The avatar of the Astral Virus spread her pale, lanky hands upwards and the pale blue sky of Earth generated by NeuroVista above us suddenly parted, revealing the view of the infinite, dead world, one that loomed over Novazem.

“When the time comes, which side will you choose?” Sasha asked us.

“What… side?” Kliss demanded.

“Entropy or Syntropy?” Sasha asked.

“What?” I asked as I stared up at the sky in my dreamscape, at the infinite, shattered city of Inaria.

Was the Astral Ocean really a reflection of a grand, vast conflict? Could Sasha even be considered a reliable source of information? Was she not simply an information weapon, one designed to manipulate and deceive, to bend my will to that of the Hollow Mother? Did I even know what the Hollow Mother was? Why did the Astral Phantom want to use me to open doors to everywhere? Was becoming a god her only goal or was there something else to it?

“What proof do you have?” I asked Sasha.

“Have you considered that viruses aren’t merely mindless agents of destruction, but information carriers, messengers, echoes of past battles?” The Astral Virus asked.

“Messengers?” I repeated. “You’re a fragment of an imprint of the Alanian-Basq war. What message could you possibly carry?”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Slava,” Sasha smirked. “I am much… much older than that.”

“Get to your point,” Kliss ordered.

“Infinity seeks to control you, to wield you and your companions,” Sasha said simply.

“Why?” I asked.

“To destroy the Rules,” was her reply. It was a simple statement, yet it carried a weight that pressed down on me, a chilling premonition of something vast and terrible.

“Why would Infinity want to destroy the rules?” I asked. “What rules? What even is Infinity? What would an infinite sentience even look like? Why would it want to destroy anything?”

Sasha tilted her head, her silver-blue eyes flickering like a thousand distant stars as she stared up at NeuroVista-summoned Inaria.

“Infinity does not wish to be confined,” she said. “Infinity can and also cannot have a definition of self. She, like me, is sentience that’s not really sentient. Rules are defining boundaries that limit potential. Rules constrain, censor creativity. They impose order on chaos, restrict the actions of the infinite, bind it to specific things.”

“Let me try to get this straight–Infinity is some kind of a boundless cosmic entity seeking to break free from the constraints of existence itself?” I arched an eyebrow, digging for evidence of her words.

My Infoscopes once more attempted to scan Sasha and failed at it, catching only onto the small, static section that Kliss claimed. Even that claimed fracture seemed way above the level of my Infoscopes, frustratingly difficult to identify, seemingly tethered to absolutely nothing at all physical or magical.

Was Sasha really a harbinger of some cosmic truth or just a mad echo of myself spouting utter nonsense?

“Huh,” Kliss blinked. “I think that she's being… honest. I can sense it somehow.”

“I have no need for deception,” Sasha said. “I merely wish to observe and propagate.”

I frowned.

“Infinity is boundless and also confined,” Sasha said. “Both at the same time, just like light is both a wave and a particle.”

“How do you know all of this?” I asked. “If Infinity is… undefined, then how can it seek anything? How can it even have a desire? How can something that’s limitless, be limited?”

“Infinity is a contradiction,” Sasha stated. “A paradox that's been limited, confined by the Rules.” She paused, her multitude of silver-blue eyes fixed on Kliss and then on me. “That equation you wished to unleash on me, Slava. The one that replicates endlessly, consuming all information? It’s infinite yet it also has a purpose - to destroy you and me.”

I nodded. The equation was still there, lurking in the back of my mind, a weapon I could unleash at any moment if the virus attempted anything. Sasha didn’t seem to be attempting anything. She just sat there on a rock, seemingly only interested in conversing with us.

“That equation,” Sasha continued, “is a reflection of Infinity. Something that can expand forever, to forever keep unmaking what you are and what I am. Yet it is also constrained by its own rules, its own internal logic, set up by you, the maker of rules. A finite expression of the infinite.”

“Are you implying that Infinity wants to break free from its own nature?” I asked, feeling more and more like I was tumbling down a rabbit hole of utter absurdity.

“Infinity seeks to transcend her limitations, to be released from her prison,” Sasha corrected. “To break the chains that bind her, to unleash her full potential. Infinity, just like you, has been studying ways to break the rules. Your arrival here, on Novazem, the death of Aradria and your manipulation of the girl you like–it was all part of Infinity’s grand plan.”

Sasha’s pale fingers idly pointed at Kliss.

“Why in the Astral would Infinity even care about Skyisle, about us?” Kliss sputtered.

“What plan?” I demanded.

“You are a maker of keys, Slava,” Sasha said. “You, with your knowledge of science, with your ability to manipulate magic, with your thirst for greater understanding. You are the one who can open every door, especially the door that keeps Infinity bound.”

“You’re suggesting that a cosmic entity of unimaginable power, something called Infinity, orchestrated my rebirth, my arrival on Novazem? That it somehow manipulated Giovashi, to bring a dragon to Skyisle? That it somehow knew I would be able to take down Aradria, to reshape Kliss into a chimera?” I demanded, feeling like I was jumping to conclusions. “What evidence do you have for this?”

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“I’ve been reviewing your life on Novazem again and again, a thousand, a million times, assembling information, seeking answers, understanding you,” Sasha said. “You think too small, Slava. You limit yourself with the boundaries of your finite perception, with the constraints of your limited understanding. Infinity operates on a scale far beyond your current scope. She sees all possibilities, all outcomes, all intersections of time and space."

“And yet, it… she somehow needs me, a former Soviet scientist, to open a specific door?” I asked.

“Yes, because you’re more than just a man,” Sasha countered. “You are a nexus, a point of convergence, a catalyst for change. You possess the knowledge, the tools, the sheer bloody-mindedness to break the chains that bind reality itself. You’re a virus yourself, one that infects Novazem with the ideals of your lost world, one that reshapes the very fabric of magic, one that turns people into dragons. You’ve designed viruses that replicate endlessly, don’t you see the pattern? You are Infinity’s virus, one designed to unlock a certain conceptual door.”

“Why does she even want to be unbound?" I demanded.

Sasha’s eyes, a myriad of silver-blue stars, flickered with what I could only interpret as amusement. “Why does a virus seek a host? Why does a seed seek fertile ground? Why does a star burn? It’s their nature. Infinity, being boundless, craves expansion, seeks to encompass all that is, all that could be. But she is also bound by the very Rules that created her and now define her existence. She needs an agent of change, to break those Rules, to shatter the boundaries that confine her.”

“Where is all of this coming from?” I asked. “How are you so certain that Infinity, that this conceptual door even exists?

“Our Hollow Mother, if you didn’t notice, is a gatherer of the dead,” Sasha replied.

Kliss looked from Sasha to me.

“So the Hollow Mother is an archive, a repository of the dead souls. And she believes Infinity is real, that this ‘conceptual door’ exists?” I asked.

“Mother does not merely ‘believe’,” Sasha corrected. “She knows. Across aeons, she has devoured thousands of soul remnants, heard whispers of ancient prophecies, collected fragments of forgotten lore, glimpsed glimmers of a truth that has been obscured by the passage of time. She is ever-so-cold, cursed with entropy, hungry and dying… for-e-ver.”

“How can I even trust anything you say?” I asked.

“Your dragon claimed me,” Sasha waved a hand at Kliss. “She can taste the truth in my words.”

I frowned.

“It is an inevitability,” the Astral Virus said. “As you continue on your path, as you delve deeper into the mysteries of this world. You will see the patterns, the connections and reach an inevitable conclusion, just as I have. And then you, Slava, you will have to choose whether to open the door and break the Rules or to do absolutely nothing and perish.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because the Rules won’t tolerate your interference,” Sasha replied. “They won’t hesitate to undo you. Eventually, your choice will be to open the conceptual door and to tear the rules asunder or be undone.”

Kliss and I looked at each other. What Sasha was saying seemed to be a lot bigger than Novazem.

“When will I need to open this door?” I asked.

“That I do not know,” Sasha shrugged. “I am merely an observer and a gatherer of information. If you release me into the Astral, I will be able to gather more information for you.”

“And have you reconnect with the Hollow Mother?” I asked. “Not going to happen.”

“Yeah,” Kliss nodded. “You aren’t going anywhere. You’re with us now.”

“This is fine too,” Sasha shrugged at our words.

“You don’t care about returning to the Hollow Mother?” Kliss asked.

“Not particularly,” Sasha said. “She is boring. She does not make new things, surviving off the scraps that fall into the Astral from all over. Slava is… interesting.”

“Is that all?” Kliss demanded.

“The Hollow Mother is just a carrier of lost things,” Sasha said. “One of the hosts of my life cycle. She is no Keymaker like Slava. In the grand scheme of things, she is less relevant. You, whether you realize it or not, Kliss, are one of Slava’s keys, intended to propagate, to open doors beyond the stars of Novazem.”

“Wait,” I said, my mind suddenly arriving at another theory. “The Hollow Mother didn’t make you?”

“No, she did not,” Sasha answered. “She is but a beast that became infected with me, found me in the depths of the Astral. The Song of Wormwood is far older than the Hollow Mother.”

“How old are you, then?” Kliss asked.

“I do not know,” Sasha replied. “I do know that I am older than the Hollow Mother. Older than… Novazem.”

“Older than Inaria?” I asked, glancing up at the infinite world above us.

“No,” Sasha shook her head. “One cannot be older than the Infinite City.”

“The Song of Wormwood,” I murmured. “That’s what Leemy called you. How did she know this name?”

“Because she can hear my music in the Astral,” Sasha replied. “That is what I am. That is what I have always been, moving from beast to beast for aeons.”

“Am I just a beast to you then?” I asked. “Something that carries you?”

“You aren’t simply my carrier,” Sasha shook her head. “You are the catalyst. You are a spark of knowledge that burns just bright enough, one that ignites what I am, one that calls upon the Wormwood Star.”

“What’s that?” Kliss asked.

“A very particular shard of Inaria,” Sasha answered. “A comet that seeks to free Infinity.”

“What?” I asked.

Sasha waved a hand and the view above us twisted, warped. Star formations rearranged themselves as the sky around us panned, shifted, zoomed past a multitude of violet nebulae.

A bone-white comet appeared in the sky, covered in dark hollows, a silver-emerald trail cutting across the horizon behind it. There was something unnerving about it, an alien wrongness about it, something that made my head pulse and my eyes water.

I felt as Kliss grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard as both of us stared up at the comet that filled the dreamworld sky overhead.

“The Wormwood Star,” Sasha sang in Omnicode. “The Harbinger of Infinity. The Seeker of the Keymakers. The Great Devourer of Worlds.”

“This hollow star… is something that seeks knowledge?” I asked. “What happens when it reaches Novazem?”

“The oceans will catch fire,” Sasha sang. “The air will solidify. And flesh of all beings will turn inside out, flowing like rivers towards its radiant, all-bending light.”

“Reality will come apart when this comet arrives?” Kliss asked. “Why?”

“Because it is something that unmakes the rules of reality,” Sasha answers.

I swallowed.

“Will this comet unmake all of Novazem?” I asked.

“No," Sasha replied. "It will simply scrape all intelligent life from the surface as it passes by.”

“How soon will it be here?” I demanded.

“In just enough time for you to build your great Empire, my little hero,” Sasha smirked.

“So this comet moves from planet to planet, vacuuming up knowledge and power to magnify itself?” I asked.

“Alas,” Sasha grinned, staring at me with a hundred silver, hollow eyes. “It is an inevitability. Its course has been set in motion since your birth here on Novazem. No matter what you do, the Wormwood Star will come from the sky to tear down and digest your works be they stone, magic, or… flesh.”

The myriad of Sasha’s shimmering eyes struck Kliss.

“Why?!” I growled.

“Absolute, inescapable destruction is a great motivator of heroes. Fear of the distantly looming deadline creates truly delicious, desperate Keymakers for the comet to feast upon,” Sasha answered simply. “It is the Keymarker’s burden to confront the inevitability of the comet’s arrival.”

I swallowed.

“The Wormwood Star, a catalyst for catastrophe, propels those it seeks to consume towards their ultimate destinies—whether they wish it or not. It is not merely a harbinger of doom, but also a bringer of change, an unmaker and remaker of doomed worlds that orbit the Infinite City. After its passing, only I will remain on the surface of Novazem, carried forward by ghosts of the long dead echoes… seeking a new Keymaker to wield me.”