The ancient and I left the terrarium, and moved through the endless void to a destination far beyond what my eyes could see. I gasped for air, but none was available. My skin bloated, and the vacuum of the empty subspace threatened to tear me apart until some function of the ancient’s array built into my body activated automatically, bringing air to my lungs, and generating some false atmosphere to equalize the pressure of the void.

“I guess that explains why I don’t have the ability to fully open the terrariums on my own.” I muttered.

“Technically you could, with the right spell. It would just be unwise, so we made sure not to add it as a natural ability. We wouldn’t want you to accidentally puncture a hole in one of them and kill their inhabitants. The ‘terrariums’ as you call them aren’t nearly big enough to generate their own gravitational pull, and thus need a way to keep whatever atmosphere you put in them inside. Though, another reason we made them impermeable is just so that you nor any other inhabitant could reach your true body. Its form is vulnerable at this stage, so we had to make a few precautions.”

“Vulnerable? I’ve been meaning to ask, but what do you even mean by ‘see’ my body? Isn’t it gone?”

“Oh no. You just aren’t nearly developed enough to handle the full scope of it. You’d have to be S rank to transform back into it, but by that point, what’s left of it should be gone and merged with the rest of the subspace.”

I’d have to be S rank just to transform into my body? “Where is my body, then? I can’t see it anywhere.”

The ancient pointed downwards.

“My body… is the ground?”

“No, it’s just in the box.”

… What box?

The ancient grabbed my hand, and suddenly dove into the floor, pulling me through. I had thought the void floor was an infinite solid plane, but moving through it now proved those notions false. In truth, the area the terrariums were built on was a single, opaque cube. A box, the size of a planet, floating through the endless expanse of nothingness.

Something about being on a planet-sized box was even more frightening than being in an infinite space. Infinity itself is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. I had seen the cataclysm and the ancient’s planet being destroyed, but that was in a dream. But this was real. The walls around us were clearly defined, and huge beyond my wildest dreams. Only in seeing this did I truly begin to understand the scale of what I was a part of, and how hopelessly in over my head I was. Though, the planet-sized box was only the second scariest thing around me.

Above me, floating in the center of the box, was another creature. It was a mass of flesh, mostly human or humanoid, but with patches of leather, bone, burning feathers, tree-bark, metal, fur, and way, way too many eyes. Inscribed into the skin were formations that I recognize as alchemical arrays carved out from its flesh.

The amalgamation constantly rotated inwardly, passing through itself as if tucking parts of itself into another dimension, then showing new sides of itself previously hidden. Like Coeden, the shapes of the beings that it was made from protruded from its outer layers. People, dragons, polypi, ancients, every creature I had ever laid eyes on, and even more that I hadn’t were melted onto the surface. But unlike coeden, some of them still appeared… Alive.

“Save me”, “kill us”, “help”, and every other phrase asking for salvation was uttered or shouted out by the individuals with the misfortune to still be conscious, before they too were rotated back into itself, only to be replaced with more screaming.

I fell backwards, threw up, and tried to claw my way out of this accursed place. The ancient beside me placed his hand upon my shoulder and spoke “be not afraid.”

“No, fuck that! This is not okay. How many people have you sacrificed as part of this project?”

“Not nearly as many as we have condemned, but… It was no small number. A lesser evil.”

“You call this a lesser evil! They’re still conscious in that thing! How could you possibly condone…” I trailed off as the subspace’s emotional dampening came into effect once more.

I hadn’t questioned that part of my subspace before, but now that I know of my purpose, I have to wonder why they built that effect in. To control me, perhaps? Or to make me more like them…

“I was wondering why you seemed indifferent to bringing the goblins in. Why humanity has barely heard of your existence since the cataclysm. This place was never designed to save us. It was just meant as a way to save yourselves, and regain your so-called alchemy.”

The ancient frowned. “It pains us to sacrifice so many, but we could never hope to save everyone. We planned to save you all, but with the waking sun, we no longer have the time. We tried to keep contact, but there are just so many that need saving, and so few left of us.”

“Few? I saw how many of you there were to sacrifice to the black sun. I saw how many billions of you there were on FractiDomi, and I can only assume there were far more of you spread throughout the universe.”

“It’s true that there were many more of us. Were. Now, the few of us that reside within you amount to half of what’s left.”

“... How?”

“I suppose you deserve to hear that much, though it is a long story. Before the cataclysm, we weren’t a species of individuals, but a single mind harboring multiple bodies. Individuality was… Unnecessary. Cold. Something for lower lifeforms, still in need of nurturing. And back then, we were the ones to do such nurturing.

We spread to every corner of the universe, protecting, teaching, and learning from what life forms we came across, or creating life where there was none. Such was our passion for knowledge and life.

Thus, the very minute we learned of the existence of a multiverse, we sent out a message. We wanted to know more. We wanted to see what was beyond our horizons, and continue to spread our influence. In our experience, no species had ever left their own planet without evolving to a point where they could be trusted. Thus, we believed whatever replied back could be trusted.

And as luck would have it, the black sun answered.

Rather than us spreading our knowledge, it offered to share with us the benefits of its knowledge. At first, it asked for nothing in return, and our species — and therefore everyone else in the universe — experienced prosperity that we couldn’t even begin to describe.

Eventually, it offered to teach us how to shed our mortal bodies and become one with the universe, as it had. Only, it claimed it couldn’t show us from across the multiverse. It needed to be present to change us.

It showed us how to bring it over. To use the power of our sun to create a wormhole to its dimension. The process required sacrifice, but to us who were not true individuals, a few bodies mattered less to us than hair trimmings do to humans. This was the vision we shared with you upon our first meeting.

As it promised, it rid us of our mortal bodies, and imparted the knowledge of the universe. But instead of becoming one with the universe, it turned my species into the monsters we are now, and only granted us the knowledge of the new universe.

It somehow made itself the only being capable of alchemy, and made magic to replace it. But since our hivemind was built upon alchemy, it ceased to function. Though we gained the knowledge necessary to reconnect, it is nowhere near the unity we had before.

Most of us got to work on this project, trying to escape this doomed universe. Most of them died on FractiDomi, as you saw, or the hundreds of other worlds the black sun destroyed as we learned of magic’s inbuilt safeguards.

The rest of us tried to rebuild the worlds we had ruined as Vorfahr had. But there are trillions of habited worlds, and as so many of us died, we did not have nearly enough of us left to send them to every planet one after the other. So, they interbred with the locals, eventually becoming races like the dwarves. Though those hybrid races could use their versions of our hivemind, our races were too different, and we could not add them to our own hivemind and communicate with them across the universe.

Our numbers dropped rapidly, each death weighing heavily upon us, destroying what little hope we had left, and crushing our passion for life. Most of us simply could not cope with our new existence, nor what we had done. We were not built to be individuals. We were not built for an eternity alone.

Most of us had given up, choosing not to procreate and condemn the next generation to a doomed universe. Choosing not to let go of their empathy to finish this project. But we are different.

Something must escape this forsaken universe, no matter the cost. We beg your forgiveness for forcing this upon you, but we must push onwards. Please don’t let our sacrifices be in vain.”