An unknown void. No signs of matter, no light, no life, and no hope.
Nx was entirely alone, pushing himself to the absolute limit just to find an escape.
The only thing keeping him from stopping was his newly awakened energy burning within him. His "will."
{I've tried going in every direction. It's been eight months,} Nx thought, finally stopping in the endless dark. {The familiar connection with the princess has been severed.}
He floated in the emptiness.
{Is it even worth trying? In the end, I'm just an anomaly. Maybe she has already forgotten about me. No more stories. No more teasing. Just me by myself.}
Then, he remembered the frozen time, the entity, and the agonizing curses meant to erase him.
{But I felt it. Even with time stopped, I understood everything that thing tried to do to me. How unjust. I will kill it.}
The negativity, caused his smoke's color to change to a darker color.
"Clam down, I finally found you," a voice suddenly echoed through the absolute nothingness.
Frustrated and on guard, Nx manipulated his will to flow outside to create sounds. "Who are you? Are you the one who trapped me here?"
A wormhole tore open next to Nx, violently sucking him inside.
He crashed onto solid ground. Looking around, Nx found himself in a desolate realm filled with endless ruins. Directly in front of him stood an ancient stone slab. Words began to carve themselves into its surface:
"Welcome to the Eighth Heaven. There is no longer anyone here, so you are free to do whatever you wish."
Using his sound manipulation at maximum volume, Nx shouted, "Show yourself!"
The text on the ancient stone slab erased itself and rewrote:
"I am right in front of you. If you are wondering why you are stuck here, it is because of your essence. It is unstable and outside of their control. Any godlike entity will try to rid the heavens of you."
Nx paused, trying to understand the ruined world around him. He turned back to the slab. "Tell me what I am. And what harm am I even causing them just by existing?"
The stone replied:
"I cannot answer all of your questions. But stay here. It is for your own safety. If the Gods get their hands on you, they will not be able to destroy your essence, but they will weaponize it to corrupt everything."
"Tell whoever ordered you to keep me here that I am not staying as a prisoner," Nx declared.
"I will not stop you," the stone wrote. "But you cannot leave. I am stuck here just like you. The only way to escape this place is to reach a dimension called the Supreme World."
More text rapidly etched into the stone:
"Be warned. If your consciousness is weak, the journey will erase your existence entirely. You must find a way to make your soul stronger. When you are ready, I will help you."
Nx didn't hesitate. He agreed.
He spent the next two years in total isolation, experimenting with his essence. He learned that "will" possessed two polarities, one positive and one negative.
After two years, Nx floated before the slab once more. "I'm ready. Now what do I do?"
"Interesting. I do not know what strategy you devised, but I still doubt it is enough," the stone etched.
"Trust me," Nx said confidently. "I know what I'm doing."
The ground violently trembled as two massive stone pillars rose from the ruins, glowing with raw, dimensional power.
"Be aware. Even if you succeed, the cost is absolute," the stone warned, its carvings glowing bright red. "Once you cross over, you must immediately merge with a living creature's soul. It will alter your essence enough to hide you. If your fusion slips for even a single second, The Gods will sense the anomaly and find you."
"Oh and, long as you are in the Supreme World. You are in risk of being erased any moment."
The warning resonated directly through Nx's being. "Alright."
The pillars erupted with blinding light. Nx was violently pulled into space, falling through a hurricane of wormholes, tearing through endless realms, dimensions, and trans-infinites.
...
"Interesting. I'm finally done preparing ten chapters for my novel," said a human who goes by Lincon.
Suddenly, his room shook, and he mistakenly deleted the files.
"E..." Lincon sighed.
Wait. Is that me? Why am I being written in text? Bruh, it didn't even spell my name correctly. Let me fix it.
"Interesting. I'm finally done preparing ten chapters for my novel," said a human who goes by Lincoln.
Suddenly, his room shook, and he mistakenly deleted the files.
"E..." Lincoln sighed.
Much better...
Wait, what is that?
Something glowing fell from the sky, hurtling straight through the roof and directly toward Lincoln. Before he could react, it phased through his chest.
"Hm? What's going on..."
His vision went black, and he collapsed unconscious to the floor.
In the space between worlds, the ancient stone's voice echoed one final time as the two souls were violently pulled together.
"To decrease the strain, half of the human's soul has been severed. Because you are missing half of your essence, the two of you will form one complete soul."
"And once your fusion is completed, your essence will suffer the endless pain of everything in existence at every given moment."
The dimensional pillars locked around them, forging an unbreakable seal. Sending them within an altered set of realm. Which would allow both of them to be subconscious and connected to their true original states and also together in fusion.
"I will reward you with a mortal body, but it is incredibly weak, and it will take time to seize control. Try not to die, or you will both be trapped in a place even I cannot reach."
Nx focused entirely on fusing his essence into the human's. The process succeeded.
But instantly, Nx felt it.
The pain.
It was absolute agony, as if the fabric of the universe was actively trying to rip his essence apart every single second. Everything around him felt incredibly heavy, pulling him down into the dark.
Unable to sense anything. Unable to do anything.
Slowly, through the suffocating pain, for the first time he felt the wind and he felt the sensation of solid ground beneath him.
{I finally...}