★141
ASTERI'S POV
Energy resisted, naturally, it would. It pushed Essen back, rejecting it like a foreign body. The clash burned through me, threatening to tear the connection apart before it could stabilise.
But I couldn't stop. I couldn't give up now. This was the only way I was winning this. And most of all, this might just be the gateway to freedom and free will. I will not give up.
In one stubborn gulp, Essen coiled around Energy, forcing Ether to acknowledge the new link forming through me after I'd overthrown Energy. But that wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want Ether to rule me through that forced connection, I wanted my own bond with Ether, one where I stood as its equal, not its puppet.
So I forged a second link, a new thread wrapping around the Ether–Essen filament, stretching until it touched the Ether particle itself. The moment it made contact, blood burst from my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. My knees buckled, my breath turned ragged. Pain like none I've felt poured through me like my being was melting, but I refused to stop.
Feldway narrowed his eyes, suspicion flickering across his face, but he couldn't see what I was doing. The battle I was fighting now wasn't one he could perceive. Not this one.
The link was already under my control. I could feel it fragile but real—like holding a thread that led somewhere far beyond the battlefield. All that remained… was to bridge it.
Instead of forcing my way in, I let it spread gently over the Ether particle, cloaking it, easing around it so it would accept me from the outside.
By then, my body was already being crushed under the pressure of the fight. My senses were fading, pain turning distant, almost irrelevant. None of it mattered. I shut everything out and focused on this one task, holding onto the connection like it was the last thread keeping me alive.
This was nothing like the natural Energy–Energy bond I'd possessed since birth. Ether resisted, releasing spikes that tore straight through my Essen cloak. The spikes were linked, emerging from another layer of Ether, but I answered in kind—sending my own before the gates closed, then sealing Ether beneath a fresh layer of Eseen.
Antares was feeding me energy constantly, just so I could survive long enough to continue. My body regenerated in one second and collapsed in the next. If he withdrew that supply for even a moment, I would be erased instantly.
Layer after layer formed as I battled to bond, and Ether battled to assert its absolute superiority. And despite everything, despite the blood, the agony, the layers stacked like armour, the Ether particle didn't grow or shift at all.
All of this… everything I had… was just to bond with one particle of Ether. Yeah, just one. If Energy is an Existential force, then it's obeying the scripts written by Ether. It has to be.
How can I possibly get through with this?
On my knees, my head felt hollow, like everything inside had been scooped out and left echoing. Blood blurred my vision, yet my eyes stayed wide, unblinking.
I forgot to breathe. Forgot to feel.
I was just… there. Held in place, dismantled piece by piece by something overwhelmingly authoritative, something that didn't need to shout or strike—it simply was, and that alone was enough to break me down.
{WHY ARE YOU STRUGGLING YOU MERE FICTIONAL MORTAL. ISN'T ENERGY MANIPULATION ENOUGH FOR YOU?}
The voice echoed through Etherium, vast and indifferent, but I was too battered to even flinch. Too worn down to answer. I barely had the strength to register that it was there.
Then, like something had snapped me awake, the battlefield vanished. I found myself standing somewhere else entirely. My body whole again, completely healed. As if none of it had happened.
I looked around, trying to make sense of it. This colourless wide-open environment doesn't make sense. There's no expansion of space, the flow of time, nor the foundational dimensional structure.
No Concepts, no archetypes, no Notions, hell, even the Etherium Plane was empty. Indicating a transcendental environment beyond Energy itself. What's this again?
"Where am I?"
The question left my lips, but my voice didn't travel. It faded instantly, swallowed before it could reach the air, as if I'd only whispered to myself. However, that's a small reason not to keep talking.
"Am I dead? What happened to Feldway and Velzard?"
When I asked, another voice answered—different from the first. It was calmer and closer, almost like they're right behind me.
"You were turned into an ice sculpture by Velzard."
I turned immediately towards their voice, the sound that persisted in this weird environment.
"The you standing here now exists in a plane beyond your usual existential layers."
The figure spoke without turning around.
He was seated with his back to me, long jet‑black hair cascading down, each strand catching faint glints of light as though it held fragments of distant stars.
His presence felt… older. Entirely separate from the one that had spoken before.
"Who are you?"
I asked, my voice finally gaining weight in this strange environment.
"Give it up. Don't risk your being for something you can't control yet."
"Are you… Ether?"
I asked, my voice coming out quieter than I expected.
There was a brief pause.
"I don't want my grandchild to lose their body."
He said at last, his tone calm but carrying a weight I couldn't quite place.
"You'll wield that power when the time is right."
The words settled over me slowly, sinking deeper than they should have. There was no threat in them. Just a strange, steady certainty—almost protective, in a way that didn't make sense coming from something that existed this far beyond me.
Before I could ask anything else, his form flickered. For a moment it looked like static tearing through his silhouette, like reality itself struggled to keep him anchored there. Then he was gone
"Grandchild…?"
I repeated under my breath, the word lingering awkwardly on my tongue. It didn't fit in. I'm a Star, we spawn, we're not giving birth. But still, not with something like him and yet… it stayed with me.
{JUST BECAUSE A SECONDARY FRACTION FED YOU THEIR POWER DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN TOUCH ME. EVEN THEY CANNOT INTERACT WITH ME.}
The voice came from the Ether particle I'd been struggling with— cold, and completely indifferent to my effort. It didn't feel like a person speaking. It felt more like a presence stating a fact.
"Who are you?"
I asked anyway, steadying myself.
"Ether?"
{I AM THAT I AM. I SAY WHAT I AM. DO NOT GIVE ME A NAME.}
I let out a slow breath.
"Right… so you're Ether. Nice."
There was a pause. Not like silence but more like it was staring at me without eyes.
{STOP STRUGGLING FOR WHAT YOU CANNOT CONTROL YET.}
I wiped the dried blood at the corner of my mouth out of habit, even though none of this was physical anymore.
"Everyone keeps saying 'yet'."
I muttered.
"So that means I have a chance. That's good news."
{…}
No answer came back, but it didn't push me away either. That alone was enough.
"I can't take it from you but I'll strike a deal."
{YOU ASTRAL MUTT, WHO DO YOU THINK I AM?}
"You're not a mortal. I can clearly see that."
{EXACTLY. AND THAT MAKES NEGOTIATIONS WITH ME IRRELEVANT.}
'If this thing really is Ether, then I need to talk to it… somehow.'
The fact it hadn't thrown me out yet had to mean something. Not to mention I didn't spawn here randomly. It brought me here.
It is waiting for something. I don't know what it is but that gives me time. Time I could use to strike some kind of contract, even if the thought itself felt painfully mortal.
'We're not in the Cardinal World anymore.'
That thought settled in slowly, and with it came a small, dangerous spark of hope.
'Which means I can use void here.'
I focused on the link I'd already formed with Essen, thin and strained as it was. Maybe, just maybe, I could weave void into it. Reinforce it and give it enough depth to reach something Ether would actually acknowledge.
It was reckless. Probably stupid, but if I was going to stand here in front of something like this and ask for more… then I needed to offer something it couldn't ignore.
"Are you sure?"
I asked, adding Enta's void which is now violet onto the particle. Instead of nullifying and destroying, it assisted Essen in creating a thin violet layer around the particle.
{THAT'S NO ORDINARY VOID.}
'It hesitated. Good.'
{IT IS FAINT… BUT HOW CAN A FICTIONAL MORTAL WIELD AN ASPECT OF THE NETHER?}
Its tone now carrying something new, curiosity.
'I get it, I'm a mortal. But how am I fictional?'
I exhaled slowly, keeping that thought aside.
"Strange things keep piling up. Ether, Karma. Now Nether. My life's become a catalogue of impossibilities."
{WHAT DO YOU WANT?}
Finally, it asked.
I let out a quiet breath I hadn't realised I was holding. "So you are willing to listen. That's reassuring."
Enta's void stirred within me. I let it flow, carefully. It seeped into Essen and brushed against Ether's presence. Then I did it on purpose. The bond formed, a fifty–fifty existence.
"We're bound now."
I said softly.
"Not in dominance but coexistence. Maintain this for two years, by human reckoning, and we'll stabilise properly."
{ONE YEAR.}
I almost laughed, out of relief.
'It worked.'
But the relief didn't last long. Because beneath the success, another thought lingered, heavier than everything else.
'How did Entares' void change its mind so quickly?Why did it feel… cooperative?'
That question had followed me since the day he awakened inside me.
Entares, the one who called himself my evil half. Why did his power respond as though it had been waiting for this moment longer than I had? Why was it violet not black? Are they other types of void?
Besides, did my evil side really need a name, a voice or a will of its own? Or was he something else entirely—something placed within me long before I understood what I was?
The thought unsettled me more than Ether ever could.
Still, I forced myself back to the present. Doubt could wait. Right now, I was standing in front of a force older than everything I knew, and it had agreed to share space with me.
"Alright, one year."
I said quietly.
"Before then, the 'yet' will come and you'll be under my control."
{...}
It didn't reply instantly. So much for an omnipotent and omniscient ego.
{YOU HAVE ONLY DONE SO FOR ONE PARTICLE. I WILL NOT HELP YOU WITH THE REST}
"I never asked for your help."
I moved towards the bonded particle and opened a portal that would take it to a different location. It was delivered to the Mad Scientist to experiment on.
"I don't know where we are. Can you take me back to my previous location."
{YOU CANNOT LEAVE YOUR PLANE. WHAT A LIVING DISAPPOINTMENT}
It spoke, and darkness claimed me almost at once as I sank into unconsciousness without resistance.
To be continued...