "This is because of the Blood of Space Beasts that you've been blessed with all these years." Then he gestured at Sakaar with his head. "Take off your Armor."

“..?” The amount of information Sakaar was facing had become heavy, but he began removing his armor anyway.

This armor had accompanied him for centuries; he rarely took it off, and only in certain places, ever since he learned that discovering their truth would bring disaster upon them and upon the Master.

“This…?” After removing a few pieces, the expressions of Sakaar and even Robin began to change visibly.

Sakaar’s crimson body, which had a few fine, dark purple lines, was no longer the same… The purple lines had consumed a quarter of his body, especially the three lines that looked like claws on his chest—they had grown as if a terrestrial beast had just struck him and left its mark.

“As I expected…” Robin took his time examining Sakaar with the Eye of Truth, “It’s not just external; all the internal organs have transformed to a large degree. Your very bones are becoming harder and stronger—one could even say they function better now here outside the Shell.” Then he smiled, “Even better than I expected.”

“What is happening?!” Sakaar was astonished, “Is this because of the drop of blood I swallowed?”

Sakaar remembered that everything happening to his body in sudden changes was due to that drop of black blood.

He had faced a situation like what ordinary Demons go through when they swallow the blood of a Nascent Space Beast, and he felt pain similar to what they experience!

"Yes." Robin nodded, "I've noticed that the Reapers and the Executioner share a certain aura, even if their power, size, and intelligence are completely different. And frankly, a few minutes of examining the Executioner's arm already led me to a conclusion—there's a compound inside her body similar to the one in the Blood of the Reapers, but at a much higher density."

Then he continued, "If I'm not mistaken, the Transcendents inject that substance into beasts to turn them into Reapers, and inject it into people at higher densities to turn them into Executioners... so they truly *manufacture* them, if we're speaking precisely." Afterward, he continued more quietly, "Whatever that substance is, it's what makes the Reapers that size, and what makes the Executioner that powerful—to the point that I used all my strength just to break a joint in her body."

"...?" Sakaar went back to examining his body, this time with awe.

"Haha, not yet." Robin laughed out loud, "You took a single drop of her blood, while that substance was permeating her blood, flesh, and bones. The amount you consumed is practically negligible." Then he gestured at him a few times, "...But you did consume it, and that's what matters."