{Outside The Projection}
No one could process it.
They watched in disbelief.
The sea of rot, of corpses... it was madness, but it was still something their minds could so barely grasp.
Then came the Eighth.
The land of Tents, endless... stitched... skin. Their deaths. The sea of bugs. The million-mile fall. Yeah, that was when people started shifting uncomfortably, looking around, looking down, anywhere and at anything but the projection.
No. No one had words for that.
Yeah, people started breathing differently after it.
Now it was the Tenth Layer.
And everyone just went quiet.
A Layer of black holes, gates to other worlds.
Ones that sent him into a land where Titans sprouted from Titans...
An entire landscape above a sea the size of a galaxy.
Where in its depth was another black hole...
All of that was a skip.
A skip deeper into the nightmare.
Deeper in whatever God-forsaken realm this was.
So he dove, one after another, until...
Until finally, Malik stopped falling.
He landed on solid ground.
Yet that wasn’t the time for him to relax.
No, not in a land without Aether.
A land of Corruption.
Because yes, before him... before them all was the Fall.
What their world would’ve been if not for him.
A planet that was taken over by Corruption.
The scene made them shiver.
Made them struggle to breathe.
Their hearts beat on that mountain’s pulse.
It was too much for them to handle.
But Malik, ever so casually, ended their nightmare.
Indeed, he was Corruption’s one true nemesis.
Only he could survive in such a world.
Only his fire could destroy it so easily.
So they saw him leave the world...
And finally, finally...
The entrance to the Forgotten Nexus.
What pulled their very universe.
The source of their Aether.
Where ’His’ breath came from.
It wasn’t something that they saw.
Again, they just looked away or down.
It was too strong and overwhelming.
Too sacred and terrifying.
Only the Mithqal kept looking.
Only the ones with Divinity stitched into their souls.
Their heads were locked onto it.
Their eyes never once blinked.
Afraid to lose a moment of it.
To them, it wasn’t horror.
The most beautiful thing they’d ever seen.
All nine of them felt the same.
So all of them stared.
At the core of their world.
At the very thing that made Aether real.
The very thing that had always been beneath their feet.
...All untainted Paths lead to this.
{Inside The Projection}
The entrance to the Forgotten Nexus was beneath Malik.
The point where Aether was ’breathed’ into the world.
Where Laws collapsed.
Where reality failed and broke down into threads of naked being.
Filaments of primordial creation that unspun matter itself.
Malik hovered above and around it.
Right at the edge of its gravity.
If he took a step forward, he’d fall.
He’d be crushed and erased.
Instead, he sat in a lotus position.
His right hand extended towards the singularity.
His left hand palmed his chest, pressing on his core.
His Aether flared—no, it exploded.
It tried to escape his body, but Malik kept it in.
He kept twisting, bending, and compressing his reserves.
The circulation of his Aether, his Pathing... it turned unusual.
Typically, only Abilities required complex Pathing, but now Malik was following a most complex Path without activating any Ability but simply to circulate his Aether.
What was once a simple, straight channel turned into spirals and lattices.
Aether rushed down his spine, igniting, forked into his ribs, split through his arms, and curled around every bone, pushing into every nook and cranny in his body.
No artery, vein, or even cell was left untouched.
His entire body was pulsating with Aether.
But he didn’t stop there.
The real work was just about to begin.
Malik, using everything he had, dragged all of his Aether back into his core.
He forced it to compress.
Tighter than any Mithqal dared, forming a knot of pure gravity inside him.
A mimic of the Forgotten Nexus itself... but inverted.
A black hole that fed not on reality... but on Hell.
His Divine Essence, Jahannam.
Now came his right hand.
Malik funneled in more Aether from the singularity.
And so, he pulled and pulled.
He abused the fact that he had an infinite resource.
Abused his own core, overworking it.
More flecks of red grew on his hair.
Malik was synchronizing with Hell.
In turn, Hell was changing him.
Aligning his being further with it.
With the True Sultan.
It made him feel incredible pain.
His body was in literal Hellfire.
His soul was attacked by Corruption.
And his mind was being stretched thin.
This was taking everything he had all at once.
Never had he struggled more than this.
Not even while absorbing that core.
Yet, Malik didn’t seem affected.
Rather, he appeared calm.
Finally, a tether had formed.
A spiritual umbilical cord, one tied to rebirth.
A thread of Aether, so fragile it shouldn’t have existed.
But it did; there was no doubt that it did.
A line between him and Jahannam, his origin.
The actual Jahannam, not the piece of it within his soul.
It was the place where Malik was truly born.
And the moment this tether stabilized—
Golden fire erupted from his left eye.
The tether was as true as death itself.
Tracking it, Malik looked down and, without hesitation, blasted into the Mouth of God.
When he pierced its gravity, it immediately tried to claim him.
Reality stretched around him, and he lost all sense of space.
He was pulled sideways, backward, and forward, all at once.
"I. WILL. NOT. FALL."
Malik roared and pulled on his thread.
Fire shot from his every limb, even from his fingertips.
His body stretched thin from the pressure, skin breaking, bones glowing red under the strain.
Aether tried to tear him apart, but his Will wrapped around him.
He continued on his Path, the thread guiding him.
Malik went faster, faster, and faster.
The tether burned against the weight of existence itself.
Yet it lived, with him repeatedly slamming more fire into it.
And then, with one last push, he let it yank him further down...
Past Aether, past the Forgotten Nexus.
Barely getting out of its gravity.
There, he saw a crack.
Two black and charred doors.
They were covered in chains and covered in glowing symbols, most likely Old Tongue.
Skulls were embedded in the wood, alongside faces locked in screams.
The gates trembled in his presence.
...The doors knew him.
They swung wide, welcoming him.
The fires of Jahannam surged out, pausing just before his face.
Black flames, gold flames, crimson whirlwinds of molten Aether.
Malik didn’t only feel fire and heat; he felt memory as well.
Memory of every sin, betrayal, and agony.
Every shame, silence, and death.
A tidal wave of guilt, rage, and grief.
He faced everything unfazed, and...
Back home, into Hell.
Into his one untainted truth.
{End Of Volume Eight: Where All Paths Lead}