Once my revenge was proclaimed, shame and unease seeped through me. I was really relieved that nobody could hear me. In retrospect, this sentence was rather embarrassing; the youth pushed me to immaturity. Perhaps I'm running away from the reality of my personality, but let's face it, we're not here to talk about my present after all.

I slowly regained my composure, chasing away the heightened feelings I'd been experiencing until then. I took advantage of my physical death to take a distracted look around me. I'd be lying if I said I felt no despair then, but the relief of being a little more complete than before quelled that feeling.

At least for a while because it was easy to lose track of time in an etheric space where nothing happens. All I could do was let my thoughts wander in my new solitude and my new eternal trap. I was stuck in etheric space and had neither mind nor body, so I could only contemplate my Void.

At least, that was my belief until I spotted a small ball of energy and became stunned and horrified. It was the energy of a Soul, that of Systalia, or rather that of its Core, to be more precise. I began to understand all the implications of this situation.

And above all, I understood the energy source the Void had used in our previous battle. Here was the truth about the mysterious energy that seemed to come out of nowhere and was swelling the Void's Will. I realized that I really was a monster; I'd killed my traveling companion, the only ally I had in this hostile world.

Granted, I couldn't trust her completely, but she was still helpful and the only person who wasn't out to kill me, not like the people who'd come to make us do things I didn't even want to know about.

What's more, she seemed nice, and if she wasn't the most talkative, she didn't have a bad temper. Character and personality were decisive factors in a trip, and I certainly didn't want to deal with relationship problems. I had a lot of other things to think about, so I needed someone with a simple, relaxed personality.

I inspected this Soul Core again, thinking about how to resolve the situation. I didn't want to stay in this place and could use this situation to escape etheric space. Suddenly, an illumination ran through my thoughts. If I had a body, I'd indeed have smiled mischievously.

Despite this intuition, I remained deeply dubious: this was the craziest thing I'd been about to do since waking up in that bloody room. And I wondered if my ability to achieve such a feat with so little knowledge and experience in the field.

Nevertheless, I also knew it was the only solution if I wanted to escape this prison and continue my adventures. Even if the physical world seemed full of hostile people, it was a more desirable alternative than eternal boredom... at least for now.

So I finally resolved myself and took Systalia's Core in an embrace of the Void. Naturally, the Core shook on contact with the Void's energy. In response, I surrounded the Core completely, drowning it in my Void, but without absorbing it into myself.

Henceforth, the Core could no longer move, allowing me to peer into its abyss and discover its essence. Diving deeper into the Core's connections and information, I grasped a fabulous and mysterious world. Having never had a Core, I knew very little of its architecture.

And so I set out to uncover all the algorithms and data the kernel contained. Honestly, I was curious how long I'd be able to deconstruct its Soul. But I knew it was long enough for my Void to become feverish and energy-starved.

Nevertheless, later on, my sister gave me the answer: the clock function of her Status had advanced by almost one year. So when my sister woke up, it had been over a year since my initial awakening.

It was hardly surprising that my Void was crying out for energy, and fortunately, it had no body, mind, or soul to sustain. Otherwise, it would have passed away by now. On the other hand, my Void must have used up a lot of energy for Systalia.

Indeed, during this considerable period, I was gathering intelligence and testing various repair techniques on this Core. I tried to change the nature of this Core, of this Soul, to recreate an entire Spirit, Body, and Soul for Systalia.

Naturally, I set about using the same procedure on myself. It was inconclusive: my nature, the Void, posed a problem. The exact cause of this problem was unknown to me, but the fact remained that I couldn't create an algorithm to reconstruct a Soul, a Spirit, or a Body.

All I could do was change the Core's algorithms and convert the Void's energy into simple etheric energy, finally injecting it into the Core. Moreover, the process required the utmost precision, risking destroying the Core forever. And I wasn't even considering a very annoying and mysterious contingency...

Throughout the operation, we had to use Our Will to fight against the Core, or rather against something that seemed to be connected to the Core without being lodged inside it. It was as if the entity seemed to be joining at a distance, even though the mechanism was utterly beyond me.

To my great sorrow, I could hardly contemplate such a feat, every moment of distraction causing me to lose ground on my grip on the Core. I had to redouble my efforts, concentration, ingenuity, and Will to fight this enemy.

I could only repel this entity but never detect, let alone remove, its gateway to the Core. The mysterious entity must have had a backdoor hidden insidiously in Systalia's Soul Core, but I could never detect it.

And understandably so. Had I understood the kind of entity I was fighting against at the time and the extent of its powers, grandeur, and incomprehensibility, I would certainly have been both in awe and terrified of its omnipotence, as I was of the Void. And I might also have felt a little sorry for it.

Under these conditions, I had to tackle the onerous task of rebuilding a Soul around the Core. And while supplying energy to this new Soul, a new Spirit germinated, giving birth to a Body.

My only fear in this process was that Systalia would never be the same again. Typically, its data was highly compressed in the Core and, therefore, complete. And I was only touching the architecture of her Body, Mind, and Soul, their media, not the data they could manipulate.

Nevertheless, I was always very anxious that the data decompression would go wrong and some would become corrupted, unreadable, or even render other previously healthy data defective. These thoughts haunted me at every moment of the data decompression and injection phase.

So it was with enormous trepidation that I scanned the Soul, Mind, and Body for any problems, as they seemed to come back to life, vast quantities of data flowing through them to be processed and ordered. Not to mention countless algorithms using them to calculate more and more and store the results.

I was quickly relieved, having detected no problems. The only alert was that Systalia was about to wake up, making me happy and worried. I was pleased because we could continue our journey, but I was concerned. After all, I was apprehensive about her reaction when she learned the truth about her current existence.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

As my sister slowly awoke, I could contemplate this room's magnificent... not hideous ceiling. A ceiling of such deep blackness that it seemed to suck in all the surrounding light, leaving nothing but nothingness. I had to rectify my thoughts: this ceiling was scary, and I promised never to look at a ceiling again.

Little by little, I could feel the hard floor beneath my feet and the dubious smell I could have done without. And I could have such sensations without possessing a body! At least, even if my consciousness remained trapped in this etheric space, I could connect indirectly with the physical world.

And all thanks to her Soul, Spirit, and Body modifications, which enabled me to experience the same sensations as she did. Although I had access to all three, the translation of information was limited to bodily sensations, and my knowledge needed to be improved to go any further.

I, therefore, ignored the other sensations for the time being. Which I thought was a shame because I could have known Systalia's innermost thoughts, emotions, and secrets and thus determined how much I could trust her.

While I was thinking this, Systalia began to stammer incomprehensible words, still looking half-asleep. It took her a few minutes to regain complete awareness of her surroundings. She lay there for a while, her mind half-absent.

Suddenly, she stood up abruptly and turned her head frantically, breathing in a jerky rhythm. Her gaze lingered as if searching for something. All I needed was a few words to focus on the person in front of me and be relieved of this anxiety.

In a choppy, worried voice, she exclaimed: "Æther, where are you? How am I alive? Are you here? Aren't you? Æther?"

Before continuing to mumble: "I wish I had an answer; this unknown situation scares me a little. If only someone could come forward and prove that I'm really alive and not in some fake place, condemned to eternal solitude."

I smiled mischievously, even chuckling a little at his zany thoughts. At least I'd gotten to know another side of my sister. For once, she didn't seem so stoic. I could only conjecture that she'd reached her limits after all those negative experiences and was beginning to reveal her true personality.

Or maybe she was constantly on her guard when someone was around. And if that was the case, I couldn't blame her since I tried to be on the lookout for the slightest suspicious movement. Although I was still too much of a novice at this, revealing my feelings far too much.

I couldn't play dead for much longer. Finally resigned to answering my companion at the sight of his pity-inducing panic, I connected with his Soul and enunciated: "Hi! I see you missed me."

She didn't respond. Instead, her body was losing temperature, especially her face. It was as if her face was turning livid, and she was about to collapse. And I was not far from the truth, for she sank to her knees, cold sweat beading her body.

I thought about learning to modulate the sensations I was receiving as soon as possible, as I didn't want to feel her physical sensations when they appeared unpleasant. Especially now that I felt an intense cold running through me, as well as a strange tiredness as if my body were destabilized.

I continued to speak several times, but nothing helped; her Soul seemed to have a problem with me talking directly to her. So I had to adapt willy-nilly by instantly connecting to his Body and not to his Soul.

I then changed the connection information instructions to use his Soul as a router, hoping it would redirect my information to his Body. It took me a few hours to accomplish this task. And anyway, I needn't have worried about how long it took, as my sister had fainted.

After an hour, Systalia slowly awoke, confused and bewildered by recent events.

Once I was sure she was fully awake, I spoke again: "Hello, fellow traveler! Did you have a nice nap? Ah, I know; let's cut to the chase! You died, but now a new life has been delivered."

She looked around, her gestures betraying her deep confusion, which was only completed by her words: "Where are you? How can I hear you when I can't see you? What's that supposed to mean? How can I be dead after all? What the..."

She was spouting her words at such a rate that she was clearly in a state of stress.

Then I stopped her and declared formally: "All right, I'll answer you! So listen carefully and ask questions calmly afterward if you still have any. You've calmed down enough."

She nodded at such speed that it made me a little nauseous.

Since I couldn't physically throw up, at least I could resume serenely: "You're as good as dead in this place, just like me."

Appearing upset and perplexed, she couldn't help but cut me off: "But... I hear you... how... resurrection should be impossible according to the laws of the World..."

I huffed, torn between irritation at being interrupted and sympathy at his apparent bewilderment.

Finally deciding to ignore his attitude, I resumed in a slightly pained voice: "Some time ago, you died in this hellish environment, and I brought you back to life with my power. In fact, I created a new body for you in exchange for the energy of my own body. And I've taken refuge in you with my soul, which can now speak to you."

My words may not have been the truth, but she hardly needed to know that I'd recreated much more than her body or that I'd been the cause of her body's destruction in the first place. I could only console myself by convincing myself that with her original body, she would have died.

I didn't tell him about my Void either, as this was very personal information, and I knew too little about my true nature. And I didn't even know if the Void was of such an exotic nature in this world, which fatally limited what I could divulge about myself.

I didn't want anyone to be interested in me because of the incredible powers I had. Even if I had no illusions that my powers would cause me problems in the future, I'd have to learn to blend in quickly.

She seemed strangely calm after my words before stammering after a minute: "I see... I suppose... I understand... or not... no... No! I don't understand! Who are you really?!"

I was appalled, and if I had a body, I'd undoubtedly be breaking out in a cold sweat right now, perhaps even accompanied by an accelerated heartbeat and jerky breathing. All the more so, as Systalia finished her sentence with a slightly frightened expression, her body somewhat tense.

I forced myself to calm my feelings before hesitating: "My name is simply Æther, as I've already told you. However, you can also call me the Void Souls Traveler, who gives a second chance to souls who have had the misfortune of not fulfilling their Desire. But it won't be for free. In exchange, I'll follow you on your adventures, and you'll act as my representative."

I couldn't tell her the truth, at least not yet, even though I should have been sincere and passed on my secret in hindsight. And all I can do now is recount a past and nothing more. When I think about it, the true Gods are those who can change the course of Entropy. And I'm not a Goddess.

Her mouth seemed to open while her eyes squinted at the distant landscape, and the rest of her body stopped moving.

It took him five minutes to come out of his torpor and ask me: "So, if I'm summarizing correctly, you've resurrected me, and you're a divine being?"

Then, it was my turn to be flabbergasted by his words. I wasn't a Goddess, and I couldn't understand how she'd come to such a conclusion.

Nevertheless, hardly letting my inner turmoil show, I replied: "A divine being... Yes, that's indeed what I am. I'm a Goddess who's just woken up from a long sleep and wants information about this World. So, since we'll both be traveling, I'd like you to give me as much information as you can about this World, especially this System. And in exchange, I'll help you realize your dream."

I hoped deep down that my lie wouldn't arouse too much suspicion, and I could only count on her being grateful to me for offering her another chance in life so that she wouldn't ask any awkward questions.

Besides, I'd promised to help her realize her dreams. Making such a promise was dangerous, but it was an effective way of getting her to trust me as quickly as possible and to become more relaxed with me, letting me catch a glimpse of her way of thinking.

Besides, an advisor who has his master's trust is always an influential person and will be able to manipulate his master at will. Well executed, I could gain her total trust and better influence her to my own ends.

After a long, heavy silence, with only half-living bodies wailing, she proclaimed in a contemplative voice: "Since you saved my life, giving me another chance to realize my dream, I'll share my knowledge with you and become your representative. I also accept your help to realize my dream. This dream is beyond me, and I could never achieve it alone; I know that only too well."

I was delighted that she allowed me to become her advisor and my representative, although I still needed to learn her dream. That's why I hesitated a little before making a decision that would radically impact my future.

Then I asked her, with a dignity befitting my new fake status: "Dear Systalia, My Apostle, I, Your Goddess, will help you grant your wish, for I have but one word. So don't be afraid to make your request! Your Goddess commands it!"

My sister... No, My Apostle seemed to smile momentarily before saying, seeming to lend herself to the game: "Yes... I am now Your Apostle and request to meet someone far beyond our world. Could you guide me to this future, My Dear Goddess?"

As for the Desire she described, she remained vague, giving only the purpose, making her request very suspicious. She was hiding something, though I had no idea that the unspoken words prevented me from really perceiving the extent of her request or her implication for the future of the World.

I could only nod firmly at his words, taking a request whose outcome I didn't know and whose realization seemed uncertain. But for now, I had to establish a relationship of trust with Systalia and help her, especially as I needed her Soul as a bridge to the physical world.

Obviously, this situation wasn't going to last forever, as I searched day after day in secret for ways to recreate my body or even get out of her body. All this for the day of my liberation, when the Void would begin to exercise its full potential and subvert the reason of this World once and for all.

And even though I was standing in a golden prison right now, I was happy. I am so glad to be able to contemplate this newfound Void at last and rediscover this familiarity. All I had to do now was discover all our secrets and past so that the Void and I could finally become what we should always have been.

Even if that thing would condemn us to destruction or eternal suffering. Because nothing is more beautiful and meaningful than a magnificent Void, especially in the company of our soulmate.

And you, dear reader, My Successor, what do you think? Do you really want to take on the responsibility of succeeding in the Void of this World?

And so we set off back towards town, loading my book with the necessary bags and scrolls with incredible difficulty. We didn't know it yet, but we were only a few hours away from the city... and our subsequent death.