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"How about I tell you about Fragments that aren't bound by Energy?"
'It really is a compensation.'
"Is that even possible?"
'I'll simply play 'the child' and pretend.'
"It is. And I'll tell you just two of them. Let's start with the lowest, the Fragment of Death, Noctylium. If I can recall perfectly, I've never told you anything about the dark side of life and creation right?"
"Yes."
"Well, sit tight. It may be spooky and something might haunt later in life. Wraa!"
She made a scary-like face but nah..._. I'm not buying it. Not at this age.
"It's scary but I'm in the middle of harvesting something deep. I'm so focused on it."
I replied. She straightened in her seat, regaining her composure before clearing her throat.
"Pardonmy immature behaviour. Noctylium embodies decay, death and end-of-life processes. It's also the source for spells like necromancy and low-level erasure, when paired with Arcanocysts, thats it. It represents finality to all that exists. Check this out."
She raised a finger, and the bird fluttered over, perching lightly upon it.
"Watch closely. Noctylium covers cellular death."
From Etherium, Energy created a new link, bringing forth a black particle.
That same particle formed a link with a Fragment, and I saw all the cells decaying. With no cells to bond with, the bonds holding the tissues faded, which led to the organ failing.
"With no cellular activities, there can be no tissue, no organ, and therefore, no life."
The bird fell dead quietly into her palm.
"It affected Bindions too?"
"No."
Bindions reacted to Noctylium's presence after the cells decayed. It knew this organism had reached its end, so it withdrew. Its work was done. The bird remained whole because Morphytes and Formethium had not yet been affected."
"What happens when Noctylium reaches those two?"
She asked, and the lifeless bird split into four separate corpses. Each was held by an archetype. Unlike the bodies, however, the archetype was unaffected.
"It'll lose its physical body."
I answered.
"Correct."
The moment she answered, Noctylium struck the Morphytes and Formethium of bird B, and it decayed physical, as Noctylium attacked the Fragments.
"This can also affect spiritual entities, but let's focus on this for now. Noctylium isn't actually killing the Fragments in the real sense, but disabling them. This is physical death. But there's still something left. The true and purest form of the bird is known as the archetype."
The black particle formed a link with the archetype, which met the same fate and began to decay. When it attacked the archetype, the last two corpse also
disappeared.
"That's conceptual death. The bird wasn't part of Narravine because I only created it for this purpose.
Nonetheless, Noctylium can also serve as an eraser, wiping out stuff within a story. This feat is something writers & author-level entities possess. That's the role of Noctylium."
"You said it has no link to Energy but I saw it emerge from Energy."
"Apologies for the confusion. I only meant to explain death in its entirety. Noctylium is indeed an Energy Fragment, but those two are not.
The next one is a Dual Fragment, though I'll only explain one half of it. So I'd like you to choose: the Fragment of Anti-Being, Nihilglyphs, or the Fragment of Entropy, Nihiliths?"
'Anti-Being huh, something like a void. A living paradox. Since I have something similar, I can use one or two information about it.'
"The former. Fragment of Anti-Being, Nihilglyphs."
"How smart. Nihilglyphs is the most dangerous Fragment, capable of destroying Energy itself without ever trying."
Nihilglyphs represent the ultimate erasure, the void that lies beyond Existence. Because of its nature, even I have never laid hands on it.
"My knowledge of it is limited, so I'll explain the other instead. Consider it free of charge."
'Two birds with one stone. How lucky.'
"Nihiliths are the source of entropy, collapse, and reset. Reset, in this sense, is the red button that triggers Existential Collapse."
Nihiliths is essential for removing false Concepts, erasing Meta-Notions, ending cycles, and, above all, annihilating Energy Fragments to restore balance by force.
"Like Nihilglyphs, Nihiliths can interact with Energy, but where Nihilglyphs erase instantly, Nihiliths work more slowly, through inevitable decay and collapse."
With a soft poof, the fourth bird was restored.
"I wish I could show you how Nihilglyphs works, but if the real me has never used it, then a vessel can't possibly do anything."
She admitted. Thought she's near omnipotent, these Fragments, above Energy was purely too powerful for her.
"As the source of entropy, I'll use Nihiliths to kill this bird."
Still in Etherium, a jet-black link, darker than Noctylium, appeared. No particle, just a link.
"It won't emerge fully due to its ontological state."
She added. Then it struck with its jet-black links.
Unlike Noctylium, these links didn't attack a single target. They went for every Fragment contributing to the bird's creation, assaulting the Meta Notion, the archetype, and the physical body of the bird.
Such a combination is devastating. Nothing can prevent this bird from existential death.
With no time to waste, the bird, the idea, the archetype, and the Fragments that made up the bird fell into inevitable erasure.
"That's existential death for you."
She declared.
"Nihiliths are responsible for it. Lastly, Nihiliths complement Entropium for decay and Noctylium for death. There you have it, seventeen Fragments of Energy explained, free of charge. Congratulations, you're now the fourth Star to know this much about Energy."
'The fourth?'
"Who are the others?"
The words came out faster than my thoughts.
"The Supreme Star God, the Golden One, me, and now you. The Golden One, the First, Supreme Star, First Light, all point to the same being. Take note."
"So rare. I'll keep it to myself. You can count on me."
"Nah, even if you spill it, no one will believe you. They're all mindless puppets of the system."
"..."
'I feel like she's giving me leaks.'
"Forget I said that."
"...ok. So....um....after learning about Energy and its Fragments, does this mean we can manipulate them? I mean the Fragments."
"It's impossible to interact with the Fragments directly even though one way or the other we are. We cast spells, Arcanocysts does its job. Someone nullifies it, and it goes out."
There's a connection between the caster, his Arts/spells/skill/ability/ whatever, to the Fragment in an indirect way.
The Art is serving as a medium to summon the Fragment's power into action. A person can't command the Fragments directly, for example commanding Bindions. That's not possible because Bindions is operating under Logosark.
Said Fragment didn't create laws or ways to interact with Fragments directly.
(The same applies to Asteri's Silver Dust. It's only a medium and connection to draw portions of the Fragment, never fully.)
"Even I can't do such a thing. I create because my Art is based on Creation. So all the creative aspects of Energy will respond to my Art, not me."
"Oh..."
"Even if present, those who can harness the power of Energy are usually limited to one or two basic Fragments. 'Basic Fragments' can't disturb the foundational system, examples include Neosis, Vitaelics, and perhaps Arcanocysts.
Even then, they can't use them as seamlessly as the Fragments themselves operate, and heavy restrictions are usually imposed on these chosen few."
"They're keeping all the powers to themselves."
I murmured.
"It's better that way. Such powers in the wrong hands will be...cataclysmic."
"...yh..."
"That aside, what about your training? Are you sure you don't want to learn anything new?"
"I've made up my mind. I'm done training."
"But I'm not done testing."
She replied.
"Testing what?"
"Your dimensionality. This is one of the requirements before making it into the Supergod Tier."
"I told you I'm not interested in the Star hierarchical system. Besides, we all know the outcome. I'll beat it without a sweat."
"I knew. I just want you to prove it."
Suddenly, we were teleported outside the palace but this scenery isn't something I've seen before. It was an endless expanse of brown soil in all directions. No sun but it was bright, no trees, mountains or oceans, just the endless earth spread on all sides.
To be continued...