The combination was complete. The ball of souls hovered before him, a deceptively simple sphere of weightless light. To a casual glance, it might have seemed peaceful. But to Dave, who could feel the very fabric of its being, it was a prison of pure agony, a condensed universe of silent screams. It was power.
With a calm glide, the sphere floated to his outstretched hand. It was cool to the touch, yet thrummed with a barely-contained energy that vibrated up his arm. He stared at it for a moment, loss at what he should do... He knew what he could do actually, but the sheer scope of the possibility was paralyzing. What do you imagine when handed the power of a million lives?
He decided to let his deepest, most desperate desire guide him. He imagined an end to this torment. He imagined a being of such immense, cataclysmic power that it could shatter the very framework of this game, tear down the walls of this reality, and carve a path to true freedom. He poured that thought, that burning need for liberation, into the sphere.
The chime was a bucket of ice water.
Terminated? Why? The thought was a spike of frustration. The system responded as if reading his mind, a new screen flashing into existence.
"Soul Points?" Dave repeated the term calmly, turning it over in his mind. As if in answer, another screen materialized.
The number was immense, but the meaning was now clear. So the soul points are a currency. A limit. I can't just imagine a god; I have to afford one. His first attempt had been like trying to buy a kingdom with a single coin. He had reached for the sun and been told his ladder was too short.
He looked back at the sphere in his hand. This time, he was more pragmatic. He didn't imagine an ultimate end. He imagined a beginning. He focused on what he truly needed. He needed a companion, something he could trust implicitly in this world. He needed a source of strength, a way to enhance his own abilities to survive the immediate dangers. He needed a creature formidable enough to pose a threat to any challenge the Game Maker could throw at him. And, buried deep within the thought, a final, audacious requirement: the
potential. The seed of a being that could, in time, grow powerful enough to threaten the Game Maker itself.
The system chimed again, but this time it was distorted, glitched. The numbers on the screen fractured into nonsense.
<-???9???9?9??????? SP>
Dave sighed, a wave of disappointment washing over him. Even this is too much? Is it because I added the Game Maker's name in my thought? The mere concept of challenging the architect of this hell was apparently too expensive.
Dave watched, already figuring out what next he'll imagine. But then, something strange happened.
In his hand, the ball of souls pulsed. Once, twice, then it began to brighten uncontrollably. It was no longer just light; it was a fury, a rebellion against its own limitations. The light grew from a glow to a blaze, then to a blinding, all-consuming radiance that swallowed the dark throne room, the throne, Dave himself... everything.
In the heart of that impossible light, a final system message flickered and died.
And then, the sphere of a million souls…
Shattered.
***
Dave lowered his arm, his eyes blinking against the afterimage of the shattering light. The surprise on his face was a stark, human reaction in a place that felt anything but. The throne room was gone. He was no longer in the throne room. He stood… on nothing. A void, but unlike any he had known. This was not the transitional darkness between life and death. This was a profound, absolute non-existence, a place so empty it seemed to reject the very concept of being. A normal mind would have shattered trying to comprehend it.
And in the center of this incomprehensible nothingness, an altar stood. Its surface was a slick, black substance that devoured light, reflecting nothing. It was ominously still, yet it pulsed with a faint, unnatural rhythm, a sick heart beating in the chest of oblivion. Beyond the altar, a massive stone gate loomed, so tall its top was lost in the void above. Its surface was covered in carvings, but they were not static. They were a seething mass of lines and shapes that twisted and writhed if he tried to focus on them, as if alive with an unnatural energy.
Dave approached. His footsteps made no sound, the void rendering even the idea of an echo irrelevant. With each step, the air, or what passed for it, thickened, pressing against him like deep ocean water. His gaze was locked on the shifting carvings, their rough, ancient lines radiating a power that felt older than time itself.
Then, the words carved into the stone resolved, clear and unmistakable, burning themselves into his vision:
"Here lies the spawn of the deepest abyss,
The forsaken void, the beholder of the endless darkness.
Beware of the spawn that sleeps,
For her birth shall herald the end.
To break this seal is to condemn all to an endless darkness."
The weight of the prophecy was like a strange physical blow. Each line landed on his soul, pressing down on his chest. The warning etched itself permanently into his mind. This was not a place of power to be claimed; it was a prison to be feared.
Maybe this is a little bit dangerous at this moment, he thought, the understatement a testament to his reeling mind. He had no intention of opening it.
But the gate had other plans.
With a slow, calm groan that vibrated through the nothingness, defying the soundless nature of the void, the massive stone slabs began to move by themselves. They swung inward, breaking an eons-long stillness. Thick mist began pouring out from the widening gap, carrying the scent of ozone and forgotten ages. It didn't drift; it coiled, wrapping around Dave's legs like a sentient vapor, tasting his presence.
Through the mist, Dave saw what lay within.
It was not a treasure. It was not a monster of flesh and bone.
It was a cocoon, incomprehensibly vast, woven from what looked like solidified shadows and strands of pure despair. It pulsed with a slow, terrible rhythm, a heartbeat that was felt rather than heard. It was a thing of absolute emptiness.
And then he heard it. A sigh.
It did not come from the cocoon, nor from the mist. It came from the fabric of reality itself. A deep, weary exhalation that carried within it the weight of dead stars, extinct existences, and epochs lost to memory.
"Sigh....."