Chapter 118: Heartspace
Quin, the undead reanimated hand, found the purple sunlight here to be much too harsh.
In contrast to his undead existence, he actually had the hobby of…sunbathing. While the majority of zombies rotted under the sun, he, obviously did not.
Basking in the golden light of the central star— feeling the warmth of that huge ball of fire placed exactly right, was a surprisingly pleasant experience for the cold-blooded, undead life form.
‘Undead life form.’ The wording made him giggle from the other side as he thought of himself that way.
Yet even in partial undeath he found ways to enjoy life. One of those ways, was to lay on a rock with his open palm facing, and enjoying the heat of the shining sun. Sort of like those sun-basking lizards.
But the sunlight here however, was way too intense for his liking. Sunbathing should feel pleasantly warming, not awfully scorching.
Why was the sunlight purple here anyway?
Actually, how did the undead hand know it was purple without any eyes?
The reanimated hand did a double take, making sure to perceive his surroundings through the physical realms rather than through other ones.
He stopped climbing Zan’s body momentarily, fully taking in the purple star within his friend’s mouth.
Quin paused, and by his body language, he seemed to be thinking something along the lines of ‘Yeah this is pretty bad.’
What he saw in the abstract layers of the universe now began to make sense.
Quin resumed his climb hastily. He had to reach his friend’s black heart before it turned into an actual heart of darkness.
The heat scorched his skin, and climbing over Zan’s leg as he reached his hip, Quin was suddenly lit aflame. Purple flames engulfed the little boy’s hand with the intent to burn him into ash.
From the purple sun, pulsing waves of heat erupted from the star like solar flares and arc flashes.
The purple star’s living energy seemed to have rudimentary intelligence, and its cosmic origin must have helped bypass Quin’s rune of unnoticing.
It was a hellish rune carved upon his body in another layer of the universe. Its creation was ingenious— combining the concepts of mundane familiarity along with inconspicuous plainess.
To everyone and everything that Quin did not wish for to see him, he either appeared as an ordinary object, blended seamlessly with the surroundings, or he simply did not exist in their mortal eyes. The rune twisted people's perception of reality so that they would not notice him.
Only special people and things could see through him, and unfortunately the purple star was one of those things.
It detected him as a threat, and Quin, for the first time, now experienced what it was like to burn.
Appendage amputation— now that was something he had experience in, but burning? The sensation was nothing short of horrific, and agonizing, and the little hand started to tremble and falter in unimaginable pain.
…Yet Quin only stopped for a few moments. Surprisingly and despite the agony, he kept persisting forward. Every crawling grasp of his fingers took all of his will, and inching forward slowly little by little, he finally reached Zan’s black heart.
Quin opened his perception of the other layers of reality, and started to see Zan’s heart through…higher lenses.
What he saw was not a beating organ, but a complex energy center that was shifting and vibrating in mysterious and incomprehensible ways.
Even this image of his heart was incomplete however, for seeing the heart organ in all its profoundness took an even higher power. One that Quin did not have, but his own magical sight should be enough to thoroughly diagnose his friend's heart.
Quin’s vision changed once again as he switched lenses between the realms. Now, the surroundings shifted into a purple nebula upon a backdrop of starry space.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
This was what the realmspace within the monster's mouth looked like in another layer of reality. It was why Zan felt cut off from the planet he was born in. It was also most likely the cause of his friend’s eldritch blood acting up.
The realmspace in the monster’s mouth and the eldritch side of Zan— they had similar frequencies. Their trajectories vibrated along similar speeds and directions. And the purple realmspace boosted the abilities of his eldritch side.
Yet Quin wasn't here to look at the cause of the problem. He was here to fix it.
There, within the center of the purple nebula, was Zan’s heart. Strings made of golden light appeared from out of the boundless horizons of creation, and connected into a cracked-open sphere of rainbow light.
Quin saw from the cracked opening, a myriad of memories emerging and echoing into space.
The memory echoes were like translucent ghosts and see-through landscapes playing out their respective scenes.
Quin saw and heard both the innocent, and joyous laughter of Zan and his family, and the horrid screams of the burning villagers all around him.
Ignoring the spewing memories, Quin peered through the cracks of Zan’s heart and further into the sphere.
Although the size of the cracked sphere was only around three feet in diameter, the space inside stretched to impossible limits. It was impossible to see where the space began and where it ended. In terms of pure spatial distance, it was like opening a door and seeing outer space.
This was quite odd for Quin, who was already seeing a similar scene of starry space.
Yet, he noticed something within the similarly limitless and confusing sight, and it was exactly what he was hoping not to see.
Within the confounding abstract realm of Zan’s heartspace, a festering black darkness was spreading, and it was being fed by purple waves of milky light.
Seeing what was transpiring, the undead hand stopped motionless in pure shock.
All kinds of turbulent thoughts and emotions ran through him, asking himself how this was possible in the first place, and why the spread of darkness was a thousand times accelerated.
Yet the emotion that Quin was feeling most right now, was similar to the numb shock after finding out a family member had an incurable disease. Despair, and helplessness.
To add to his feeling of helplessness, he could not reverse the process of the spreading darkness. Wherever the darkness spread, it was making itself a permanent home in Zan’s heart. And at this rate…it would become a complete heart of darkness.
A dark heart that looked at all and everything else, but itself, as a means to an end. A heart that was similar to a black hole, devouring everything around it in an insatiable dark lust.
Quin was an avid reader, and the dusty records back in the ancient library described each individual who ever wielded such a heart: From before the unity of the world under one empire, twelve figures arose during different eras, and all of them either tried to destroy or dominate the world. The most terrible and capable ones, even came close…
Knowing that information, the weight of what was happening only became heavier onto Quin. It was sufficient to say that this was one of the worst-case scenarios that could be happening.
Still, there wasn’t anything he could do. At least, nothing he could think of presently. This matter was not something he could interfere with— not exactly because he didn’t want to, but simply because he was incapable of doing so. Quin was not capable of entering the realms of someone else’s heart— at least not without that person’s consent.
And the undead hand didn’t know it, but even higher beings couldn’t force themselves inside another entity’s heartspace, much less stop them from making the [Choice].
A dark deity that was watching the scene play out, could attest to that. Profane moonlight swirled above Zan, and an image of a black crescent moon hovered over his head. The fantastical sight went totally unnoticed however, as even Quin’s five-sided realmsight could not see it.
It hadn’t even been a day since the deity watching Zan put her “blessing” on the young man, and already she was thoroughly entertained.
Now however, it seemed that the show was at an end.
…Well, at least for this episode— there was definitely more to come once the darkness was thoroughly fed, and the young man created his new heart.
‘I wonder what kind of havoc he’ll bring on the world.’
The entity’s focus came back to her sight, and through her magical vision, the dark entity watched Quin grasp the muscles around Zan’s chest— probably as some sort of last sentimental gesture before the person he knew turned into someone else entirely. Then, the hand stopped motionless as if falling deep into slumber.
‘The shock was probably too much for the young boy. It seems like the little thing has an idea of what’s happening…’
Although…the way he fell motionless looked a little strange. Well, the undead hand’s existence was strange in and of itself, and surprisingly, the undeath part was the least strange thing about him.
The esoteric rune carved upon his left hand, which— by the way, he had no business ever knowing. Then there was the very fact that he could switch his visual perception on five of the universe's planes. Now, the strange thing he was presently showing, was that the undead hand seemed to have fallen unnaturally still. Not still like a dead log, but unnaturally motionless like the hand was frozen in time.
And in the next moment, the entity’s vision shook in surprise.
Unlike Quin she did not need to switch her sight between realms, and currently she was simultaneously peering through many of the universe's infinite layers. In the physical world, glowing light started to manifest from out of Quin’s wrist. It was the area where his hand was cut off from his body, and light appeared from its stump, then extended much past it.
Rapidly the radiant light took form, and the spirit body of the boy could be seen easily even by normal mortal eyes. His luminous figure was resplendent, and evoked a sense of natural beauty reminiscent of the horizon during the sun's rise.
And yet that was not the main focus. Simultaneously the deity saw in the abstract realm, where Zan’s heart was a mysterious sphere, the same spirit body of the boy manifesting right next to the oddly shaped heart. In fact, his human form was appearing in many of the layers where it was supposed to look mysteriously like something else.
Just like Zan’s heart was a sphere in the strange, abstract layer of the universe, Quin’s body was supposed to look more…odd.
Whatever technique Quin was using seemed to be making his etheric body tangible in many of the universe’s layers. Quin’s intention in doing such a thing, was to allow him to make the actions he needed to do without jumping through the hoops mortals usually needed to do to affect the higher planes.
‘Oh? Indeed interesting…’
Still, it was impossible to enter the heartspace through force. Just because he was in a form more fit to conduct his intentions didn't mean that he would achieve his aim. If this was his last effort then he would find himself sorely disappointed.
Full of doubt, the dark entity watched on. In the abstract layer, the boy’s spirit body was tangible, but his missing left hand was not. Yet in the next moment she saw as Quin closed his eyes, and started to focus. The luminosity of his body’s light started to stream down towards his left wrist. It seemed he was transferring his energy— and therefore his light and his glow— towards his missing appendage.
Quin’s spirit body as a whole started to dim, but his missing, amputated hand slowly started to manifest in the abstract layer.
Slowly, a child’s small hand started to appear on the surface of Zan’s orb-shaped heart. The light of the hand was not as radiant as Quin’s spirit body, for instead it was suffused with a gray, purgatory-like glow. The concepts of [Undeath] and [Radiance] mixed together, forming an odd mixture of luminous yet murky gray light.
Looking at it, the gray glowing hand was a stark contrast against the rainbow sphere of Zan’s cracked heart.
‘Contact. Such a crude form of connection.’
‘Is that all?’
And almost as if responding to her jibe, the boy made of light surprised her once more.
Through Quin’s translucent glowing figure, a rainbow light started to emerge from within the left center of his chest…