Book 2: Chapter 60: An Empty Void

Book 2: Chapter 60: An Empty Void

I stood in the darkness. A familiar sight by now, one I had grown to take comfort in more so than anything. But this time it was vicious, like the unending darkness that wanted to eat at my existence itself.

Looking around, I picked a direction on a whim and began to walk through the dark. Time passed in this strange state. I did not get tired, I did not feel hunger, but I did get bored. Even as I corrected the slight change in my steps to not run in circles, the eternal darkness did not relent. I continued to walk, so long as my will held, reaching out with my spirit to anything that would hear.

Where was I? This was not a dream. I could not sense anything here. No Qi, no Gu, not even any Chi. There was truly nothing here. Even with the force of my will, I could not tell if I walked forward or not. My own Chi illuminated my body to my sight, yet only I existed in this place. Nothing else could be seen.

“Alright, intimidation tactics succeeded. Now come on out,” I said to the darkness.

Nothing.

I began to walk again, before that too grew tiresome. “Seriously, where the fuck am I? Did I die? Is this what death is truly like? That can’t be it, right?” I called out. By now, I had grown accustomed to the lack of sound. Even my own voice felt faded. I expected it to echo but there was nothing for it to touch, and so it simply vanished into the void.

I sat down on whatever there was to sit on. Perhaps merely the manifestation of my own sense of needing a ground, or a physical space I could not see. Taking a seat, I began to meditate.

There was no Chi to gather here, so I simply began to cycle mine, focusing on my breath.

Time passed in a daze as I continued to meditate.

One cycle... Two cycles... The trend continued, as the numbers kept on growing.

Five thousand eight hundred and twenty seven cycles... Five thousand eight hundred and twenty eight...

I lost count many times. So many, that I lost count of how many times I had to begin anew. How many times I screamed at the darkness, or shouted, or ran until I gave in and simply closed my eyes.

Nothing had worked. Nothing seemed to. This was eternal torment.

As I sat in the dark, my mind wandered from one thought to the next, when suddenly I created a ball of water in my hand to drink from. I was not thirsty, but the craving had arisen anyway.

As I drank the water made of Chi, it took me a moment to realize something.

I had created something.

The only thing that existed in this darkness now, was me, and the few drops of water that had faded away. But even for a moment, they had been there.

It was like my world had changed.

I created more water, letting it flow out of my body and form from the Chi in my core. After the water, came earth. It rose and flowed, forming the ground beneath my feet. Lands sprawled across me, and I created a pond. Laughter echoed in the darkness now, pure joy filling me at watching the earth and the water.

But I wanted more. There needed to be more. And so I filled the world with air. Taking a breath, I felt a breeze upon my face, and tears spilled from my eyes at the sensation. Slowly, with each drop of water, each pebble, each grain of sand and dirt, I created a new world.

It was not a large one. My Chi had limits. But it was mine, and mine alone. And so I began to build.

***

Time passed by. I had grown accustomed to counting, so I knew it had been three months since I started as I finally finished my project. Though even that felt like forever ago now.

A home remained in front of me, a manor around a garden with a quaint pond within it. It was a modern construction, white ceilings, glass windows with a precision no human hand could craft or create.

One by one, I filled this barren wasteland with life. I had created a sky, a sun, mountains, and now the valley that surrounded us was our home.

My steps were slower now, more paced. I had grown older, though by how much I could not tell. The child in my arm shrieked in joy as clouds flew past him. I smiled, letting him roam through the skies with my arms.

But then the boy shouted, and not in joy any longer and I soon realized why. The void drifted beyond this valley, the end of our world that led to the unending dark. I slowed down, turning away but the child had seen the dark, and so he cried.

Gently, I covered the boy’s eyes before erasing the memory from his mind. A simple task, as he soon calmed down and I descended upon the earth.

The children laughed as they watched me come, begging to be the next one to ride on my shoulders. Just as I was about to pick another child, an alarm rang in the darkness.

The adults moved out, weapons drawn as kids quickly rushed back into their moves. “Leader, the dark beasts arrive!”

I nodded, stepping forward. Qi burned in my core, as I took to the skies watching the rows of mindless beasts rolling in through the void. They wanted to take my home, the place I had built from the very earth that it was founded upon. I would not let them.

Fire erupted from my hands, as it burned through the beast. My men ran, fighting with their weapons. Explosions shook the ground as we fought the rising tides.

The battle raged for weeks, my people died but so did the beasts, yet the tides were stronger this time.

As I stood amidst the battlefield, cutting through a behemoth, my eyes met my other half, looking back at me with a quiet gaze.

“You!” I screamed, anger flooding me as I felt a betrayal I could not describe.

“We have waited too long. A false world, and a false prison. Today, we break free.”

I ran, rage taking me over as I fought my other half.

Qi and Gu raged against one another, as flames burned the world to the ground. Everything I had made, everything I had created was turned to Ash as I fought within the void.

No words were exchanged any longer. Nothing could be said. We simply fought, until only one of us remained.

The darkness shook from the battle, the collision of two energies cracking the world. Light seeped into the darkness of my soul as I felt something give way.

Our battle stopped, as both of us watched the world around us beginning to collapse. I heard a voice whose words I could not make out, but they spoke to me. Calling me towards it.

“What is happening?” I asked, as the ground tore itself beneath my feet.

“I don’t know,” Gu Jie said, before turning towards me. “But perhaps we can escape now.”

My eyes met his, and I found hate and anger burning within me. Yet, even as I did, the desire to return was greater.

I took Gu Jie’s hand, as two became one once more.

My memories, my emotions, they were one again, as they were meant to be. Chi formed at my fingertips, as I reached into the crack, grabbing the edges of reality itself as I tore them apart.

A gap was here now, one from which light poured through.

I took one longing look back at what had been my home for an eternity, before I slipped through.