As the cloud transport drifted smoothly through the seemingly endless corridors of the Soulless Forest, the rhythmic, muffled hum of the engine and the crushing weight of the spatial domain outside pulled Ector under. His eyes grew heavy, and his consciousness slipped away from the tactical nightmares of the present, drifting backward into the comfort of his schooling days. He was no older than thirteen.
In his memory, he was sitting in his private study room—a grand, vaulted chamber that, as a matter of fact, was significantly larger than his actual sleeping quarters. At that time, the reigning Sun King was Redovia Calmon Dior, Ector's grandfather. Redovia was a deeply revered and towering figure in the annals of the kingdom. Unlike the modern nobility, he hadn't relied on tightly controlled, artificially bred soulless beasts to farm his levels; he was an adventurer by nature, forged in the brutal fires of the untamed wilds. His soul core, the Core of the Moonlight, was a prestigious minor variant belonging to the broader, terrifyingly vast category of Celestial Bodies and Stellar Light.
Redovia took education with a severity that bordered on religious devotion. He had desperately wanted Ector to inherit the legendary Core of the Sun, but that cosmic prize had sadly been bartered away—given as a monumental token of imperial gratitude to the Motsari Corporation for single-handedly pulling the Sun Kingdom out of a catastrophic economic depression. When Redovia finally retired and passed the crown to Ector's father, he dedicated his newfound freedom entirely to tutoring his grandson from the very first day.
Ector had felt incredibly lucky all his life. His grandfather was universally acknowledged as the greatest Royal-ranking Healer and Support Adventurer among the human race and their allied kin. He was also a living library of forgotten lore; an adventurer nearly a thousand years old who had personally witnessed the absolute pinnacle of His Imperial Majesty, Deodas Clamore Devanti Skati, during the apocalyptic conflicts of the Third Human War.
"Existence, Ector... what is it?"
His grandfather's voice echoed in the memory, deep, resonant, and heavy with age. The old king was writing smoothly on a pristine sheet of parchment set between them on the heavy mahogany table.
Ector had blinked, leaning back in his chair. "What kind of a question is that, Grandfather? Existence is everything. All things that are, are a part of existence."
Redovia had let out a soft, booming chuckle. "And that, my boy, is exactly where mortals fall into illusion."
With a sweeping stroke of his quill, Redovia drew a massive, bold square on the paper. Then, he began drawing small, sparse circles within it. For ten minutes, the old king spoke no words, his hand moving methodically until hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny dots filled the boundaries.
"The square is Existence itself," Redovia said, tapping the ink. "Both the known worlds, the matter and the antimatter. The dead and the living. The mortal and the immortal. All of it coexists within this boundary. These dots I have scattered... what do you think they represent?"
"Solar systems?" Ector guessed confidently. "Or perhaps entirely different galaxies?"
Redovia just smiled, a gentle, paternal warmth in his eyes that highlighted how beautifully naive his grandson truly was.
"No?" Ector asked, his aristocratic pride stinging slightly at his grandfather's expression.
"Multiverses, Ector. Or even hyperverses," Redovia revealed. "Do you know what those terms truly mean?"
"No," Ector muttered, looking down at his boots, a bit ashamed of his ignorance.
"Well, let us look at the scale of things. You understand what a basic universe is, correct? A universe is a single tapestry of space and time. A multiverse, then, is simply a vast cluster of those universes—a collection of different fundamental versions of reality. The high sages say that a mortal choosing between coffee and tea in the morning could theoretically fracture the timeline, creating two entirely distinct universes. And beyond that lie the hyperverses. They are majestic coalitions of multiple multiverses, typically bound together in tightly knit groups of two to five."
Ector leaned over the desk, utterly fascinated by the cosmic scale. "But there are thousands of dots inside your box, Grandfather. And there is so much empty space between them... is all of that just absolute nothingness?"
"It can be perceived as such by a mortal mind, but in truth, it is anything but empty," Redovia said, his voice dropping to a reverent whisper. He dipped his quill again, drawing a significantly larger, intricate circle right in the geometric center of the square. "That vast black void separating the hyperverses is known as the Between Lands. It is a primordial realm where the conceptual beings roam, alongside terrifying forms of life that no mortal mind can comprehend. Even the Almighties themselves cannot step foot into the Between Lands without an explicit, formal invitation from one of the apex Conceptual Beings."
Ector's eyes widened as he stared at the new, massive circle dominating the middle of the diagram. "What is this one, then? Is it something even greater than a hyperverse?"
"Yes and no," Redovia smiled, his eyes twinkling. "It is our world. Not merely our planet, but our solar system: Eternia. The center of all existence. It is the oldest standing civilization in known history. The one singular anchor point in an ever-infinite existence where every single dimension, reality, and timeline coincides. In the grand cosmic equation, Eternia is either the Zero Dimension or the Infinite Dimension. We are the nexus."
Ector frowned, looking at the diagram. "But geographically speaking, we are not even a galaxy. Why did you draw us so massive compared to the hyperverses?"
The question was entirely valid. The eleven-planet solar system of Eternia was by no means small; in comparison to the mundane solar system Alexander had originated from, Eternia was a million times larger and fundamentally more advanced. Their sun was a cosmic anomaly, so unimaginably massive that its volume rivaled a medium-sized galaxy, and the largest planet, Drake, was several times larger than Alexander's home star.
The only reason the entire system didn't collapse into a catastrophic black hole—breaking a billion laws of conventional physics—was simple: Magic. In Eternia, physics and magic, advanced technology and ancient sorcery, constantly complimented and contrasted one another to maintain an impossible equilibrium.
In the wider, boundless scope of existence, planets as small as Alexander's home universe were rare but fairly common, and life thrived in every microscopic nick of the cosmos. To the microscopic people living on a regular planet, they might feel completely isolated in the middle of a lonely void. But to the far bigger, greater, and multi-dimensional beings ruling the upper echelons, traversing a universe was as simple as taking a single step or slightly moving a finger.
Perspective changed everything. For a mortal human, walking a single kilometer took barely ten minutes. But for a micro-organism dwelling on a dust mote, that same kilometer was an impossible journey across the equivalent of the Milky Way. To someone like Alexander, the mere concept of a planet as large as a sun was completely unfathomable, yet across the wider existence, there were planets that completely dwarfed stars. And the most interesting part? Those massive worlds comfortably housed trillions, if not hundreds of trillions, of sapient civilizations and ancient beasts.
"Tell me, Grandfather," Ector repeated, pulling his grandfather back from his poetic musings on the cosmos. "Why did you draw our system so large in the diagram?"
"Because, my boy, we possess the Warped Spaces," Redovia explained, tapping the center of the parchment. "Other multiverses and hyperverses have their own minor localized instances of distorted space, yes, but Eternia holds more warped spaces than any other realm in existence. And most importantly, we hold the Divine Rank spaces."
"But all the warped spaces I've ever entered are so small," Ector countered, thinking of his early training dungeons. "They're smaller than our home continent. A few of them aren't even as large as our imperial capital."
Redovia barked with laughter. "Those are just low-tier Soldier or Commander-rank spaces, Ector! There are millions of those tiny fractures littered all around our world like pebbles. But once your soul ascends to the Royal Rank or higher, the spatial dimensions within those rifts expand exponentially. You will find warped spaces that contain entire physical galaxies, or even dense galactic clusters, functioning perfectly within their own isolated pockets. And once you step into the true Divine Rank spaces... those are just as infinite as existence itself. The high arcanists have calculated that we could comfortably fit the entire known, outside existence five times over inside the largest Divine Rank warped space we have ever cataloged."
Ector's breath hitched. "Are those... the ones where the Almighties and the Divine Rankers gather to hold council?"
"Yes," Redovia nodded solemnly. "The main one hovering on the very cosmic verge of our solar system is a marvel. Its physical opening alone, its spatial tear, is as wide as the entire diameter of the planet Drake."
Ector marveled at the sheer, terrifying scale of the universe, but just as the awe reached its peak, a distant, rhythmic voice began to pierce through the memory.
"Your Highness? Your Highness, please awake."
Ector's eyes snapped open. The grand mahogany study vanished, replaced by the sleek, comfortable interior of the cloud transport.
He blinked away the sleep, looking out the reinforced glass window. They had stopped. Outside, the convoy had parked within what appeared to be an ancient, long-abandoned forest civilization. Thousands of massive, towering trees surrounded them, though the vast majority of the architecture bore the unmistakable black scorch marks of ancient, cataclysmic fires.
But what truly caught Ector's attention was what lay directly in the center of the settlement: a gaping, monstrous hole in the earth. The sheer depth of the abyss was dizzying, plunging down into a pitch-black dark that felt far deeper than the deepest mythril mines in the world. It seemed to plunge straight through the core of the planet, defying all structural logic.
"It is a highly concentrated localized space dilation, Your Majesty," Rickard said smoothly. The old butler had already exited the vehicle and was holding the door open, offering a gloved hand to support the young prince's descent.
"Where exactly are we, Rickard?" Ector asked, gripping the hand and stepping down onto the solid, root-woven ground, his boots crunching against old ash.
"The abandoned subterranean city of the ancient Forest Dwellers," Rickard answered, his eyes scanning the perimeter.
Ector reached into his spatial storage ring, pulling out a tightly wrapped luxury sandwich to quickly quench the sudden hunger gnawing at his stomach. He took a bite before looking around at the rest of the vanguard. "Are we making camp here?"
"Yes, Your Highness. The Noble-ranking vanguard units and Lady Seraphina require a period of static rest to safely recover their depleted mana reserves after burning through the forest. The commanders have decreed that we will halt our march here for exactly one standard day."
Ector swallowed his food, his youthful curiosity completely piqued as he stared back at the hypnotic, impossibly deep abyss in the center of the ruins.
"Well, if we have a full day," Ector said, a regal but eager smile returning to his face, "let's go explore."
With Rickard walking a precise half-step behind him, the Crown Prince began walking toward the edge of the great, whispering hole in the ground.
***