Ripples spread through Space and Dream across the workshop in the garage. Piles of junk and disassembled parts littered the tables and floors. Eli and Roman sat side by side on the floor beneath a massive portal set in the ceiling.
It led to his sanctum, where they stored their successful prototypes. His ability to weave non-spatial enchantments might have been cut off, but he could still store items and make copies of them and their enchantments.
Half the day had passed for only the slightest of breaks for food, bathroom breaks, and the inconvenience of people wondering what the hell they were doing.
“Almost got it…” Roman muttered under his breath. The robotic exosuit that had once been a salvaged refrigerator shuddered as it took on its new form. Eli stitched his understanding of how to process space into the barebone armor they had crafted together.
Nodes of constructed space glowed with celestial light as he strung one to the next. Each acted as artery, medium, and guidance for both of their enchantments.
A spatial-dream nervous system that would react to the wielder’s needs.
Roman continued to pool his power into the exosuit. What had once been a rusty abandoned fridge transformed into a state-of-art machine. One built for battle, exploration, or travel.
Sparks skid across the exposed wiring and spatial nervous system as the suit’s materials hit their maximum capacity.
“Switching over,” Eli said as he opened the array of spatial storage anchors set in the suit.
Heaps of identical suits and their necessary raw materials needed to function lined the inside of each pocket of expanded space. Lines of Dream followed the unnatural shift in space easily.
Why settle for one suit when they could create an interchangeable grid of exosuits?
Enchantments meant to mimic Eli’s spatial field compiled constant data in a basic radar system. Others linked up to cameras to plug an augmented reality overlay into the exosuit’s visor. It’d show a map that’d populate in real-time of the environment. Vitals of the user and the suit itself were also tracked.
Multiple different devices and weaponry held enchantments for teleportation or any of his other spatial tricks.
Guns that could shine a laser to track and confirm targets for regular ammunition or teleportation enchanted ammunition. Bullets that would warp through space for more of a punch. Magazines with their own limited sanctum storage filled with different kinds of regular, teleportation, or ammunition enchanted to be as lethal as possible.
Sheaths lined the inside of both arms, legs, and fingers of the exosuit. Each held starmetal blades enchanted with the culmination of both of their powers. It’d warp and condense space until each thick blade was as thin as necessary. All the durability of a block of starmetal with as much sharpness as needed. A single cut would hopefully shred enchanted titanium into ribbons.
Propulsion nozzles pockmarked the exosuit in a series of spatially hidden vents. Each was linked to a special system that’d calculate exact ratios for whatever it was ejecting. Roman’s half of the enchantment relied on the same jets he used in his previous suit, while the other half used Eli’s gravity or short-range teleportation chains for awe-inspiring levels of force.
The exosuit’s armored plates held an enchantment that’d blur reality with Dream and Space both. Warp the surroundings for protection, traversal, or close combat.
That wasn’t even the most impressive part.
At the center of the exosuit’s starmetal ribcage was a car battery that had all of its previous enchantments stripped, reset, then amplified. All so it could store and handle their new stellar fuel source.
Eli had spent two hours after dinner creating and enhancing a star with Starspace Nexus, Stellar Body, and Solar Synthesis to create a feedback loop.
That had been enough to push his fledgling Solar Synthesis up to level three. He suspected when he had the time, he could push it to do more than absorb and synthesize solar energy.
Pressure mounted as the enchantments spread deeper into their gathered resources. Tiny, gentle arcs of starlightning and Dream static zipped out of the spatial nodes as the entire exosuit finished.
Or almost finished.
“It’s time,” Roman said as he tied and sealed the enchantments shut. Eli did the same. They molded the enchantments around and into each other until they were truly inseparable.
“Woo!” Eli cheered as he stood up with a wobble. Hints of exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him from the slightest bit of strain. A glance at his notifications left him slightly disappointed. Only his new Solar Synthesis power leveled.
Evo-2 powers really did slow down big time. He was starting to understand why most people’s progress halted if it was this hard. Eli figured that meant he just needed to try harder and push both himself and his powers even more.
“I can’t wait to take this bad boy for a spin.” Roman smiled as he held his arm out. Eli pulled him up with ease. “What should we name it?”
“Name it?” Eli blinked at the unpainted shell of chrome starmetal.
“Bro, we can’t make a badass suit and not give it a name.” Roman crossed his arms.
“Um, how about… Skipper?” At Roman’s unimpressed expression he continued, “You know, because it skips through space?”
“Lame. Starweaver? Dreamstar?”
“Eh. Too much.”
“Starnaught?”
“Almost, I don’t really like the ‘star’ parts if I’m being honest.” Eli shrugged.
“Well, fuck you then.” Roman frowned while they stared at it. “Have any good suggestions?”
“Voidblink?”
“What the hell is that? Denied.”
“Starfire 9000,” Eli chuckled at Roman’s incredulous expression.
“Nova Dream?”
“Hell no, that sounds like a weird perfume or mattress that isn’t badass.” Eli shook his head. “Try again.”
“I want its name to feature both of our powers.”
An hour passed while they argued back and forth.
“Hyper Flux,” Roman suggested from the table where he rested his head on both of his hands. The exosuit had been propped up in the corner.
“Sounds like a disease. Pass.” Eli sat on the table with his feet dangling in the air. “Starlancer Dream.”
“Aha! I thought you didn’t like the names with ‘star’ in it!” Roman stood up victoriously. His chair fell over with a sharp bang.
“Starlancer sounds kind of cool.”
Footsteps approached.
“It’s seven in the morning. Did you two ever go to sleep?” Dad walked into the garage. He wore a bathrobe that hung a bit too loose over his frame due to Other-Rick having more of a muscular build than Dad.
“Of course we did.” Eli waved his hand nonchalantly.
“Yeah, right. Then why are Roman’s eyes bloodshot?”
“Fine, whatever. We stayed up all night.”
“I knew it.” Dad nodded triumphantly. He squinted at the exosuit suspiciously. “Weren’t able to get it to work?”
“It should work just fine. All the individual components work perfectly and most of its primary systems are based on Roman’s old suit.”
“Ah, should,” Dad chuckled. “Thank god I don’t have to worry about programming anything that should work ever again. So what’s the hold up? Why are you two still in here, wide awake?”
“Can’t figure out a name.”
“Eli keeps saying no to all of my perfectly good suggestions.”
“You literally just said ‘Hyper Flux’ without laughing. It sounds like the name for a laxative or something, Rome.”
“Heh, call it the Romestar,” Dad chuckled.
“No,” Eli and Roman said simultaneously while they glared at Dad.
“Anyway, are you guys ready to hit the road soon? Rick wanted us all to leave in an hour or two.”
“Pretty much. Might as well absorb it now so you can use it later, Rome.” Eli nudged himself off the table with gravity. “We can make another one tomorrow when we’re back home.”
“I can’t use an exosuit without a name! It’ll be bad luck.”
“That’s crazy. You’ll be fine.”
“Sure. But I’m not using it.” Roman walked around the table in-between Dad and a floating Eli. He tapped the exosuit gently. It flowed into him like water swirling down a drain.
“Who’s all coming with, Dad?” Eli floated behind him as they all walked toward the door.
“Just us and Rick. Maeve said she’d stay behind to watch the kids. Apparently, she has a bunch of paperwork to fill out.”
“Sounds fun.” Eli wondered why adults complained about jobs with so much paperwork. When he worked fast food, he would’ve killed to sit down at a desk and doodle on forms for hours on end.
“It sounds like she’ll take them to the town hall to try those dungeons later.” Dad led the way to the house. “But let’s eat, alright? Then you two should definitely shower. Sitting in the garage all night did no favors for either of you.”
***
Lush woods on either side of the road flashed in a blur right outside of the window. Eli marveled at the simple joy of being a passenger in a car again. They had been in the car for three hours, but after months of being able to teleport, it felt practically novel.
He glanced over at Roman, who adamantly avoided looking out of either of their windows to prevent himself from getting carsick. A half-empty cup of drive through tea sat in his legs while he leaned his head against his window.
Apparently, Roman wasn’t much of a road trip conversationalist or enthusiast. After grilling Other-Rick on what enchantments the car had to keep it smooth when driving over a hundred miles per hour, he withdrew into himself.
Eli just enjoyed the luxury of being able to sit and not be in charge of anything including transportation. He listened to some songs he remembered with Profound Erudition’s help. Bitterness still stung him at having to give Herbert’s phone back. The enchantments inside of it had flipped out when he tried using a copy he had made from his vault.
“—dad and I made throwing knives out of scrap metal over the summer when I was about fifteen or sixteen. Every other weekend when I was over there, I’d throw them for hours at a time at a target we built together,” Dad told Other-Rick. “It’s probably one of the best memories I have with him, to be honest.”
“I’m glad you had that. Mine was a bit of a bastard,” Other-Rick chuckled. “My mom was unstable. She meant well, but she wasn’t equipped to take care of me or herself. Dad took custody of me because his family insisted it’d be better for me.”
“I’m sorry, if he’s anything like mine… then yeah.”
“In hindsight, it was fine, but I hated it. He commuted to the city and stayed out there overnight more often than not. I woke up alone, went to school alone, and came back to an empty house. Never cared what I did as long as I did my chores. At least, until I tried to emancipate myself at sixteen. All of a sudden, he was around. Telling me how to live my life as if he even knew me.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The engine roared as the car accelerated dramatically.
“It wasn’t that he cared, or at least it felt like he didn’t. He just wanted to get his family off his back. Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been better off if I had stayed with mom. Was it?” Other-Rick turned to Dad as the car’s speed evened out to what it had been before.
“In some ways,” Dad said. “She was also somewhat unstable, but she meant well. Usually. After my parents split, she had three more kids when I was a teenager. Her and her boyfriend at the time made me get a job to pay the bills. I was working over twenty hours a week all throughout high school. She took every paycheck I made right out of my bank account. No one really cared until I dropped out of high school when I turned eighteen. Then boom, my family swept in to ‘save’ me. I got my GED and everything, but damn. I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t upset that they basically condemned me until I became an embarrassment.”
“It’s funny how you both had similar life experiences,” Eli said, startling both of them. “I don’t think Herbert and I are alike at all.”
“Are you sure about that, bud?” Dad turned around to chuckle at him. “Addy and I went on patrol with him around Farbrook to get to know him. Everything was fine, we were chatting and killing mons—, spawn, until he said that he ‘sensed’ something and ran off!”
“He did what?” Other-Rick asked, horrified. “He did that in an uncivilized zone?”
“Oh, it gets worse.” Dad shook his head. “So, we tracked down Romulus so he could track Herbert. We find the greant dungeon they were based in and find out he was in a free-for-all fight with two powerful greants at the top of the tree. It was a pretty rough fight saving him. We even ended up killing the original Sapblood. Two days later, they retaliated and attacked Farbrook.”
“Ugh, I don’t know what I’m going to do with that boy.” Other-Rick sighed. Eli twisted the space so he could see his face and frowned. Other-Rick was smiling? “Nineteen years old and he’s still rushing into things. When he was six, we took him and May to the pool. We warned him to stay with us at all times and to stay out of the deep end. Guess what he did?”
“Jumped right in?” Dad glanced back at Eli with a smirk.
“Exactly. He floundered underwater for a few seconds before a lifeguard pulled him out. I thought he was going to be scared out of his mind. But nope! His little eyes practically shone, and he asked if he could do it again.”
“Eli did the same thing!” Dad roared with laughter.
Eli looked out the window to hide his blush. After that, his parents pushed him to take swimming lessons, then when he fell in love with it, they encouraged him to join junior swim teams.
“Does that answer your question?” Other-Rick snickered as Eli resumed his attempt in tuning them out. He didn’t care what they said. He was nothing like that pompous asshole. In fact, wasn’t it healthy that he wasn’t best friends with his counterpart?
<”Yeah, you tell them!>” Profound Erudition chorused in his mind. He disabled the power’s ability to speak.
Another thirty minutes passed in the car. They had abandoned the asphalt comfort of the highways for a gravel road. Thankfully, the uneven terrain barely rocked the enchanted suspension.
Eli had lost his patience and enjoyment for the road trip. His shirt clung to his back where the cooling enchantments failed to reach him. A slight ache persisted in his legs from being locked together for nearly four hours.
Why did Other-Rick have to be even taller than Dad? Eli wished he had sat behind him instead. Other-Rick’s seat pushed back right against his legs.
When Eli had tried to expand the space of the backseat alarms flashed. He was about to teleport out of the car and fly—
“We’re here!” Other-Rick shouted as he turned into a barren field.
“Thank fucking god,” Eli teleported out of the car instantly. His spatial field spread out unhindered.
A dilapidated barn leaned to the side. Obvious bullet holes riddled its boards on every side. No tools, animals, or secret trap doors in there. There was nothing else for miles.
“What the hell is this place?” Eli turned to glare at Dad and Other-Rick as they finally got out of the car.
“This is the entrance to Stormshrine.” He pointed up at the empty blue sky.
“There’s nothing here.” Eli crossed his arms while Roman walked around the car to join him. He limped slightly, as if his muscles were overly tense. Aurora Stardust flickered out of Eli, restoring him.
“Oh, did I forget to mention?” Other-Rick took off his sunglasses with a chuckle. Wisps of thunderclouds rolled out of his eyes while they glowed with barely contained lightning. “I am Stormshrine.”
“Hi Stormshrine, I’m Rick!” Dad laughed as everyone glared at him.
“What? It’s not my name. That made no sense at all,” Other-Rick said to Dad.
“Do you not have dad jokes here?” Dad stared at him flabbergasted.
“Yeah, we do.” Other-Rick skipped out of the way of Dad’s swipe. “Anyways, it’s a bit of an expression. I’m not actually Stormshrine. I’m more like the key, I suppose. It’s inaccessible without me here.”
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” Eli said.
“This isn’t a regular dungeon, so there are some ground rules. First, a lot of the spawn you see are genuinely sapient and real. Don’t go on an indiscriminate rampage. Other instances will happen through challenges at the main shrine. Each challenge provides different rewards. Got it? That is the dungeon.”
“Yep. Real people, challenges, all that good stuff. Let’s go.” Eli practically vibrated in excitement. Ever since Maeve said it was a family tradition to have storm powers, he wanted to build his own here. After this, he hoped she would tell him how he could sign up for the Tri-Delve Cup so he could beat Herbert and his team.
“Someone’s excited, huh? Hop on.” Other-Rick sighed. Arcs of lightning splintered from his body in a rush. Each arc solidified into bars of power caged around droplets of rain. A chill mist wisped around each bar of electricity until he stood on a floating platform.
They all clustered together on it before the platform lifted into the air. Strands of cloud stirred in a cocoon around them. Eli couldn’t see any of the empty fields, the barn, or anything at all in seconds. His spatial field fuzzed until he could only sense the four of them.
A horizontal rain lashed against them, soaking his clothes instantly. Eli froze in place, immobile in the shrieking wind. Unnatural darkness occluded Eli’s enhanced vision, even when he heightened his senses with Stellar Body and Aurora Stardust.
Multicolored lightning flashed in a web outside.
Crimson electricity thundered with a concussive blast that knocked into their cloud platform. Eli felt the hair on his arms lift as the sanguine lightning crackled around them.
They continued to rise.
Red shifted to a passing orange before golden sparks danced in the air. A feeling of courage and nobility stirred in time with Eli’s quickening heartbeat. Profound Erudition helped him stifle the intrusion on his emotions.
Yellow cooled to a twinkling sapphire. A static azure sea that hissed all around them. Indigo currents writhed through the blue waves of static. Thunder shook Eli to his core as tears threatened to spill. Someone beside him fell to their knees.
Dark clouds broke in a rush. Eli’s spatial field unfurled while he gaped at the ivory cloudbanks that spread as far as he could sense. Artistic buildings shaped from clouds twisted into unnatural angles on the horizon.
“Welcome to Eleyna, Lord Newton and esteemed guests,” A person shaped like a bright blue cloud appeared in front of them with a rush of spring air. They, she? wore a dress that shifted in a constant breeze as she curtsied.
“Hi Val, I have three here to take the Stormshrine challenges,” Other-Rick said.
“Excellent!” Val turned toward them. “Please don’t resist and we’ll be off shortly.
“Don’t resist what?” Roman asked, but nobody answered. He and Eli shared a confused look.
Fog whispered around them. Eli’s stomach gut wrenched as howling winds jerked them into a cloudy void. Space shuddered as they teleported into the wind.
They snapped back into existence at the bottom of a solid grand tower. An impassive archway stood in front of them with twin pools on either side. Waterfalls of mist drained into the pools.
“Impressive,” Val murmured in Eli’s ear before she disappeared in a warm breeze.
Eli turned, dumbfounded at the fallen forms of his father and friend. Dad’s face was pale and clammy with sweat, while Roman retched.
Other-Rick stood tall just like Eli did.
“I didn’t think your aurora or other power would help you out so much with that,” Other-Rick nodded at him.
“You’re not going to help them up?” Eli asked as he stooped down to give Roman and Dad a hand, his fingers phased through them as if they didn’t exist.
“Can’t. We all walk our path here. They’re not even aware of each other or us. You should be like then, but I guess you’re ahead of the curve.”
Dad stood up with a wobble while he spun with his mouth open. He must’ve been shouting. Eli couldn’t hear him. After a few moments, he ran through the archway and disappeared.
Roman pushed himself up uneasily right after. He scrubbed his mouth clean with the back of his hand. Determination shone from his eyes before he lurched through the archway.
“You’re up next, kid.”
“But what is this?” Eli pointed at the archway.
“Each person gets a unique challenge. See how far you can go, try your best, and you’ll be rewarded accordingly.” Other-Rick shrugged before he vanished from Eli’s senses.
“Hello?” Eli spun on his heel while he stared at the overcast bricks of the tower. The only exit was the archway.
He took a step forward before he glanced down at the pools of mist that drained into waterfalls. Unless the challenge already started?
Might as well.
Eli hopped into the rightmost one right that spun in a whirlpool. Mist froze into beads of ice and snow that stung as he fell through them. Wind shrieked as his stomach knotted. Seconds turned into minutes as he flipped end over end. Ice crusted against his skin and damp clothes. He wondered if he was even truly falling.
Maybe this was a test?
Eli landed with a crash of frozen black clouds. Violet electricity crackled beneath him in the cloud’s strata while thunder rumbled everywhere. He teleported to his feet.
Columns twisted all around him in a looming tower that brightened to a washed out gray overhead.
He stepped forward as he threw his spatial field outward.
Beings of cloud, ice, water, and dark lightning fought on shattered ships in constant turmoil below. Fog thrashed around them like a tempest at sea.
Across from him, standing on a cliff in majestic sweeping robes, was a skeletal figure. Something about them struck Eli as masculine. Frost stirred in his shifting hair, snow wept into slush at his feet. And in his hands, he held a golden key.
Eli squinted as he pushed at his sight with Stellar Body. Set in the cliff was a shimmering ladder slick with rain. Any time one of the figures below climbed up a single rung, everyone else stopped fighting long enough to yank the offender back down into the gloomy fog.
He skipped all that mess by teleporting onto the cliff. The entities below wailed the second his feet landed on the wet stone.
“Hello. Have you come to take this?” said the man as he held out the gleaming key.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.” Eli reached his hand out.
“Earn it.” The key vanished into a spark of blue lightning that jumped out of his pointed fingers. Space flexed around them as Eli tried to warp it out of its path, but it barreled straight into Eli’s chest.
Eli shivered as the blue electricity darkened to a violet as his thoughts and feelings slowed. Bottomless grief hobbled him. He found himself hurtling off the cliff.
Figures dove at him the second he sank into the fog.
Icy claws scratched harmlessly against his skin. Flows of water plugged into his mouth and nose as a bubble domed over his head. Fists of wind pummeled into him. Limbs of lightning brushed his hair before it yanked him upright.
Aurora Stardust burst from him in a nova vaporizing everything but the lightning elementals. His nebulous stardust hardened around him as he floated out of the fog. More spawn scurried toward him.
Eli ignored them and teleported back onto the cliff. Shears of gravity scissored Robe Guy and the cliff beneath him into a wave of pulverized debris. Neither one of them reacted as chunks of stone broke against their skin.
“You’re not the only one with lightning asshole,” Eli compressed a bolt of aurora with tendrils of strobing starligthning that he fired into Robe Guy’s forehead.
“Good.” Robe Guy ignited into a storm of azure and violet electricity. Ozone burnt Eli’s nose. Robe Guy blasted forward to ram his fist into Eli’s chin.
Agony stabbed into Eli’s nerves as something crunched. He whipped backward far faster than he should. Air unfolded behind him zipping him into a vacuum. He tried to teleport, wrestle gravity or his aurora to catch himself, but a cage of blue lightning suppressed him.
Eli sank into one of the thundercloud dark columns. Incredibly dense bricks snapped beneath him before he bounced off. Stellar Body tightened as he transformed into stellar radiance. Blue lightning ejected out of him in a corona of sparks. He spun to teleport—
Robe Guy gusted into him. Electric blue fingers latched onto his throat. New voltage shriveled his grasp of all his powers except Stellar Body. They whipped toward the column.
Eli slammed into the column with a grunt of pain. He reached up to pry at Robe Guy’s wrist.
None of his powers except for his Stellar Body reached outside of himself. So he infused Stellar Body into Starspace Nexus so he could create a portal to his sanctum outside of himself. Trap Robe Guy or unload his arsenal into this asshole.
Instead, the portal opened inside of Celestial Embodiment’s void. He froze as the portal’s mass skyrocketed. Gravity twisted as it folded in on itself. It redoubled as a black hole started to form.
Robe Guy pulled Eli back before driving him into the column again. He didn’t feel it. Stellar Body tore him apart from the inside. Eli’s hand spasmed into a fist around Robe Guy’s wrist. It crunched in his grip.
They both screamed. Shards of electric bone turned to dust in Eli’s hand. Robe Guy’s strangled screams cut off into a tortured hum of electricity.
He jolted away from Eli while he gagged.
Stellar Body churned with turbulent power as the black hole he formed condensed further. His scattered stars, nebula, and even his sun drifted ever so slightly out of alignment as the black hole grew.
Azure lightning gathered in a storm of sparks as Robe Guy reformed. Pale blue clouds swirled around him as his robe hardened into armor. Profound Erudition alerted him to the growing danger.
Eli thrust his hand out while he infused Stellar Body into Aurora Stardust, releasing a plasmic lance. Lingering moisture in the air vaporized as it streaked toward its target. It halted as his black hole grew. Gravity pulled around Eli in every direction.
Robe Guy laughed.
Corkscrews of blue lightning impacted his aurora lance with exponentially more force than it should have. Eli curled in on himself as raw hunger twisted his stomach with cramps. Celestial Embodiment narrowed to only the black hole.
Stellar Body followed suit.
Fissures of void seesawed across his skin as his body transformed without his permission. Ambient light bent in a haze around him. Into him as he devoured all the mass he could.
Robe Guy fed a volley of electricity to Eli that vanished into him without a trace. He didn’t feel it over the pain of his transformation. Over his yearning for more.
Eli ignored Robe Guy entirely as he tried to leverage Starspace Nexus, Aurora Stardust, or Profound Erudition to help him control his burgeoning black hole. Sheer gravity chained his other powers as Stellar Body fed on them in a feedback loop.
He lost the last traces of his physical humanity.
“Don’t ignore me!” Robe Guy’s scream suctioned into Eli’s void at a high pitch. Pillars of lightning drilled into Eli with the same sensation as flies landing on his skin.
His mere hunger transcended into ravenous avarice.
Eli tried to float closer to Robe Guy, but gravity locked him in space. Using his mastery of space and gravity, he teleported closer with an explosive thunder that adhered to him. A beam of gravity tugged at Robe Guy’s shoulder ripping his arm and half his torso off. More mass flowed inside of Eli.
Inconsequential static flickered into a mess inside of him.
Azure lightning and cloud armor digested into pure mass. His range increased ever so slightly, as did his authority over gravity. Stray tendrils of fog and thrashing insects fell into his void.
Something clicked into place.
Gravity and space itself was his body, not the void his old body had transformed into.
Eli sensed the battered form of his prey seek refuge in some sort of elevator shaft. Updrafts hurled it to a locked door set on its own platform. One of his powers changed in anticipation of a successful hunt. The last stubborn traces of his reasoning faded.
He fully embodied his new form.
Space guided him as he pinched fingers of gravity around his prey. Words scrawled across his gravitonic and spatial sight. Something murmured incomprehensibly.
He didn’t care.
Gravity heaved everything around into the maw of his void.
It didn’t matter what it was. Water, fog, hued electricity, ice, or capsized ships. He swallowed them all without discrimination. While his mass and power grew, so did his influence over gravity and space.
Rampant obliteration crushed columns into dust where trunks of prismatic lightning held up the tower. Morsels of primal electricity sizzled into his void.
Void? Ever since this began, the void had been a part of him. Had been him.
More waited for him above.
Void climbed.