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"E'livia?" Shen called softly.

She looked at him and smiled sadly, tears still running down her face. "It's Dad. All holins are linked to their parents until late adulthood. The link didn't do much after I reached middle adulthood, but it let me know he was alive. It was comforting to have his presence always on the back of my soul. But it's gone now. We're too far away. Universes away."

"I'm sorry." Shen wanted to hug her, but did he have the right to? "Is this my fault? What happened?"

She took a deep breath. "You overextended your Path," she started, then recounted the events.

Shen took note of the fact that it seemed the Gardener had been willing to help him. Why? He didn't know, but unless E'livia was mistaken, the Realization that opened a hole through countless universes and pushed them away belonged to him, not the Ghost Doctor.

The wraith had fixed him. Forcefully. She had chosen True Boundlessness to become as important to him as his Will, perhaps because it was the easiest way to keep him disconnected from Reality after he was Severed. Severing was something that S-ranks were meant to do, not C-ranks that even lacked a Realization. True Boundlessness gave him an edge to stay that way.

"I'm sorry," he repeated after she was done. "And thanks. You saved my life."

She hugged herself. "I feel so lonely. I lost everything. Everyone I knew and loved. We can't go back, you know? Not until one of us reaches A-rank."

He moved to hug her, but she made as if to step away. She resented him a little. It was reasonable. He didn't try again.

Shen asked, "Why A-rank?"

"If I got things right, your Path is currently Forbidden. In a way, it's unqualified for its high status in the Myriad Worlds. You should have a Realization before you Severed your Path, maybe even have reached S-rank. The Ghost Doctor broke the rules, and now our Heavens want to destroy you."

He frowned. "Does it mean the Heavens kill me if I ever let myself be found?"

She shook her head. "We're under different Heavens."

He asked a few questions about that and soon had the answer. In hindsight, it made sense that not all of the population of all of Reality would define the rules of the entire Reality together. How could a mind affect a universe hundreds of universes away? Different multiverses—a collection of about ninety to three hundred universes—gave birth to different Heavens.

E'livia also mentioned the name of a species that was trying to rule the Myriad Worlds' Heavens, which was the same as the place Shen had come from. His tribulation still prevented him from hearing the place's name. Those people—he also couldn't hear their name—were one step away from becoming one with their Heavens. They would be absolute in that region if they accomplished it. In there, their will would be the will of Reality itself.

In fact, those people could already do a lot. They could command the rules of Reality to change in that region. But they were limited by some rules of Time and Energy. Such rules would cease to exist if they become one with the Heavens.

If there was a way of resisting a Divine Mandatary—as a multiverse's absolute ruler was called—E'livia didn't know it.

They fell into a heavy silence after she was done. Her voice had lost some sadness after a while, but her emotions turned icy.

Shen said, "I... I'm not sure what to do. How can I make it up to you?"

E'livia shook her head.

"Do you need time? Do you want to wait here? Go anywhere?"

She shrugged.

He kept himself from sighing and lay on the water. "I think I'd like to move around if I were in your place. To keep my mind from wandering. But I also think you're different. I'll wait until you're ready to go."

E'livia didn't reply. But she relaxed a little. She had been anxious about exploring this place before sorting her thoughts out and maybe about him just leaving her, too. But she might not even know how to express herself, considering how overwhelmed by her feelings she should be right now.

Shen took the chance to check himself. He had almost mastered all his Laws while unconscious. His stats were all C+. His aura and domain could reach ninety miles away from him. He was stronger than ever.

How ironic that he felt so powerless to help E'livia.

He had no clue about what the current step of his ongoing tribulation entailed. If it was related to his Path, he might be screwed. He could currently feel his entire Path, including his emotions and convictions, but understanding it was something else altogether. Every single part of himself was his whole self at the same time. There was no way he could even start to dabble in that. Figuring out things about himself through alchemy sounded like a good idea indeed.

As time passed, Shen found a strange sensation within himself. It took him a while to identify it.

Loneliness.

It was different from what he had experienced before. It was deeper. It was absolute. Shen realized that his connection to the Heavens had affected him similarly to E'livia's connection to her Dad. There had always been a sort of comforting presence at the back of his head. That was gone now.

Feeling so alone felt strange. Not despairing, as E'livia felt. It was just... Different. Almost relieving, in a way.

It made sense. The Heavens had been there for him in a way. They had pushed him to grow stronger fast; he could see it now. But they had also been steering him the way they wanted him to go. He was free now, making the solitude as sweet as it was bitter. E'livia, on the other hand, had had a loving father at the other end of her link.

The moons in the sky gave way to the sun, and the stars faded under its light. Curiously, Shen could tell the sun was moving around this world, not the other way around. He wanted to see how that worked and if he was in an artificial world or mystical realm. Either would come with its own set of implications, but he would need to wait to check on it.

His heart felt... tranquil. Not happy, but almost content. His situation wasn't the best he could imagine, but it also felt right in a real way.

This was his life. His life. Only his and no one else's—for the very first time.

E'livia remained sitting. She cried a few extra times but had things mostly under control. Her presence was comforting.

The most demanding question he had was why he was still undergoing a tribulation from the old Heavens if he were under different rules here. His best guesses were that either the Heavenly Lightning inside him allowed it to continue or that tribulations might be shared to a point between multiverses. Or both, of course.

The new day turned into night, and E'livia still kept her silence. But she approached him. She lay on the water beside him and pulled his arm to rest her head on it. She hugged herself in the fetal position and didn't get too close. She wanted his proximity and found comfort in his presence but still wanted some distance. He gave it to her. She was vulnerable, and he didn't want to push any boundaries.

It took her another night to whisper, amid tears, "I'm sorry I'm being like this."

He smiled and teared up a little as he cleaned her bloody tears with his thumb. "What are you talking about? I noticed how you didn't complain even once. You're here because you cared about me. You feel lonely. You feel hurt. And still, you only got a little upset and wanted space. There's no ritual connection demanding that from you. That's all on you. All on your character. I'm sorry you're undergoing this because of me, but I admit I'm also glad to have you with me. There's no one else I'd rather have with me right now."

She smiled a little, then closed her eyes and allowed herself to fully relax and sleep for the first time since they arrived.

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⁂

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It took E'livia a couple of extra days to get her emotions under control. Shen had nothing to complain about. By the end of it, one of her hands was resting on his chest, and they were comfortable with each other's presence. Simply staying like that felt nice.

"I think I'm okay," E'livia said with a mostly relaxed smile. "I wish I had broken through back home. Now, it'll take time."

Shen raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? Why is that?"

"Can't you feel it? The disconnect?"

He shook his head. He tried to talk about his Path but was blocked. E'livia nodded knowingly, understanding he couldn't share too much.

She explained, "Every multiverse shares the same Axioms, but the Axioms' Laws are arranged slightly differently in each multiverse. That's irrelevant most of the time; my Path's Laws are mastered, and the local Heavens can't take them from me. My Laws will work the same because that's how the Axioms allowed them to be in our multiverse. But I must connect with the local Heavens to break through. That means I must locate the differences between my Laws and the local Laws to re-master them."

Well, that sucked. At least she was still a very powerful peak C-rank. According to her, she had killed a weak B-rank who was pursuing them. Shen's memories told him it was almost impossible without a Realization.

By the way, the business in Lagoth had been a drama fest. The leaders of Lagoth's sect branch had betrayed the Gardener. They had been suppressing local news and communing with the Void for decades. The sect's headquarters had found out about it after the Gardener was attacked by the Void. They had dispatched a peak B-rank to deal with it, but the B-rank had been captured, and the traitors had a technique to pass up as him. 

At least, that's what the B-rank imp whom E'livia had killed told her before inviting her to join them. E'livia had killed him and sent a distress call through her connection with her father. She had received no response about when headquarters would do anything about Lagoth.

"I don't mean to be disrespectful," Shen had said, "but it feels like I found corruption whenever I met the Gardener Sect."

As soon as the words had left his mouth, he wondered if it was by design. He had been pushed by the Heavens in some ways, like his ability to easily comprehend Concepts and Laws. Could the Heavens also have arranged some things to make him find only chaos wherever he went?

In fact, did the Heavens have something against the Gardener and want Shen to resent the S-rank?

The putrid things he had found in the Myriad Worlds had to have been in motion for a very long time. If the Gardener was as well-intended and cared about justice as much as people seemed to believe, such corruption had to be deeply rooted to go unnoticed for so long. Yet, Shen had just happened to be at the right place, at the right time, to uproot such plans. Those did not feel like coincidences. The fact that E'livia and he were left alone, peacefully, in this ocean for so long also gave credence to that theory.

Was that part of his life gone, too? Would things be simpler now?

Back to the present, he said, "You might be ready to go, but how about we wait another night? I don't want you to associate sleeping beside me with sadness. Let's just relax and enjoy each other for a bit. What do you say?"

She said nothing. She hugged him. He hugged her back.

That was definitely more than friendly of them, but circumstances being as they were, none of them cared about it. Shen fully believed they should take their time before doing anything more than that, considering they were lonely and prone to mistakes. But a tight hug while feeling lonely in a world where they knew no one else? That was definitely okay.

He allowed himself to sleep again that night, and the next morning, he and E'livia woke up ready for whatever Reality had in store for them.

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