The purple breach allowed entry without resistance or complaint, saving the group from having to endure its purple beams of concentrated corruption point-blank. The blindingly bright remnants of the Polaris Vault were instantly gone, with not so much as a wisp of starlight leaking from the main plane.
It was like the Dao knew better than entering this god-forgotten chasm. Zac wondered if they made the wrong choice picking this confusing, deadly vista over the sun. The scorching flames were at least quantifiable, understandable. This bubble of twisted memories was simply chaos, and not the kind Zac was familiar with.
At least, that was what Zac believed he was seeing. There was no purple mist to block their vision, but that didn't do much to help Zac orient himself among the millions of visions phasing in and out of existence in every direction.
There were grand palaces of alien make, patches of dirt holding the final vestiges of eroded ruins, and everything in between. It wasn't just structures, either. Scenes, people, a chorus of sounds and voices. Even emotions and concepts were represented by mind-bending visions.
Nothing was constant. Everything inside the Lost Plane was in a transient state, with most winking out too quickly for Zac to register their shape. What little Zac managed to grasp made his hair stand on end. Like the Dead Dao, the memories had been twisted, exuding the same forbidding horror and decay as the plane itself.
The visions didn't particularly target their group. They didn't even seem to notice their existence. Rather, the visions participated in an internal struggle, seemingly trying to devour each other. It was impossible not to draw parallels with the chaotic environment of the Imperial Graveyard. Seeing the Lost Plane, Zac even wondered if the graveyard's perpetually unstable state was the result of leakage from this realm.
There was no sense of resentment coming from the visions, though. There was only desire. Desire to exist, to become real, to not fade into that eternal night.
Zac wasn't looking around out of idle curiosity. They needed a plan before moving out, as blindly flying about was bound to end in disaster. They were already courting death by infringing on the Lost Plane. Even the Ra'Lashar Goblins knew better, only sending skills and soul threads inside in their search for knowledge.
There were no Qriz'Ul, but the dangers they faced were very real. Instead of purple mist, the Lost Plane was permeated by a wrongness on an existential level. When facing the corruption in the lake water or the Centurion Base, it had always been the invader encroaching on a hostile environment. Now, the roles were reversed.
Zac's Dao Heart screamed that the Lost Plane's perverted truths were utterly, irrevocably wrong, and its continued existence was a deadly assault on his Dao and path. Zac knew he should listen, yet it was like the logic behind his beliefs was being proven false. The Lost Plane insisted his struggles and insights until now were a mistake, a dream from a false reality.
It didn't offer solutions, either. The cardinal building blocks of existence had eroded over the endless eons. Left was despair and reluctance to let go that dragged everything into its twisted nihilism. Even his Kayar-Elu Duplicity Core had woken up to combat an insidious subversion of his Karma.
The visions taking Zac to the limits of the Multiverse hadn't instilled him with such a level of dread and antipathy, and he understood with agonizing clarity why the System and Heavens had so vehemently rejected the entity hiding inside the [Epiclesis Bell]. Coexistence was impossible. One would consume the others, and they had veritably stepped into the maws of the enemy.
As bad as Zac suffered, the others had it worse. Using Soul Sense was impossible in this realm, but he could sense his companions' struggles through the chains. He even saw Galau screaming at the top of his lungs, his voice stolen by the Lost Plane.
Zac realized his missing affinities had become his greatest protection against the fallen Heaven of a bygone era. Conversely, the greater the affinity, the deeper a cultivator would commune with the universe. And when the universe was wrong, the link was a deadly strike at their Dao.
They desperately released waves of Dao and energy into the surroundings in an attempt to hold back the world. It was similar to how he'd crushed Cosmic Crystals to survive the overwhelming Twilight Energy at the depths of the Twilight Chasm, though it was of limited use. The Daos and energies of the Era of Order were rootless inside the Lost Plane and quickly succumbed to the silent gloom, which also meant skills and treasures were useless against it.
Practicing their modified versions of the [Starfall Scripture] seemed to slightly help against the spiritual corrosion. Zac activated [Void Zone], and the nullification sphere helped further weaken their connection with the Dead Dao. It was only a stopgap measure, though.
Two seconds passed, and Zac breathed out in relief upon finding what he sought. There were a few streaks of consistency inside the nauseating storm of impressions, most clustered in the same direction. Zac couldn't see what they were because of the distortion. Out of time and better options, he could only pray they were the breaches they sought.
Navigation proved almost as difficult as his first time in the Void of Space. The Lost Plane followed neither their Dao of Space nor the lack thereof, and Zac found himself forced to constantly turn when his vantage shifted. Having to fight a war over his sanity while advancing didn't make things better.
Suddenly, the pull of fate arrived like coal in winter. Zac felt the attraction from his quest coming from six locations. He followed the strongest connection like it was the northern star, pushing himself and his bloodline to their limits. Abyssal swirls in his cells groaned in complaint from the extraordinary drain of Void Energy.
Zac drew closer and closer, not forgetting to monitor his followers. They wouldn't make it. Zac gritted his teeth and activated [Eye of Desolation] with Void Energy. A domain of darkness descended on the foreign world. The Oblivion-filled eye looked into the mayhem, and the mayhem looked back.
Sculpture bands distorted and winked out of existence while the eye morphed into a seven-fingered hand holding a black rope that was soon gone. The skill hadn't even lasted a second, and using it had caused something very bad to happen to the Skill Fractal. Still, it briefly blocked out the surroundings, allowing the others a quick breath before being pushed back under.
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[Death's Duality] was already mid-swing when the Abyssal domain was ripped out of his grasp. Two of the Remnants circling his Cosmic Core came alive, releasing a torrential stream of Creation. It emerged from his space, entering the skill fractal on his left shoulder. It was joined by Divine and Cosmic Energy while his soul provided the truth necessary to activate [Origin Revolution].
Finally, [Spritual Void] provided slivers of Void of Death, the final ingredient necessary to resist the Dead Dao. A radiant edge lit up like a torch in the darkness and carved a path of possibility toward the exit. They were right at the finish line, and Zac would drag them past it by hook or crook.
The Lost Plane's cycle of reinvention paused under Creation's opalescent light like its power of origination allowed the memories to last a moment longer. But it also connected the memories of the past with Zac in the present, and he suddenly felt as though a thousand eyes were upon him.
Then, nothing.
The countless visions clogging up the Lost Plane cracked like mirrors, and the twisted Dao was pushed into the depths. Nevertheless, the assault on Zac's body and mind didn't abate. The taint had been replaced by another invasion—one lacking malevolence but infinitely more powerful. It was a darkness so vast that Zac's mind almost broke the moment it descended.
Only the dozen tears remained on account of them being real windows to reality. They struggled and distorted under the burgeoning pressure, releasing sputters of incomplete scenes. Two stony giants tearing through a sea of golden sunlight, their melted, featureless faces radiating malice. A burning jungle, a sea of Qriz'Ul gone mad, a crystalline pillar balancing a miniature sun.
Zac even saw Joanna, Janos, and Ra'Klid briefly flicker by. They were covered in blood, slashing their way through a line of combat puppets. They were desperately trying to reach a gate similar to the arch leading into the Polaris Vault. Seeing them made Zac's heart clench with worry, though the sensations passed through his chains provided a needless reminder their situation was far worse.
The others had already been pushed beyond their limits, and the sudden change had proven too much to bear. Zac doubted the [Starfall Scripture] could do anything against this new threat since his Void Emperor Bloodline couldn't even muster a resistance. [Void Zone] had already been torn apart, and [Void Mountain] had been forced into hiding. His companions had been knocked unconscious, with even Kator limply hanging from Alea's chains. At least, that was what Zac decided had happened, unwilling to entertain the alternative.
There was only one thought in his mind—cross the final stretch and escape the Lost Plane. It was that mantra that allowed Zac to remain conscious under the unbearable strain. All would be well so long as they returned to their dimension.
Zac didn't even manage to cross half the distance to the closest breach before they also flickered and disappeared. They'd been subsumed by the pressure, sinking into depths outside Zac's reach. The guiding pull of his final seal and the hope it represented were gone. Left was only the darkness that tyrannically swelled in his mind, blotting out Zac's grasping attempts at devising a final chance at survival.
No, not darkness.
As Zac's perception approached its limits, he realized the darkness was just a shadow cast by a being so large it almost pushed Zac's mind over the edge. The Centurion Base, whose size already tested the boundaries of Space, wouldn't be more than a grain of dust before it. Zac wasn't convinced all of Zecia could contain this monstrous creature. The only thing that could surpass the entity was the Void Mountain. Even then, it wouldn't look too out of proportion on its slopes.
There was no doubt about it. He'd inadvertently summoned the memory of a Stellar Wanderer with his actions.
Zac should only have been able to see a corner of a corner at such close proximity, but something about the wanderer demanded to be witnessed in its entirety. Even then, it was impossible for Zac to accurately grasp its appearance. It was as though it simultaneously existed in thousands of states, with all versions superimposed, creating a confusing mesh of features and limbs.
The distortion was not because the Stellar Wanderer had been twisted like the other visions. Zac intuitively knew the entity was so powerful that not even the ancient memory of its existence could be impugned by Dao's death. While its features were beyond Zac's dimensional comprehension, it was easy to understand the reason for the singular race's name.
The wanderer was adorned by a shroud fashioned from millions of stars, most surpassing the grandeur of the sun fused with the Centurion Base. Zac even suspected those placed in the center of the complex weave were A-grade stellar objects. Yet they paled before the singular light lording over all else.
The wanderer's myriad heads were all concave, creating a crater the size of a sector. Floating above was a white star that transcended the Dao. Zac only had the chance to make the unavoidable parallel to Ultom's sublime aura before he was overwhelmed.
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Seventeen rose from the grand mist. Their first awareness was of perfection. They embodied all realms of possibility, all roads of thought. There was nothing else inside the farrago from which they came. Nothing to improve, nothing to change. They were born at the Terminus, and awakening made them hunger for more.
The second awareness was that of their cage. The Heavens were too low, crushing down on their shoulders. Perfection was a curse, bereaving them of purpose and future. They observed all possible trajectories of the Grand Kalpa. None offered change.
The third awareness was that they were not alone. Two more groups existed in the tapestry beyond time. They faced rejection when reaching out. Unwilling to accept the status quo, they split up to find answers among the stars. When none were found, they wandered into the great beyond—the sea of null that stood outside their scope of understanding.
It resisted their search, repeatedly forcing them back into their cage. Their solitary journeys eventually yielded testimonials of something more, but the broken remnants were flawed, beneath the wanderer's origin. The beyond remained silent throughout, ignoring their attempts to commune.
Their cage was slightly different each time they returned. The mist sought shape, and intent formed mass. New creatures sprouted. The seventeen were intrigued. The dreamers still refused to emerge from the mist, not suffering from their perfection as the wanderers did. And she… told them to wait.
The novelty of lesser existences passed. They were flawed and transient. The wanderers resumed their eternal journey. Time held no meaning, so the wanderers did not know how long they'd traveled when hearing the call. The trajectories became undone, and they discovered a new state—uncertainty, where the future was no longer a mirror of the past.
One by one, they returned from the depths of null. Since their inception, it was the first time all seventeen were gathered in one place. The cage strained from their expectation. Even the dreamers stirred from their eternal reclusion, turning their attention to reality's center.
She opened her eyes, the Heavens rose, and the Stellar Wanderers knew what choice they had to make.
Zac was shocked awake, his heart beating like a drum. The fragmented memories of the wanderer were already blurring. They were existences so far removed from his conception that their thoughts and memories couldn't exist in his mind. Only the set of eyes at the end remained crystal-clear, like they'd been branded on his brain.
They transcended restrictive concepts like Dao and Law, holding everything and more. They were the Heaven beyond the Heaven, what waited behind the veil. The Terminus was whatever she willed. She surpassed the Eras, stretching from the earliest past to the distant future. It was true omnipotence, omnipresence.
And she'd seen him.
Not the wanderer whose memory he'd visited. Him.
"She has many names, but most refer to her as the Eternal."
Zac swirled around, noticing in passing that he stood on solid ground as he came face to face with a man reeking of antiquity. A real being, not a memory or vision, stood before him, and the Lost Plane bent to his will.
"I've been observing you, Flamebearer," the old man said. "I see the shadows of Karz on you. And Laondio's dream."