The moment that buried memory was touched, Zihark finally understood what those things devouring him really were.
And he understood how to fight back.
He had one reason he could never give ground: if the Void got those memories, it would use them to find his world.
Dissolve all things.
Erase everything.
So even if he were destroyed a thousand times, ten thousand times, he would never surrender them.
Not even a single address.
So he resisted.
With everything he had. Every part of him began to resist.
He started feeding it false memories, pretending to be overwhelmed while deliberately giving it lies instead—unproven theories, or facts so distant they might as well have belonged to another universe, all of it meant to terrify the Void.
Nothing was more terrible than annihilation.
And if there was something worse, then it had to be an even more absolute kind of annihilation.
He showed it a universe on the brink of collapse. The Big Crunch. Everything in existence being squeezed inward until all things were reduced to a single point.
That was not the same as the Void's form of destruction. When the Void devoured something, it left behind emptiness.
This kind of destruction left behind nothing at all.
No time. No space. Not even the concept of hunger.
And then creation began again.
The Big Bang. Everything bursting back into existence. The universe expanding far faster than the Void could ever consume it.
In the end, after devouring less than a tiny fraction of the universe, the cycle would close in another collapse.
For ages beyond reckoning, the Void would be doing meaningless work. No matter how much it erased, everything would eventually be created again.
And the Void itself was not some universal law. Maybe in one cycle of the cosmos, it would simply be reset to zero and vanish without warning.
That kind of terror was enough to make even the fearlessness of the Void recoil. In that invisible struggle, it seemed to lose its nerve and vanish in an instant.
Or perhaps it had only retreated into some dark corner, waiting through endless ages before returning again.
The victor claimed the body at last, and Zihark staggered to his feet in the tunnel.
It had not been an easy victory. And even though he had won, some things in him had been changed forever.
In the dark, one of Zihark's eyes glimmered with an eerie violet light, its white and black no longer distinct.
He could see colors that should not exist in nature. He could see a world no human eye was meant to see.
He began searching through his memory, checking for anything missing. But after a long, careful sweep of his thoughts, he realized he had not lost anything.
If anything, he had gained something.
Those points of light... spread in clusters through three-dimensional space. He knew at once that they marked different groups of Voidlings scattered through the tunnels. If he wanted to, he could pinpoint them exactly.
It seemed the Void energy had unlocked something in his mind, awakening a new form of perception.
Like a radar.
A spatial radar for sensing Void energy.
His foot struck something hard. Looking down, he saw a dagger stained with violet blood.
Judging from how thick it was, it was not Voidling fluid. It looked more like human blood.
"Kai'Sa's blood... is this what turned me into this?" he murmured, wiping a still-wet streak from his face.
The ability did not seem bad at all. At the very least, it would let him sense danger before it reached him.
Kai'Sa could kill. He could scout. Clear roles. Maybe their future in this underground world was no longer quite so hopeless.
Kai'Sa?
Right.
Where was Kai'Sa?
Zihark looked around and found himself alone in the tunnel. The spear was gone too.
He vaguely remembered her saying she was going to do something while he was unconscious.
A chill shot through him. He fumbled with his new sense, trying to focus on Kai'Sa, and quickly noticed a lone point nearby moving toward one of the Voidling clusters.
His instincts told him that point was her.
"That idiot girl!"
Cursing under his breath, Zihark snatched up the dagger and ran.
...
The stabbing sensation in Kai'Sa's flesh had grown even stronger, and she clenched her teeth against the pain.
That strange violet light lit the cavern ahead. At the edge of her vision, she spotted a Voidling crouched on a jutting rock, its back turned toward her.
For the moment, there were no other monsters in sight. Good.
Kai'Sa tightened both hands on the spear and crept forward in a crouch, closing the distance as fast as she dared.
She was going to kill this Voidling and bring its heart back to Zihark.
And she had to do it quickly. He did not have much time left.
The air reeked with a stench that made her stomach turn, but it was not enough to stop her.
In her mind, she was moving like a Shakkal marauder, swift and deadly, closing on her prey at terrifying speed.
The truth was less impressive.
She was like a kitten hunting for the first time, too green to judge the situation, too inexperienced to use the natural cover around her. Instead, she went straight in, trying to stay quiet.
Her attention was fixed so tightly on her target that she never noticed the loose stones underfoot. One shifted when she stepped, skittering across the rock with a series of sharp clacks.
The noise startled Kai'Sa herself. Desperate now, she threw everything into one last burst of speed, trying to pierce the creature's heart before it could react.
She was too late.
The Voidling spun around in an instant, and the spear drove into its uppermost eye.
Not the heart.
And worse, this one had not been alone.
Behind the rock where it had been perched, a whole swarm of its grotesque kin lay clustered together. It had only been the outermost member of the pack.
A soft, warm purple glow shone from their eye sockets and throats, like ghostly flowers swaying on the banks of a river in the dark.
Calling death closer.
The spear shaft wrenched violently in her grip, dragging at her palms and snapping her back to reality.
The Voidling with the pierced head was still alive. Twisting its neck, it hauled her toward the starving abyss, the spear shaft shrieking as though it might snap in two.
Kai'Sa fought with all her strength to pull it free while the purple-black tide spread toward her.
At last she tore the spear loose and turned to run, but by then the swarm was already upon her.
One huge Voidling, as large as a camel, came slithering in. Its bladed limbs stabbed into the ground with brutal speed, its three clusters of glowing eyes burning as it drove a leg sharp enough to shatter stone straight at Kai'Sa's back, as though it meant to pin her to the earth.
At the last second, Kai'Sa spun around and raised her armored arm to block. The blow shattered part of the plate, which crumbled into black smoke and faded away.
The impact hurled her through the air.
She crashed down hard, her head split open, and collapsed to the ground.
The smell of blood spread at once.
The other monsters surged faster, eager to tear into such fresh meat.
When Kai'Sa raised her head, the tide of hunger had already swallowed her. Bladed limbs were lifted high. Gaping mouths split to the throat. At any moment, they could rip her apart.
But then, just as her arm-plate had been drawn tight as a bowstring, it suddenly relaxed.
The needle-like pain vanished.
In its place came something strange.
Calm. Stillness. Drowsiness.
It felt like slipping into a dream.
And the Voidlings around her seemed to fall under the same spell. The vicious light in their eyes dimmed, as though they too had begun to dream.
Then the tide of hunger parted behind them, sleepwalking aside to open a narrow path.
A figure stepped through the swaying violet light and walked toward her.
[End of chapter]