Dei stared down at the small pool of blood, frowning.

'I was too slow,' he thought with shame, 'While I was relaxing and spending time with family, people were dying.'

He'd just finished giving his family some powerful artifacts to make their time on Earth easier when Luke got a call. There was an incident in the magical facility he'd helped cure his first time around.

Invisible monsters attacked the front entrance, drawing the attention of most guards, while Boris slipped into the control room to open all the doors. Everything was a simple guise, though, for him to talk with Jean, the Duplication user. Through the audio logs, they figured out that Boris intended to join with Jean and infect the world with Void somehow.

He wasn't afraid of such an outcome. The Champion would absolutely nip that in the bud immediately, but it was Dei's mistakes that led to this, and the suspicious events around it.

Jacob was the second moving part Dei had left behind, a man cursed by Karma. Of course the stars would align to bring him into the event.

He was chased into Boris and Jean while a series of coincidences led to him never encountering a second guard patrol. By chance, he managed to eavesdrop on the intruders at the perfect time, and killed Jean while being transported away with Boris.

The only lead they had now as to where they'd gone was this one puddle of blood left behind after Jean was shot in the chest. Dei was brought in to see if he could find anything but… No. Nothing.

He had to feel responsible for this. He gave Boris the Void powers, and hadn't considered the man might do something bad with them. A long while ago, Dei believed Void was some kind of evil affinity, but second guessed himself when he saw its contract with Boris was to simply love both halves of himself.

He was tempted to assume Void was evil once more, but after hearing the audio, realized he was being ridiculous. Boris implied that Void never told him to do any of this, but he believed it was the right thing to do.

'It's my fault,' he realized. 'I tried to minimize how much I would change about the situation so that my contract could be fulfilled to the barest minimum. Because of that, I gave incredible powers to a man who was already fracturing, already mentally unstable. I should've focused on giving it to people who would manage both halves of themselves. From the sound of it, Boris' "Halves" are "Normal guy" and "Murderer." I should've looked for people whose halves are "Normal person who likes to relax" and "Normal person who is all business." True, they would act far different from how they would normally with their new abilities, but I can't be indifferent to this. I can't fight against the river, but if I go with it, I may be able to guide where I land.'

Void wasn't evil. It was the idea of the space between two things where nothing resided, the state of potential. There was actually heavy overlap between Void and his own personal affinity, but Void took more of a "Schrödinger cat" view of two opposing sides, while Dei insisted there was a product born from the conflict that would surpass the original intent of both.

It was clear that Boris was insane, and Void exacerbated that issue. Now, Jean was likely dead and both Jacob and Boris were missing.

What could he do now? Get his ass into gear. There was nothing more he could do so save these people, but he could stop more victims from being created.

He would clear out all the facilities in the US, then go to other countries and do the same for them. When he was done, he'd meet up with Luke in Agartha to create some places blessed with Land Between.

He was also thinking of a way for people to earn his affinity and potentially contain their own, but that would have to be after his parents succeeded in successfully forming the cycle with the concepts within them. True, his mother didn't have an affinity, but Kindness still took note of her.

Throwing one more glance at the bloodstain, he sighed and turned away.

* * *

The second facility was much smaller, held a wider range of concepts. It wasn't the affinities that drew his attention first though, but the priests of The Champion.

The people were channeling The Champion's domain as though it were an affinity.

He could tell that it wasn't one, but the concept of "Dragon" held significant power and it wasn't damaging to the user at all, instead acting as some kind of hidden native affinity. Perhaps the concept was natural to anything born within the Physical Realm?

The priests used it to suppress the affinities, claiming dominion over the human's bodies and forcibly denying the affinities' influence. The people this happened to weren't in good shape, but they were alive.

As he watched the Dragon's "affinity" at work, he found it familiar in a different way. Its localized influence reminded him of his own, but the way it spread from one person to another with such ease was foreign. It didn't have to work with a person to really exert itself, it simply was.

When he asked the priests about this, they said it was through the power of their God that the world bent to his whim, or some other priest stuff. It didn't help answer his question directly, but he had his own theory.

Were Gods able to exert their domains onto reality?

The answer was almost definitely yes. That's probably what Gods did, and how they interacted with their followers. It felt obvious, but it was important to directly say it because it gave him a better idea of what it meant to Ascend.

He could create his concept and have it be as defined as he wanted, but he could see now that it wouldn't make him an Ascender. The concept he crafted was like a rocket, and Godhood, divinity, or faith would be the fuel. Without Godhood, he still had the rocket, it just wasn't going anywhere. He could still use his concept, it would simply never reach the stars, it would never spread across the universe without the faith to power it.

He was slightly miffed about this, because he realized there was no way to skip the middle step of Godhood. If he wanted to make an affinity, he needed to be a God first. There would be no shortcuts.

Ascending wasn't something to worry about right now though. It was decades, centuries, or likely millennia down the line before it became a problem. Instead, he brought his mind to the victims he could save that sat right in front of him, and started to drain away the influence of the foreign affinities that ripped them apart.

* * *

POV: Jacob Smith

He talked with Yalda, telling her all about Earth and its history. He told her of magic, and how it was suppressed on their planet. Yalda told him of their own physics, and how they differed slightly. The dwarves had no internal magic, but artifacts could be made. Weapons, tools to manipulate the affinities that barely existed.

He learned that dwarves had a fantasy genre of humans, but no elves. Instead, their stories were of humans and portra, a sort of flying fish person that was smaller than the dwarves.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It made Jacob think that, perhaps, their universes were close to one another, and there was some kind of resonance between the two. Perhaps elves were on one side of Earth's universe, and dwarves were on the other?

After an hour, Yalda asked how he was doing health-wise and found that he was doing… fine? The "infection" had completely failed against his flesh.

Yalda looked utterly stricken at that information. "Jacob I… I don't know if you can be infected. I'm sorry… I didn't know. If I had, maybe we could've-"

"It's fine, Yalda," he insisted, "There was no other option. Don't blame yourself for this, because I'd chosen to die before I'd ever taken a step into your universe. Don't devalue my sacrifice."

She swallowed her complaints and nodded. They didn't talk about it anymore, but he could tell the guilt ate away at her.

Eventually, they heard the dreaded sound Yalda warned him about over the speaker.

"Life support energy consumption exceeding golden zone. Deactivating all luxury systems."

Yalda only had time to nod sadly before the screen cut, leaving Jacob alone with his demise once more. Ultimately, he was glad as he didn't want her to see him… melting.

The life support systems would fail long before the hull did. He'd approach the surface of the sun and die, while the ship would continue on for some twelve seconds before shooting out the other side, a hunk of melted slag.

Say nothing else about the dwarves, their ship was durable.

Gravity cut, but Jacob held onto the railing. The thrusters entered their maximum, highly dangerous speed to make it as quick and painless as possible, exceeding a hundred miles per second. The ship's systems ensured he wouldn't feel the lurch as his speed ramped up, but he could swear he felt an invisible force pressing down on him. The beautiful glow took up his entire view, and if it weren't for the automatically tinting window he had no doubt he'd be blind.

He felt the room slowly heat, and squeezed his eyes shut. Yalda said it would only be two seconds after he felt the initial heat that he would be dead.

"Anomalous sunspot detected in nearby solar body," the artificial intelligence rang out, and Jacob's eyes shot open to see darkness. The sun was… gone? The cabin abruptly chilled, down to survivable temperatures.

He saw the cracks in the darkness though, and realized this was the sunspot the AI spoke of. 'That's not how sunspots work. Sunspots are still insanely hot, and still incredibly bright. Not pitch black!'

"Investigating anomaly recommended" the ship finished, and Jacob wanted to laugh. 'Not much of a choice there, is it?'

His knuckles turned white on the railing, and was startled to see the metal bending?

He barely noticed it when the shadows were banished, a brilliant light washing over him as the ship finally crossed into the celestial body. He thought for sure that he would now die.

But… he didn't. He felt power course through his blood, a fiery energy burning him from within, and screamed in agony.

Still, he looked out to the vista so bright it pierced the window's tint, a light so pure it burned and healed him, and gasped.

The sun was hollow. Its core was solid, and there was nothing here, but there was no layer of convection.

The ship couldn't maintain its trajectory, and he felt it pulled towards the golden orb in the center. When he tried to hold the railing he found it slipping out from his hand, and saw it glowing hot. He glanced at his unblemished skin, but his momentum did not stop. He was flung upwards into the high ceiling.

Much to his surprise, he hit nothing as the roof melted away into nothingness. He stared in shock as the flaming ship was frozen mid-air, before being incinerated. Not even slag was left.

Not him, though, no. His clothes were burned away, but somehow Jacob found himself continuing to fly forwards and down. The perfect golden sphere flew by, utterly featureless, until he briefly glimpsed a towering white beam pass by. The only other thing he could see were arcing flames of lightning. 'Solar flares…'

He continued to fall, and continued to fly. If he hadn't hit the ground yet, he must've somehow been revolving around the sun. It wasn't a perfect trajectory either, as every few seconds he'd see the towering beam of white grow slightly closer. Each revolution drew him into its nondescript glow.

The solar flares continued to explode out from the core, and every single one missed him. Their frequency ramped up, and he felt targeted as a hundred abruptly burst forth from the core- but through either luck or intent, not a single one managed to directly make contact with his skin.

He went over, under, or between them. The fires seemed furious at his survival, but that was surely his own imagination.

'I'm hallucinating my final moments,' he realized, but the vision didn't stop. He would have to wait it out, he supposed. If this were real, there'd be a dragon somewhere around here. 'Definitely hallucinating, why would there be a dragon in the sun?'

Ten, a hundred, a thousand solar fares exploded forth from the core of the sun, yet his trajectory carried him through them all.

He thought, surely, that they would get him any second. That they were representative of the real heat in the real world burning his mind, but… no. Nothing.

He'd almost reached the beam, just three more revolutions and he'd collide with it.

It flickered by, and Jacob finally hit the ground, skidding at unfathomable speeds. Somehow, it still did not harm him as his body remained unblemished.

A second pass, and he continued to ragdoll, rapidly losing momentum now that there was friction with something, and still he felt no pain. The flares seemed desperate now as the sun practically exploded. Hundreds of thousands, forests, jungles of fire chased after him or sprouted before his very eyes.

And still, he persisted. They lapped at the edge of his skin, but his path was no longer as straight as it had been when he was traveling exclusively in the air, and he somehow managed to always slip through the one escape.

The core screamed in frustration,

The world went white,

And his view changed; an endless sea of planets extended. Directly below him was Caps, where he'd just come from. He was carried away, arcing over an unfathomable void. Caps shrunk in his view as another expanded, one he knew. 'Earth.'

He believed his soul was returning home to let him say goodbye to his friends and family one last time, but soured when it began to shrink as well. He was going too fast.

Earth was skipped, and a planet of desolation filled his view. He saw no greenery, only a blue expanse and endless dead sand. Even the poles were bereft of snow.

He thought he would slam into the surface, but found his body twisting and contorting, spreading out impossibly as he was drawn towards the snowless poles.

He felt himself squeezed through an impossibly thin tube, a shimmering of green and purple filling his vision as the tinkling of crystals sang to his ears.

His ears popped, and he found himself soaring mere feet from the water, still carried at incredible speeds. Wind roared in his ears, prickling at his skin painfully and bleeding off the last of the momentum.

He skipped across the water like a rock and felt pain lance through him as all the flesh on his back was sheared off. Seconds later, when he grew closer again, he threw his arm out and watched the force cleave it off. He didn't have time to scream before his arm just… popped back.

His eyes widened.

He spun wildly and flung his arms out. Every few seconds, he would feel himself hit the water, lose a limb, and grow it back.

'This is hell.'

Still, he quickly slowed, and land came into view. The bounces came more frequently until, at last, his back slammed painfully into a sand dune.

Every organ ruptured, every bone broke, and every blood vessel exploded; he thankfully felt none of this, as his brain turned to slurry.

And then he was back. His vision returned, ears popped, heart beat, and he was back.

He'd left a streak of glass where his body skid across the sand. Standing directly next to the glowing orange path was a woman, and she was the first thing his drowning mind locked on to.

A gorgeous, pale, lithe woman wearing pure white with a white umbrella, platinum hair, and silver eyes stared at him, shocked.

Her pointed ears were the only hint he got that he was looking at the opposite side of the fantasy spectrum, an elf.

Exhaustion and horror combined with his gallows humor.

"I must've died and gone to heaven if I'm already seeing an angel."

He blacked out.

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