I picked up Guinevere and carried her so she could sleep. Since nothing was real she didn’t need to sleep, but since her mind told the body (which didn’t exist) that it did need to sleep, she needed to sleep. Thinking about how the Void worked made my brain hurt.

For endless miles behind us, the path of the ‘ground’ stretched out, the glow it gave off letting it be seen from leagues away. One step after another I moved towards the thing I was feeling; it was slowly getting stronger, but it was still just a feeling.

“Where are the creatures of the Void?” I asked. “You said there were tons of them; it's almost been eighteen hours and I haven’t seen one.”

“My siblings move where there is food,” Voidra said. “They could show up at any time, or it could take….your left, incoming.”

I snapped around, igniting Clarent. Guinevere woke up and slid to her feet, blinking her eyes rapidly. My eyes narrowed as I scanned my surroundings, there was nothing…there. The creature wasn’t exactly a creature. I clutched my head as I looked at the amorphous creature resembling everything and nothing.

“What is that?” Guinevere asked, drawing her own sword.

The amorphous creature slowly became more fixed, taking on a more humanoid form. It cocked its head, looking at us.

“What is that?” it asked, its voice a perfect facsimile of Guinevere’s voice.

“Don’t talk to it,” Voidra said. “It feeds off reality, its why we eat souls: the more you give it, the stronger it gets.”

The creature’s head cocked again, and I winced as a barrage of sensations hit me. They weren’t words, but sound, smell, touch, and taste all at once.

“The hell was that?” I asked.

“It asked me a question,” Voidra said. “Kill it now.”

The creature took a step back, but I lunged forwards and drove my sword through it. There was no blood or guts; it just fizzled out leaving a sort of stain in the air.

“That was easy,” I said.

“That was just a newborn,” Voidra said. “He couldn’t even talk.”

“You called it an it before, now it’s a he?” Karnen asked.

“When he spoke, he made a decision about who he was,” Voidra said, her voice melancholy. “I could have been that spirit right there.”

“But you’re not,” Ares said. “You’ve changed as much as Karnen or me or Mordred; whatever you are and whatever they, you are aren’t the same.”

“Yeah,” Voidra said, but her heart wasn’t in it.

“Anymore of them nearby?” I asked.

“No,” Voidra said.

“You know I’m going to have to kill a lot more of them, right?” I asked.

“I know,” Voidra said. “I’m not really upset. He didn’t even understand what was happening when you killed him. The concept of death … it takes us a long time to learn that. You’re not the only predator here; there aren’t enough souls to feed on, so when we get hungry, a lot of newborns like him get eaten.”

“Why didn’t you want us to talk to it … him?” Guinevere asked.

“Like I said, we learn from emotions and observation of physical reality,” she said. “My parents are among the most ancient of my kind; trying to fight them would be like trying to fight a mountain.”

“I’m pretty sure I can do that,” I said with a shrug. “Do you want me to not fight them? Do they matter to you?”

“My mother and father put me in you to just get rid of me; not enough food for them and the rest of my siblings,” Voidra said. “I don’t want you to kill them, but if they find you here, you’ll have to.”

I nodded. “So be it.

---

We kept moving, following the sensation. The closer we got, the more distinct I could feel it. The feeling wasn’t exactly like hearing, but it was as if something was calling my name, sort of like how if you’re wearing headphones and someone says your name, you’re aware you’ve been addressed even, if you can’t tell by whom or any of the words actually said. It was just a voice or something analogous to that, softly crying out my name over and over again.

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My mana hit maximum and as a test, I tried to open another portal. I quit before it even got to one percent completion. Karnen was right, I was short on the mana needed and the spell would complete before I hit my mana regen got me the extra one-million I needed using up my life-force. Guinevere wouldn’t let me sacrifice myself for her, but even if she did, there was no guarantee we would get past the System this time.

I needed to figure out my plan for that, but so far, I was coming up with nothing. It’s all well and good to say you’re going to fight the unstoppable force, but it’s another thing to actually be an immovable object.

Guinevere was asleep again; it was easier like this and she needed the rest with the baby. I just walked along thinking and scanning the dark, endless surroundings for any other void creatures.

“If there isn’t enough food for you, why does your kind keep making more?” I asked.

“Why did you and Guinevere have a baby?” Voidra asked.

“We didn’t plan on it,” I said with a snort. “We just did the thing that creates babies because it was fun and we’re in love, the baby was just something that happened. But you don’t have bodies here, not the same way. At least, there aren’t any ovaries or other plumbing that would do that. If everything here is thought based, there must be an intention on your parents part to create children.”

“Why would you assume that?” Voidra asked. “So much of what you do is unintentional. You breathe unintentionally, yet you can stop that with an effort of will. Eventually, parts of you not controlled by your conscious mind force you to do so even if you're trying not to.”

“You're saying that the creation of children is an involuntary process for creatures of the Void?” I asked.

“We value companionship,” Voidra said. “Maybe more than creatures of flesh and blood. We feed on emotions because we have a great deal of difficulty producing them ourselves. When two of my kind bond, they do it for life. That’s more literal here, as if one dies, so does the other.”

“Why bond at all, then?” Karnen asked.

“Because we are creatures of pure thoughts,” Voidra said. “We have no bodies to reach out and touch with, no hands to feel with, no lips to kiss with. All that we have are our souls, and that bond is more precious than anything. But that bond, like any process, has byproducts, those being offspring.”

“So, you're saying making babies is like breathing?” Ares asked. “You can hold your breath, but it eventually just happens.”

“Exactly,” Voidra agreed.

“We’re getting closer,” I said, feeling the sensation grow stronger and stronger.

Guinevere opened her eyes. “Why are you running?”

“I’m not…” I said, then realized I’d broken out into a sprint.

I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. Something had just pushed inside me, and I’d started running.

“Void spirits up ahead,” Voidra warned.

Guinevere slid down and I extended Clarent’s blade. The ground continued to spread out around our feet as I approached a trio of prismatic figures crouched in a circle around another creature. They jerked their heads up like ghouls disturbed from their meal.

“What is it?” asked one in a somber voice.

“It’s another soul,” another of them responded in a cheery falsetto voice. “We can stop savoring this one and move on to another meal.”

“There’s something wrong with this one,” a snarling angry one said. “Its flavor feels wrong; too strong, and I can’t feel its energy leaking off it.”

I got a look at what they were gathered around. The form of a young boy curled up in the fetal position, his form ghostly and transparent, his clothes and armor in tatters, his legs and arms gangly. His hair fell to the side, and I recognized him, Kalin.

Clarent swung down but the Void spirit blocked it with a mantis-like blade of dark energy. It hissed and drew back as Clarent continued to burn and pass through, but it managed to avoid being bisected for now.

“It’s strong,” the angry one said. “Too strong. What’s wrong with it?”

“Souls are all weak,” the cheery one said as it disappeared, reappearing behind my back as if with some teleportation ability.

Guinevere blocked the slice of its claws, driving it back. I charged forwards, scattering the two other void spirits. The somber toned one had a spear materialize in one hand and drove it towards my chest. I batted it aside and cut off its arm. The void spirit howled and fell back.

I stood over Kalin’s soul and Guinevere stood at my back. The three void spirits began circling us but I didn’t have time for their games. Scarlet lightning snapped from one to the other, and thiugh they weren’t killed immediately it slowed them enough for me to cut through one and Guinevere another. The cheery one survived, yet when it screamed, its cheer was now gone as it tried to flee.

I stretched out my hand and it froze. Its form wasn’t exactly physical, yet it wasn’t energy either. I used ethereal to power my Telekinesis as rage darkened my vision. I squeezed and compressed. There were no bones to break or organs to pop. Holding onto the void spirit was like trying to remember a dream after being woken up suddenly. Slippery as an eel, it tried to get free, but I wasn’t having any of it.

It ended in an instant, one moment screaming in agony, the next imploding in on itself. A small prismatic crystal the size of my pinky nail bounced on the ground, sending ripples across its glossy black surface. I bent down and picked it up.

There was no system message to identify it, but I could only imagine what you got from compressing a being of pure thought into a physical object, or at least as physical as things came here. I put the crystal way and knelt by Kalin.

“Do you remember me?” I asked him.

I reached down and touched his shoulder. I was afraid to do even that, afraid the slightest touch would cause him to drift apart like a patch of mist in a breeze. His face turned up and he shielded his eyes as if looking into the sun.

“Father, is that you?” he asked.

“No Kalin,” I said gently. “It’s me, Mordred.”

“You came for me?” he asked, his voice weak, like a man lost in the desert.

I hadn’t, me being in the Void a total accident. I hadn’t even known Kalin was here. How many others were here? How many of the men and women who had served me and died for me, how many of those I’d killed had been consumed or had little bits of their souls slowly being eaten like Kalin. But I had been drawn to Kalin. I hadn’t known what I was following, but now that I felt it, I could feel dozens of other tugs at my soul.

“Yes,” I said to Kalin, pulling up his weakened soul to his feet. “I’m going to save you.”