Chapter 584 - Heroic speculations

Author note:

No chapter tomorrow, sorry, had to get an ophthalmologist appointment asap because my eyes are acting up again, and since it's quite far away I'll hardly have any time to write. Friday and Saturday chapters should come as usual though, unless I'm told I'm forbidden from looking at screens or something.

Happy reading! (｀• ω •´)b

The stairs under the administrative building led to another level of the ruined cloud city, which was apparently built like somewhat of an inverted pyramid on multiple layers of clouds. There, Speed led Sofia to the edge of the level.

“What happens if I fall?” Sofia asked while she followed Speed along the edge.

“I’ll catch you and bring you back up,” Speed answered as he kept walking.

“Come on, you know what I meant.”

“Alright, well… If I were to fall, I would end up in whatever domain we might be flying above right now, which could be pretty much anywhere, but if you were to fall… You would probably be booted back out to the physical plane because your essence body went too far from your actual body. The physical plane and this one do not overlap one to one, but there is some link.”

“I pretty much guessed that when you said we had to catch up to your domain in the physical plane. It certainly makes it interesting how I managed to end up in Peace’s domain while out in space.”

Speed laughed, “It makes sense Peace would seek to be far from the planet, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does, but then it’s hard to imagine anyone else really ending up there so it’s interesting that everyone seems to know about Peace’s tendency to be nasty to uninvited guests.”

“Well, as I said, the overlap is not one to one, I’m not even certain how to describe it either, but part of Peace’s domain has to still be accessible from somewhere on the planet, he’d be dead otherwise.”

“Gotta stay close to get his essence? Now that I think about it, you gods are all stuck on Veliadren and its surroundings, aren’t you?”

Speed kept walking, looking over the edge at the strange void below, “Pretty much. The stronger you are the furthest you can go. Sun is special, since her celestial body is so far away already, she must be able to go even further, but I’ve no doubt she’s limited just like the rest of us.”

“You’re all trapped here, in a way. That’s a bit sad.”

Speed shrugged, “Is there even any reason to want to go further? What’s out there? The hero worlds, probably? I’d say the advantages of being a divinity far outweigh the negatives.”

“Hard to argue with that but… I like the feeling of having unlimited possibilities and potential? Maybe one day I’ll go visit the hero worlds myself, who knows.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that… It’s just my theory but… I personally think the hero worlds are extinct.”

Sofia stopped in her tracks. “What?”

Speed also stopped, turning around, “I’ll have the system’s enforcers on my back if I say too much… But if I had to give a sneaky hint… ‘Summoning’ is really the wrong word when it comes to what actually happens with the heroes. Very wrong. That’s all I can tell you.”

Sofia wanted to ask more questions, but she also did not want Speed to get in trouble because of her curiosity. “Let’s shelve the subject then, thank you for the hint.”

Speed nodded, “We’re almost there, by the way,” he turned around and pointed at a spot in the distance where the clouds went a bit further than the boundaries of the ruins. Sofia looked there, but her vision instantly turned blurry.

“I can’t see whatever you’re pointing out, it’s just a big blur,” she told Speed.

“That’s the corruption your ring’s description spoke of,” Speed explained, “I have no idea how that manifests in the physical world, but here, this is what we get. It’s like an echo of the old Speed? I can go a bit closer, but halfway there is about where I’ll stop. Going closer is dangerous for me.”

“Really? That’s not reassuring… Do you think I will be alright?” Sofia asked.

“Honestly, no clue. It’s up to you whether you want to try going closer or not. But the previous Speed died right there, that I am certain of.”

Following his words, Speed accompanied Sofia a bit further and stopped.

“I’m starting to feel it, the old Speed’s influence is encroaching on mine. I should stop here.”

“I feel nothing wrong,” Sofia commented, “I’ll be going, then, wait for me.”

Speed nodded, “Be careful, if you start feeling ill, come back right away.”

“Will do.”

With these last few words, Sofia departed. She had to stop following the edge, as a ruin blocked the passage. So she went further into the ruined city, first walking in between buildings, until she joined a main paved street that led straight to the blurry part of the edge.

The hero worlds extinct…

That can’t be right, or else why would the hero admin try to go back? That would be completely pointless. Still, there must be something going on, else why would the ‘summonings’ be a one way ticket. If not even the hero admin can teleport himself back to his world, there must be a reason.

The heroes tend to get censored when they talk about history and technology, but I’m relatively sure now that they come from different epochs. Just talking to Everelle and Alith one would believe they came from different worlds altogether, yet it really seems to be the same.

Is this just another consequence of Time being dead? Or is there more at play there?

If summoning is the wrong word, then what is the correct one?

Certainly not teleportation.

Summonings are supposed to be excruciatingly painful to the soul, though, just like teleportation, so how do we explain that?

Are heroes originally all ghosts? Just souls without a body, then when we ‘summon’, we grab them and rebuild their original body while deleting their memory of ever being a ghost?

Maybe it’s the turning back from an undead to a living being that’s painful? That would explain why Alith felt nothing… I’ll have to share those theories with her. We’re going t o have a lot of time to chat anyway, I doubt anyone else will follow us where we have to go.

Maybe Saria? She doesn’t have the blessing though, so I would rather not.

Sofia’s train of thoughts had to stop as she herself stopped. She had reached the end of the street. In front of her was an arched gate, like one would expect to see at the entrance of a noble’s garden. Beyond that was the blur, it was impossible to tell exactly what was going on on the other side, but nothing seemed to be moving, at the very least, which gave Sofia some reassurance.

Sofia looked at her hand sculpted in light, there was no trace of the ring there, but she had to wonder whether she was currently benefiting from its effects anyway, as it was meant to provide protection from the ‘corruption’ and she still felt completely fine, standing right next to the blurry gate.

Cautiously, she poked the blur with a finger. It felt like nothing, but as her finger reached the limit, it, too, started to blur. Then it took shape again, looking as it should, before blurring for another fraction of a second, and fixing itself again.

That must be the ring fighting back. I might still be able to absorb that dead god after all, physical plane or not.

Nevertheless, it took Sofia a full minute of slowly going further and further before she was comfortable enough to fully enter the blurry zone, her head going in last.

The blur became slightly less intense, no that she was inside, she could vaguely see things. First of all, this was not just a stray bit of cloud, the paved street continued past the edge for a dozen meters, before finishing in a round platform overlooking the void below. Secondly, there was a tall chair in the middle of the round platform, its back facing Sofia.

At least I think that’s a chair? This is like looking at the world through an ice cube…

Sofia wanted to walk up to the chair, but she quickly noticed that the faster she walked, the more her form turned increasingly blurry, so she slowly advanced, taking a pause between every step to give her form time to fix itself.

I wonder if to a God that would be painful. Probably? I think I just don’t feel anything since this isn’t my actual body… Hopefully this isn’t hurting all the Gods I have an essence of…

Though Scripture would deserve it.

After a long while, Sofia finally reached the chair and was able to not only confirm that it was indeed a tall-back chair, but also that ‘someone’ was sitting on it.

That someone, however, was the most blurry of all things nearby, it was hard to make out anything other than a vaguely humanoid, imposing shape in the same bluish-purple tones as everything else was in this plane.

Sofia’s right hand threw itself at the blurry figure. She never wanted to do that, it simply happened.

Her vision and senses were engulfed by the divine colors.