Echoes of War, Ch 40: Fragments of the Void (Patreon)

In the distance, the Vos’Rekan was disappearing into the depths of the Chaos Wild. It was injured and would take time to recover, but it wasn’t clear how long it would need to hibernate.

“This victory will only be complete if we hunt down the beast and tear its skull from its neck, my Lord,” Sleset hissed angrily beside Sam as he stared after the Vos’Rekan. “It must pay for the insult of attacking your world and killing my kinsman. We shall not rest until its bones are stripped of flesh and its blood pours out in a river.”

The naga was missing two arms and half of his tail, and blunt impacts had shattered the scales across his chest and back, but he spoke without concern, his voice powerful and angry. Beside him, the remaining nagas hissed in agreement.

None of them was unmarked by the battle. A hundred of their number had died and the rest weren’t much better off than Sleset. They looked like they’d been chewed apart by the Vos’Rekan and spat out as too tough. Barely any of them had all of their limbs or a complete tail, patches of burned grey and black mottled their proud scales, and devouring essence had stripped away chunks of their body like acid and left strange, gaping wounds.

They were battered to within an inch of their lives. The only thing holding them together was a tracery of silver fire and white bands from healing scrolls, as well as a drifting web of green energy from their healers that was layered over their scales.

Even as Sam assessed their condition, the remaining healers moved among their ranks, offering up what mana they had left. Their enhanced regeneration as Silver Nagas aided them as well, sealing off their wounds as he watched. They were fierce and durable.

He pulled the last few healing scrolls he had out of his spatial bracelet and handed them to Sleset. His cloak was too damaged for him to access its storage, but the bracelet was fine.

The Will of the Path had made the enchantment that supported this one, and ever since then he’d been maintaining it himself. It had survived the fight where the rest of his artifacts hadn’t. It gave him some things to consider about durability.

The nagas were more important than his artifacts, however. Those could be repaired.

“I am sorry that so many of your family died here,” he said as he looked at Sleset. “They protected my home world, and they will be remembered. I will make sure of it.”

When he got back to the relic, he’d raise a monument for them that no one could ignore.

“We chose to follow you,” Sleset said as he shook his head. “Do not regret our deaths that were paid for in blood. Once that beast is slain, my people’s spirits shall hunt its soul in eternity, killing it endlessly to teach it its place. No enemy of ours will sleep in peace. Until then, we will sharpen our blades as we follow its trail.”

The nagas behind him hissed in agreement, raising their weapons with wounded arms.

“Its horns must adorn your hall,” Ajoa hissed from nearby with a demanding intensity that pulled Sam’s attention to him. He was one of the two remaining captains. Juai and Hasuk were the other two, but Hasuk had met his end in the battle.

“The beast’s bones will become our weapons,” Ajoa continued, “and its hide will be turned into a rug in front of your nest’s hearth fire where those small furry animals chew on bones. Its skull will be the figurehead for the ship or to bear witness at the peak of your mountain.”

Sam considered for a moment what it would look like to have a fifty-mile wide head at the front of the Ice Drake. The ship would need to be a lot bigger.

“It must pay the price,” he agreed. Then he turned to look at the Vos’Rekan’s fins receding into the distance. It was already nearly out of sight. His burned face protested as he frowned, sending a crackle of pain across his cheeks.

The damaged section of the beast’s back still had a dull red glow even from this distance, but that had been the best the guardian could do at the peak of the Fifth Evolution. If an attack or two had gone a different way, or if the beast hadn’t just woken up, it might not have been enough.

Half the reason it left was because it was too lazy to keep going. The food here was too difficult to eat, but that didn’t mean it would stay away forever. The damage was enough to drive it away, but he wasn't sure how long it would take to recover.

“It’s a Primordial beast,” he said, “so we can hope that its sense of time is slower than ours. But we will have to hunt it down before it can return. That is the only way to make sure the battle is on our terms. Without the guardian to help, it means we all need to be stronger. The Third Evolution will not be enough, even if it means living out here in the Void.”

He looked around at the system where they’d fought and took in the damage, as well as the blue sun in the distance. The area was rich with energy and the floating chunks of the Vos’Rekan would make for a good foundation material, just like it had for Aster Fall.

“I’ll create an outpost in this system,” he said to the nagas, “one where we can train and grow stronger without limit. It will be our fortress in the stars, the land of unlimited potential, to guard the softer shores behind us. I will stay here to build it, but I’ll send you home to Aster Fall to rest until you’re stronger again. It will be better for you.”

“No, my lord,” Sleset hissed in disagreement. “We will stay wherever you are. There are still children and a few defenders on Aster Fall. They can grow stronger by hunting the Flaws and weak beasts there, and we will return ourselves with your help from time to time, but this is the best place for us. We will hunt with you. This is our purpose.”

"Then this fortress will a monument to your people," he replied, "to remember this battle and those to come. It will be the base of the Silver Army, paid for in dedication and blood. We will call it Silverguard."

Sleset hissed in approval, as did the nagas behind in him. Their losses were steep, but it was a feature of their race that it only made them angrier and more intent on fighting. The best way to honor them wasn't to be sad, but to help them tear their enemy to pieces. That was how they would be at peace.

Sam nodded at them in recognition, even as plans for the future and how to defend Aster Fall filled his mind. This battle had driven home the threats they were facing, and his attention was no longer on small politics in the world. His enemies were out here in the Void and in the subdimensions that threatened the relic.

It was only out here that he could find Void beasts and grow as quickly as possible. At the same time, this place was only a long step away from Aster Fall. He could take the astral threads back home at any point to help deal with Flaws and the Dimensional Convergence, as well as if any other trouble showed up.

It would be no trouble to shuttle the nagas back and forth for rest and some vacation time, even if they wanted to stay here out to hunt beasts with him.

With the Conclave of the Moons coming up, this might also work as the first staging point for the people who wanted to leave, a gathering area outside of Aster Fall for them to adjust to the Void without harming the World Seal. At the same time, they could help to defend it. His plans for the Boundless Alliance were continually developing and he wouldn’t mind throwing all of them at the Vos’Rekan if it came back.

Before then, however, they would actually have to be useful.

Once they learned how far away they were from real civilization in the galaxy, their view of Aster Fall would definitely change. Whether they would stay and try to defend it or run away and look for greener shores, he wasn’t sure, but it would be a good test of their character.

The weight of the blue life gem was heavy in his hand as he looked down again. It burned with a subdued majesty against the silver black of the Void, furious but alone, like a shard of potential. It was a reminder that the guardian was the one who had paid the greatest price here. Memories filled his mind.

For 200 years, from the very first days in the caverns beneath the Abyssinian Plains, the guardian had been there, looking over his shoulder on Aster Fall and helping with his class. He’d been a distant but well-meaning mentor, someone that Sam relied on as part of the stability of the world.

To have him suddenly gone, it felt like the world had lost one of its anchors. He’d been honorable and steadfast.

He said he would be able to reform himself eventually, and he’d sent Sam instructions on how to deal with his life gem, but it wasn’t clear how long it would take. Hundreds of years, or perhaps longer.

It wasn’t easy to gather enough energy to rebuild a Fifth Evolution being. That meant he wouldn’t be around when the reinforcements showed up.

This was a victory, but the guardian had protected Aster Fall for 10,000 years. In the outside galaxy, more than two million years had passed. He had to wonder if anyone but the Will of the Path remembered Aster Fall any longer.

He looked over his shoulder to where Aster Fall was in the distance, and then he shook his head. Perhaps it would be best to take the gem away from Aster Fall and place it where time flowed faster, but right now he couldn’t leave. At the very least, the guardian would be reborn near the world he’d protected.

From the local perspective, the reinforcements would be here in a matter of months. He wasn’t sure if they would be as well-intentioned toward him and Aster Fall as the guardian had been, nor if they would be as careful with their energy, so he had to make sure that when they did show up, they didn’t cause trouble. Otherwise, their arrival might cause another Breaking.

That was especially true since they were coming to fight. They might not pay attention to the stability of Aster Fall when they arrived.

Before they got here, he would have to be ready. He wasn’t going to let a bunch of random people interfere with his world, even if they thought they knew what they were doing. The old guardian was gone and Asenya was missing, so now he was the only one left.

That meant he needed to enhance his own strength, so that by the time they arrived, they would have no choice but to do as they were told.

It was another complication in a long chain of them.

Their arrival would most likely coincide with the Conclave of the Moons or shortly after, depending on how quickly they traveled and if the Will of the Path helped them. Ideally, he would kill the Vos’Rekan first and scare them into behaving when they got here, but that was too far off for the moment.

It was unlikely that he’d be able to reach the Fifth Star and fight that thing on equal terms by then. The Fourth Star might also be out of reach in such a short period, since it depended on insight as much as essence gathering.

What he could do was maximize his essence within the Third Star and work on understanding a Law of the Void. That should triple his strength or more, and if he comprehended a law, he would meet the requirements for his racial evolution.

Which law he chose was incredibly important, but it was also a natural process, something that had to be an extension of his current Elemental Mastery. Some of the things he’d seen in the fight with the Vos’Rekan were weighing on his mind, especially the way it had manipulated void fire and dimensional energy, so he could start with those.

He could also focus on passing Level 399, if he decided to take the risk of not being able to return to Aster Fall. That was something he’d have to consider.

As those thoughts and more passed through his mind, he looked down at the burned expanse of his body, but then he pushed it aside. He would heal eventually, especially if he stayed in the Void. As for what his family would think of this...maybe he would just send an avatar home for now instead. It was an unexpected blessing of the ability.

Not only could he send it home while he stayed out here to hunt and heal, but it would let him spend more time with his family while also getting critical work done. Anytime he needed to go back to Aster Fall with his real body, he could step onto an astral path.

His chin was hard with dark ridges, but he rubbed it anyway as he turned his attention to the area around him. He had a battlefield to clean up and a new Titan Hall to build. The materials here would be a good beginning.

Sleset wanted to use the Vos’Rekan’s skull to adorn his mountain, so why not use the stone it had left behind here as the building blocks for his fortress? Massive chunks of stone of the beast’s body were drifting in the Void like floating islands. It was a result of all the damage the guardian had done.

His spells had melted off giant slabs, and shards the size of cities were left abandoned now that the beast had fled. A mist of abandoned dark essence was rising from them, but he was planning to deal with that.

It wasn’t a lot of essence, just fragments, but it would go a long way to replacing what the Vos’Rekan had devoured from him. Given the amount of stone left behind, it would probably be more than he’d lost.

That wasn’t the only thing the beast had left behind. Inside those chunks of stone, he could sense other strong sources of energy: a mix of rare Void metals, gems, elemental crystals of all types, and even natural treasures like stellar cores, the remains of stars that it had devoured and compressed within its body.

Vos’Rekan were known for seeking out powerful objects, and these were all things that the beast had eaten over the ages, but they were only a fraction of what its full body contained. With his artifacts broken, he desperately needed strong materials to replace them. These were the spoils of battle and he was going to make the most of them.

He glanced over the fragments hanging from his arms and belt, and shook his head. The only good news was that the storage function of his cloak had kept it from completely disintegrating. That was the only reason there was anything left of it. Spatial artifacts were more durable than other types.

There was a chance that he could salvage his Armor of Ethereal Frost as well. There were several large shards of it left, enough to hold the majority of its enchantments, and if he merged it with the right materials and repaired the auras, it would start to regenerate, but the rest of his artifacts were done for, including his bracers. He would have to rebuild them from the ground up.

With the decision made, he moved to a central area of the battlefield and raised his hand as he called to all the essence within a 150-mile radius. The beast had torn away tens of thousands of points of essence from him, and only fragments of its own energy were in each chunk of stone, but the quantity was vast when it was all added together.

A storm of shimmering motes like black stars rose up in every direction. They gathered in the Void and formed rivers of crackling dark energy as they poured toward him. As they approached him, the color changed from dark fire to a brilliant silver-white and they flooded into his body.

His essence constellation had silent and dead areas on the edges where its energy had been torn away, but as the new essence entered, those areas were the first to flare with light as new stars were born. The silent areas ignited, turning into roiling silver stars.

The remaining energy poured into the newer areas of his essence constellation, circling around the silent location of the Fourth Star. Smaller stars were born, their energy building up as they prepared the field for that star to come to life, but for now, the center was silent.

It would take more time and insight for him to ignite it.

That wasn’t all that came from the Vos’Rekan. There were also three shards of unfamiliar energy, a type of condensed essence that reminded him of the early Void. He absorbed them directly into his essence constellation, but unlike the rest, these shards of energy just found an empty location and floated there, like silent crystals of latent potential. Stars rotated around them like they were heating their surfaces, but there was no response other than a faint shimmer of reflected light.

Sam’s brow furrowed as he finished gathering the essence and looked at the shards, trying to figure out what they were. They felt like slivers of ancient lightning condensed into glass or like sections of dimensional energy that had somehow been fused with essence. They were still dark black like the Vos’Rekan’s energy, but now that he’d absorbed them, they’d taken on a faint silver glow.

Beyond that, they didn’t seem to do anything. All he could tell was that they felt familiar and comfortable, as if they held old mysteries. As he studied them, a few ideas came into his mind, some of which were very unlikely, but he wasn’t sure. His memories didn’t include looting Vos’Rekans, just fighting them.

At that moment, the Titan Star’s voice echoed in his mind, recording the gains. It was enough to restore the damage and a good chunk besides.

Congratulations, Lord of Silver Stars. You have gained 1,749,118 essence.

Essence Constellation (Third Star): 4,661,653 / 10,000,000

You gain 2,499 Strength, 2,915 Constitution, 729 Agility, 4,373 Intelligence, and 4,373 Aura.

You have also gained three Fragments of the Primal Void.

[Fragment of the Primal Void: Natural Essence Artifact, Primordial Crafting Material. These fragments are nearly impossible to find. They are remnant energies of the early Void and will break down in the current era unless they are maintained by a stable Primordial entity.]

The information that came from the star was something that had been given to it originally by the Will of the Path, and it sprang into Sam’s mind as he analyzed the shards. The result left him surprised. He hadn’t expected to find something like this.

It still wasn’t worth the price.

The guardian’s life gem and the missing nagas in the ranks of his army were not worth three crafting materials, however insanely rare they were, but he would put them to good use all the same. His bracers and cloak needed to be improved, and these would be good things to base the new versions on. It might be a waste, but right now he didn't care.

As soon as he was able to, he was going to kill that Vos’Rekan and then whatever other shards it had could be used in the future for other purposes.

His body crackled and he grew taller under the influence of the new essence gain. His height reached 225 feet, plus another 25 feet for his horns. A river of stars flooded through his muscles and bones, realigning and strengthening them as the new attributes settled into place. He glanced at his new attributes.

STR: 20,021

CON: 22,787

AGI: 6,980

WIS: 2,927

INT: 35,845

AUR: 35,845

CHA: 3,023

Despite the influx of essence, the dark burns all over his body didn’t change much. The damage was deep and the surface appearance of the burns was only one part of it. The increase in his Constitution helped, but his attributes were too high for it to exert a large influence. He would have to heal over time by absorbing starlight, which would also purify the Vos’Rekan’s remaining energy.

The new essence did make his Constitution break through its next milestone at 20,000, however, which met the requirements to access a new racial ability. The information on it filled his mind. When he saw what it was and then looked down at his burned form, he had to hold back a sigh.

True Dimension Body.

[Even if you are lost in time and space, your body will endure. Your physical presence is the same in all dimensions, making it difficult for shifting dimensional forces to damage you. Dimensional rifts and spatial cracks present no danger and damage from all sources of dimensional energy is reduced.]

That would have been useful against the Vos’Rekan’s void fire, and perhaps even against its devouring essence. Given the power difference between them, it would have only reduced the damage and not eliminated it entirely, but it would have been something. At least it would be helpful in the future.

His Strength had also broken past 20,000, although just barely. There was another new ability for it. Its name was simple, but the effect was promising.

Variable Stellar Force.

[Astral Titans can stand as tall as a sun and walk between the stars. You are a force unto yourself. Your physical attacks now have their own gravity and inertia, making it easier for you to deal damage and to manipulate celestial objects in the Void. The physical strength of your body can ignore other sources of gravity, letting you pass without a trace regardless of your size.]

Combined with the True Dimension Body, Variable Stellar Force made it possible for him to be as tall as he wanted without causing trouble in the Void. At the same time, if he punched something, he could add extra force behind it based on whatever his real size was.

Normally, if he were the size of a sun, things would be pulled toward him, which would be problematic for walking around, but this ability effectively freed him from the constraints of gravity, making it whatever he needed it to be. The Vos’Rekan probably had something similar that allowed it to grow so large.

He finished analyzing the two abilities and then he checked on the nagas before he gathered his essence to create a new avatar. An hour passed and then a new version of himself was standing there. This one showed no sign of the damage that his real body had. He quickly passed it some auras and spare clothing from his spatial bracelet, but he was out of artifacts.

Without a need for any words, the avatar nodded at him and then turned toward Aster Fall. It disappeared in a flash of silver light as it headed back.

Sam watched it go for a moment, thinking about all the things at home, and then he turned his attention back to the problems in front of him. At least by sending back an avatar, his parents wouldn’t see how injured he was right now.

More importantly, the avatar was part of his mind, one of the seven mental divisions that he could manage at once now that his essence attributes had increased again, so he could always be at home with his family. He’d missed that over the past years.

That avatar would be living the life he wanted the most. He could also destroy Flaws and continue working on the relic that way, as well as keep an eye on things for the World Core. If he needed to travel back and forth, it was only a short trip.

Meanwhile, his main body and other avatars could stay out here and build the fortress he planned while hunting Void beasts and preparing for the arrival of the guardian’s reinforcements. He would also work on creating new artifacts. This was the Deep Wild, the best place for him to study the laws of the Void and come into his own.

He would also keep an eye on the Vos’Rekan, at least enough to get a better warning if it showed up again. If his essence was tempting enough to attract its attention, it was better for it to happen here than on Aster Fall.

Normally, growing too strong would attract other Vos’Rekan too, but if he built this fortress from the Vos’Rekan stone, it would be similar to the foundation of Aster Fall. The devouring aura of the beasts and their signature energy remained in their bodies even after death. That energy was what made Vos’Rekan so hard to find when they were hibernating. Their bodies naturally absorbed any energy signature that would give them away.

Now, the stone would help to hide his presence just like it hid them, making this fortress fairly safe.

He spent an hour creating another avatar and then he dismissed the last avatar from the fight so he could create a new one. It dissolved into a swirl of silver stars and flames and about 15,000 essence flowed back to him at once, almost like combusting a giant aura.

That held some possibilities, but he wasn’t short on essence, so he pushed the thought aside as he began creating a third avatar again. He could have healed the avatar, but the ability needed practice and this was simpler.

Before long, he set the two avatars to gathering stones from across the battlefield to create a foundation for the fortress. They teleported from place to place, dragging stones together and fusing them with Elemental Mastery, while he got started on repairing his cloak. He didn’t need to repair it fully, but he did need access to the spatial storage.

He had a spare Frostscale Cloudwolf hide in his bracelet, which he pulled out for new material, and then runes flowed from his hands as he focused on aura regeneration, slowly rebuilding the missing sections of the enchantment. Some time later, he reached into the interior of the cloak and pulled out the Ice Drake.

With a toss of his hand, he set the ship into the air and expanded it, and then he gathered all of the nagas on board. They could use it as a temporary nest while resting here. The winds of the Chaos Wild were pleasant to him, but not so much to them, even with their elemental resistance as his followers.

The blue sun in the distance bathed the solar system in a gentle light that reminded him of crystal flame and his first Titan Hall, the one where he’d met Sleset two centuries before. He stood on the deck of the Ice Drake as old memories passed through his mind.

Behind him, the foundation of the fortress grew one stone at a time. By the time it was done, it should be a hundred miles across and a dozen miles thick. He might even pull in some other material to add onto the Vos’Rekan bones and make it larger. It would be a floating island in the Void to defend Aster Fall from beyond.

No matter how large it got, however, it would only be a fortress. It was a place to launch attacks and to gather for hunts, an important defense in the stars. It wouldn’t replace the Moonlight Relic in his heart.

He held back a growl of pain as he sat down on the deck and let the starlight fall on his body. The rays of a million stars were a slow but pleasant itch as they worked on his wounds. Fragments of artifacts appeared in his hands as he sorted them for what could be reused.

At the same time, his attention turned to the avatar that was heading back to Aster Fall. He’d chosen Avatar of the Stars on the spur of the moment to face the Vos’Rekan, but after thinking about it, it was the one he would have chosen anyway.

It gave him something he’d always wanted, which was the ability to be in many places at once, and he planned to take full advantage of it.

His shoulders were weighed down with new worries, but a rare smile creased his blackened lips as he ignored the pain that came with it and focused on the avatar that was heading home.