You are reborn, whole, once again.

The light scintillates, spinning like the gleam of a shooting star, fading to reveal you: Julia, Vanished Heir to the Ioanamana Sect of the Republic of Ielia, standing at the world's end.

A wave, an overpowering wave of relief and joy washes over you, no soul-twisting, breaking transformation, simply, wholeness. A laugh, a soft chuckle bubbles up inside your throat. And exclamation of victory over your prison.

You still feel all of them, yourselves, inside you. They are sleeping and dormant leaves that have fallen to rest on the surface of a pool of clear, unbroken water.

You let out the deepest, happiest sigh you have ever breathed, looking down at yourself and finding your skin glowing valiantly golden orange from the afterglow of L’Oos’s godhood. You feel tired and wrung, like how one feels after the pain fades from an excruciating wound.

Your gaze drifts to Sero, who, throughout your transformation, had stood, eerily still and blank. He seems to have drawn far into himself to escape the horror that was your fusion with Tyrr’olni’nel’mul. On his bandaged chest, The Rhodos is spinning slowly.

You cock your head, your long hair flowing up and behind you like radiant smoke from a fire, adrift in some unfelt wind. Ablaze cinders.

You step forward, your first steps whole again in hundreds of years, toward the dormant Forerunner.

His back is straight, his expression neutral, and his cyan eyes glow softly, the last vestiges of his latent Allegory flowing through him. Pumped by the artifact in his chest.

You want to wake him up, or else he may be here forever. You lift a glowing hand and tap the air in front of his face. You barely have to try to worm your way into his memory constructs, unguarded in this state. Your Allegorical hand finds him curled up inside one such construct, hiding, scared.

It barely takes any effort to pull him out. Almost as soon as you start, the man jerks back to life. He breathes heavily through his teeth, his hands go to his head.

“It, Igik-ing, saved the memory! I need to get it out…!” His hands claw at his disheveled hair, trying to draw out the memory, “I–” You stop him, grabbing one wrist before he can pull it out.

“Sero.” You say firmly, “Stop. You are strong, you can handle this.” You close your eyes and ignite the Chest Path, the Path of Vitality and Courage. Goosebumps erupt across your torso as Allegory rushes through you, molten lava in your soul. It flows from your ignited Path, through your arm, and into the traumatized man. You feel his body drink up the torrent, almost gleefully.

The man struggles at first, his breathing fast and violent, hissing in and out rapidly. But slowly, as Allegory is pushed into his soul, he calms, and his hands drop as you let go.

He looks at you curiously, and after a long moment of staring, he asks, “...Nova?”

You inhale, almost unsure because of what happened not a few minutes ago. It takes a moment but you respond: “Yes, but, at the same time… not exactly.” Your voice is more like L’Oos’s than Nova’s, much more mature than you remember, but oh, so yours.

The man blinks, confused, tired, and scared. His breathing is heavy but slow. You discreetly take a look at his Allegory reserves, just barely igniting the Face Path, the Path of Truth and Lies. Inside the alien man is a dwindling stock, barely a single Path Strike Unit. Just barely enough to resist Travelspace’s magical pressure. Your ignition barely added to that minuscule amount, you notice.

“I am, technically, Nova, but I am also L’Neeri, Tyrr’olni’nel’mul, and L’Oos. I am a lot of people and myself at the same time.” As you say their names, these pieces of you seem to resonate within you, glowing like hot irons cooling in deep, blue water.

”My true name is Julia Ioanamana.”

Sero stands up straighter. He swallows slowly before speaking, “Julia…” He begins, his eyes becoming distant as if recalling a long-lost memory, “Ioanamana… yes… you disappeared, what, three hundred forty-one Collectivixian Standard Years ago?” He stumbles a little as he stands up straighter, his voice a soft mumble. His reserves are still not enough to stay afloat.

You nod simply, although you didn’t know that was the amount of elapsed time, that was you. Those centuries went by slowly and without marker nor cadence, for L’Oos and Tyrr’olni’nel’mul to keep track of, they might as well have been ten thousand years.

A moment passes between the two of you, and you briefly look at yourself. Your Face Path ignites, the goosebumps returning as a mask for your face, as they do for this particular ignition. They are most strong on your dark-skinned cheeks and the back and top of your head, but you feel none around your eyes and nose. This had always confounded you, why not this place when these two senses were two of the most enlightened by this Path?

Your Path glows as you use it, a bright, neon white.

Inside your Soul, as you gaze with virtual eyes, you come upon an ocean of Allegory, more than you have ever come in contact with in your life. It glows with the light of the sun itself, blinding and radiant, and you physically cringe at its might.

“Julia,” Sero begins softly, “I– I need Allegory.”

You nod, “I already saw, your reserves are almost depleted.”

Sero puts a hand on his chest, blinking at your statement. “...I was that vulnerable?” He asks softly.

You raise a hand, mostly ignoring him, fingers together and to the white sky. Another ignition, this time the Arm Path, the Path of Force and Fervor, taps into your godhood’s seemingly infinite reservoir. You scoop bucketloads of the imaginary, radiant fluid, dumping them all into a small point above your fingers.

A stygian orb coelesces, not unlike the sable pustules that marred your previous, Aarkiel form. It floats silently as it gathers its strength, filling to a diameter of about 8 centimeters, it flashes black when you cease channeling into it. It barely made a dent in your reserves, but inside this pearl was enough Allegory to eradicate a Titan Tree. A trove of a thousand PSU.

Sero watches impassively as the sphere finishes forming, on his almost gaunt face is an expression that you cannot decipher.

You hand the ball of blackness to him without any ritual, which he takes and shoves into his mouth.

You wince as he swallows instantly, the Rhodos humming to life in his chest. It spins rapidly for a few moments, almost as if it was digesting the Allegory in the orb.

He gasps, his eyes going wide for a moment. The Rhodos slows, and its host lets out a deep, almost pained sigh.

The man stands up truly straight for the first time in hours, running his hands through his hair with his previous life and fervor before speaking. His voice is tired in a different manner from a few moments ago. Instead of being physically fatigued, he is more… irritated at his situation.

“I’m back.” He looks away from you, his lips pursed into a fine line, “I hate how you’ve seen that…” He pauses, his voice dripping with disgust, “...part of me. That weak, pathetic man who can't even save his skin.”

He takes a forceful step, then another, pacing. “These memory constructs are the only thing keeping me sane. Sometimes they slip and I become the Wretch. Sometimes I need to recall them all to refresh them. No matter what I do, these lifetimes of memories are killing me, and I need Allegory to stay above the surface. I need it to keep the cascade contained.”

You watch and listen, you’ve gotten good at that, having to wait all these years, so you let him spill his pain.

He pulls at his hair absently, looking up at the infinite white sky. “Oh, I hate how good it feels to be myself again.”

He turns to you, solemnly taking in your radiant form, “...So, tell me, Julia. I have most of the missing points in this whole story, but I think you will know better than anyone.”

That is interesting. You draw closer, nodding.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“I can assist.” You comment, the past opening up to you.

With a wave of your hand, you effortlessly Tunnel back to the real world, pulling you and Sero through a new Bind Point. Sunlight, warm and natural, bathes the two of you with its brilliant, newborn light of the sunrise. Xulaa is alive, and so are you. It feels like ages since you have felt living wood under your feet and the flitting wind in your hair. Travelspace was both beautiful and stifling sometimes.

“I’ll start at the beginning.”

And so you spin the tale of how you came to Xulaa and got into this whole mess.

“I, as an ambassador of the Ielian Senalature, was traveling alone from a province north of the Fonrog system back to Ielia, when I encountered a powerful, mental distress signal coming from a bind point that all charts labeled as uninhabited. It was persistent, and I thought it would cause me no harm to at least investigate.” Your tone is hard, painful, almost.

“When I arrived, I found a desolate, uninhabitable, storm-torn planet, with that same distress signal egging me on. So, not wanting to abandon an innocent to this hellscape, I halted my journey and made camp on Travelspace. I hoped that I would be able to discern the origins of the signal and possibly save the distressed before I was expected back home. I had no luck until I heard his voice for the first time.” Your voice drips with malice and venom, He was the one that caused this.

“I'm actually quite glad that you happen to stumble upon this place... I have been stranded here for quite some time.” He had said, telepathically, to you while you were in your camp, “Welcome to... Well, it doesn't have a name.”

“I was bewildered, Telepathy is not a common skill, not one given by many Primordials.” You tell, and Sero nods quietly, this was a fact that he was well aware of.

“But, despite my confusion,” You continue, “I listened. That was my first mistake. He explained to me that this place, this inhospitable wasteland, was a Void System, ‘ripe with untamed Allegory, and not unlike that illustrious Thorn Spark's Manifold Apparatus’ he had said.”

You raise a hand to the air, twisting your fingers and disturbing the Allegory there such that it glowed subtly. “I was greedy and naive, back then, and he exploited that. He proffered that this place was highly valuable, anyone who laid claim to it would become a God, and though methods unknown to me even now, he offered, ‘It would be a powerful asset to The Ielian Empire.’ I took the bait and accepted this place as my own, sealing my fate.”

“The Allegory locked you here, didn’t it?” Sero asks softly. Void Systems are impossibly rare, but not uncommon knowledge.

“It did.” It was such a stupid mistake, one that could have been easily avoided. “And now, since I was trapped, I was at the will, beck, and call of this person, one whom I learned the identity of far too late.”

“Oblivion. Scourge of the Universe.”

“Correct.” You turn your head to the man, who had sat down on the branch, his bare feet dangling off the edge and above the abyss, “He gave me a planet that wasn’t his. Despite that, I took after his instruction, and he, at first, seemed to be a trustworthy ally. And so I created what you see before you…”

You ignite your Leg Path, the Path of Mobility and Direction, rising into the air, arms spread to showcase: “This birthed world! An alien and dying planet!”

The sunrise gleams, radiance washing over your creation. This place is your progeny, however much you hate it. An inescapable truth to befit a Queen of the Sun.

Slowly, you sink back down to the branch below, full of roiling, mixing emotions.

“Sero, I know you from before my imprisonment.” You speak to the sunrise.

“I doubt anyone doesn’t,” He replies, “With the things I have done, I bet the whole universe has heard at least one of my names.” His tone isn’t what you expect, some of his actions were almost atrocities, in his eyes.

You pause before continuing, “I heard the tales that you were the one of the immortal few who Sealed this Abomination here, after the War against him.” You look down, thinking back, sifting through oceans of useless memories, “You, Kangleka Urlm, Purity, Arleck the Servant, and The Ancient Dragon Pervevinex. Beings of extreme Allegorical Mastery, all came together to imprison the most dangerous human in the cosmos.”

The man shifts uncomfortably. You must have stirred up unwanted memories.

You don’t speak for a moment, letting the silence extend, before saying, “L’Oos was blinded by fear, she had buried our memories as she could not decipher why she was their bearer. After I had shaped Xulaa, as I had called it, to my desires, Oblivion continued to ask me of things. I did as he asked, as I had little choice. I was stuck here, now, and I needed entertainment. This lasted for weeks, here, but slowly, I noticed his voice becoming weaker and more strained. It was odd, but I thought nothing of it, again. That was my second mistake.

“He only lasted a few more days before I couldn’t hear his voice, and his signature was weak, yet still there. And, exactly one day later, when I created humans to inhabit my world, all went dark.”

Sero cocks his head, “What happened? Were you conscious?”

“Well, no, but in a way, yes, as well.” You feel like that is even more confusing, but it gets the message across. “Firstly, do you remember the mechanics of Oblivion’s Prison? You, being one of its crafters?”

Sero furrows his brow, “I know the jist, Kangleka and Arleck were the masterminds behind its structure.” He lowers his chin into his hand in thought, “He was ‘Primordially’ Sealed, his mind and soul were forced asleep and placed inside a metaphysical pocket dimension, powered by his Allegory, which was also spread throughout the planet, and his body was fundamentally destroyed.”

He looks to you again from the glowing horizon. “Does that suffice?”

You nod approvingly, “You are right on those points, but there are some hidden, interesting factors that you weren’t privy to. First, the prison was more alive than you expect. And second, someone installed a backup of sorts. The prison itself was just that, a pocket dimension. A subplane on Travelspace with a single purpose: be nearly impossible to escape from. But as all prisons do, they erode. Rust. Break down. And that is precisely what they must have expected, so they made a backup system, one that would detect if its occupant woke up and either alert its maker or simply seal them away again.”

“And what does this have to do with you?” The man asks, quizzically.

“The Prison chose the second option, and, in its attempt to fix its security issue, it utilized a technically outlawed Sealing method using the only other soul available: Shattering.”

The man’s eyes go wide as his mind connects the dots. “No… It split your Soul into it’s base fragments and placed them inside humans here. As long as your Soul never rejoined to become… You again… Oblivion would remain trapped.”

It dawns on him, his eyes going wide. “So that’s why the Prison looked like that!”

You smirk slightly, “Exactly. I was fashioned into a headstone for him, five keys made from their one God. ” You sigh deeply, smiling despite the apparent doom. “Oblivion has been released from his bonds. He is awake after all these long, vengeful years, and he, no doubt, wishes only death and destruction to the Universe that put him there.”

Sero jumps up from his seat on the wood, “We need to get moving, we might be able to seal him again!”

You shake your radiant head, and your smoke-like hair is turbulent in the morning air. “There is nothing the two of us can do by ourselves.” You turn to the agitated Forerunner, “but, there is some hope. Our villain is free, but not out. He still needs to break free from the physical confinement. This struggle will last roughly 10 hours. So, I propose a temporary solution.”

You float upwards slightly, one hand behind your back and the other, palm up. “Inside every Titan Tree is a wealth of Allegory. It is what keeps them suspended over the Boiling Sea below the clouds, and is what is keeping them from collapsing under their weight.”

You wave your hand out over the clouds and to the solitary monstrosities, motioning to the biological marvels that they are.

“What I want is to save the people I have created. Oblivion, Odium of All Things, will surely not leave them unscathed. So I propose a solution. We will move the people of this planet to Travelspace by creating Bind Points inside every Titan Tree.”

Sero’s eyes widen with a sharp inhalation, “You would have your people leave their planet? Banished to the white void that is Travelspace?”

You shake your head again, your brow furrowing. “I understand what might happen to my people, however, I see this as one of few alternatives. This is the one that I have set my heart upon, and I believe that this will be enough to save these trapped, doomed people.”

Sero seems to consider it, his bright, cyan eyes flicking back and forth in thought. “I understand,” he says finally, “I will help if need be.”

You nod, “Good. Let us get started.”

There is a deep inhalation, a breath with neon eyes closed. You rise into the warm, morning sky, and a chorus of voices rings out inside your very Soul, intoning a mantra not unlost to you.

“Become the match that strikes aflame upon the path of ambition!”

Then, all at once, you ignite all your Paths.

There is a single, unmarred instant before you explode with righteous light. The sun resting its golden, brilliant body on the horizon responds by flashing in kind, pulsing as you enter Path Overburn.

Allegory floods every minuscule crevice of your being, soaking your mind, body, and soul, aerating your humanity with aureate liquid.

Reality bends to your will, this world is yours to control, and so, with your neon arms spread like grand, glorious wings, you command the silent sentinels of this world to open their hidden gates.

Across all of Xulaa, thousands of Titan Trees begin their sequence. Great, space-ripping cracks echo in the silent, waking world. Deep within each organism, upon whose shoulders rest the lives of all humans and animals here, an orb of scintillation appears, each humming quietly inside their decaying containment, like the god they will be used to escape from. It eats at the wood around it, chewing outward to the rising sun.

Sero stands, bare feet on gnarled wood, his whole, ancient body tense and itching to move. He murmurs under his breath rapidly in a language lost to the Universe, the old Forerunner language as it was eons ago.

He’s praying.

“Sero! I ask only of one thing!” You yell over the rushing wind that rips and pulls at you. The man looks up at you in an assured sort of way, like he managed to right himself in his mind.

“Julia, I am yours to command.” He takes a low, sweeping bow. Suddenly, his whole body erupts with white light, Allegory beginning to rush off of him in droves. This is Sero’s Max Sprint, that powerful form he used back when Nova chased him.

You smile at the flourish, the smell of magic tickles your Overburning nose, a sprinkling, glittering smell, “Help me reach my people, travel from Tree to Tree, and warn them about Oblivion and their escape down in the bowels of their homes. Tell them to climb down their trunks and enter into the new era… Tell them you are a messenger from L’Oos, that will get them to listen.”

He nods with a weary smile. And, with you in motion, you two blast off the branch in opposite directions…

Towards the new dawn.