"So, Dehmian... Do you perchance know where we could venture further?" Ohan asked, his voice an instrument that seemed too loud in the crushing silence. He gestured with a lazy hand at the endless expanse.
"It's all too... white. And same. One grows weary of perfection."
They had entered the In-Between. Not a place, but the absence between places. 'The Infinity Highway,' some called it, for a single step here could span the gaps between universes.
It was a secret usually reserved for entities higher than them; the lower strata were connected by rougher means. This realm was a realm of pure concept, and they were outsiders.
There was no sound. Not the faintest whisper of air, the hum of energy, or the echo of their footsteps. Their boots met a surface that was neither solid nor empty, offering no texture, no temperature, no resistance.
It was like standing on forgetfulness. The only sensation was a low, silent hum that vibrated through the marrow of their bones, a faint, constant reminder that they still were in a place that defied existence.
Ohan attempted to gaze through the veil with his divine sight, but his vision slipped of the non-space, finding no hold. It was deeply unsettling. He chuckled, a dry sound that was swallowed by the void the moment it left his lips.
"Dear Dehmian," he said, turning to his companion, "it appears we hold no authority here. We are... guests. It makes one feel rather small, does it not?"
Ohan tried to scan the place with his divine eyes, but they didn't seem to work. This didn't bother him too much; he chuckled a bit before turning his head towards Dehmian. "Dear Dehmian, it seems that we hold no authority here. This makes me feel rather strange; what about you?"
Dehmian merely grunted; his eyes, sharper and more primal than Ohan's, were fixed on a point in the featureless distance. "There. Something there." He pointed.
Ohan squinted, his eyes unaccustomed to such mundane effort. He saw it then, a faint, impossible contradiction. An uneven, rock-like form that shouldn't exist, and behind it, a figure. Pale, motionless, observing.
The pair stood frozen. Their divine senses, which should have screamed of threat or safety, registered nothing. A void. Was it harmless, or was the concept of 'threat' itself meaningless here?
Ohan, without moving his gaze, took a quiet, small step closer to Dehmian's solid form. "What a peculiar predicament," he murmured, his royal tone strained. "What is the protocol for phantoms in a non-place, I wonder?"
Dehmian answered with action. He simply shrugged his massive shoulders and began to walk toward the figure, his walk confident even on the non-ground. Ohan hesitated for a breath, a mortal impulse in a divine being, then followed, his own steps less assured.
Yet the entity remained fixed in the distance. They turned their bodies completely, testing the non-logic of the realm, and found it always before them.
Again and again, the result was the same: a fixed point in an infinite space.
"Dehmian..." Ohan's voice had lost its playful edge. "I fear our options have dwindled to two: we must either escalate to violence, or... we must attempt to parley." His hands, usually so composed, trembled with the faintest of nervousness.
Dehmian remained a statue of stoic indifference. He had faced worse than ghosts.
Ohan tried to take a step forward. His muscle moved, his intent was clear, but the distance did not change. He looked down, bewildered. "I am certain I moved. Why does the geometry not obey?"
As if his thought had been spoken aloud on a frequency this realm understood, the space before them warped. Not with motion, but with a sudden, silent refolding of reality. The ghostly figure now stood directly before them.
It was a pale, humanoid form, draped in robes the color of fading twilight. A veil obscured its face, yet its presence was immense, feeling both ancient and utterly neutral. It seemed to dwarf them not in size, but in context, as if they were sketches and it was the canvas.
It radiated a profound, placid calm, an aura that suggested it could be trusted with the secrets of creation itself.
"Welcome, Ohan and Dehmian. Oratores of The Angel of Angels, Kek." Its voice was not a sound but a meaning implanted directly in their consciousness, serene and absolute.
"I am a Wayfarer. Your guide. For you have entered the In-Between, the creation of Mistress Aal. A means for the need of connection."
The meaning-breeze feeling shifted, carrying a faint, almost unnoticeable hint of... not curiosity, but function. "Where would you... mortal beings... wish to traverse?"
Ohan's composure shattered. Mortal? The insult was so profound, so conceptually wrong, it bypassed his anger and went straight to disbelieving fury.
A fake smile stretched across his face. "Dear sir," he began, his voice dripping with venomous courtesy, his hands clutched, knuckled before him.
"First, we are no mortals. We are divine messengers of Lord Kek Himself. Second, we require no guide. And for your insolence, you will be-"
He moved. A blur of divine retribution that would have smitten countless realities in the lower strata. Here, it was a pathetic, slow-motion lunge.
The Wayfarer did not react. It simply... acknowledged. It waved a hand, a gesture as casual as shooing a cat.
And Ohan folded.
There was no scream. There was only the silent, horrific spectacle of a divine being being folded into a trillion intricate, geometric shapes, a complex origami of flesh, armor, and outrage.
The meaning-voice returned, as serene as a frozen lake. "Ohan, Oratores of Kek. You seem to forget you hold no authority here. You require a guide.
All who are not a Crowned or of the higher strata are lost here without one. So decrees The Authorian." The formless gaze seemed to turn. "Now. Tell me your destination."
Dehmian watched the silent, twisting sculpture that was his partner. A moment of pure, stunned silence hung between them, heavier than any world.
He looked from the folded Ohan to the utterly indifferent Wayfarer. His impulse for battle was overridden by a cold, realistoc understanding of their powerlessness.
He met the entity's veil. "We bear a message from Lord Kek. For the Higher Ones. The Crowned."
The Wayfarer gave another dismissive wave. Ohan unfolded, gasping a sound back into his lungs, his form restored but his dignity not. A silent, profound pain was etched into every line of his face.
To think that there are entities higher than this Wayfarer baffled Ohan's mind.
"Be specific," the Wayfarer exclaimed. "There are twenty-two Crowned. The twenty-third will be chosen. Name your destination."
Dehmian, acting on an impulse he couldn't explain, answered immediately. "Hesis."
"Then we go to the Plateau of Infinity. You will meet She who is called Hesis."