Dimensional Keeper: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 1405 Temptation of Peace!

"I ought to remain seated here throughout the day," Max whispered to himself quietly, his eyelids drooping down, his breaths turning steady and relaxed, as if the heavy load he'd borne for ages had at last eased its hold on him.

As soon as his eyes shut, the endless strain that had trailed him from his rise seemed to dissolve completely. No rush, no threats, no plotting against foes or upcoming fights.

For the initial time after entering the Divine Realm, Max experienced a tranquility so intense it nearly scared him. This wasn't the brief quiet of security or the thrill following a win, but a much profounder calm, one that appeared embedded in the very essence of being.

He'd never known such serenity was possible, not even in the hushed periods of his previous existence or amid lone cultivation practices.

With deeper relaxation, his mind started to wander. It didn't plunge or disperse, but descended softly, akin to a leaf floating down to calm waters. His perception delved further into the realms linked to him, no longer watching them deliberately or with aim, but merely being part of them.

The Dimension of Flames pulsed gradually, stable and cozy, its blazes no longer fierce but soothing, like a fireplace inviting him back. The Dimension of Lightning buzzed gently, its tempests settling into expansive seas of glowing electricity that no longer bellowed, but vibrated in sync with his mind.

Around him, time expanded without any strain. He sensed instants elongate and shorten, yet no worry attached to it. Space shed its separation and significance, turning into a soft expanse instead of a barrier to traverse or command. Ice shifted from representing stagnation and demise to sharpness and safeguarding, while the void stopped seeming vacant, unveiling itself as infinite possibility lingering quietly.

Gradually, Max started to forfeit the boundary of where he concluded and the dimensions commenced. His ideas quieted, his identity softened as he floated onward into the linked realms.

He wasn't a cultivator anymore, perched on a throne amid portals. He became an essence spread over endless worlds, connecting with them effortlessly and without opposition. The weights of drive, strife, and fate receded into the distance, supplanted by a mild consciousness that appeared timeless.

At that instant, Max pursued neither strength nor insight. He just was, hovering inside the immense domain of dimensions, progressively and firmly dissolving into a peace so profound that even the notion of time hesitated to interrupt it.

"Wake up…"

Right when Max teetered on the edge of plunging into endless slumber, a soft voice grazed his awareness. It sounded remote, nearly illusory, like a wave across a flawlessly tranquil pond.

This intrusion annoyed him.

Even at this point, somebody was contacting him. Even now, somebody was disrupting the calm he'd at last discovered.

"Wake up!"

The voice rang out once more, stronger now, slicing through the peace enveloping his thoughts. Max sensed a ball of defiance build inside him. He didn't wish to reply. He didn't wish to depart this spot.

The realm of dimensions had offered him what he'd hunted across innumerable clashes, demises, and renewals. It had offered him peace. Not the breakable sort that crumbled under force, but a profound and total quiet that demanded nothing from him.

"Wake the fuck up!"

The yell thundered across his mind like a lightning strike.

Max flinched. The serenity quivered, fissures forming in it as bewilderment and annoyance seeped through. He felt divided, tugged between the silent void he was entering and the sharp demand of the voice summoning him back.

"Who?" Max eventually grumbled, his speech thick and sluggish, as if hauling it from profound depths. His eyes parted unwillingly, the tranquility still adhering to him even as actuality started to filter in.

The view caused his mind to falter.

Before him stood his own likeness.

The duplicate Max appeared panicked, his face contorted with haste and dread, far from the composure Max had just forsaken. He was yelling, his tone rough and urgent, his arms already extending forward.

"Wake up. Wake up, Max!"

This vision demolished the last traces of Max's lucidity. His thoughts spun, fighting to make sense of the spectacle.

"What are you doing?" He questioned, his tone flat and scattered, as if the phrase came from another. He couldn't grasp why his own duplicate was present, why this iteration of himself was so frantic to drag him from the throne, from the sole location that had ever seemed perfectly suited.

The bewilderment intensified into turmoil. One side of him yearned to submerge back into the hush, to seal his eyes once more and permit all to dissolve. The other side, rattled by the alarm carved on his counterpart's features, sensed a rising discomfort, a signal that something was gravely amiss.

Before the duplicate Max could respond, he moved.

Using every bit of his power, he seized Max and hauled him forcefully from the throne. The abrupt pull shredded through Max's perceptions, wrenching him from the soft draw of the dimensions.

The serenity broke entirely, crumbling like a vision ripped asunder upon arousal, abandoning only confusion and the remnant of what he'd nearly surrendered to.

In that instant, Max's awareness clicked back into place, merging completely with his duplicate, and the reality surged into him with alarming sharpness.

"Damn it, this throne is a veil trap," Max swore out loud as he glared at the vacant chair in front of him, his voice laced with an uncommon sharpness of rage.

From the recollections his duplicate imparted, Max at last comprehended the events. The very second he settled on the throne and permitted himself to immerse in the dimensional realm, the bond between him and his duplicate had been断ed.

That by itself ought to have been unfeasible. Max and his duplicate didn't maintain a basic psychic tie. They maintained one mind dwelling in dual forms. No outside power should have managed to sever that bond, yet the throne had achieved precisely that.

After the bond snapped, nothing remained to tether Max to the real world. Without any outer disruption and no mutual perception to draw him out, his awareness had commenced wandering ever further into the dimensional domain.

What he'd perceived as peace wasn't respite. It was a gradual unraveling. A soft immersion into an entity that would never release him.

As Max reflected on that instance, the serenity, the lack of weight, the intense urge to stay there indefinitely, a shiver traced his back. The awareness was terrifying. That peace hadn't been a boon. It had been a bait. A hush so flawless that it wiped out the drive to rouse.

"If my clone hadn't compelled me to awaken," Max murmured softly, his stare fixed on the throne, "I would have slipped into eternal slumber with it."

The idea hung weightily in his thoughts. The throne wasn't simply an emblem of command or a channel for dominance. It was a trial, or maybe a sieve, one that assessed if the Dimensional Keeper held the resolve to stay vigilant amid utter calm.

Max breathed out gradually, his face grave. He now grasped that strength at this tier didn't always manifest as ruin or supremacy. At times, the most severe peril was the allure to surrender.