Xavier floated into the inky black of the void. With his Void Wanderer spell active, he should be almost undetectable to the Void Beings that called this place home.
Almost.
But even if the Void Beings couldn’t detect him inside the Void Wanderer spell’s protections, they would be drawn to the thinness of reality here. Not only that, they would be drawn to something else. He needed to keep the Time Alteration spell that was around the planet, the barren moon, and the armada active at all times. If he messed that up, the System timer would revert, and that wasn’t something he wished to experience.
So a dense strand of Speed Energy, thick as a rope compared to the spider silk strands that encapsulated his body in the Void Wanderer spell, reached from him, through the void, and back into the universe of the floor he was on.
Roln assured him that the chances of the spell being interrupted were minimal as long as Xavier didn’t lose his concentration—and Xavier had almost lost his concentration. When he’d been mounting all of that Universal Pressure onto himself, and the universe had been getting blurry around the corners of his vision, the walls of reality thinning, he’d reached out as though to punch a hole through reality…
He still didn’t know why he’d done that, but there wasn’t time to stop and figure it out.
Though he’d blocked Queen Aecia’s communications from his main consciousness, he had an awareness at the back of his mind of the queen’s words becoming more and more urgent. The situation down on the planet was only getting worse.
That was why he’d come to the void in the first place.
He wasn’t here to fight Void Beings, and he wasn’t here to create other versions of Xavier Collins—though that idea had occurred to him, there was quite a large possible problem with it.
Here in the void, where the System could barely reach, he was sure he could easily create several unfoldings, several more versions of him. Versions that would be more than eager to help him destroy the Empire of Servitude’s armada. The Mastery Points wouldn’t even be an issue, as once they’d helped him, he would go to another universe to help them.
But there were so many variables to that plan, so many things that could go horribly wrong.
What if the other versions of him couldn’t hold their Time Alteration spells active? Perhaps they could simply create enough Xaviers that they didn’t need to bother with the waves—they could go after the armada of ships like they’d intended to in the first place.
That would be quite something, and he was more than tempted to try that plan.
But there was the problem of the System.
Neither Xavier nor even Roln had any idea what would happen if he tried to bring another version of himself onto the Tower of Champions’ floor through the void. It should be technically possible, but there might be safeguards that the System had put in place to stop such things from happening. Weaker Wanderers, for instance, tended to have trouble entering certain corners of the multiverse where the Systems were better and stronger at keeping foreign threats out.
And even if the System didn’t keep the other versions of Xavier away from this universe, it might cancel out the floor, or have him fail it somehow…
So again, there were far too many variables for that to be a workable plan.
Xavier carefully swept his Immortal Soul lens around the immediate area of the void that he was in. The last thing he wanted to do was attract attention from a Void Being like the last time he was here—and he’d done that by using The All-Seeing Eye and his spiritual sense. The damned thing had felt him.
He wasn’t about to make that mistake twice.
Xavier released a sigh of relief. As far as he could tell, the area around him was empty. For as far as his natural sight could see, everything was pure black. Devoid of… anything.
Even his Immortal Soul lens couldn’t detect a hint of any sort of energy—except for the walls of reality. The thinness of them. They screamed at him, like beacons of light in the great expanse of darkness.
No wonder Void Beings are attracted to them; they’re the only sparks of light in this place.
And looking outward, he couldn’t see any more areas where the walls of reality were thin. No distant specks. Nothing.
Oh, they’re out there. The cracks.
They must be far away.
Time and distance have strange meanings in this place. Something you’ll come to understand more and more.
Xavier nodded mutely. He doubted he would understand much more about the void today. He didn’t intend to linger here, though he would be coming and going a lot.
Still, he wouldn’t have entered the void unless he’d absolutely needed to.
Not while in the middle of this floor, at least.
But here, exactly because time and distance worked differently, he could take advantage of the Void Wanderer spell Roln had provided him, along with another spell the mental construct had helped him learn.
Entering a universe was harder for a Void Being than it was for a being that was still alive. Void Beings were essentially spirits that had grown powerful enough to travel freely through the void. There was nothing special about them other than that. Sometimes they were the spirits of beasts, sometimes they were the spirits of Denizens—or whatever equivalent there might be from another universe. Usually, by the time Xavier encountered them, it was difficult to tell what they’d once been.
Void Beings, the more powerful they were especially, needed a large crack in the walls of reality to break through.
Living beings, on the other hand, did not. Living beings didn’t belong in the void. It was the opposite of everything they were, and the living world—the Mortal Realm—welcomed the living back with open arms.
That meant he didn’t need the walls between reality to be especially thin to come back. He’d only needed them to be thin because he’d been leaving.
Xavier cast the second spell pattern—Locate Space. To him, it seemed like a rather mundane spell, yet it was especially good for what he needed to do. It could attract him toward a space in any universe, as long as he’d seen that space before. And with The All-Seeing Eye, he’d seen every inch of the entire world of Galadsea, even if it was a lot for his conscious mind to take in.
He held the location he wanted the spell to draw him toward in his mind. A strand of energy shot from him and surged out through the void.
Another risk, that strand. Energy pulsing through the void could easily attack a nearby Void Being to his location. But this was a spell that Wanderers were constantly using. Some Wanderers became so adept at travelling through the void that they’d grown out of needing such basic tools, but Roln assured him most Wanderers needed this kind of assistance, which meant—considering how many Wanderers were actually out there—there were constantly strands of energy shooting this way and that all around the vastness of the void.
Xavier, while still keeping alert to the danger, tried not to worry himself about Void Beings. Instead, he kept on mission and followed the Locate Space spell’s energy strand. It wasn’t just the strand of energy that led him toward his desired location. The spell created an impulse inside him. He would know exactly which way he wanted to go even if his eyes were closed and he lacked the ability to sense the thread of energy. Hell, Roln told him that he’d be able to sense the direction even if he didn’t have eyes.
“Who doesn’t have eyes?” Xavier had asked, back in that mental space.
“Oh, there’s more than one strange being out there who doesn’t. It’s a big multiverse, you know. Far bigger than you can even imagine.” He’d paused. “Far bigger than even I can imagine, and I’ve travelled inside it for…” He trailed off. That kind of timeframe was hard to pin down. “The births and deaths of so very many universes…”
Xavier followed the threat right up until it just stopped. The location where it stopped, that was where he’d need to break back into the universe. The Void Wanderer spell, with its thinner than spider silk strands wrapped around every inch of him, was still active. In theory, re-entering his universe should be an easy task. The last time he’d been in the void, he’d had a portal to step back through. If he were honest, he wished he had one of those right now.
It had been a lot more straightforward.
With his Immortal Lens, Xavier tried to examine the spot before him.
He knew exactly what he was looking for. Well… he sort of knew what he was looking for. It was strange. Roln had edited his neural pathways, creating a technique inside his brain that would allow him to do what he needed to do without needing to learn how to do it.
But Xavier had no memory of doing this at all. He just had a feeling of familiarity. It was difficult to explain.
Well, he supposed it was wrong to say he had no memory of it. The neural pathway was a certain type of memory. Even if it had been fabricated by the mental construct.
Xavier thought it would take a long while for him to figure out how to tap into that mental pathway, but the instant he started searching for what he wanted to find… he found it. And he found it with ease.
Roln worked absolute wonders with the functioning of his brain.
Though he didn’t need the walls between the universe to be all that thin, he still needed an entry point. If the walls were too solid, there’d be no way for him to get through at all.
Roln assured him that very few places in any universe had solid walls that spread very far.
There’s always a way.
When Xavier found that way, he released a long breath. He spread his awareness behind him, ensuring he was still alone, then he slipped straight through reality’s wall and back into the Mortal Realm.
Sunlight blared down at him. From the blackness of the void and back to this—it was quite a contrast. Still, he was able to gain his bearings almost instantly. The strand of energy that had been pointing him to where he wanted to go returned. It hadn’t actually stopped. It had just moved from inside the void to the corresponding spot on the other side.
Xavier had flown a little ways away from where the strand of energy had pointed inside the void, but he was still close to his target. Maybe about a mile off.
His target was a group of A Grade captains that had been on the other side of the world from where he’d been. Travelling into the atmosphere, travelling through the void, then making it back here—it had taken him only a minute.
It had felt like much longer, and it was nothing compared with being able to teleport or use a portal. But still, a single minute to make it from one side of the planet to the other was five times faster than he’d been able to manage before. And even now, Roln was editing his neural pathways to ensure the next time he did this it would be faster.
Xavier couldn’t help but smile.
He’d solved one part of the puzzle. Travelling around the planet, getting to these damned waves that could appear anywhere they wished, had been a large part of what had been stopping him from catching up and clearing the excess enemies.
Now that little obstacle had mostly disappeared and he could move significantly faster from one set of enemies to the other, all he needed to do was get faster at actually killing them.
Well, that should be the easy part.
As long as nothing went wrong in the void, this “dangerous plan” looked like it would work perfectly.