Free Web NovelChapter 222: It’s all gone
[You have completed your third voyage]
[Loading stats
Name: Enzo Malvaran]
Rank: Sanctified Weaver
[Essence Core: Void]
[Skill: Shadow Manipulation, Void Vision, Beast Transformation, Call of the Wild]
[Title: Void Slayer] freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
[Lifespan: ???]
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Standing in the middle of a dark space with a single star shining overhead, Enzo stared up at his Avatar.
It had completely changed.
More defined now. Something royal in the posture, something deliberate in the way it held itself. And in its eyes, a glint of madness that hadn’t been there before.
He stared at it for a long moment.
’That’s me.’
It didn’t fully feel like it. But it was.
The mission had been successful. He hadn’t received new skills, but most of what he already had evolved exponentially. He could feel it sitting differently in him, heavier, more settled. Like weight added to the right places at the right time.
Plus, he had received two treasures.
One was a treasure of the night, sitting in the place where the void disk had been.
The other was called the void scripture.
......
The void disk was a purifying treasure. It sent out waves of energy in direct opposition to corruption. It could weaken corruption, stop its spread, destroy abilities linked to it, detect it before it could take hold somewhere new.
A holy object.
He turned that over in his head for a moment.
Holy.
Him, carrying something holy.
But its most important feature was the ability to extend that protection outward if necessary. To companions. A shield that didn’t stop at one person.
(That changes things considerably.)
Honestly, it was a good steal.
As for the void scripture, Enzo didn’t quite understand it yet. He’d need time with it. Real time, quiet time, the kind he didn’t currently have.
He closed the panel.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
He drifted back into his body slow.
His eyes opened. He didn’t stand.
He pulled his knees up instead, curling into himself on the floor, gaze going distant. Drifting into the void the way it sometimes did when the weight of something got too heavy to carry upright.
He thought about the end of it.
Victoria fighting alone.
So many demons around her. An impossible number. And maybe more had come after. Maybe reinforcements arrived and she was already exhausted. Maybe everyone was dead before it even mattered.
Was he wrong to think that?
’This world is a desolate wasteland.’
That wasn’t pessimism. That was just the truth of the place.
And the absence said everything the world wouldn’t. No trace of her in the modern age. She never came to find him. She never reached out. Not a signal, not a message, not a single thread connecting back.
She would have, if she could.
That was the part he kept landing on.
She would have.
’No traces of her. She never came to find me. That’s why.’
Enzo let out a slow breath and didn’t move.
Victoria had been with him from the very beginning. His first days as a weaver, when nothing made sense, when every voyage felt like stepping into something too large to hold in two hands. She had made it easier. Not by explaining things or protecting him from anything. Just by being present. Her presence had been enough on its own.
And now.
What was he supposed to do.
What was he supposed to do with any of it.
"Hey kid. Stop being a whiny baby."
He didn’t register it.
Of course she was dead. If not, why wouldn’t she contact him? There was no reason to stay silent. No reason to disappear completely. Unless there was nothing left to reach out from.
"Fuckhead. Stop moping and look at me."
He still didn’t move.
He couldn’t comprehend losing her. Losing all of them at once. It was too much to hold in one place and it sat in his chest like something with no edges.
"Fucking!!"
—smack!!
Before Enzo could say a single word, something heavy connected with his side and sent him sliding hard across the floor, all the way to the far edge of the room.
He hit the wall.
The impact shook through his shoulder.
Silence.
Then he blinked.
Once.
Twice.
He snapped back. Into the room. Into his own body. Actually present for the first time since he’d opened his eyes. The grief didn’t disappear, it just got pushed to the side by the shock of the physical.
He looked up.
A white feline floated in the air above him.
Small. Weightless looking. An evil smile painted all over its face like it had been saving that kick for a very specific moment and was deeply satisfied with the result.
Enzo stared at it.
He blinked again.
"Nibbleskin?"
His voice came out quieter than he intended.
He looked at the cat. Really looked.
"You’re alive?"
The shock arrived half a second after the words did, crashing in behind them. He got up off the floor without fully deciding to, crossed the distance in three steps, and grabbed the cat with both hands.
He shook it.
Solid. Real. Warm. Actually there.
"Urg!! Let go of me!!"
—woosh
Nibbleskin dissolved into a wisp of smoke and slipped clean out of Enzo’s grip like water through fingers, materializing on the other side of the room with his tail flicking in irritation.
Enzo turned immediately.
He spotted him. Started moving.
"You.... stay away from me!!!"
Nibbleskin’s voice cracked somewhere between panic and genuine offense as he scrambled sideways, phasing out of reach just before Enzo’s hands could close the gap.
"Stay still!!"
"Absolutely not!! Back off!!"
—woosh
Nibbleskin blinked through the wall and reappeared near the ceiling.
Enzo tracked him.
Jumped.
—woosh
Gone again.
The room fell into chaos fast. Enzo chasing, Nibbleskin running, smoke trailing behind him every time he slipped through something solid. Furniture was not respected. Personal space was not respected. The basic dignity of a floating cat was absolutely not respected.
Neither of them said anything particularly coherent for a while.
Nibbleskin phased through a chair and materialized on top of it half a second later, spinning to face Enzo with both paws raised like that would stop anything.
It did not stop anything.
—woosh
They kept going.
The room kept suffering.
Neither of them needed to say what it actually was. Enzo grabbing at him again and again, needing to confirm it over and over, and Nibbleskin letting it happen in the only way he knew how, which was loudly, dramatically, and with maximum complaint.
That was fine.
That was enough.
