Pain.
Of course. Because why break tradition now?
Aster wakes to the sensation of being fed through a cosmic juicer. Every nerve lights up like an emergency flare, every muscle screaming in a dozen dialects of agony, every bone filing formal complaints with whatever deity oversees structural integrity. His skull throbs with the sort of pressure that suggests a meth addict has moved into the wall cavity behind his frontal lobe and started a fire for warmth.
He seems to be floating.
Above him, below him, all around him—space. Or something aggressively committed to the bit. Stars spread like pollen across blackness. He lies on an invisible platform suspended in the middle of what looks like the universe’s most expensive psychedelic screensaver.
“So, you’re finally awake.”
The words drag power behind them like a cathedral being hauled over gravel.
Aster turns his head and immediately regrets it.
The creature standing a few metres away looked like someone had started designing a god, become intoxicated by their own brilliance, and then refused to stop adding features. Four metres tall. Human body. Lion's head. Enough muscle to make anatomy textbooks quietly resign. His mane blazed with woven strands of gold and starlight, while his armour shimmered with constellations that wandered lazily across its surface.
Aster opens his mouth. Closes it. Then settles on, “...I’m sorry, did I die and wake up inside a heavy metal album cover?”
The lion-man does not enjoy commentary.
“Insolence,” he snarls.
The word alone has weight.
Then the weight becomes literal.
Aster slams into the invisible surface like a ragdoll thrown by an angry god. Air leaves his lungs in one undignified oof before a crushing pressure settles over him.
"You dare mock my presence?" the lion thunders.
The pressure keeps building.
"You mistake ignorance for courage. You presume the universe produces equality. It does not. It elevates the worthy, and the weight of that ascent presses everything else beneath us."
The lion's mane shifts in a slow, contemptuous shake.
"You stand before a god..."
The pressure surges.
"...and your first instinct was mockery."
Aster's ribs creak.
Copper floods his mouth.
Somewhere in the back of Aster’s mind, a dry little voice notes that this, presumably, is what divine judgement feels like.
And yet, somewhere beneath the agony, under the god-squashing and the complete collapse of personal dignity, is something else.
Rage.
It’s petty. It’s irrational. But it’s his.
“Oh, sorry,” Aster rasps, every syllable soaked in venomous exhaustion. "I'd apologise properly..."
He spits blood.
“But I think you broke my spine?"
The lion’s eyes narrow. The pressure surges again. Bones creak.
Then, as abruptly as it began, it vanishes.
Aster collapses flat, gasping like a fish thrown onto a table.
A new voice cuts through the tension, rich and cool and edged with irritation.
"Really, Rhyden?"
Aster blinks through the haze, looking up into light.
Literal light.
The woman standing nearby — if standing even applies — is made of starfire and solar flares. Her skin shimmers like the surface of a sun. Her hair dances like plasma in a magnetic field. She’s less a person and more why every civilization started off by worshiping the sun.
She sighs.
“Still crushing initiates for sport?”
Rhyden snarls. “"Mortals forget themselves.”
“The Charter forbids you from harming him,” the woman replies. “And we both know why we’re here.”
Before Aster can gather enough coherence to ask what charter, what we, or why he’s suddenly trapped in a cosmic HR hearing, the void shifts.
Something arrives.
Then something else.
Then more.
One by one, they emerge—beings of impossible form and overwhelming presence. A humanoid made entirely of magma, hissing with inner heat. A woman with the body of a spider and far too many eyes. A man-shaped cloud of ash. Twin figures stitched together from mismatched pieces, smiling like they already know how this ends. Twelve of them in total.
The pressure in the space isn’t just physical. It’s existential. The kind of presence that makes his own existence feel like a clerical error.
Aster keeps his eyes down. He has no interest in getting flattened twice in one evening.
"Does he know where he is?"
Another voice.
"Does it matter?"
“You may look up,” says the woman made of sunlight.
Aster waits a beat, because frankly his trust in divine authority is already running a deficit.
Then, cautiously, stupidly, he does.
Twelve pairs of eyes stare back. Some curious. Some hungry. Some blank with the kind of ancient calculation that doesn’t require morality to function.
He has never felt smaller.
“Right,” Aster mutters. “Another nightmare Matter forgot to mention.”
"Do you know who stands before you?"
Aster looks around.
Twelve of them. Each one a fever dream with voting rights.
There’s Mr Molten Midlife Crisis. Lady Legs-for-Days. Ash Ketchum’s eldritch uncle. The stitched twins from somebody’s anatomical hate crime. One of them looks passably human, if your definition of human includes galaxy pupils and hair made of lightning. Another appears to be a robot, or at least something wearing the idea of a robot like a fashion statement.
And then there’s the shrub.
No, really. A shrub. Potted. Immaculately maintained. Tiny moons orbiting its crown like it’s the centre of its own personal solar system. Aster has no idea whether he’s supposed to bow to it or water it.
“Hopefully very friendly people?” he offers.
A voice hisses, “He’s an idiot.”
“Correct,” Aster says. “But I’d like the record to reflect that I’m a self-aware idiot.”
“My name is Aerathena,” the woman says, ignoring the complaints of her colleagues. “You stand before the Celestial Council.”
That lands with all the subtlety of a truck.
Aerathena turns to the others. "I'll spare us the introductions,"
“This is the lost heir of the Elchen family.”
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
Silence.
The spider woman's eyes narrowed.
“Impossible! He was infected in utero.”
"I thought the child died with the rest of the family fourteen years ago?"
"He should have."
The atmosphere changes. Aster feels it more than sees it: recognition, alarm, interest.
“That,” Aerathena says, “is because the impossible has just been achieved tonight. This boy has not only survived as a Void Wyrm host, but appears to have been transfused into a Symbio-Cultivator with the parasite.”
The chamber erupts.
Questions. Demands. Arguments. Threats.
Aster doesn’t speak. Can’t. He’s still caught on the phrase in utero.
“I’ve already copied his engravings,” Aerathena continues, somehow cutting through the noise. “Not that we’ll find much use for it. They were carved using the sap from the Eternitree.”
That stills the room.
“Harvested, stabilised, and applied by a Celestial-rank enchanter. One who cultivated that sap inside his own body for over two decades…”
She pauses.
"…and willingly sacrificed his own life to complete the ritual."
Aster’s heart stutters.
Matter.
“Enough.”
One word. Total silence.
A figure steps forward. Older. Electric-blue hair. Stormlight in his beard. Eyes sharp enough to shave with.
"Aerathena."
His voice is measured.
"You've presented your findings."
"I have."
"Then allow me to present mine."
“Kheno Mashe,” Aerathena inclines her head. “You have the floor.”
Mashe.
The name hits Aster like a fist to the sternum.
"We are treating this as though there is some decision to be made." Kheno's voice remained perfectly level. "There isn't."
He looked down at Aster as one might inspect a cracked foundation.
“The boy is not a candidate,” Kheno says. “He’s a catastrophe. A time bomb wrapped in skin.”
His voice is calm, measured, utterly final.
"A Void Wyrm is not some pet to be tamed or a tool to be wielded. It does not bargain. It does not coexist. It consumes purpose itself. Every realm it reaches ends the same way.”
His gaze swept across the council.
"We've all seen the aftermath. We've all buried civilizations because someone insisted they had found an exception."
Finally, he looked back to Aster.
"This boy is not an exception. He's simply the latest person unfortunate enough to look like he might be."
Aster’s pulse hammers. He wants to scream that it was Kheno’s family who did this, who put the thing inside him before he was even born. But the pressure rolling off the man pins him in place.
The silence grew heavier.
"You speak of studying him."
His eyes found Aerathena.
"You speak of opportunity."
His expression never changed.
"I hear the same arrogance that proceeded the Astral War that tore our civilisation apart."
Aerathena’s expression doesn’t change. “Your fear is understandable, Kheno. However, your conclusions are premature. "You're assuming the wyrm survived unchanged." Aerathena folded her hands behind her back. "It didn't."
Several heads turned toward her.
"Our examination shows no signs of independent growth. No instinctive feeding. No attempt to overwrite his soul. Everything we understand about Void Wyrms says those things should already have happened."
She let that sink in before continuing.
"Instead, the parasite is bound to the boy’s vessel, becoming a part of it. If he remains weak, so does it. If he cultivates, it cultivates with him. A complete Twin-Tao transformation."
"Impossible," the magma giant muttered.
"I know." Aerathena nodded once. "I've checked the engravings twelve times hoping I'd made a mistake."
“But for what purpose then?” Kheno snaps. “The boy now carry’s within him Infrastructure formed by Eternity Tree engravings burnt into him by a Celestial’s death. Do you truly believe power like that comes without purpose?” He steps closer to Aster, slow and deliberate. “The wyrm is not passive. It will use him.”
The fear in Aster finally curdles into something hotter.
He forces himself upright.
“You don’t know me,” he says, voice shaking but defiant. “Your family was the ones who infected me. You’re the reason I’m like this!”
Kheno’s smile doesn’t move, but his eyes narrow.
“A bold accusation,” he says, voice steeped in condescension. “And one you cannot prove. The Void Wyrm is chaos, boy. It doesn’t discriminate. To blame my family for your condition is as foolish as it is convenient.”
“You’ve had your say, Kheno,” says a blind swordsman standing among the council—the most normal-looking of the lot, which in this room is like being named Least Concerning Nightmare. “Let Aerathena finish.”
Kheno inclines his head. “Then my vote is for execution. Immediately. Before the parasite learns to act through him.”
Aerathena steps forward again, and the void hushes for her.
“I understand the fear,” she says. “We all do. No one here doubts what a full Void Form is capable of. We’ve all seen Fate rewritten into something cruel and unrecognisable. But for over a hundred years we have answered that fear the same way."
No one interrupted.
"Contain it. Isolate it. Kill it…. along with its host."
Her eyes drifted across the council.
"It has allowed us to preserve civilisation."
She nodded once.
"But it has also taught us nothing."
"This is the first time history has offered us something different."
Murmurs ripple through the council.
“And if that were all, it would be enough to spare him. But it isn’t all. This is the first recorded Symbio-Cultivator forged between two opposing planes: Astral and Void.”
Several councillors stiffened.
"If Spirit can bind Void instead of merely resisting it..."
Her voice becomes quieter.
"...then every infected child we've executed may have died because our understanding was incomplete."
Her voice sharpens.
She lets that settle.
“If we study him—not as a corpse, but as a cultivator—we may uncover a way to cure future infections without execution. We may even prevent the next outbreak before it can start.”
Her gaze sweeps the room.
“I ask for reason. For discipline. For curiosity over fear. I will oversee his progress personally. If the wyrm shows signs of growth or influence beyond its lock, I will act. But until then. He should become a student.”
Then, quieter:
“If we let fear overrule our own Charter, we are no better than the beasts we claim to stand above.”
The room erupts again.
Aster just stands there, waiting to hear whether he gets to keep existing.
Then the votes go up.
Six hands.
And a branch.
Rhyden included.
Five stay down.
Kheno among them.
And one by one, the councillors vanish, leaving Aster alone in the cosmic nowhere with Aerathena and the stars.
“So,” Aster says after a long silence, drawing the word out carefully, “just to clarify before my brain implodes—are we actually in space, or is this some kind of premium astral illusion?”
His voice disappears into the vastness. Aerathena turns to him, her body shimmering with solar heat, her gaze bright enough to interrogate atoms.
“We’re not in space,” she says. “This is a pocket dimension—a stabilised bridge between the lower strata and the Astral Wilds. The energy below is too thin and unstable. If we all entered in our true forms, we’d unravel the local structure of the realm. This space contained that.”
“Ah,” he says. “A safety bubble to protect reality from yourselves. My old therapist would’ve called that trauma-preventative architecture.”
Then the humour drains out of him.
“Did he have to die?” Aster asks quietly. “Matter, I mean.”
The question lands raw and unarmoured.
“He said he’d protect me. That he’d stay. I thought we had time. I thought he’d explain things. Teach me how not to implode. Maybe tell me what the hell is wrong with my back before hurling me into cosmic jurisprudence.”
Aerathena studies him for a long moment before answering.
“What was done to you has never been attempted before,” she says. “Not because we lacked theory. Because no one has ever been reckless or desperate enough to try. The sap of the Eternity Tree is unstable outside its root-world. It exists on a plane accessible only to those who have bent time to their will. Past, present, future, stasis—all layered at once. It doesn’t merely carry time. It is time.”
She turns slightly, speaking as though reciting something sacred and monstrous.
“When removed from the Tree, the sap’s polarity fractures. Each drop becomes a war inside itself—one part accelerating, one regressing, one freezing, one skipping through time like a damaged recording. Put that inside a mortal body and, in the best case, it kills you. In the worst, you cease to exist in the correct order.”
Aster blinks. “That is significantly worse than how Matter pitched it.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted to explain,” Aerathena says. “Because what he did wasn’t a ritual. It was self-destruction stretched over twenty years. He cultivated that sap inside his own body until he could stabilise it. Then he carved it into you.”
Aster goes still.
“For me,” he says.
“To contain the wyrm,” she replies. “And to give you a chance.”
The emptiness around him suddenly feels sharper.
“So the wyrm. Let’s talk about that. Because Matter said it was dangerous, sure, but also like, ‘Don’t worry, kid, it’s probably sleeping and if you don’t think about it too hard it might not eat your soul’ kind of dangerous. But I’m guessing you have a less optimistic assessment?”
Aerathena’s light dims by a fraction.
“The Void Wyrm is not just a parasite,” she says. “It is literally entropy with a heartbeat. A being born from the border plane that exists in opposition to everything this universe calls structure. It does not merely feed. It evolves through erasing.”
She begins to pace, though in a place with no floor the gesture feels almost conceptual.
“The first recorded wyrm manifested in the late nineteenth century. Since then, every appearance has ended in catastrophe. Once it hatches, it devours the host’s karmic resonance—faith, fortune, fate. Then it enters chrysalis. During that state, it reconstructs itself using the building blocks of our plane, immunising itself against Astral energy and allowing it to wield both Astral and Void. When it emerges, we no longer call it a wyrm. It becomes a Void-Form.”
Aster’s hands tighten. “How bad are we talking?”
Aerathena’s expression turns distant.
“The last SS-class wyrm—the last one with a cross-horn structure like yours—was the catalyst for World War II.”
She says it without drama. She doesn’t need drama. The sentence does the work by itself.
“It fed on despair, war, collapse. Every bomb dropped liquidated karmic assets on a planetary scale. Every ruined city made it stronger. We had to gather the fate of an entire continent to force it into dormancy, and even then we did not kill it. We merely contained it until its own hunger consumed what remained.”
Aster stares into the dark.
“And mine could be worse?”
She doesn’t answer.
Which, unfortunately, is an answer.
He digs his nails into his palms.
“If I’m carrying something like that, why not kill me? Dissect me. Study the ritual from my corpse. Seems efficient.”
Aerathena turns fully toward him.
“Because you’re stable,” she says. “Because the fusion worked. You are not infected. You are merged. Symbio-cultivation is a known process—two entities cultivating toward a shared outcome. But this? This is unprecedented. You haven’t merely survived it. You’re metabolising it.”
She steps closer.
“If we understand how your body processes Void energy—your Void typing—we may be able to replicate it. Control it. Remove future wyrms without killing their hosts.”
Hope stirs in Aster’s chest, then immediately tries to strangle itself out of reflex.
“Void typing,” he says flatly. “So I’m not cursed anymore. I’m just karmically radioactive.”
“You may be the first person capable of killing a wyrm without killing the host,” Aerathena says. “Possibly the only one.”
Aster stares at her.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
Her expression softens—not into pity, but into something more dangerous. Understanding.
“Matter’s sacrifice will change the planes,” she says. “Hosts who would once have been executed may now be spared. You will be hailed as a saviour by some. But if the method becomes public—if people learn what was done to create you—”
“They’ll burn me,” Aster finishes. “In a very spiritually efficient manner.”
She inclines her head.
“The ritual will be classified. SS-level secrecy. Celestial access only.”
“Great,” Aster mutters. “That’ll do wonders for the trust issues.”
Aerathena looks back into the shifting cosmos.
“You’ll be enrolled at Galamad,” she says. “You are behind your peers. But you’ll catch up.”
Aster looks down at his hands. They’re still trembling.
“I guess this is the start of my cultivation journey,” he says.
Then he exhales.
“And I’m only carrying the embryonic apocalypse of World War Three in my chest. No pressure.”