Chapter 217: Beginning (XVII)
The darkness that had claimed Erin Volter’s mind after the harrowing hours of labor slowly began to dissolve.
Sensations returned to her body in a sluggish, lingering wave. The sharp, tearing agony that had ripped through her lower abdomen for hours had subsided, leaving behind a dull, hollow ache. The quiet room smelled of damp moss, pine needles. Soft, violet twilight filtered through the wooden window shutters, casting gentle shadows across the small bedroom.
Erin’s eyelids fluttered open, her long, pale lashes heavy with dried sweat.
For a few quiet seconds, her mind was beautifully clear. Then, the memory of what had transpired returned to her. She had given birth.
A sudden, overwhelming surge of warmth erupted deep within her chest—a instinctual emotion that completely caught her off guard. She felt a profound wave of relief, a sweet, fluttering pleasure, and a strange sense of quiet accomplishment.
Erin turned her head on the soft pillow, her tear-stained green eyes shifting downward to look at the small, swaddled bundle resting peacefully in the crook of her arm.
A fragile, maternal smile began to curve her dry lips. "My Child..." she whispered, her raspy voice filled with an uncharacteristic tenderness.
She reached out with a trembling, pale hand, gently pulling back the soft fabric of the cloth to gaze upon her child.
The moment the blanket slid away, Erin’s smile froze.
The color drained from her face in a fraction of a millisecond. Her green eyes widened to a fraction of their normal size, her pupils contracting into tiny, terrified pinpricks. The warmth in her chest died an instantaneous, violent death, replaced by a cold, sickening wave of dread that tore through her soul.
"No..." a choked gasp escaped her throat. "What... what is this...?"
Lying within the swaddling was something that defied every known law of human and monster biology.
The infant had no face.
There were no eyes to look into, no delicate nose, and no mouth to cry for warmth. The child’s entire head was a smooth, featureless sphere of translucent, shifting silver-violet light—an illusory, spectral template that flickered like a dying flame. The only recognizable feature was a fine, soft tuft of pristine, snow-white hair clinging to the top of its round head.
Panic seized Erin’s mind, her brain short-circuiting as her eyes darted lower. She pulled the blanket further back, her breath catching in her windpipe.
The baby’s body was not made of flesh, blood, or bone.
Where small arms and legs should have been, the physical fabric of reality had simply folded inward and receded. It was as if looking at the infant’s torso was looking straight through a microscopic tear in the universe. Beneath the swaddling lay an absolute, pitch-black void—an empty, silent darkness that swallowed the light of the room.
It was not a human child. It was not even a creature of flesh and blood. It was a living, breathing anchor of the spatial void.
Suddenly, the swaddled bundle moved.
The little boy shifted subtly beneath her arm, his featureless, illusory head slowly tilting upward. Even without eyes or a face, Erin felt an undeniable, bone-chilling sensation wash over her entire being.
The child was looking at her.
A violent shiver ripped down Erin’s spine. Instinctual, primal terror completely overrode her maternal bond. With a sharp gasp, she scrambled backward on the wooden mattress, her back slamming hard against the headboard as she pulled her legs up to her chest, breathing heavily. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a sledgehammer.
"How... how could this be my child?" she stammered, her voice cracking with hysterical disbelief. "How am I supposed to accept such a thing... as my son?"
She stared at the bundle lying on the mattress where she had just recoiled. The infant did not cry. It possessed no vocal cords to unleash a scream. It simply lay there in the quiet twilight, gently moving its small, dark, non-Euclidean arms and legs in the air, completely indifferent to the horror of its mother.
Before Erin’s spiraling panic could break her sanity entirely, the heavy wooden door of the bedroom slowly creaked open.
Erin flinched, her head snapping toward the threshold.
Standing in the doorway was Roshhide.
The Supreme Overlord of Space looked completely unrecognizable. The bare-chested, god-like entity who had commanded the floating mountain was gone. His posture was slumped, his broad shoulders weighed down as if he were physically carrying a century’s worth of crushing exhaustion. The crown of dark, billowing smoke that usually hovered above his head had completely vanished, leaving his unkempt dark hair hanging limply over his forehead.
Most shocking of all were his eyes. The deep, abyssal dark light that had permanently burned within his irises was completely extinguished. They were now just plain, ordinary human-blue eyes—hollow, exhausted, and completely drained of magic.
He stumbled slowly into the room, his bare feet dragging heavily across the wooden floorboards.
Unknowingly, Erin pressed herself tighter against the wall, taking another hesitant step back on the bed as the Overlord approached.
Roshhide did not look at Erin. His hollow blue eyes were fixed entirely on the infant lying on the mattress. He stopped beside the bed, his face pale and marked with deep lines of fatigue. He narrowed his eyes, straining his failing senses to observe the swaddled void.
"So..." Roshhide spoke, his voice dry, raspy, and stripped of its former, terrifying resonance. He let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to drain the last dregs of his strength. "...he took my authority over space."
Erin’s breath hitched in her throat. She stared at the Calamity Lord, her mind wildly digesting his words.
’He took it...?’ Erin thought, her mind reeling. ’The baby... forcefully stripped the Overlord of his fundamental authority!’
The realization hit her like a physical blow. That was why Roshhide looked so broken, so fragile, and so utterly weak. The Space time had severed its connection from the father and migrated entirely into the newborn infant resting on the bed. The child was now the true, sole Ruler of the Space time void.
Roshhide slowly raised a trembling, calloused hand. He reached down toward the infant, intending to stroke the baby’s cheek—a simple gesture.
But as his fingers came within an inch of the baby’s face, an invisible, absolute boundary repelled his hand. Roshhide’s fingers passed cleanly through the shifting, illusory light as if touching empty air, unable to make physical contact with the child.
He could not even touch him.
Roshhide slowly retracted his hand. He turned his head to look at Erin, letting out another long, quiet sigh before sinking heavily into a wooden chair beside the bed.
"Human woman," Roshhide started, his ocean-blue eyes locking onto hers with a look of absolute, somber finality. "Take this child and run away."
Erin was caught completely off guard. She blinked, her trembling hands clutching. "What... what do you mean?"
Roshhide leaned back in the chair, staring up at the timber ceiling as if looking through it toward the vast cosmos.
"Get away from here... as soon as you can," he instructed, his tone deadpan and devoid of any lingering arrogance. "Now that I have lost my authority over space, I can no longer maintain the gates. The stability of Rilth will accelerate its collapse... and the Gods will know."
A bitter, humorless edge entered his voice as his jaw tightened.
"They always know... those bastards," Roshhide growled softly, a flicker of ancient hatred passing through his eyes. "The other Rulers of this dying planet will sense the disappearance of my domain. They will come for me... soon. I am powerless now. I am already dead. So do yourself a favor... and run away before this mountain becomes a slaughterhouse."
"Run away?!" Erin refuted, her voice rising in a sharp, desperate pitch as anger broke through her terror. "Where am I supposed to go?! You can’t even open dimensional gates anymore! How am I supposed to get back home to Earth?!"
Roshhide did not raise his voice. Instead, he slowly lifted his right hand.
Gathering the very last, lingering embers of the magical energy stored deep within his physical vessel, Roshhide flicked his wrist. Three distinct, glowing objects materialized in the air before him, floating gently down to rest upon his lap.
The first item was an intricate, dark-porcelain mask carved with subtle, silver runic lines.
The second item was a simple, unadorned ring forged from a strange, pitch-black metal that seemed to absorb the ambient light around it.
The third item was a tiny, luminescent creature no larger than a palm. It was a serpentine whelp—a little blue dragon with delicate, antler-like horns, its translucent scales crackling with microscopic, harmless sparks of dark-violet lightning and shifting illusory mist.
Roshhide pointed a pale finger at the dark mask first.
"This mask," Roshhide explained calmly. "It will allow you to pass cleanly through the very gate from which you first fell into this world. Those reverse thresholds are structurally designed to remain open until every human on the other side is dead. Therefore... your bridge back to Earth is still active."
He then shifted his finger toward the pitch-black ring.
"This ring... is the key," Roshhide continued. "It unlocks my greatest treasure, hidden deep within the central castle of Hubin on this floating continent. It is an artifact of the ancient world... one capable of allowing any being to cross the absolute boundaries of their genetic limits."
Finally, his gaze softened as he looked down at the tiny blue dragon curled peacefully on his knee.
"And this little dragon is a newborn beast," Roshhide murmured gently. "It was born directly from the refined core of the Lightning Overlord whom I slew during our war. It possesses the dual authority over Lightning and Illusion."
He lifted his gaze back to Erin, his plain blue eyes holding hers with profound, heartbreaking sincerity.
"These... are gifts," Roshhide said softly. "Take them as a token of my apology... for abducting you, keeping you prisoner, and dragging you into the tragedy of my world."
Before Erin could process the staggering weight of the gifts being offered to her, the shadows in the corner of the bedroom suddenly distorted.
A thick, elegant wisp of corrupted dark mana swirled onto the floorboard, condensing into the majestic, luminescent teal form of the ancient feline beast. The Doom Overseer stepped into the dim light, its eyes glowing with a quiet, eternal wisdom.
Its long, deep-blue ribbon-antlers swayed gently as it bowed its heavy head toward the powerless Calamity Lord, before turning its gaze to Erin.
"I will see that my lady reaches her home safely," the Doom Overseer declared.
It was the very first time the ancient beast had ever spoken out loud in a clear, resonant, and physical voice, rather than through a private telepathic link. The statement carried an unbreakable, sacred vow that echoed through the quiet room.
Roshhide slowly pushed himself up from the chair. His legs wobbled slightly under his own weight, but he forced his body to stand tall one last time. He picked up the mask, the black ring, and the sleeping little blue dragon, stepping forward and firmly shoving them directly into Erin’s trembling hands.
"Now..." Roshhide ordered, his voice carrying the final, unyielding command. "Take these... take our son... and run away."