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The Void is one of many parallel universes with one clear enemy: Cicada. Not only does it destabilise Void, it can seep through different dimensions via something we call “forlorn”. It is an unstoppable force compared to the likes of a magnetar - the “evil” lies in its silent, long-range killing power. The form of it is barely visible even when calibrated with the most ideal conditions imaginable. However, one can spot a pattern that resembles an unidentifiable foreboding structure in place where the stars would usually be present.
The 8th Delta has no bottom. It is but a confined free-floating space found inside a rapidly rotating ring next to a planet called “Скелет” in the Voidal universe with the redshift of 210 from the perspective of Earth. Since there is such a massive electromagnetic activity due to its location being close to Cicada, the Unseq systems notified Noxw, the Voidal demi-god of time and chaos management.
On the time-stamp 1,777,384,408, Noxw had the idea to investigate - it is very unusual for a planet to have such a volatile standing in spite of how close it is to the Cicada.
Noxw is an alien cybernetic creature resembling a raptor. It has about half the weight of an average adult human and an outer holographic-like layer with a visor manufactured to withstand extreme pressure. In its own designated HQ room, it was sorting through its haphazardly sorted storage room to find a log which is able to extract objects that are able to fit inside through a scanner. Since it had been in a coma for a while, it needed to carry something out. It is a pressing matter for more information related to the Cicada including the connection between the company UNKC and it. UNKC is a force of evil that enslaved almost the entirety of earth with a rebellion trying to topple its reign. It is a totalitarian empire born from human occultists and technocrats who learned to weaponise suffering as an industrial resource.
They are now ruling a conquered world with the cold logic of a bureaucracy that worships foreign powers and has malevolent practices. Everyone has to speak the same languages, local cultures vanish, problematic behaviours are punished. They have access to knowledge they should not have - they worship something called the “Niscitelj”. From what little info is gathered, it is an artifact believed to have been uncovered by UNKC themselves. It is assumed that it is so powerful it is kept in a sanctuary deep in an unnamed castle that rebels simply entitled “destroyer’s lair”, with a distinct red glow.
One thing is living 210 times slower than on Earth. Observing across that gap is impossible via normal means; one would require some kind of Voidal adapter. Otherwise, no signal crosses without becoming noise and no light holds its meaning.
The faster thing would see the slower thing as frozen, silent, nearly dead. The slower thing would see the faster thing as a blur that appears and vanishes instantly.
There are multiple layers to the ring of Скелет. The rings of Скелет have fourteen identified strata.
Layers 1 through 7 register interference spikes. Layers 9 through 14 are unusable as the signal collapses within seconds. The 8th layer remains silent although not empty - simply unreactive. It is a plane of ice and dust that's very thin - the least dense of all the layers. Any potential settlement has to float inside of it. Habitats therein maintain orbit. The ring provides just enough mass for shielding and thermal regulation.
The only remaining settlement intact was found in the radar. Noxw decided to head straight to it. From the distance, it appeared to be some kind of island that hovered there like bacteria in a pond. Noxw landed perfectly fine without any issues happening to the ship or to itself. Hangar doors have been opened.
This place was once known as “Мгла”, evidenced by one of its beaten-up signs.
The 8th Delta's conditions facilitate no weather and day-night cycle; just the slow drift of ice and dust past the viewport. The sky is an isolating turquoise haze. The abandoned city was built atop a lake with beautiful otherworldly scenery around. No one else is present but cosmic dust. What Noxw speculates as it dipped its toes on Скелет is that this was a Cicada-maintained domain. For what purpose - we don't know. What we do know is that there is still a palace-like structure not too dissimilar to the one found on Earth, the one where the cult of Niscitelj resides.
Noxw noticed a gate that had been shut, so it decided to head straight into it. However, once it tried to open it, the building's gates opened inwards onto themselves - recursively. Slightly weirded out, Noxw proceeded to look around the temple for different ways of entry.
The demi-god then realised it has to cut through a wall to reach inside. It presses its palm to the wall. The wall is not solid as its hand passes through, but has to exert extra effort to pass through inside almost as though it was made of jelly.
What it finds inside is a desolate room in pitch dark that it had to illuminate with its own spell of light. Fractured imagery of different runes and scraps of what is assumed to be Niscitelj were found in this facility.The scriptures were of completely incomprehensible text that rapidly flickered in a random pattern, as though it didn't want to be read. There is a screen that appears to be still working, albeit barely. It displays its own face and appears to be live. Noxw felt like Cicada had a consistent grip on it in spite of nothing happening.
Nothing emerging from the defunct cybernetic dummies either. Some of them were barely functional, letting out occasional nondescript noises. When Noxw was analysing the scraps it noticed something peculiar. The scraps it found are made of the same alloy from another galaxy.
The material should not exist here as it was found exclusively where it last saw it. At first it had no idea about the origin of it, and then it clicked. It appeared to be the exact same tool with the same serial number that was slightly obscured, meaning it is likely not a parallel design. Same wear pattern on the grip, too.
As it was standing there looking at it, it had to dig deep in its vast memory bank. It lost it about 200 years ago and now it is here, on a shelf, in a settlement that has no record of contact with anyone. This could mean one of two things: convergence or lineage. Convergence means that somehow the material is to be found elsewhere and that it is easily reproducible. Lineage means it is not a coincidence and it did actually end up here.
The demi-god could not find a clue as to which is which, so the log picked it up towards its bank and Noxw continued its research. On a wall, Noxw found crude figurines of stick figures. One figure is larger than the others. The larger figure is depicted with mechanical limbs with the same configuration as its own body, oddly enough.
The figure appears to be old and faded with visually striking tiny dactyls. This means that the settlers probably had an idea about Noxw or someone else and were screaming for help, as if they were trapped here. They had an understanding of what Noxw looked like but didn't know who it was. Aside from that, nothing is to be found there, but Noxw didn't want to simply report nothing. "Let the next expedition find the same anomalies and draw the same incomplete conclusions..." it muttered in an ironic tone, as if one could stomach such an uninviting environment.
After further scans and research, it decided to look around elsewhere on the settlement. As it goes outside through the breach that it found, it looked back at the Мгла's temple. The temple can still be heard humming outside unlike before even without most of the power. Nonetheless, Noxw shook it off.
After around 20 minutes passed when it was exploring the land of Мгла, the humming from the temple changes pitch abruptly from one frequency to another. The demi-god stops walking and starts listening.
The humming sharpens into a frequency the demi-god can parse, with one sentence at a time being relayed extremely slowly. Noxw now has the tough choice of speeding up time to an extreme extent in order to decode the signal properly. It decides to do that, without thinking about the risk of Cicada.
It pauses for about 4 minutes. The sentence is true for the demi-god, or so it thought.
A 2 minute pause followed. Noxw stood there, focused more than ever.
A 1 minute pause followed. It was starting to feel like the temple was growing more impatient than before.
A 30 second pause followed. Noxw clenched its fists.
This time, a 15 second pause followed. The question hung in the air. The demi-god had no answers and only more questions arised. Either way, Noxw was very resilient and was willing to withstand anything that could be thrown at it.
The temple suddenly produced garbled speech with some words that were comprehensible. At certain points, it sounded like it was saying phrases like "proch otsyuda" and something akin to someone being a failed experiment. This made Noxw feel very suspicious and doubtful.
After a bit of waiting with remnants of humming slowly fading away, the temple's residual hum shifted dramatically. This time, it was a sustained note way lower than before that was way more felt than heard. The demi-god took a step back.
The pressure increased steadily. A vibration ran through the demi-god's feet. Then through its limbs. Then through its visor. It tried to back away but it could physically not move back as if the temple tried to suck it in.
Its HUD was now flashing a variety of warnings that were unrecognisable even for Noxw. The HUD turned white, then black, then white again. A tone somewhat akin to a flatline played once. The HUD returned with a dimmer tone now. After a bit, the demi-god's vision was starting to become impaired from the extreme pressure.
The demi-god fell onto its back still being pulled inwards, periling. The visor only showed static now. Noxw lost consciousness.
It woke up on the ground next to the temple with the HUD flickering and no memory of falling.
A warning appeared on its still slightly unstable HUD coming from the ship. The demi-god stood up, stepped back from the temple to take a glance at the temple then at the sky, confused as to where it was. However, the ring was not going to wait. Thankfully the trusty old external log that it relied on was still operational after little repair. All of the answers were there. Noxw was looking through everything it gathered, realising that it was still in the middle of an expedition.
It recorded everything the Cicada said, plus some more, but it was unfortunately corrupted. "Oh, the Cicada. This paragraph could have had important information, but oh well," thought Noxw to itself.
Looking at the logs, only 0.3298 seconds had elapsed since the last log. Some of the individual time points of the log were unfortunately abstracted to the point it could not recognise how much time it spent here.
The demi-god reached the extraction point with 00:11:23 on the timer. The ship grabbed it. In the cockpit, Noxw looked at the glowing log. It realised that not only is some of the new information corrupted, some of it appears to be encrypted. The demi-god could not tell which. Obviously, there was no time for it right now. The demi-god did not check the instruments; it had no energy to do that, so it let the autopilot work. It set the ship on a long, slow arc away from the planet. The ship broke orbit. Below, the planet turned away. The ring collapsed behind the ship slowly, ice and dust falling inwards. The settlement with the tall temple was already invisible.
The demi-god artificially exhaled; it had not realised it was holding its breath. It was for the fragile thread between thoughts that separates a person from a process. A human reflex. It had been human once after all.
Noxw did not look back.
Image provided courtesy of XMask