After the goddess—whose name I should probably ask for—lifted her hand from my head, a sharp strain bloomed right in my solar plexus. The pain spiked fast, alarmingly so, enough to make my brows fold together as I shot her a suspicious look.
She raised both hands defensively. "Do not be worried, this is natural. What you're feeling is your soul. It will fracture and expand outward to draw in mana. Once it has absorbed enough, it will retract and form your Aspect Core."
Awesome. Great. Wonderful. Soul-breakage. Totally what I signed up for.
I tried to listen through the pain, but honestly, staying upright was a full-time job. Nobody else seemed even mildly concerned, though, so I forced myself to assume "soul shrapnel" was standard procedure.
No idea how long it took before the pressure peaked—but when it did, something inside me snapped. The world didn't slow exactly; it just… shifted. Suddenly everything felt weighted, important, as if the universe itself was holding its breath.
I could feel the pieces of my soul scattering outward, not metaphorically—literally tearing away from me like fragments from a blast. Just as panic started clawing up my throat, the fragments halted mid-flight, suspended around me.
For a moment, nothing.
Then faint wisps of opalescent light—mana, I guessed—began streaming into each shard. Thin at first. Then thicker. Faster. The pieces drank the energy like dying plants finding rain.
Some random god muttered from somewhere behind me, "That's a considerable amount of essence… and it's still increasing. Interesting. Very interesting. High potential, perhaps."
Murmurs spread. Even the goddess guiding my awakening leaned forward, suddenly far more serious.
Minutes passed. My soul shards glowed so brightly with mana they looked like scattered stars. Then a thought hit me, and I glanced at the goddess—her expression made me immediately regret it. She was scowling, brows drawn so tightly it looked painful.
"Sorry, uh… goddess-who-I-still-don't-know-the-name-of?" I said through gritted teeth. "Is that… a normal amount of mana? Feels like a lot. Is there a limit? There should be a limit."
She didn't look away from my soul pieces. "Most of that will be consumed to create your Aspect Core, but yes… that is unusually large."
She opened her mouth to say more—then froze.
Not paused. Froze.
Completely.
Awkward at first, until I realized everyone was frozen. Every god and goddess. Every drifting mote of light. Even the space around us seemed… wrong.
A slow trickling sensation crawled over my skin. The white expanse dimmed—not like lights lowering, but like illumination itself was retreating.
A presence rolled across the realm. Vast. Endless. Empty in a way my mind instinctively rejected. It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff so deep the bottom was older than time.
Two words whispered through the air:
Warn them.
My soul shards turned pitch black in an instant—so black they weren't "dark," they were consuming light. They collapsed inward, merging into a smooth sphere of absolute nothingness before launching straight back into my chest.
Time lurched forward.
Gasps. Shouts. Half-raised barriers.
The goddess staggered back, wide-eyed. "Did—did anyone else sense a time dilation just now?" Hands shot up, heads nodded, voices confirmed.
I swallowed. "Uh… goddess? Someone spoke to me. A voice."
She stared sharply. "What did it say?"
"Just two words. 'Warn them.'"
Her face drained of color.
Before she could answer, my Aspect Core manifested.
A sphere—not dark, not black—absent. A perfect hole carved out of existence. Light didn't reflect off it; it fell into it, erasing itself at the edges like it was slipping into a bottomless pit.
The goddess's voice trembled. "That's… that's not any Aspect I know. And I am a god. What does this mean? Whose domain is that? Who answers this?"
She remembered, belatedly, that an Aspect's corresponding deity always appeared at awakening.
She went ashen.
Then realization hit her like a truck. She inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. Fear—actual fear—twisted her features. "This is bad. All non-pinnacle gods, leave immediately. Flee to your realms."
The panic was instant—deities vanished in streaks of light and bursts of mana. Only the oldest, strongest gods remained, forming defenses with shaking hands.
"He's about to summon the Primordial Void," she said, voice shaking. "Right here. On top of us. If you cannot withstand its aura, you will be erased."
Even the flame-bearded giant from earlier had gone pale, and that man had looked excited about everything up until now.
Now?
He looked like a kid being told the boogeyman was real.
And coming.
---
Space collapsed inward.
The white expanse folded like paper crushed by an invisible fist. A single point of absolute nonexistence appeared—tiny at first, then expanding with silent inevitability.
The air grew heavy.
Magic recoiled.
Even the gods trembled.
The point widened into an impossible geometry, simultaneously a tear, a shadow, a well, and a wound. It blossomed outward like a flower made of absence.
Then it arrived.
Not stepping in; stepping implied movement.
This was simply the moment reality admitted something older stood there.
Its form was incomprehensible—fluid, formless, shifting in dimensions my brain didn't have permissions for. I felt my mind skid, trying and failing to categorize it.
A voice entered my skull:
Summoned.
The remaining gods bowed instantly.
The goddess whispered, "Primordial Void…"
The being's presence pressed down harder, and several divine barriers cracked under the weight.
Slowly—as if humoring us—the enormous, unfathomable mass began to condense. Folding. Shrinking. Compressing the incomprehensible into a shape my mortal senses wouldn't instantly shatter from.
It solidified into a humanoid silhouette.
Tall. Thin. And made of flowing nothingness.
A figure not wearing void—a figure that was void.
Edges blurred. Details were impossible. Looking directly at it made my eyes sting, my thoughts stall. It was humanoid only because my mind couldn't process what it really looked like.
It regarded the gods briefly—not with eyes, but with attention sharp enough to cut.
Then it turned to me.
And the world dimmed further.