Beyond The System-Chapter 194: The Creation

My hand had already reached the snake moments ago. At first, it was confused, wondering why I would even ask for such a thing. Concerned questions spiraled from its mind, though the concern seemed more for its shiny new training tool than for me as a person.

Have you been feeling upset lately? You can talk to me anytime. After all, you're so important to me. Would you like something to eat? Food always cheers me up.

If its words hadn’t been so thickly laced with transactional affection, wrapped in a blanket of feigned care, I might’ve been genuinely touched. But the moment I explained this could help me grow stronger, that the power of my Voidseed might evolve alongside my own, all the illusion peeled away. It dropped the act instantly, and even offered to ramp up the heat.

Terrifying.

Still, I clarified that we would be starting slowly. Just the heat aura for now.

“Right, you kids, I’ll be watching from over here,” Griffith said, brow deeply creased, tension coiled in every word. “If it gets too strong for any of you, at any time, you. Are. To. STOP. Understood?”

We all nodded.

Shouldn’t we wait just a little longer? Luna asked, voice taut, stretched with nerves. I really don’t know if I’m ready. Heat is one thing, but once we get to fire—

Do not worry, my student! Wyrem bellowed from somewhere inside my mind. You are the most gifted lifeform in creation! Picture the shrubbery bowing at your feet, the trees groaning in your wake. A flower, wielding elemental mastery over—

I GET IT! she shouted back, her petals flushing to a soft pink, skirting the edge of crimson.

With her reluctant agreement, the rest of us exchanged quick glances and sat, pressing our backs to the serpent’s smooth, undulating scales. Really need to get it a name. Serpent King? No, that’s more title than name…

“I’m going to tell it to start,” I said to Elric and Thea.

Elric inhaled slowly, deeply, as if fortifying himself from the inside. Thea clenched her fist and gave a solemn nod. With a final pulse of Beast Will, I sent the message.

Start giving us your power. Just the barest amounts. If it looks like we can handle it—give more.

It didn’t respond in words. It answered with heat.

A hush settled as waves of warm energy radiated outward, gentle but potent. Fire Force gathered beneath its skin, spilling out in pulses that shimmered through the air. It was surprisingly pleasant, comforting even, and from the way Luna stopped trembling beside me, she must have felt the same.

We stayed quiet, watchful. I tried to feel beyond what I knew of fire—the science of combustion and reaction. I sought something deeper than the unseen vibrations, the surge of energy at the molecular level. But that wasn’t the point of this. Force wasn't something I could equate to textbook knowledge.

Maybe someone else could, someday. But not me.

So I simply breathed, closed my eyes, and emptied my thoughts. I let the world speak instead. The creak of swaying branches, the quiet cadence of my friends’ breathing, the whisper of wind threading through the leaves. Its melody was soft, unrelenting, a hypnotic metronome that steadied my pulse.

The warmth deepened. What had been cozy grew hotter, more intense. Not yet the inferno I remembered from battle, but no longer a comfort either.

My thoughts wandered, unspooling into memories of my old life. School halls, the orphanage, food—everything wrapped in climate control. Heat, back then, was always gentle. A flick of the thermostat. A warm mug between cold fingers. Comfort. Life.

Then another rise in pressure.

I remembered visiting a beach once. It was artificial, of course, just like the filtered sunlight we stood beneath. The real sun’s radiation was too much for our damaged world. It had to be managed, doled out in safe portions.

Still... Man, that sunburn really hurt.

Something tightened around my wrist, but no complaints came.

I remembered trying to grow something for a school project one summer. A little bean plant. It was supposed to be easy, but that particular summer had been brutal, and, well... I was six. Let’s just say horticultural instincts weren’t part of my early development. Even my older foster brother, who never complimented anything, was impressed by how fast the stalk withered into a brittle, yellow husk, shriveled and thirst-struck beyond saving.

Man, it was getting really hot. I mean, sure, it’s a tropical island, and we’ve got a massive, ancient snake cooking the air around us, but this felt fast. Like the air itself was boiling. Like fire was clawing at the edges of me already.

The ache of dehydration from long-forgotten P.E. classes flashed across my senses. Running laps, collapsing, lungs scraping for breath—wait. That never happened. I would never run track. Me? Voluntarily subject myself to that torment before I came here?

Unlikely.

Falling over and almost dying? Sure. That tracked. But running on purpose? Not a chance.

Okay this is getting bad. My skin feels like it's paper-thin. My nerves buzzed like wires too close to breaking. I couldn’t move. Every breath burned. Every joint screamed. Just a drop. Please. Anyone. Just—

Void. Black and endless. Shapeless and timeless.

Just the unbearable sensation of being in a place that had no place. Pure un-peaceful silence , hollow. An oppressive quiet where even the groans I longed to release were stolen from my throat. Nothing but my agony and the absolute certainty that I had never been more alone.

Then, just as something in my mind began to unravel—

BOOM!!!

A blinding detonation of white light. Somehow, I didn’t just see it, I experienced it. From nowhere and everywhere, the universe ruptured outward, a kaleidoscope of fire and color unfurling in waves. Reds. Greens. Blues. All of them burst forward, peeling away the darkness, stripping it and replacing it with ash.

Silver, gold, and every color the fire was, glimmering in the black. It coalesced, drawn together by some unseen gravity, drifting like snowflakes into the last surviving remnants of the void.

My questions died.

This was… creation.

It didn’t stop. The process surged on. Shapes, sentient energy, life itself erupting into being only to be consumed, folded back into chaos by snapping tendrils of radioactive flame.

Something stood in the blaze. Or crouched, looming, each paw rested atop a glowing node of condensed energy.

I was dragged forward, pulled like a thread in a current, brought face-to-face with a massive wall of radiant orange. And then… something inside me stirred.

Deep within, my Inner Space rippled. My Nexus thrummed. The Precursor Energy inside me answered the call, but it wasn’t alone. I felt the egg, and the orb.

They pulsed.

The wall in front of me cracked down the middle and then burst open. Familiar, impossibly familiar. A cosmic eye stared back, larger than comprehension. I felt it land on me, observe me, focus solely on me.

“I burned away the chaos, and gave birth to all things. Giving rise to unshaped power.”

“…Uhhh. What?”

“AHHH!”

It hit like a memory exploding inside me, unstoppable momentum flinging me forward, hurling me directly into the open eye. There was no resistance. No friction. I passed through like I belonged there.

And just like that, no more pain.

The fire disappeared, my limbs were whole, and my thirst gone. I was lying face-down, grounded again, the ink-like floor beneath me solid. When I pushed up, my muscles still felt heavy, as if some thick energy clung to them, but I could move. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

The space was familiar. A presence in the center called to me. And as I looked around, I realized something impossible.

“This place… it couldn’t be, right?” I murmured.

It wasn’t exactly like my own Inner Space. But it echoed it somehow. Suspended in the middle was a pulsing orb, each throb accompanied by a microburst of light. Tiny contained, internal explosions.

It pulled at me.

Something in me knew I had to take it.

I stepped forward.

And an image burst across my mind’s eye.

An illusory humanoid stood before me, composed entirely of red energy, still, solemn, and alone. Power pulsed outward from his form with every breath, every flicker of movement. But with each particle that left him, his body dimmed, like a flame slowly snuffed by its own brilliance.

I took another step. This time the motion came easier, far less strained than my first time navigating such visions.

As his energy condensed, more figures began to appear, no longer abstract, but not entirely clear either. They weren’t like him. These were beasts, animals shaped from the great elemental Forces that wove the world: Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. Still too vague to identify fully, as if viewed through a veil. But one among them stood out. A creature of deep azure, elongated and graceful, its presence suffused with a gentle, calming aura.

Then came the final step. The being of Fire Force, now little more than flickering embers, spoke. His voice emerged in a harmony of deep resonance and faint, broken tones.

“We have failed the world. Left alone by our master, I alone survived until now. You must create and maintain what's left.”

As his last words faded, so did he. The vision dissolved with him, folding gently into darkness.

Floating in the space before me, the sphere remained. It drifted toward me until it reached the center of my chest. As it passed into me, warmth bloomed.

It surged through my body, spreading through my veins like golden fire, heat becoming something more, something vast. But never painful. It was power.

Just as swiftly, it pulled back. Receding inward, folding itself into the depths of my Nexus.

One last vision came with it.

A towering beast. Standing on four legs, it basked, reveling in the wild chaos that surrounded it. It didn’t control the fire. It was the fire. Wrath and radiance forged into one divine creature.

Its mane blazed with colors that never stayed still. Each tendril of flame a living ribbon of molten hue, shifting through the full spectrum of light, tangling with others in an endless, burning braid. A prism of wildfire made manifest.

It did not roar or rage.

It only watched indifferently. Regal in its being. As if it were both a guardian of the world and a beast who wouldn't lift a claw if it all turned to ash.

Time accelerated and heartbeat after heartbeat, centuries compressed into a breath. Eons passed before me in a blur of creation and collapse. Worlds born and devoured. A theater of unrestrained birth and destruction.

All beneath its gaze.

Then, in the dark… a roar cut through the silence.

Something else was coming.

And with it, the Universe cooled.