"You."
The word struck Dorian like a gong vibrating through the marrow of existence.
The voice was primordial—so ancient it carried the weight of forgotten epochs—yet he felt it inside him, resonating in places he didn't know existed. The colossal being towering before him had no mouth, no eyes, no nose, not even a defined face. Its body was shaped like a muscular humanoid sculpted from solid starlight, every contour shimmering like the surface of a distant sun.
Yet the being hadn't moved.
It hadn't spoken.
And still… Dorian heard the word perfectly, as if whispered directly into his soul.
Despite being so grand it hadn't made any threatening gestures towards Dorian,
realizing that the being—vast, luminous, and immeasurably powerful—did not intend immediate harm, Dorian's instincts kicked in and panic shifted into frantic curiosity.
"Where am I? Who are you? What is this place?"
The questions spilled out in one breathless rush, his voice cracking from fear and confusion.
After what seemed like an eternity the being spoke, its voice a majestic rumble that felt like gravitational waves washing through the void:
"Calm yourself, child. One question at a time."
Dorian swallowed hard. Something in that tone made his racing heart slow, his thoughts settle. He inhaled deeply, still wary of the titan before him.
"O-okay… then… what are you exactly?"
He stared up at the radiant colossus, desperately searching for a face—something human he could read—but the being's surface remained a storm of softly swirling cosmic light.
"I do not possess a name," the being said. "But for the last several eons, those who have encountered me have called me… the Guardian Spirit which I guess summarizes my function."
The answer only raised more questions. Dorian felt a pulse of irritation mixed with frustation. "Fine. Then what are you a guardian of?"
"Of this supercluster."
Again, another answer that explained nothing.
Dorian rubbed his temples. "That doesn't help. A supercluster? What does—"
The Guardian seemed to sense his growing frustration.
"A supercluster is a vast collection of galaxies—millions upon millions of them—each orbiting the Astral Nexus."
Before Dorian could ask what the Astral Nexus was, space itself ruptured around them.
A blinding streak of motion consumed reality.
The Guardian had not moved, and yet they were moving—at impossible speed. It felt like they were being hurled through the cosmos, but without wind, without inertia, without sound. Stars blurred by in streaks. Planets passed them in the span of heartbeats—colossal gas giants with swirling storms the size of continents, tiny rocky worlds glowing red from volcanic oceans, and icy spheres drifting in lonely darkness.
Nebulae spilled color across the void like spilled paint.
A pulsar flashed in rhythmic blue-white pulses.
A neutron star—small but impossibly dense—whirled past like a spinning, dying ember.
Dorian's mind buckled.
was this a dream?
Was it an illusion?
He was seeing the universe the way only gods could see it.
His vision warped, tears of pressure or awe—or both—pricking at his eyes. His stomach twisted as space folded and unfolded like pages turning too fast to comprehend.
Then everything stopped.
Abruptly. Silently.
Before them stretched a sea of lights—so vast, so dense, so endless—that Dorian forgot to breathe.
Each point of light shimmered with its own color: some brilliant white, some warm gold, some deep red or pale blue. At this distance, they looked like grains of glowing dust scattered across an infinite black canvas.
But he knew.
He knew instinctively.
These were worlds.Entire worlds maybe some had life on them.1
"This…" the Guardian said, its voice echoing through the void, "…is our supercluster."
The being gestured—not with arms, not physically, but with a shift in presence that made the lights themselves vibrate.
"Every one of those lights," it continued, "is a star, or a planet, or an entire system. Trillions upon trillions of celestial bodies."
Dorian felt something tighten in his chest.
Insignificance.
A crushing sense of smallness.
Of powerlessness.
He had thought he understood the world when he topped his classes.
He had thought he was brilliant, exceptional, unparalleled.
Now?
He was less than a single grain of sand lost in a desert with no end.
The Guardian's presence shifted again, and suddenly the illusion of movement returned. Except… Dorian realized they weren't moving. The Guardian had bent perception itself so they appeared stationary while space moved around them.
Galaxies drifted past like slow-turning lanterns.
Constellations folded.
Light stretched.
Then—another jolt.
Another stillness.
Before them stood a barrier, vast beyond comprehension.
It shimmered a deep bluish hue, waves of astral energy rippling across its surface like liquid sapphire. The barrier was so enormous, so all-encompassing, that even the Guardian—towering at a hundred meters—looked like a speck of dust in comparison.
The barrier faded into infinity, stretching in every direction, its edges hidden from sight.
Dorian exhaled shakily.
His voice trembled.
"W-what… what is that?
The Guardian Spirit's chest glowed faintly, as though the cosmos inside it stirred with memory.
"This," it said, "is the Supercluster Barrier."
Dorian's eyes widened. "A… a barrier? Big enough to contain all of that?" He gestured helplessly toward the ocean of galaxies behind them. "What could even make something like this?!"
The Guardian's voice grew deeper, almost solemn.
"Long before your species learned to harness cosmic energy… long before your world even cooled enough to form life… the first beings in existence wove this barrier using the raw laws of creation. It holds the cosmic energy within the supercluster—and keeps the corruptive void outside."
Dorian tried to fathom how powerful this being's were for even the guardian to speak with worship in it's tone when talking about them.
Dorian felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"The void?" he whispered.
The Guardian did not answer with words.
Instead, the light before them darkened.
Beyond the shimmering barrier was nothing.
Not darkness.
Not emptiness.
Something worse.
A swirling, churning expanse of pitch-black mist, rippling like a storm made of sentient shadow. Tendrils of black energy lashed out and recoiled, never quite touching the barrier, as if constantly testing it.
A primal horror gripped Dorian's heart.
He felt watched.
Hunted.
"That," the Guardian said softly, "is the Void."
Dorian's breath froze.
His mouth hung open.
"It devours," the Guardian continued, "anything it touches. It corrupts. It unravels. It is the absence of law, of order, of meaning. Where your universe sings with cosmic energy, the void whispers with the desire to silence all things."
Dorian had no words.
"And once," the Guardian said, voice heavy with memory, "eons ago… the barrier weakened."
A tremor of energy rippled through the supercluster as if reality itself flinched from the memory.
"A breach formed. Only a small one. But through it, cosmic energy leaked out—and void energy seeped in."
Dorian stared at the swirling blackness outside the barrier, throat tight.
"And when the two energies touched…" the Guardian paused, "…something new was born."
Dorian was quietly listening to the guardian.
"Creatures," the Guardian echoed. "Unlike anything that should exist. Driven by instinct, hunger, and corruption. Their sole purpose: to breach the barrier fully… and consume life."
Dorian shivered.
He could almost feel those creatures pressing against the barrier from the outside.
The Guardian lowered its head slightly—an act that felt like the lowering of a moon.
"of course I eliminated most of them that had come to this side but due to the laws imposed on me I can't go out of the cluster,"the guardian said it's voice taking on a more serious tone
Dorian swallowed.
"And… why show me all this?"
The Guardian's star-filled chest pulsed faintly.