Chapter 139 – No Room For Doubts

[2009 – September]

"Y-You aren't hurt or in pain anymore?", Jean asked with watery eyes, her hand moving from my cheek to my chest, right above my heart, as she summoned her healing flame and poured it into my body without waiting for my answer.

My own hand came to rest above hers as I leaned down and placed my forehead against hers. My other hand had already taken hold of Arya and sat her down on my shoulder.

"Jean", I whispered, nearly losing myself in the vibrant green of her beautiful eyes, "I'm fine. You can stop worrying about me, my love."

Shaking her head minutely, my lovely redhead replied with only one word while a few tears escaped her eyes, "Never."

Moving closer, she captured my lips in a deep kiss while she pressed herself against my form, trying her best to bury her smaller frame in my embrace.

Wrapping my arms around her, I held her close and did my best to calm her down, leaving a trail of kisses on her cheek before I left a mark on her pale neck that had her moaning quietly, her need for intimacy soothed for the moment as I kissed her into submission.

Panting lightly, her breath was hurried while her small, warm hands lay pressed against my chest, Jean looked up at me with slightly swollen, rosy lips, longing and desire setting her green eyes aflame, strands of her fire-red hair framing her enchanting face after having escaped the messy bun that they had been tied into.

I couldn't even begin to describe how beautiful she looked at this moment and I fought hard to keep myself from ravishing her right where we stood.

My grip on her small waist loosened slowly as I pulled over the pair of black sweatpants, that I had stripped off before, using a small barrier. Jean also took a step back to give me some space to get dressed, even though she did so reluctantly, the longing in her eyes only becoming more intense.

Sighing, I looked at the small black chain around my wrist again, a determined glow appearing in my gaze.

This didn't escape Jean's notice as she took hold of my hand with both her hands, her gaze lowered as she whispered: "There is still time. Y-You don't have to do this now, Elijah."

Her unease and concern were easy to notice in her voice, and I knew that her words weren't untrue. But I simply did not want to wait before taking the next step after gaining this new Omega-level ability.

There existed too many unknown entities in this Universe that were stronger than me at this point in time, and without going a step further and reaching for a place beyond my limits, I simply lacked the power to protect myself and those I cared about from them.

I knew that Jean was worried about the risks of what I was attempting to do, and she was right to be worried as there wasn't a guarantee that it would work, or that I wouldn't kill myself in this attempt to reach even greater heights.

Much was uncertain at this point as even I had never heard or read about someone trying to do what I planned to do, so I didn't even know if it was possible.

Still, I could only truly decide my own fate if I had the power to kill those that sought to control me. So, how could I rest when the power that I yearned for might just be a single step away?

Some risks were worth taking, after all.

"No, Firefly. I do have to do this now.", I replied firmly, my tone becoming softer as I gazed at her with warmth in my eyes, "We will have all the time in the world when I come back."

She didn't reply but her grip on my hand got much tighter. Taking hold of Arya, who had already snuggled up close to my neck, her little head and wings rubbing against my skin repeatedly as she hooted softly, I placed her on Jean's shoulder while sending her reassuring thoughts through our bond.

Taking another two steps back, I broke away from Jean's grip and summoned a blackish shield around myself.

Concentrating, I took hold of the space around me. I had been training for this moment for weeks, and when it finally came down to it, there was no hesitation or fear inside my heart as I shifted the space inside the barrier to a 'deeper' level of space.

I adjusted the underlying frequency of this space as I had done it hundreds of times before on a much smaller scale, and I did so without a single mistake. And the next moment, I appeared in the Darkforce Dimension.

The very reason why I had asked the Ancient One to open a portal to this godforsaken dimension a few weeks ago was that I had needed to come here at least once to study the space of this dimension and figure out a way to come here while using my barriers.

Moving around Earth via spatial manipulation was an easy thing to do after I managed to do it the first time. My perception was outstanding and my ability to learn and comprehend was equally incredible, so I had been able to become proficient at 'teleporting' through my shields rather quickly.

Still, this type of spatial manipulation was not worth mentioning compared to the difficulty of moving to an entirely different dimension, not to mention if I was aiming to come to a specific dimension that I had never visited.

Success would have been nothing but a pipe dream while it would have been very likely that I ended up in some other unknown sub-dimension, stranded without hope of escape.

As such, I had been left with no choice but to ask the Ancient One to send me here so that I could get a better understanding of the space in this place and figure out how to come here by myself.

Through the barrier that I had placed on Earth and the one I had created while in the Darkforce Dimension, I had been able to sense and understand the differences in the fabric of space, which had led me to comprehend how to manipulate space with my barrier so that I could travel between these two dimensions.

Still, I was aware that this didn't really explain why I had wanted to come here in the first place. The reason for that was rather simple though.

After meeting Selene, I had been vexed by my own lack of power as I had known that I could not face Apocalypse, or others of similar power, alone and hope to eliminate the threat that they posed. Even Selene herself would be a challenge to defeat for me with just my barrier powers, and killing her would be next to impossible.

It had been at that point that I had started to think hard about what kind of Omega-level ability I should give myself in hopes of increasing my power to a level where I was able to kill a being like Apocalypse.

I had thought of many different powers, most of them being purely destructive in nature until I finally settled on the 'Energy Vessel'. It wasn't a very destructive ability nor was it a power that would allow me to kill Apocalypse in the short run.

Still, I had chosen it due to its potential to give me truly unlimited strength, provided that I had absorbed enough energy, which was what awakened my interest in the Darkforce Dimension.

There existed many secondary dimensions that held great power within, like the Dark Dimension, the Lightforce Dimension, and Hell, for example, but amongst them, the Darkforce Dimension was the only one I remembered being rather 'empty'.

No powerful entities existed within this dimension and yet it was filled with an extremely powerful source of energy, which was naturally the Darkforce.

This was what made it the perfect target for me after I had transformed my body into an Energy Vessel.

Still, I had only understood the sheer potential this place represented after the Quantum Tail had fallen into my hands.

Looking around, I saw nothing but darkness, my eyes and other senses being of no use in a place like this.

Like the last time that I had been here, there was no light nor was there any life. Here, only Darkforce existed, and it did so in the form of a thick black fog that occupied this entire dimension.

Still, simply floating in the endless expanse of this dark abyss, I could feel myself becoming stronger several times faster than it had been the case on Earth, the Darkforce surrounding me in all directions being absorbed by my cells without pause.

Doing something like this would have most likely spelled certain death for everyone else, or at least it would have driven them insane. Darkforce was not an energy that anybody could wield, after all.

It was inherently malevolent, seeking to devour all life and light. My mental shield was the only thing that protected me from being affected by the nature of this energy.

Naturally, I was not here to just passively absorb a bit of Darkforce as that would hardly justify Jean's worry for my safety.

No, what I had planned was something much more dangerous.

Spreading my Extrasensory Perception around, I could only sense the happenings a few feet around myself.

Raising my hand, my focus rested on the small black chain that was wrapped around my wrist, and with a slight nudge from my mind, the small bangle unraveled itself, its size and length increasing several times until every single chain link was as long as my finger and two fingers in width.

At this point, the chain itself was at least as long as I was tall, with a sharp tip on both ends that looked similar to metal arrowheads.

Naturally, I planned to use the Quantum Tail to anchor myself to the Darkforce Dimension, forging a connection between myself and this secondary dimension that would allow me to draw upon the Darkforce at any time.

The only problem though was that the tail was not a really strong artifact in itself. It was special, without a doubt, but its inherent power was very weak, which meant that the connection it could form would also be weak.

This was naturally not what I wanted.

Unfortunately, I had no way to strengthen the abilities of the Quantum Tail, as even with the notes left behind by Erwin himself, the only thing that I was sure of was that this item shouldn't even exist. It was pure luck that made him succeed in creating it, and there would probably never be another artifact like it.

There was, however, the option to wait for my reserves to fill up once again and replicate the Quantum Tail's ability through Self-Creation, but as far as I could tell, my current needs would not be satisfied by anything less than a replica modeled through an Omega-level ability, and I did not want to wait that long.

It would take at least a year if I wanted to gain another chance at giving myself an ability of that level, and that was only the case if Jean would regularly pour her fire into my body which was a time-consuming and very draining task for her.

The only other option, if you could even call it that, that I had left was to forcefully connect to the nexus of the Darkforce Dimension on a deeper level.

Still, the strain of doing so would most likely shatter the tail, I could do something about that though.

Summoning an ethereal barrier, I 'infused' it into the Quantum Tail with the sole goal to protect the artifact from being destroyed before using Programm to make sure that this barrier would not vanish even if my focus was disturbed or I lost consciousness.

In the end though, I understood very well that this might be a meaningless action on my part as there was a very real chance that I would not survive what I was about to do.

Strangely though, I was not afraid. Instead, a faint smile sat on my lips as I held one end of the Quantum Tail in my right hand.

I wasn't sure why but somehow I knew that I would succeed. I knew that I was going to suffer, maybe even come close to death, but in the end, I would succeed.

I couldn't say how I was so sure about this as this wasn't my self-confidence speaking, nor was the risk that I was taking at this particular moment in time in any way calculated. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to call my actions suicidal or insane.

Still, from somewhere deep inside my heart, a feeling, an instinct told me that I would succeed.

More important though was the fact that there was no room for doubts in my mind. Any kind of distraction or flaw in my mindset could be my downfall if I was not careful from here on out, as this endeavor demanded nothing but every drop of strength that I could muster.

Taking a deep breath, even though I was sure that there existed no oxygen in this whole dimension, I activated the Quantum Tail with my mind without any hesitation.