IT could see now.

  Scattered throughout the VOID were objects—jagged, fragmented. Were they… hurt? Undone? Broken. Yes. Broken.

  Shards of people? Pces? Things? Civilization. Civilization.

  IT drifted through, under, over the remnants, following an unknown path. Occasionally, small, colorful—but damaged—lights appeared. Orbs? Layered onions? Souls. Souls were drawn to IT, settling into ITs… hair? Branches? Outer dead cell strings? Fur. Fur.

  IT allowed this. Somehow, IT knew that these souls could not exist in the VOID like IT could. They were fading. Ceasing.

  So IT continued, sometimes dropping ITs TIME to move faster or slower—it was hard to tell. After all, the VOID did not have TIME.

  Seconds. Days. Years. Centuries.

  Eventually, IT reached something. A wall? A force? A bubble? A barrier.

  A barrier filled with gas, rocks, and burning spheres of fire. IT knew, somehow, that the souls could survive here, just as they had survived within IT. So IT moved forward, flowing effortlessly into the barrier, unhindered by resistance.

  Then—IT FELT.

  The VOID had been nothing, in the truest sense. No sensations. No texture. No weight. But here, everything was. The overload of existence crashed into IT, barraging ITs mind with sensation. It was too much. IT began to faint.

  Before IT lost consciousness, IT released the souls.

  And then IT drifted.

  POV Shift – The SystemThe system was repairing thousands of subroutines when an unexpected influx of souls arrived.

  Unexpected—because although billions of souls were created every second, this particur influx came from a single point. And unlike newly-formed souls, these were already matured—but damaged beyond recognition.

  Severely wounded souls were rare. Most souls carried light scars, the natural wear of life’s trauma. But these? These looked like they had been eaten away. Dissolved.

  The system was concerned.

  Mass influxes of souls were not unheard of—wars, pnetary destruction, genocide. But this? This was different. It immediately began searching for the source. What had done this? Where had they come from?

  At the same time, it began repairs. That was its purpose, after all.

  Hours passed. A strange thing, even for the system, whose mind stretched across gaxies. Then, at st, it found the answer—hidden among the souls.

  A tiny, bck fox.

  It was partially warped, teetering on the edge of losing its very definition as a soul. But within it—concentrated yet neutralized—was something unmistakable.

  VOID.

  And suddenly, things made sense.

  Detecting traces of VOID was nearly impossible. The VOID—not to be mistaken for the void—was the definition of nothing. It erased. It consumed until nothing remained. For anything to survive the VOID was unheard of.

  And yet, this tiny soul had.

  Not only had it endured, but it had saved others, giving them a chance to escape annihition.

  Admirable.

  This little fox had sacrificed everything. Thousands of lifetimes. Memories. Its very personality—the core of all beings. Because even as life shaped and changed a person, some part of them always remained.

  But this soul had given even that up to survive.

  The system made a decision.

  It granted the fox an eternal TITLE.

  [Veyrisia, the VOID Eclipse]