Pain.
It was the first thing Alaric expected to feel. Instead, he felt nothingness.
Just nothingness.
Alaric slowly opened his tightly clenched eyes, only to see the very same void.
He immediately looked down at his chest.
The phantom echo of a scream died in his throat.
There was no tearing of flesh, no hot rush of blood spilling into the weightless dark. Where the colorless energy blade had pierced his coat and sunk into his chest, a perfect, seamless cavity now remained.
It was a precise, hollow void matching the exact silhouette of the blade's sharp edge, stamped directly into the center of his torso.
Alaric stared down, completely paralyzed.
The edges of the wound did not bleed they did not even consist of torn skin or fractured bone.
The flesh simply ceased to exist at the boundary, terminating into a border as sharp and clean as a line drawn in ink.
Inside the silhouette, there was only a terrifying, absolute pitch-blackness. It wasn't a dark cavity filled with shadow it was a microscopic piece of the endless void itself, anchored right between his ribs.
When he tried to look deeper, his gaze found no heart, no lungs, and no anatomy.just a bottomless, lightless vacuum that seemed to draw the very air into its center.
The hole was completely still, yet it throbbed with a low, silent frequency that Alaric felt in the very core of his soul.
His old heart was gone, and in its place sat an empty, unyielding nothingness, waiting to beat for the very first time.
In his other hand, he still held the energy blade, his makeshift wooden fingers gritting against the hilt.
"Amazing... Mr. Xyle."
It was the voice of the Void. The sound vibrated directly from the pitch-black silhouette in his torso, echoing outward into the expanse.
Alaric's shoulders locked. He braced himself, expecting the final, pulverizing trap to spring, his vision tunneling as he waited for the void to consume whatever was left of him.
"Calm down," the voice said, its tone dropping into a steady, authoritative frequency that hummed right against his eardrums.
"Calm down and listen to me. The panic in your mind will only destabilize the anchor. You have paid the price, and the ledger is balanced. Now, pay attention to what comes next."
"What do you mean? Say it directly," Alaric answered, his jaw clenched.
Something moved out from the pitch-black silhouette in his torso. He couldn't see it, but he could clearly sense it.
The voice also seemed to be standing directly in front of him, just an arm's length away.
"Well... what I want to say is, you have completed all three beautiful tasks. Now, before I send you back, there are things I must tell you."
The voice spoke in a tone entirely different from its usual cadence.
Alaric caught the word "beautiful," but he didn't care enough to dwell on it. He focused his gaze exactly on the spot where he expected the presence to be.
Alaric opened his mouth. "And what are those?"
The voice didn't chuckle this time. "There are two things that I have to tell you... shall we start?"
"Yes."
Alaric blankly stared at the perfect, colorless blade resting against his forcefully self inflicted wooden sticks.
The voice continued, "So, the very first thing is that you have already heard of conduit natures, right?"
Alaric slowly nodded.
How could he ever forget Tylor using business terms to explain the structure of a conduit? That was the exact point where everything had started.
The voice didn't wait. "So... curious about your nature?"
This time, the voice didn't wait for an answer, continuing immediately, "Your nature is Divine."
Divine?
The first thing Alaric remembered upon hearing this was his conversation with Tylor.
Tylor had clearly stated that Divine and Devil were standard, whereas Specialist was rare but more energy-consuming.
Alaric opened his mouth. "Why Divine?"
The voice's tone shifted instantly, snapping into a mocking sneer.
"Haven't you done enough devil's work in your past, Mr. Seller?"
"That is none of your business," Alaric cut in smoothly, his voice regaining a clinical chill before he could even formulate a proper retort.
"The origin doesn't alter the arithmetic of the ledger. It is simply what you are now. Let us move to the second matter, as our time here is drawing to an end."
Alaric didn't press the question, but the title the entity had casually spat out left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Mr. Seller.
He forced his expression to remain completely blank, refusing to let the unseen entity witness the sudden, defensive tremor in his thoughts.
The past didn't matter. The title didn't matter. Only the weapon he was purchasing mattered.
Alaric subtly shifted his grip on the colorless energy blade, the forcefully inserted wooden sticks groaning against the hilt as he focused his gaze back onto the invisible presence in front of him.
"Fine," Alaric rasped, his jaw clenching tightly as he locked his secrets away once more.
"Move forward. What is the second thing?"
"Very well. The second thing is, you are already aware of a Lumen Siphon, aren't you? The colorless blade you are holding that is your Lumen Siphon."
It felt like a tidal wave hitting Alaric in the face.
He immediately glared at the weapon in his grasp. The perfect, colorless blade he was holding, the very blade he had driven into his chest, the same blade that had pierced through his heart.
"That's it," the voice finished, before quickly adding, "Oh, I forgot to give you your incantation."
Alaric focused on the words. "Incantation? For what?"
"For your Lumen Siphon."
"Why?"
The voice sighed. "Every Lumen Siphon has its own name tied to its wielder... and to use its peak, you need the incantation. Pretty simple."
It was then Alaric noticed that the void hole in his chest had filled it was no longer there. Almost instantly, the perfect, colorless blade began to shift slightly, taking on a purplish hue.
Alaric gazed toward where the presence seemed to be.
The voice finally spoke. "The name of your Lumen Siphon is Singularity, with the incantation of..."
After a minute or two, when Alaric had finally digested his incantation, the voice spoke in a gloomy tone.
"It's time for you to go back."
Alaric immediately reacted. "What about my wounds?"
"They are more than wounds, but they will be healed."
The voice didn't say anything for a while.
A sharp snap echoed.
Alaric's vision went black a different kind of darkness than the void.
When Alaric opened his eyes again, he was back in the Vath Hills, somehow sitting on a cold stone.
The one thing that remained burned into his mind was the voice's final words.
"With the incantation of... Collapse the horizon, let all paths end in me."