Chapter 451 - A Cold Prison

Within the crack between dimensions, Cecil was floating alone in the void accompanied by a blob of white light that was cursing at him. Cecil, naturally not wanting to take the one sided cursing, decided to curse back at...whatever it was he was cursing at.

A few moments ago, before he was suddenly pulled into this void, he and the unknown entity which had tried to take over his body were currently having a battle of wits inside his mind.

"Just get out of my body!"

'...'

"Hey!"

Hearing no response from the entity inside him, Cecil gathered his ether and tried to search for it. Earlier, he had tried scanning his body with mana but couldn't find the bastard. Fortunately, his ether scanning worked and he was able to quickly find the ball of light that was inside of him. It was actually not in his brain like he had thought earlier but it was in the middle of his spinal cord

"Found you!"

'What?! How can you use that?!'

Seeing that it had been exposed and the abilities of the human he was trying to control was beyond his imagination, the administrator immediately tried to rush out of Cecil's body.

However, Cecil had already created a prison of ether around the ball of light and was able to isolate it. Once the isolation was complete, he regained control of his body. He thought about banishing the ball of light from his body but there were some unanswered questions that he had to ask. He had wanted to know why it tried to kill him by making him jump through the unstable portal.

But as he was having his mental battle with the tower's administrator, Cecil didn't realize that the portal had destabilized until it had hit a critical level and was just about to explode.

"Shit!"

Even an idiot could see that if anything passed through that portal, it would inevitably be disintegrated into dust due to the spatial turbulence.

Cecil quickly remembered what Hana, the automaton, had discussed earlier with his brother. If he was able to force an adequate amount of mana into the portal, he'd have a chance to stabilize it and prevent the collapse as well as the ensuing dimensional explosion that followed it.

With his vast and dense mana pool, Cecil was confident that he could feed the portal enough mana until it became stable. He began firing off as many mana bolts he could into the portal and eventually, the spatial turbulence began dying down.

"G-great!"

Cecil relaxed for a moment after putting out the immediate fire in front of him, however, due to him exhausting his mana, the tower's administrator took that chance to temporarily take over his body and force him to plunge through the portal.

"What?! I thought I trapped you!"

"Think again! You're not the only one who can use ether!"

"Ugh..."

Cecil tried to take back control of his body, but his momentary lapse in concentration from having his attention diverted caused him to stop supplying the portal any of his mana.

With the mana from him being cut off, the portal immediately began destabilizing at in even faster rate. Just before Cecil could do anything, the administrator had already forced his body to jump through the portal which was about to explode. The tower's administrator was planning to get out of Cecil's body during that time, but unfortunately for him, Cecil didn't allow that.

"Don't think I'll let you get away with this!" Cecil roared and imprisoned the administrator who was still inside his body inside an ether cage.

'Release me you fool! If you don't let me go, the people in this—"

It was too late for him to say anything. Cecil, along with the administrator who was trapped inside his body, both passed through the portal. It seemed rather bleak for Cecil at the time, but thanks to him, his friends waiting for him far away from the sky fortress were exempt from experiencing a dimensional explosion.

It had to be remembered that Cecil himself was an abundant source of mana. So when he passed through the portal, the portal had absorbed a large amount of mana just before it blew up and instead collapsed in on itself.

A large area around the portal was caught in its implosion but the overall damage to the sky fortress was kept to a minimum, and this was the current space where Angelia and her group were searching for Cecil.

Unfortunately for them, they wouldn't be able to find his body because it was no longer in their dimension...

*****

Having passed through the very questionable portal, Cecil found himself in his current predicament of floating in a black empty space which the tower's administrator called the gap between dimensions, a timeless and inescapable prison that no living being or entity would want to be trapped in.

Having spent the last five minutes or so listening to the administrator's ramblings and cursing, they were now brought to the present. The administrator was still yelling, blaming, and cursing at Cecil even now.

"This is because of you! If only you hadn't put up a futile struggle! I would have just sent you off to somewhere hospitable! Now you've gone and done it, we're dead! We're dead I tell you!"

"Shove it, whatever you are. If you hadn't tried to send me into that f.u.c.k.i.n.g portal, we wouldn't be here in the first place!"

"Bah! It was a necessary action to guarantee the future of that world!"

Cecil had heard this stupid phrase for the tenth time already, he got tired of it and clicked his tongue before saying, "Tsk, stop complaining like a wimp and making excuses for trying to kill me!"

"I wasn't even trying to kill you!" The administrator countered.

"Oh, yeah? It didn't look like that from my perspective when you tried to force me through that collapsing portal!" Cecil said one last time before looking around and no longer paying attention to the white blob of light.

"How do we get out of here?"

"Didn't you hear a single word I said earlier? I told you, we're in the crack between dimensions, an inhospitable and ti—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard that earlier. Also you said 'gap' the first time. Please be consistent."

"Why you—"

"Anyway, my question is, how do we even get out of this 'gap' or 'crack' that you keep mentioning?"

"You can't," the blob of light glumly said.

"...What?"

"This place is a prison meant for those idiots who tried and failed to imitate the Great One's abilities to jump between worlds and dimensions. Not even the Fallen, the universe's enemies could imitate the Great One's world traversing ability. The only outcome would be to fall into this prison-like space, and eventually die in here."

"...You just said no one can imitate this 'world traversing' ability of this so-called 'Great One' that you keep worshipping... and yet you tried to send me 'off planet', if I recall correctly?"

"..." The administrator remained silent at his words and didn't respond.

Seeing this, Cecil grew furious and roared, "Asshole, you really were trying to kill me!"

"No I wasn't!" The administrator quickly refuted.

"Then what the f.u.c.k do you call that?!"

"I really was only trying to send you off planet using the failsafe that the Great One entrusted to me when I met the calamity's harbinger."

"...I really would like to kill you right now...and for the last time, I'm no harbinger!"

"Hmph, save your breath, we'll both die in here regardless so it wouldn't matter if you killed me right now. However, I will return and become a part of the main consciousness of my main body while you will be dead."

Cecil was just about to argue back when suddenly, he felt himself grow cold and out of breath.

"Ngah...w-what? H-how—did you do something to me?!" Cecil turned towards the blob of light and roared.

"I didn't do anything. It's just the effects of this prison."

"Huh?"

"I told you, we're in the crack between dimensions, in other words we're in a void space. There's nothing here, no heat, no life, no water, and naturally...no air."

Cecil felt it. He was slowly beginning to suffocate. Even if he was almost as powerful as a god back on the planet but here in this void space, which could just be considered the same as outer space, he would undoubtedly be helpless. He was still just a human after all.

When he had initially arrived in this void, his energies were the only things barely keeping him alive. However, as time passed, his energy resources began drying up. Earlier, Cecil had already used a significant amount of his mana by channeling it into the portal and when he fell through it, the portal robbed another chunk of his mana again so by the time he got into this place, his mana reserves were already low.

Only his Ki was supplementing the loss of his mana and keeping him alive, but now that his ki had also depleted, he was left with what little ether he had inside him. He had wasted a lot of time arguing and cursing at the trial's administrator so now all three of his energy resources were nearly depleted.

"A-Ack..." Cecil looked around frantically, trying to see if there was anything he could do.

However, all he saw was the empty void. There was nothing around him that could give him hope of surviving his current predicament.

'F-f.u.c.k...I shouldn't have wasted my time arguing with that stupid thing!'

Cecil mustered up what little bits of mana, ki, and ether he had left and reinforced his internals and sensory organs. However, when he did this, frost began forming on his skin.

"AH!"

The pain was piercing but he quickly shut off his sense of feeling. Despite doing that, he could feel his body slowly stiffen from the 0 temperatures of this empty space.

"It's useless, you won't be able to survive for long... it wasn't the outcome I was hoping for, but in a way, my mission is complete. Although, it is regrettable that I have to die as well..."

Cecil continued struggling. He wasn't going to give up now and wait to die. He had a family to return to, they were all waiting for him. Also, he was mostly worried about the promise he had made with his wives that if he broke the promise, it would undoubtedly lead to dire consequences for him.

He began pulling out anything inside his spatial ring, but it was futile. There was nothing on him that could help him in his current situation. As he struggled until his energy resources were finally depleted, Cecil fell unconscious.

Earlier, he had been pulling out random things from his spatial ring and unconsciously, he had pulled out all 4 of his World Tree's Thorns.

When the trial administrator saw the 4 Thorns of his friend, the Old Tree, he couldn't help but raise his voice in surprise, "That old twig! Is he out of his mind?!"

The administrator moved over next to the four swords that were now slowly being covered with frost.

'He actually handed his precious items to the harbinger...? What could this mean then? Did he...hmmm'

The administrator looked between the four weapons and Cecil who was slowly beginning to freeze over. There was only a sliver of life left in him and he clung to it tenaciously even though he could no longer breathe.

'If I use these 4 to tear a hole through the prison, I can get out, but the tear will also suck him out as well...'

The administrator contemplated the choice for a moment, but he felt his life force slowly draining away. He promptly made a decision to escape from this place even if it meant dragging Cecil with him in his escape.

Even though he was but an offshoot of the true Midgard deity's consciousness, he didn't want to die since he still had a sense of self.

'Let's proceed with the original plan and isolate him on another planet. Even with his abilities, he wouldn't be able to find a way back to Alterna.'

The administrator manipulated the four wooden swords with his mind and arranged them in a unique circle and began using his mana to draw an array using the four World Tree's Thorns as the crux.

'Quadra World Piercer Array, activate!'

The setup of the array along with its activation happened within a very brief moment. The array's activation caused the four swords to rotate above the array and it soon created a large black tornado which struck out into the emptiness.

Cecil was barely awake when he heard a sound akin to glass shattering. In the next instant, he felt his body being sucked in by something before he lost control of his senses and couldn't feel or hear anything again.

'S-shit...if I somehow survive...I'll torture that stupid bastard first...'

The administrator would resent the day he had decided upon this decision of his. It would have been better if he and Cecil died in this void than to have his future tied together with the human anomaly.