Beyond the Void

Chapter 68, The elder soul of all-that-is

ANDARIS

Four moons and three tens since the Mark of the Other One blossomed.

The dark lightning disappeared, and Andaris stared at the mutilated corpse in front of him. The world was too silent once again.

Yet the flow beneath his skin did not dissipate and sought another way out. He screamed and turned inwards, his rage directed at the guardian, still chained to the ocean.

"What was that!?" A torrent of water tore into the woman.

"No! Please stop!" She screamed and sputtered through the water.

"Answer me!" But Andaris relented. As incorporeal as she was, he should avoid killing another human.

The guardian coughed and sputtered as the chains binding her shattered. "Shouldn't you be happier? You know eldertongue now. You learned to trust your instincts."

"Answer my damned questions, you freak. What was that? Who is he? How do you know him? How was he alive when you used the voidstone?" Andaris' ears were ringing. How did he have this knowledge? "What in all creation is a voidstone exactly?" But he knew the answer to that question.

"He was an ascendant. One of the first ones. He was one of those who destroyed my homeland." The guardian's voice was dripping with hatred.

"Ascendant." A hundred memories and concepts ran through Andaris' mind. The knowledge was there, but he did not fully understand once again. A god, a human, a power unrivalled. A soul blessed by the gods. "Ten humans. There were ten of them? How can ten people destroy..."

"Look at this!" The guardian shouted and cut Andaris off. She had risen to her feet, now pacing around the empty world, gesturing. "With this power that courses through you, you could shatter an entire continent by yourself!"

"You are exaggerating!" Andaris felt a strange shiver run through him. It was fear but mixed with something else too, an enticing possibility.

"A little, but the point of the matter stays the same. You have the ability; the conditions are minor details in your case." She laughed a harsh laugh.

This made his anger flare once again, and he had a hard time restraining himself. "What am I?" Andaris rammed a gust of wind into the guardian who tumbled away.

She was laughing, lying on the ocean surface. "This is how it should be. This how you should be."

"What am I?" Andaris growled.

"I know you are one of the first ones. One of the first ones to be pulled into the void between all realms. You do not need nexuses, sacrifices, burning nodes or anything of the like. You draw and weave power by will and thought. If I wanted to do what you did moments ago, I would have needed tens of sacrifices to conjure half of what you just did." There was a reverence in her eyes, he noticed.

"Stop wasting my time with pointless exposition and tell me!" Andaris shouted.

"It is not pointless. It is not unrelated. You have to understand the memories you took from me." She explained.

"You mean the useless knowledge you flooded my mind with."

She ignored his accusation. "I was one of the Six Guardians of the north, but the Emperor was surrounded by his faithful - the Six Pillars. In my time, whoever would become a pillar was tasked with only one goal. To find why the humans had lost their power and to regain what we lost. The pillars thought the key lie with six primal souls, which were rumoured to be reborn again and again in different people. That is the only explanation I can come up with that would explain you. Those souls should be a myth, a story, a fairy tale about the creation of this world. But this is how the Other One should be. The god above the six elder souls. Just as our Emperor was the All-King. You, the only being who can draw flow straight from the void itself without the help of blood and the voidstones."