"It's been a while since a god fell from the skies," said the man in white. His smile didn't reach his eyes, just like Ludfrick's.
"Thank you for the welcome. Much better than those stuck-up idiots in heaven," I said, nodding.
"Heaven? Ah yes… And where, exactly, is that?" he asked, voice smooth as silk.
"My father's creatures have spoken of a heaven above and a mortal land below.
"Heaven is a golden city that hangs above the world. It is home to the gods, ruled by Ludfrick, Kalrus, and Caelus," I said without hesitation.
He raised an eyebrow, then laughed loudly. "Their hubris truly knows no bounds. They cast us aside as 'defects,' then crowned themselves gods of heaven? How laughable… utterly laughable." His laughter echoed, deep and mocking, while Krussal simply smiled at me.
"Is there something I'm—"
A sharp, brutal pain tore through my chest. My heart hammered, cracking from within. I dropped to my knees as the faith energy inside my heart began to dissolve, turning to vapor. With each wisp that vanished, the pain intensified.
"Enoch!" I gasped through clenched teeth.
"What's wrong with him?" Asked the other man.
"Hmm. His power is decreasing," the man in white said casually, as if commenting on the weather.
The agony grew ten, no, a hundredfold. My limbs grew heavy and cold. Eventually my body collapsed under its own weight. I didn't lose consciousness; I simply couldn't move. Only a thin sliver of faith energy remained inside me, barely enough to feel alive.
"Tenebre"
"Yes lord Krussal"
"Take him to the Well. Let him bathe in its waters. That will help him recover somewhat," Krussal said.
Hands lifted me. The world blurred around me.
"Now, we don't know what's happening to you," Tenebre said, "but you should feel honored. Not everyone is allowed to bathe in here"
A splash and icy water swallowed me whole. It didn't feel like the green mist I had touched above this world. This was…wet. It was cold, chilling to the bone
The water moved on its own, curling around my limbs, slipping into my mouth and through my body. Everywhere it touched burned like a thousand flaming needles prickling my nerves. The pain was indescribable. I screamed, but only bubbles escaped.
Thoughts broke apart in my mind, words turned to nonsense. Then a flash and everything stopped.
The pain vanished as if it had never been there. I felt weightless, drifting in a void like the one I awoke in when I first came to this world. I hung suspended, unable to turn my body no matter how I struggled.
Eventually, I stopped. I simply stared at the stars scattered before me.
Well… at least the pain is gone.
"It has been too long, fragment," a voice said. It came from nowhere and everywhere. My eyes darted around, searching for the speaker, but I saw nothing.
"Up here."
I looked up. Countless eyes hovered above me, unblinking, watching and studying me curiously. A cold wave of fear swept through me. My mind froze.
"It has been an age since someone has managed to connect with the Well of Creation," the thing said, its many eyes blinking lazily.
"I—I'm sorry, but… who are you, sir?" I asked, voice trembling despite myself.
The creature laughed. The sound rippled through the void, making the very space around us tremble. The more it shook, the heavier the pressure pressing down on my body became. When the laughter finally faded, silence swallowed everything, thick and suffocating.
Then it spoke:
"Small, fragile being. A heartbeat drifting in a place where heartbeats mean nothing. I am what you fear without knowing my name. I am the quiet between stars… the shadow beneath mountains… the darkness that does not close its eyes.
I am not cruel, I am not kind, I simply AM. Your life is a moment, brief, flickering, already fading and yet you look upon me. You try to understand what was never meant for understanding.
I do not hunger, I do not plot, things return to me because all things end. Call me void, or nothingness, or shadow. It does not matter. Names are for those who need to be known. I am the absence that shapes all things. The end that creeps behind all beginning.
And you, little one… you are a spark trying to warm an infinite night."
The pressure deepened. Its eyes narrowed, fondly? Mockingly?
"Remember this. I am patient for I am eternal, and one day… you, and everything you cling to, will fall into me. As everything has done before."
The words hung in the void like a blade suspended over my throat.
"I am the primordial void, I am the first," the mass of eyes declared.
My breath caught, my heart lurched violently in my chest.
"I'm… sorry?" I stammered. "You're what?"
All the eyes focused on me at once. A thousand cold suns narrowing their gaze.
"Yes," it rumbled, its voice vibrating the very fabric of the space around me.
"You stand before the First. The beginning‑before‑beginnings. The one from whom all things crawled into being."
My mouth felt dry, my limbs still suspended in this weightless limbo felt like they belonged to someone else.
This wasn't a god.This was a concept, and not just any, but this was the concept all other concepts were afraid of.
I swallowed hard. "Why… why am I here then? Why bring me to this place?"
The void being blinked once and the darkness rippled like ink disturbed by a stone.
"Because they are coming."
The words didn't echo. They pressed. Heavy. Final. Like a door slamming shut across infinity.
"Who?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
The eyes shifted, rotating in spirals like a living galaxy. "The ones from the outside. The devourers of Stars. The Shepherds of endings. The beings who drift between universes, harvesting existence as one plucks fruit from a dying tree."
Cold shivered through my bones.
"Our universe," it continued, "is not ready to confront a threat of their magnitude."
My body felt weightless, yet anchored by dread. "Then… why me? What do I have to do with this? I'm barely holding myself together as it is—"
"All universes have a First," the mass of eyes interrupted. "A root, a source. I am that tether. I kept the barrier sealed. I shaped the emptiness so creation could thrive."
The space around me flickered, black, then purple, then black again.
"But I am spent," it said, voice quivering with something like fatigue. "I exhausted my vitality pushing our universe out of their path and hiding it. My end approaches."
My chest tightened.
"Wait… you mean you're dying?"
It didn't answer immediately. The eyes blinked in a slow, sorrowful cascade.
"I fade," it corrected. "I dissolve. Even voids can unravel when stretched thin."
It leaned closer, not physically, but the pressure of its presence intensified until I felt the weight crushing my ribs.
"And you," it whispered, voice suddenly trembling with an excitement that made my skin crawl, "you are my fragment."
My heart dropped into my stomach.
"What!?"
"You were torn from me at the moment of division. A sliver of my essence cast into the new creation's cycle. A seed placed among gods. A memory of me, I am happy that you have found your way to me."
The excitement grew, childlike and eerie.
"And now… now you must take my place. Or rather take back your place."
Everything inside me froze.
My mouth opened and closed uselessly before the words finally tumbled out:
"Whoa, slow down! Slow down!" My voice cracked with panic. "Take your place? What does that even mean? You're asking me to… to become you!? How?!"
The void's laughter was a sound reality wasn't built to hold. The stars around us warped, bending as if bowing to the sound.
"You speak as though you have a choice," it said gently. "This is not a burden. It is destiny, our destiny… passed into your fragile hands."
"No," I snapped, fear sharpening my voice. "I'm not just going to accept your word at face value. How do I know anything you're saying is true? You want me to… take over the void? Become the first? That's, that's—"
"Colossal?" the void offered.
"Yes!" I shouted.
The void's eyes softened. For a moment, it sounded almost… proud.
"You question and you fear. This is good. That shows you are alive, and your innocence is still maintained even after you have come accross the intoxicating power of chaos. But fragments must struggle before becoming whole."
"I didn't agree to anything," I said through clenched teeth. "And I don't understand any of this. If I'm your fragment, why didn't I know? Why didn't you come earlier? Why now?"
The space around me shivered.
"Because only now could you hear me. Only now were you submerged in the Well and connected with the pool of creation. Only through it could you connect to me."
The countless eyes blinked once more, slowly.
"And because the shield is weakening. They continue to assault and encrouch uppon it. The barrier will not hold forever. You must ascend, fragment. You must become what I can no longer be."
Its voice deepened, vibrating through the very atoms of the space i was in.
"Take my place."
The space rippled, the pressure increased and every instinct I had screamed run.