Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Chapter 35 - Spoils

Later that day, Evin was sitting on his bed, with a stack of pillows supporting his back. Silver glitter surrounded his head, as Evin tried his best to create a thought in his head. Of course, it wasn't that he was struggling to create a normal thought, he was trying to give birth to a thought that could be heard by the voice inside him.

He was occupied with this task for the better part of the evening, making good use of the time when Arza was absent from the room - the boy was sleeping in another dorm room, enjoying a sleepover among his newly made friends. Not that Evin cared.

The voice, on another corner of Evin's head, was playing around with a different patch of silver energy. Sometimes Evin would see it take on different shapes, different sizes and even different colors. The voice was trying to create clearer images or sharper shapes out of them, but was seemingly failing. Evin could only see resemblances of items on these shapes, like how a shape of a cloud looked like one thing or other.

<Just keep trying,> the voice suddenly ordered, dispelling the silver that cluttered inside the room. <It took me a few months to grasp telepathic communication… but I'm sure you'll learn it much faster, as I've told you all I know about the matter and since you have access to the World of Thoughts..>

Indeed, the voice had offered crucial insight on how it was able to achieve the feat of telepathy. It mentioned that when it first appeared in Evin's head, it didn't even know how to reach out to Evin. But after months of trial and error, it finally achieved contact and slowly mastered the process since then.

As for why Evin was trying to learn telepathy now, it was because he was granted access to the World of Thoughts, Lochra. Moreover, he possessed the Shards of the World of Air, the World of Darkness, the World of Earth, and finally, the World of Life.

He also learned about the existence of three new Worlds: The World of Weight, Qanatohm; the World of Time, Ori-Etu; and the World of Space, Therae.

With the World of Weight, one could increase the weight of things, and conversely make things weigh less, and perhaps even make the weightless. Leanne explained that most mages who are capable, use this World with the World of Air to fly about in the air. It was also used in blacksmithing and Magical Engineering, but Leanne reminded that aside from some niche uses like that, the World wasn't a popular one.

Same with the World of Time. The name sounded quite grand, but even during the long history of the Empire, none in the world had shown any talent for it, not to mention a proper use. People tried to stop, slow down, or even reverse time with it, but to no avail. Chants, Gestures and Imaginations, none of them seemed effective on Time energy, so people gradually stopped bothering themselves with it. Perhaps the Empress had a use for it, and us mortal simply didn't understand it yet.

Leanne also mentioned that its energy could be used to age and corrode things, but of course, not many wanted an effect like that their own things.

Evin wondered if the voice could perhaps make the World work, but it quickly expressed its denial as if it knew clearly what Evin was thinking. Told Evin to forget about his cheap delusions of being the first to make the World of Time work.

But the World of Space, on the other hand, had many uses. It was used to create portals that connect different places, store items in alternate pockets of space, and create trinkets that allow access to these spaces.

Too bad humanity could only manage one of these skills efficiently: to create portals; and even then they had little success with it. Their portals were short, its efficiency abysmal, and its safety uncertain. Nothing like the portals that could connect every corner of the continent made by the undisputed masters of Space - the Cosmic Felines.

Evin heard many stories about the Cosmics as a child. Mystical, immortal beings that live in a utopia, hidden between a gap in space-time. For whatever reason, they visited the lands of Alvox to bless upon the lesser races their transcendent ways, trading with them, teaching them.

At least… that was what Evin heard, but Leanne insisted it was very not so. Evin urged her to speak further, but she explained it would be faster if he met one himself.

Thus ended their talk about the World Shards and Cosmic Felines, and Evin was let go with his four vials of Shards in his hands.

As for why he hadn't absorbed them into his mana-core yet, Leanne explained that he needed to wait at least a week between each absorption. Something about its effectiveness plummeting if one absorbed too many Shards at once. She mentioned that even a week was too short for these things, but Evin could minimize the effectiveness he could potentially lose by diligently using the new world he got access to.

After some debate, him and the voice decided to start with the World of Thoughts, as they suspected it could offer an insight to their situation and also offer a new, two-way form of mental communication.

The voice then messed around with the Thought energies, seeking for a way to separate itself of Evin's brain, or at least temporarily jump out if it, but so far, the two weren't able to find any relevant discoveries.

But they did find some success in the other task they set out to achieve - telepathy. The voice had tried to replicate the method he used to communicate with Evin using Thought energy, and was successful in it. In fact, it seemed to Evin that the voice's intentions were much clearer to him than before.

If Evin was successful in mastering this form of communication, it barred his need to whisper by himself in order to communicate with the voice. Perhaps he'll be able to send some threats and jabs back whenever he found the voice acting snarky inside him when he had no other way to speak back.

<Alright. I can feel your brain turning to mush inside your head. Let's stop for tonight and let's continue tomorrow.>

Evin sighed and let go of the energies inside him.

A weight was pulled off from his chest, and the tenseness in his body dissipated to the bed under him. He sighed and then stretched his back, a satisfied groan escaping his mouth. He walked up to the jar where he kept his cookies, and grabbed one of his favorites, butter cookie.

"So? What was that all about?" he randomly asked the voice, while munching on the cookie.

<Hmm?>

"That think you did to my mind during the trial, where everything seemed clearer to me, and I could think about a dozen different things at a time, twice as fast as I normally do… Was that some kind of magic you learned?" Evin asked casually.

<Empress Almighty, don't do yourself like that, Evin,> the voice chuckled awkwardly, ridicule oozing from its tone, <At first, I only willed to share my calmness with you like I did on the stage with Decatur. At some point, I suddenly had the idea of sharing my mind with you as well. Since I can share part of it, why can't I share the whole thing. Long story short, I willed it to happen… and I can see that it worked wonders, considering how great of an effect it had on you.>

Evin didn't know how he was supposed to recover from this. He could practically see the smug face forming on the voice's wrinkled, ugly face – that was the face he had granted the voice – and all that smugness was directed towards him and him only.

'How could I have said that?' he thought with despair, imagining the endless mocks and jabs that would come forth from this exchange. 'I just confessed I think of only one thing to his ten and even that takes me twice the time too!"

"How are you able to share your calmness, and whatnot in the first place?" Evin asked.

'I must steer the conversation away from this topic,' he was thinking decisively, though part of him knew that the voice never forgot about things. Just listen to it speak of his encounter with the mad doctor, as if the event had happened only yesterday.

<Who knows how I can do these things? And who knows why I'm able to exist in your head in the first place,> the voice sighed, <I was always able to do certain things, and if I couldn't do something, I tried my best to learn to do it. I've long stopped caring for the whys and the hows… But I am pretty confident that the range and variety of the things I can do have gotten much better after I got access to mana and Thought energies.>

"Do you think things will change yet again, since you have access to the World of Thoughts?" Evin asked, hoping the voice to trail on this topic long enough to forget Evin's blunder.

<Perhaps. And perhaps I'll soon be able to find success in the quest of our separation… But I don't think I'll be able to do it with only the World of Thoughts. There's something missing from the World... It's hard to explain, but the things you can do with this world seem too superficial to mean anything.>

"What does that mean?" Evin asked, genuinely intrigued.

<Like it's not real... Well, it's just a feeling I have,> the voice sighed. <We'll learn more as we grow older…>

The voice sounded quite sad all of a sudden. Evin didn't know why. As far as he was concerned, today was a great day. For starters, he didn't die, and he received five World Shards during the process. And the voice seemed quite happy with the outcome as well. Until now, at least.

<Whatever. We'll find a way to separate. I'll make sure of it,> the voice turned cold.

…