Nova's mortal soul was trapped in an infinite, empty void. Everything was black, blacker than anything in the present universe. He didn't know what was happening or why it was happening. The last thing he remembered was escaping the dungeon, which had nearly killed him. Though, of course, he wouldn't really die, since his immortal soul, his divinity, was still present; he could just reanimate himself if needed.
Nova lay on the black "floor," baffled by the beautiful sight in front of him. He sat up like a robot, looking down at the floor, which was filled with a strange type of liquid. At first, he thought it was water, then realized the liquid glowed faintly, covered by the infinite darkness. So, it couldn't be water.
He stood up, stretching himself, not afraid of the peculiar circumstances. He was confused, yes, but not exactly startled, as if he had already visited a place like this.
"Oh, I miss this place. It's been a while since I've been here," he thought, as a smile broke across his face. He knew exactly how he got here, and it was very transparent to him.
He kept "walking," even if the act itself was meaningless. He knew this. There was no path, no terrain, no sense of progression, nor any sense of regression. It was just equilibrium. Yet, with each step, something stirred, not around him, but inside. A quiet recognition, like something long buried, was beginning to resurface.
This void was above the concept of time. Time didn't pass. There was no flow to it, no rhythm, no reason. He wasn't walking for seconds, minutes, hours, centuries, or even thousands of years. He was simply walking, detached from any and every temporal thread. His thoughts floated without sequence, like leaves in a windless sky.
The place was also above the concept of space. So, there wasn't a reason for space either. No here or there. He wasn't in a place. He wasn't anywhere. The act of moving forward did not carry him through space, but rather deeper into a state of awareness. Each step was not a traversal, but a shift in understanding, like peeling back layers of thought that had no origin.
Even the concept of direction fell apart. He had thought he was walking north, but the idea evaporated the moment he tried to hold onto it. There was no orientation: no sides, no angles, no reference. Every direction was the same as every other: none. Yet, still, he moved.
And above all of it, above time, above space, above direction, there were no dimensions: no structure, nothing that could be mapped or divided or shaped, not even the infinite. Just the undisturbed quiet of something that had never been born and so had never needed to die.
He looked around, even though there was nothing to see. The glowing liquid still moved beneath his feet, though he no longer felt sure there even was a "beneath." The glow was faint, pulsing like it had a breath of its own, but its light didn't illuminate anything. It only existed, like a thought without a thinker.
Nova's body felt strange: not in pain, not weakened, but distant. He raised his hand, and it responded slowly, like a memory instead of motion. Its edges shimmered, flickered. He could still see it, but the void didn't agree with its shape. This place didn't support form; it tolerated it briefly.
He stopped.
There was no reason to move: no pressure, no goal. The stillness was not emptiness; it was complete, whole. Movement here was not travel; it was choice.
As he stood there, he noticed something: a sensation, not external, but seeded in the space where thought and identity met. It wasn't fear; it wasn't clarity either. Just a pull, gentle, not forward or upward, but deeper, into something that didn't have a name, into the origin of names.
He realized then that this void was not around him. It was not separate. It was not an environment. It was him. And then, somewhere between the idea of nothing and the absence of even that, something moved.
Nova smiled as he saw the true form of Elesch for the first time in a long time. He was patiently awaiting for her arrival, since a older brother tolerating their younger siblings behaviors. Yet, still happy to have them around.
Elesch took the shape of a young woman cloaked in elegance and impossibility, her skin smooth and radiant, swirling with iridescent markings that shifted like galaxies under her surface, mesmerizing rather than monstrous. Her eyes, vast and depthless, hinted at time before time, yet they sparkled with the charm of mischief. She wore a dress spun from shadows and light, trailing like fog across the floor, stitched with starlight and embroidered in symbols that twisted the minds of those who stared too long. The gown clung and flowed in turns, defying the concept of gravity, slipping between planes higher than the concept of dimensions, always seeming alive. Her presence hummed with quiet madness, veiled in beauty so perfect it felt wrong: too precise, too symmetrical, like the smile of something pretending to be human but shaped by unknowable geometry. She was terror wrapped in allure, divinity in disguise.
Nova was mesmerized by Elesch's beauty, since he hadn't seen her for quite some time: about a couple trillion years before the birth of the physical universe. He had missed the way her presence folded into reality like a melody half-heard across aeons, disruptive yet oddly comforting.
To mortals, she was terror incarnate. To him, she was still the little sister who once rewrote the laws of entropy just to get his attention, who nested in collapsing stars like they were cushions, who laughed with the force of collapsing realms when she hid one of his hearts, useless as it was, inside a dying galaxy for a prank.
Even now, as she hovered with cosmic grace, eyes filled with secret infinities, he could still see the younger sibling who had once clung to him in the darkness before creation, needing no words, only presence.
He watched her now with the patient fondness of an elder entity who had weathered her chaos for eons, knowing it for what it was: a deep, incomprehensible love expressed in impossible ways.
Elesch flew toward him, her body just shorter than his. Then, as Nova thought she would hug him, she started to instead playfully hit him on the bed, like a little sister. Nova simply smiled, as he had done the same to fake her being killed, since she was somehow categorized as an Eldritch Horror, evil entities sealed in alternate realities, trapped there for eternity for their evil doings.
Elesch wasn't an Eldritch Horror. Apollo had framed her for being one, and since all other Supreme Gods, except Nova and Freya, and the Low Heaven gods agreed with him, she was cast as an Eldritch Horror. And when the battle between the gods and the Eldritch Horrors came, Nova "beat" Elesch; he had simply playfully hit her on the head to indicate that she was killed. Then he temporarily put her in one of his realms, created by him and Freya, where she lived however she wanted to.
She also occasionally stepped outside, undetected by the other gods, venturing into Freya's room, as she considered Freya her big sister; they bonded very well, with Elesch acting like a teenager, very immature given her lifespan.
Elesch stopped playfully hitting him and then demanded: "Why have you become a mortal, brother? You're the pinnacle of the gods, right-hand to the Universe, successor of the Universe, yet you would traverse the mortal realm for some mere excitement. Why?"
"Oh, Elesch, my dear sister. I haven't seen you in forever. You haven't talked to me since the whole gods versus Eldritch Horror fight, that bullshit. It's really lovely seeing you and speaking to you, you know," Nova said in a soft, kind-hearted voice. It felt as if an old, wise person was speaking.
"Well, you did lock me up," Elesch shot back.
"Well, now," Nova started, defending himself with good reasoning. "If I didn't, it would have caused more complications; plus, you barely were even in the realm, always coming out and playing with Freya. So, don't hate me for protecting you from all the complexities."
Elesch grew a smile, as Nova's expression turned more sad. She apologized and came toward him again for a hug. He embraced her for a long hug, a smile creeping across his face. He was just happy that Elesch was completely fine, but something troubled him. Why did she become his ability? How did she become his ability?
"Elesch, darling, I have a question for you; three, in fact," Nova said, with Elesch listening to him. She was on the floor now, with Nova patting her head like a good little puppy, confusing her. "Why are you here? How did you become my ability? And why did you become my ability?"
"The realm you created disappeared, stranding me in your chambers, but then, when I saw you fighting, I grew sad, and then whoosh, I was inside your head, inside your soul. We were combined into one being, so I can't answer the last two questions, because even I don't know."
"Apollo may be behind this. I need to get my divinity back, and we need to go to High Heaven right away," Nova said seriously, his voice steady but weighted with urgency, his eyes narrowing as resolve hardened his features.