n

n

n

"We made it out. We are in the stable universe.

" Said Edmund after noticing that his companion had woken up. However, it soon became clear to him that, that was not the answer that Nova was hoping to receive.

n

"I know that we are in stable space.. I mean, what planet is this? The spatial essence here feels so.. New.

" Responded Nova while looking, and ignoring the presence of a dragon, a wolf cub which emanated dark essence, and two humans that looked at him with curiosity. After a whole minute spent in that confused state, he turned to look at Edmund, and asked,

"Do you know these two?

"

n

"I know him. I mentioned him a couple of times before,

" Edmund replied as he looked at Xargy out of the corner of his eye and added,

"Anyway, I don't know him.

"

n

"Oh, so he is Daniel.. Your student?

" Asked Nova with interest. Whenever Nova inquired about Edmund's story, he would reply by mentioning his past as a scholar of space essence before his life and the lives of his family were pushed into another direction by Daniel. The young man who had assimilated all of his knowledge of spatial essence, and after only a few years, had managed to teach him something new.

nThe spatial essence had never really been more difficult to learn than any other kind of essence, the only thing that made it difficult to master it, was that many of its concepts could only be observed in catastrophic proportions. For example, one had to experience the Void to truly understand the shattered space, or see what Edmund, Dorgeo and Nova had seen inside the monster's body, in order to understand collapsed space.

nEven Nova was unable to construct collapsed space, since its very nature as being of spatial essence was the apotesis of collapsed space, and any attempt to create it without sufficient power to contain it, would have caused the collapse of his own body.

nAt the mention of the word student, and odd expression appeared on Daniel's face. Almost as if 'student' was just the last of the many words that could have described his relationship with Edmund.

nAs soon as this expression appeared on Daniel's face, Edmund narrowed his eyes while grunting at a very low volume.

nWhile Alesia and Daniel hadn't done anything to cover up the depth of their relationship, Edmund had ignored them in order to preserve that imaginary world in which all fathers who had to see their daughters being stolen by a man, had to take refuge in … one where the two of them were just very close friends. He himself knew that there was more to it, but he also knew that if he tried to dig deeper, he would have to go through a series of uncomfortable conversations with his wife, daughter, and Daniel himself.

nUnfortunately, this house of cards was destroyed the day Daniel lost control over his body. After months of watching Daniel behave in a completely different way, Edmund and the rest of the group decided to leave. One of the few people who decided to stay by his side along with Jerigh, Mea, Nilo, and Thien, was Alesia.

nThe day Edmund was forced to drag his daughter away from a life dedicated to following a man who clearly did not care about her, was the worst day of his life, as well as the first time his daughter had ever told him she hated him.

nDaniel was able to see all these memories as they reappeared on Edmund's mind. He couldn't help but feel bad about what had happened, but since he had no part to play in Sewah's plans, he couldn't beat himself too much.

nUnable to look straight into Edmund's eyes, Daniel turned to look at the spatial elemental and said,

"I am Daniel, and this is my planet.

"

nIt was only after Daniel had spoken to him, that Nova realized something. According to Edmund's story, Daniel should have been an immortal cultivator at best, so why was he this powerful? Was he not younger than thirty years of age? These questions made their way into Nova's mind, until finally, he composed himself, and said,

"I am Nova. I was told that you have respect for my kind, so I was hoping to meet you one day. However, how did we get here? What are the chances..

"

n

"I have my ways to find my own people.

" Responded Daniel without going into an in depth explanation of his abilities.

nThis answer was not enough for Nova, but he decided not to push his curiosity any further. After all, he did not know Daniel, and it was clear that he had his secrets. Instead of focusing on him, he turned to look at the wolf cub that Daniel was holding in his arms, and asked,

"Can I ask you, what is that?

"

nWith a faint smile on his face, Daniel looked down at the cub, whose head was pointed upwards, and towards his face, and responded by saying,

"This little demon, is Hell's ruler.

"

nNova ignored Daniel's tone and words, which to him, sounded like an inside joke whose meaning he could not comprehend, and instead asked,

"What is he? Why does he feel like a dark elemental, and yet completely different?..

"

nNova's idea of the wolf cub was not too far from being the truth. The wolf cub belonged to the spiritual wolves of mana, which were beings that had evolved from simple wolves after developing demonic power, and had obtained the ability to cultivate by absorbing the power of mana. This evolution had turned them into beings of a nature opposite to that of elementals, who excelled in comprehenson, but needed to gain control and power through cultivation. The spiritual wolves of mana, on the other hand, excelled in the control, but lacked power and comprehension.

nThat, unfortunately, while making the spiritual wolves of mana potentially more powerful than elementals when at the same stage, only allowed them to learn the concepts through the ingestion of essence spheres, instead of being born with them.

nNaturally, Daniel was not aware of this. All he knew about this race of demonic beasts was that they would become passionate about the first type of pure essence they tried, and would grow in power by ingesting spheres of the same type. So instead of starting a conversation he did not know much about, he made a dark essence sphere appear in between his fingers, causing the wolf cub to stare at it with eagerness, then moved it closer to the cub's muzzle before the cub could start yapping in complaint.

"A demonic wolf with a sweet tooth for Ssst-Watch the fingers!

" He said while shaking his ingex finger, which had been caught up in between the cub's teeth.

nNova looked at the cub with more interest than ever, and after a full minute, he looked back at Daniel, and said,

"I wish I could have seen one of them, of the spatial element.

"

n

"Haha!

" Daniel suddenly burst out laughing, but after noticing that he had been rude, explained himself by saying

"I agree, you would be quite the duo.. but trust me.. That would be an expensive compation to have.

"

nFrom the way Daniel fed the wolf cub with dark essence spheres, Nova did not find Daniel's words strange. who knew what the cost of helping a spiritual wolf of mana of the spatial essence to cultivate could be.

nAs soon as this conversation ended, Edmund turned to look at Daniel, and asked with impatience.

"How long do you think it will take for you to reach my family?

"

nInstead of responding, Daniel closed his eyes, and remained quiet for a few moments. When he opened his eyes once again, he said,

"Eighthy thousand years in that direction to reach your wife, and a hundred thousand more after that to reach Alesia.

" For as much as it pained him to admit it, Daniel was still far from being able to teleport through space for long distances at a time. He was able to bring his planet to a mind boggling speed that could outclass any spaceship in existence, but in order to jump from galaxy to galaxy, he needed a portal.

n

"They are not together?

" Asked Edmund, already aware that the wait would be extremely long. After all, he had just jumped from a random point in shattered space, to a random point in solid space. To be able to find Daniel was already beyond luck.

n

"Don't worry. They will be fine..

" Said Daniel before moving the trajectory of the planet in a direction that was different from the one he had pointed towards moment before.

nEdmund trusted Daniel blindly. He knew that his reason to show him the distance between them and his family, wasn't to let him know how long it would take for them to arrive, and instead, it was to avoid making him do something stupid like traveling through empty space by himself in hope to find them.

n

"Where are we going?

" he asked with curiosity.

n

"We need to get to Lucious. The faction that owns the territory that is housing him will be attacked soon, and if we don't intervene, he will die.

" Responded Daniel with a matter-of-fact tone.

nDaniel's response came as a surprise to Nova, who had no idea of what kind of power Daniel possessed, but not as a surprise to Aeron and Edmund, that were still standing in place as if what they heard was completely normal.

nThe reason why Daniel did not bother to ask Nova to teleport them to their destination, was because he knew that he would not be able to.. And there was a simple reason for that. The ability that the spatial elementals possessed that allowed them to travel through massive distance, was based on the concept of shattered space. The way spatial elementals created connections between a part of shattered space and another, was by jumping from one fragment to the other until they would reach the place they were looking for. Then, when they needed to teleport back, they would form a canal that went through that specific sequence of fragments.

nThe multiple teleportations would require instants, and many would consider it to be extremely power consuming.. but in reality, the power that was required for that, was infinitesimal when compared to the power required to create a stable portal that lead from point A to point B.

nAfter telling his plan to Edmund, Daniel turned to look at Aeron, and nodded without any apprent reason. In response to this action, Aeron turned to look at Edmund.

nHis eyes began to glow with a bright green hue which disappeared moments later.

nEdmund looked at Aeron with confusion, but did not pay too much attention to it. Instead, he went to sit on a clean patch of grass in order to meditate, and calm himself down.

nAfter looking at Edmund, Aeron approached Daniel, and placed his hand on his shoulder. He then removed it, grabbed the wolf cub from over Daniel's lap, and left with it.

nNova looked at this small exchange with curiosity. He was standing in silence, and examining each of Daniel's movements carefully. It was only after Daniel's index finger and thumb pinched the empty hair, that Nova felt his very existence tremble with fear and excitement. In his mind, however, was only shock.

nRight above the tips of Daniel's fingers was a microscopic crack, in the middle of which was a hole that lead to complete nothingness.

n

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

" Shouted Nova. He more than anybody else knew what Daniel was doing. He was praciticing his control over a concept of space he should not have possessed. One that was impossible to see in the stable space, as it not stopped, would expand to a point where it would destroy the whole universe..

nDaniel's comprehension of collapsed space came, of course, from Edmund's memories. Which Aeron had explored and passed on to Daniel, so that he could learn the missing concept of collapsed space. However, he did not know of the devastating consequences that constructing collapsed space would have.

nAround this nail sized hole in space, a spiderweb crack began to form, shattering the space around it as it proceeded outwards. The propagation of the crack was going out of hand, and even Daniel's power was unable to stop it, so Nova immediately teleported next to him in order to seal this small hole before it would grow any further, but before he could do anything, he noticed that the massive amount of power that came out of Daniel's body was not stopping. It simply kept coming and coming until the cracks were repaired, and pushed back in the direction of the small hole of collapsed space, which closed right after.

n