Chapter 106

The environment changed significantly beyond the gash in space. Light started to behave erratically, shifting suddenly at a moment's notice, each instant dying the world in a different colour.

This peculiar behaviour came from the disarrayed space and time, which had become as straight-lined as the rantings of a drunkard. One moment it was sunrise, the next it became sunset, suddenly the sun disappeared entirely, although its light did not, and then two different suns became visible in the night sky, and so on.

The terrain mutated continuously, the horizon confused with my immediate surroundings and the hills interlocking without mixing. At random intervals entire portions of the landscape disappeared, leaving behind a hole or a void, while sometimes it became possible to see all sides of an object simultaneously.

I was walking through a region of broken reality. Space and time mixed with each other more intimately than they usually did. The number of physical dimensions had become aleatoric. It was even impossible to determine if that number was still an integer.

In such a region of distorted reality it was hardly conceivable to rely on one's senses to find the way, and understanding what was happening was even more arduous. These would have been my primary concerns, had I not been firmly isolated from the madness going on around me.

The vaporised lymph permeating through my skin formed around me a region screened from the outside madness. The area of space-time surrounding me was characterised by sharp corners. Inside its domain, the power which had made a mess of the proper structure of reality was neutralised. Around me, space and time behaved as they should.

The "bubble" followed me along my path, leaving behind a faint trace of purple, reminiscent of Ariadne's thread. The strand of lymph left behind behaved as a wound to the distorted reality, a pathway which synced my current proper time with the one of the outside world. This made me confident I would not incur any unforeseen time loss during my permanence in this detached portion of the world.

And so I continued marching on for hours without an end in sight. The difference in behaviour between my immediate surroundings and the chaotic outside made it difficult to determine if I was actually making progress, but the continuous lengthening of the purple thread was enough motivation for me to carry on.

I walked through plains and valleys, I bypassed mountains and jumped across chasms, undeterred in my advance. As time went on I felt my power wane and my lymph dry up, but I kept on pushing on as I felt the end of my trip was near.

I saw confirmation of my hunch when the world outside of the protected boundaries started to change. Although its ever-changing random nature didn't change, I could catch some patterns. The mean level of illumination was steadily going down, as the sky grew darker and darker and more things became visible. The material forming the terrain changed, going from the usual dirt and rocks to a mix of these two plus an array of more translucent components.

For an instant, my eyes caught sight of a wave and I knew I had arrived. I stretched my arms, as I did when I had reached this place, and I shattered the glass of reality with my fingers, opening a fissure to reach the other side. I emerged in a different place.

The world was dark. The dim light of uncountable stars filled the day sky, while a pale sun, barely brighter than a full moon, shone its rays down on the land. The clear transparent ground was hidden under a thick layer of cerulean dust.

The world was silent. The air was still, the only wind being my breath and the only sounds being my steps and heartbeats. Every noise and movement was abated the moment it was generated. Perturbations quickly lost intensity and disappeared, not even a whisper left behind.

I walked to the end of the cliff and admired the horizon. Its sides, too steep to let the dust accumulate, revealed the true nature of the land. There were no rocks or stones, actual ground was nonexistent. In every direction the land was a transparent expanse of unblemished quartz, and as far as the eye could see through its depth. Right beneath the cliff, there was a beach and in front of the beach, there lay an immense frozen sea.

The temperature was low enough to justify the state of the ocean, and the extremely thick mana justified the purity of the land. During aeons, its action brought the earth towards a simpler conformation of quartz and ice.

The density of mana was incomparable to the one I was used to, but it barely made a difference now that I had reached maturity. I could feel my body adapt in real time to the new conditions and become completely impervious to its action. Although this could technically be considered growth, it wasn't what I was seeking. I needed greater strength and if I wanted to attain I needed exceptional stimuli.

I turned around to look behind me. The distorted reality had apparently disappeared and only a uniform expanse had taken its place. It was a sort of illusion, just as it had been on the other side. I was certain of it as I could still feel the presence of the violet thread my voyage had left behind. It didn't only serve as proof of my journey, but also as a connection between the two sides of the world.

I walked backwards and let myself fall off the cliff. I landed heavily after falling for dozens of metres and walked over the frozen sea. I looked through the clear ice which reached down to the bottom of the ocean, then moved my gaze to the pale sun and the starry sky.

I bathed in the infinite silence, a smile plastered on my face. I was certain. I had reached my destination, the one which had been calling me.

My world. The true face of my world, hidden from me for so long, in its place a bastardised version. An injured world. A dead world. A world in which mana had laid waste to the earth and seas. A world which was a solid sphere of rock, be it silicate or ice. A world in which the sun itself had become a weak presence, as mana devoured most of its light.

But in this grim expanse of silence and darkness, glimmers could still be found. They were far away, beyond the horizon, but their presence was clearly evident. I strolled along the beach, following the coast while moving further north. As I walked, the landscape remained unchanged, with the cliffs of quartz on my left and the fields of ice on my right.

I continued on towards the glimmer coming to greet me. It was a single presence, quickly approaching my location. The mighty vibrations its steps inflicted on the clear ground were strong enough to reach me from far away.

A head popped out from behind the wall of the cliffs. It belonged to a young adult with a brisk demeanour and a curly head of black hair.

"Oh! I don't know you! Who are you? What's your name? Where are you from? Why are you here?" he lively spoke bombarding me with questions in rapid succession.

The world itself was dead, but its denizens were not. A barren planet of eternal winter, home and cradle of an unyielding species.