As the light comes into focus, I can see the mass of people gathered in a large open cavern. The cavern seems to be quite large, around two hundred meters wide and tall, three hundred meters in length and surprisingly clear from the standard stalagmites and stalactites. It is in the shape of an oval or would have been if it wasn't for the fact that two hundred meters in a massive, unnatural wall stood.

The wall looks very foreign, being the smoothest and the brightest type of rock seen in a greyish-white colour with weird symbols. While the wall reaches up to the ceiling, there is also what I assume is a decorative line of black rock halfway up the wall covering the whole distance from one wall to the other.

Unfortunately, I was drawn back to the central issue of what lies beyond the wall—around ten to twenty people, ranging from black armour and dark-brown robes. The majority appear to be lounging about in front of the walls, some even sitting near it. While the people don't seem to care too much and want to get this over with, the three people at the front of the group seem to watch a lot more.

As the group of 3 approaches, I get a better view of them and get hit with a faint sense of authority and the familiar feeling of them being weaker than me. Again, this disappoints me, but they feel stronger than the last group of people I met.

The main person at the front seems to be wearing an almost blinding white dress entirely unsuited to the Demon Realm. White hair and black eyes give me the impression of a spoiled girl that, being no older than 25, is probably not that far off.

They seem to be the youngest there. Even the two people flanking the sides of them seem much older. On the main girl's right is an older man with a majestic white fluffy beard and short white hair on their head, with piercing dark-silver eyes and high-quality but used robes. He feels like he should have been the guy at the front, not the one at the side.

Opposite the older man on the girls left is a surprisingly average man with black hair, a charming smile and, wait, purple eyes? He looks pretty familiar, so when they get about 10 meters away from me, I say so.

I look at the guy with purple eyes, "You look familiar. You know someone called Jamie by any chance?" I say with a light chuckle.

"Hah! You are that guy. Yeah, I know him, and my name is Max. We should get the whole gang together sometime; they would love you!" He says with both excitement and amusement. The air of authority he was trying to project immediately crumbles. It seems like he isn't used to doing it often.

However, a glare from the old man on the opposite side shuts him up when the girl in the middle speaks.

"Hello, my name is Claire. I assume you are Arthur? Well, in any case, I heard a few rumours about you that I hoped you would be able to explain. But, first, William if you would." She says as she turns towards the old man on the right.

William gives a faint nod as he holds his right hand up, chanting a spell in a surprisingly gruff voice, "[Greater Identify]". As soon as he finished the spell, I realise that this may not be good for me as his eyes open wide.

"Wha-?" He murmurs before he shakes his head and concentrates even further with another spell.

"[Superior Identify]!" He almost shouts, as this time, I feel something happen before I shudder from the foreign feeling in my mana circuit.

His eyes close as he continues to concentrate. So I turn to Josh before something happens and ask, "What did I even do wrong?" I ask incredulously.

The people that were at the wall now look in our direction with curiosity before Josh responds. "Our group went and told them about you and Eden. People taming Primal Creatures is practically non-existent, but I at least thought they would treat you a bit better then. This." He says while waving in the general direction of both the leading 3 in front and the people behind.

"Huh, should I leave or something? I feel slightly unwelcome." I say while I lean on my glaive.

To answer my question. Claire gives me a sharp look while Max just slightly shakes his head. Josh shrugs while Claire looks back at William, "So?".

William, to his credit, slowly shakes his head. "It is taking all my mana to get a bare glimpse into his core. I haven't seen anything like it." He says with a sigh before cancelling the spell and lowering his hand. Locking eyes with Claire, he continues. "What I did manage to get is that he is much stronger than me, but how much so is beyond my abilities".

Josh looks slightly shocked, but Claire and Max seem much more shocked. Claire mumbles something about being preposterous while Max has his mouth open in disbelief.

I shrug nonchalantly, "I dunno, man. All I want to see my old friends again, visit the Creation Realm and read a book. Oh, and have some fish. I have a craving for fish at the moment." I say before I rub my chin sage-like and continuing, "Actually, any food will do at the moment".

Sadly everyone still seems shocked by Williams assessment. Luckily Josh comes to the rescue and chuckles slightly while shaking his head.

I give him a grin before Claire cuts me off. "Who are you with? No random stranger is that strong. Not even those Demons are that strong. And Josh, this isn't funny, you know how powerful William is?!"

Deciding that, sadly, this isn't fun and games anymore. So I put on my serious face and respond in a respectful but stern manner.

"Look, Claire. I am not with anyone. All I know is I wake up in the middle of this godforsaken abyss, and I can't find my two friends."

This causes Claire to sigh before she continues. "I want to believe you, but I can't take your word for it. Even if Josh trusts you, your comedy won't change the fact we need to make sure you aren't a threat."

I sigh, "Fine, what do you want. You aren't getting Eden, by the way".

"Again, I can't guarantee that. But I can at least give you my word that you will be compensated should we need Eden for anything."

As Claire says that. The look of a spoiled girl is quickly replaced by a person who seems to be too young for the job they do but does it anyway. This makes it hard to hate Claire, but I still won't give up Eden.

Claire continues before I have a chance to retort, sensing my hesitation. "Look, we have to Identify you first. Then, we will see what we can do about your pet later. Why don't you tell me about the friends you want to find first? We can at least probably help you there."

Maybe I can get something out of them first before I leave. If they find out Eden is, well, where ever they are. I will have a hard time explaining why and what they did.

"Thanks. I at least know their names are Seraph and Orath. However, I have no clue where they are." I say while trying to think. One is in the Spirit Realm, I think, while the other is where I want to go anyway.

William immediately pales and vanishes for some reason, while something in Claire immediately snaps, twitching their eyes.

Huh, this girl is going all over the place. Are they unhinged or something?

Claire immediately pulls an object out of literally nowhere and starts walking up to me aggressively. The look in Claire's eyes is a bit sinister while Max seems shocked, but for different reasons, as they reach out for Claire.

"Hey! What's going on? Claire, calm down!" He shouts and grabs Claire's arm, which gets the people's attention that now started crowding around us while still keeping a distance of about 20 meters.

"Woah, wait! What'd I do?" I shout as I put up my hands defensively. Why do I suck so much at first impressions?

"Blasphemy! Using the Primal God's names in vain is punishable by banishment by order of the Church!" Claire shouts with palpable anger and with hatred in their black eyes, and she pulls away from a bewildered Max and continues her march. It is very confusing for multiple reasons, one, she seemed like such an innocent girl less than a minute ago, and now she wants me dead. Second is...

Eh? Where do people keep getting all these weird names from? I thought we were Primordials, not whatever a "Primal God" is.

"Huh. I thought we were Primordials, not a Primal God? Where do people keep finding these Gods?" I mumble to myself while looking back at Josh, who seems just as confused as me but doesn't hear or comprehend what I mumble, seemingly more concentrated on Claire, who quickly gains ground towards me.

I shrug, not entirely concerned with someone who is supposed to be weaker than me. This seems only to piss Claire off more as she shows off a weird-looking glass and black steel pyramid, holding it outward towards me. It starts to glow golden in a not friendly way.

Wait, I am supposed to be stronger? So I am not going to regret this later, right?

I start getting worried, so I start stringing together some spells not to be undone by Claire, mostly my tried and true blasting method with a beam. This time I charge a white beam. It is a race of who can charge their magic quicker.

Josh, Max, Claire and the surrounding people see the white orb of death. I can't help but be a little smug as I know white mana and magic is supposed to be rare for some reason. The surrounding people start scrambling away and shouting incomprehensible words of warning as they seem not to be paid enough for this shit. Meanwhile, Max and Josh also begin backing away, and Claire opens their eyes wide with shock and takes a single step back.

"Impossible", She mumbles in disbelief.

How much of my white beam is enough? I honestly don't know how much is overkill and how much is not enough. I should have practised my magic for maybe a year or two longer.

"Stop this nonsense!" I shout at Claire, "All I want is to see my friends, you idiot!" Because, of course, this is dumb, all I said is my friend's name, and now I am going to get killed by a floating glass pyramid, which makes me surprisingly angry, but I also want to eat some fish at camp, so I hope diplomacy will work.

Before I can finish my rant, I quickly found out who charged their spell quicker.

It was Claire.

While I was not concentrating, the Pyramid shoots out towards me and slams straight into my chest. For unknown reasons, it doesn't hurt but feels like it hit something else. I am about to shoot my beam in retaliation when the pyramid twists clockwise like a key, and a severe feeling of wrongness and sickness spreads from the Pyramid, and the twisting of space around me is very distracting.

Overwhelmed by the feeling, I lose control of the beam, and it shoots in a random direction towards the wall on the right at an upwards incline. Quickly decimating everything, as a white and golden sphere of superheated air, ash and mana itself fill almost half the cavern in an instant, unfortunately reducing a good five people to nothingness who were unluckily in the blast radius.

I am about to try and rip the pyramid from my chest before the shockwave and radiant heat can hit me. However, something is very wrong with the world as well now.

Is everything frozen?

Not only is everything frozen. But it is also greyed out, saying something for a black and grey realm of ash and rock. Then, again before I have a chance to ponder why everything is frozen and grey, Reality itself seems to crack and tear, with everything splitting like a flawed pane of glass. Even the air itself breaks, and that is when everything shatters, falling away into a black abyss.

All is gone. Only darkness remains, except for the light of my glowing glaive, that somehow joined me here. Josh, Claire and even my sphere of death are just reduced to nothing. I am neither warm nor cold, just floating in an abyss like being at the bottom of the ocean or in the vastness of space.

Shit

I sigh, quickly realising that Claire knew she couldn't beat me, so they just sealed me away in some shit void. I should have just bitch slapped them. That would have solved all my problems, but nope. Instead, I felt the need to out magic them, and now I am floating in an empty nothingness.

I sigh again while rolling my eyes. At least I still feel Eden here, so I am not wholly alone. I can't believe she was not only a spoiled girl but also a religious nut who is actually competent. Usually, they are just dumb, but I got outplayed. This sucks.

...

Wait, how long am I stuck here again?

. . .

Oh... Fuck.

Max's perspective

I pick myself up from the shockwave walking back over to Claire, who is just standing at the crater. Arthur, on the other hand, is just gone.

Claire just sent him to be judged by the Void itself. Nobody returns from the Void unless the Void itself allows it.

Josh is just standing there in shock, his legs seem unsteady, but he at least hasn't entirely lost it yet or been injured too severely.

"CLAIRE!" I shout, "What the fuck did you do! Have you lost it?!"

I grab her shoulders and turn her around to face me. She seems shocked and uncertain. But, of course, she has no clue what she did being the brat she is. "Do you have any idea what you did?" I say with so much sarcasm it is almost visible. Wasting such a high ranking artifact on a friendly and not hostile guy is just plain stupid.

I face her again towards the giant crater now taking up half the cavern with my hands still on her shoulder. Mana is still thick and heavy from the spell he used. Not only did he use White mana, which by itself is unfathomably rare and potent. But he also did it without casting. Instead, he just raised his hand, and mana itself flowed to it without anything but his will.

"Do you think just anyone can do that?! He was definitely from somewhere, and the fact he said his 'friends' were the Primal God's if he can do this with the equivalent of the flick of his wrist, then maybe, just maybe. There was some truth in it. I am not saying he was friends by any means, but there is something not right here."

Claire babbles something about being sorry and not knowing he was that strong, which is when I pull them to face me again.

"Claire, people died today. Arthur is gone, and you are going to write the reports, not me. You will tell those families, not me." I know I am harsh, but she has gotten on my adventurer's nerves with her Church business, and now she finally realises the result of carelessness.

I stand there while looking into her eyes to get the message across. This is when Josh joins us, looking worse for wear while looking down at the ground and rubbing the back of his neck. "What happens now," he says quietly like usual. He apparently got better with Arthur and started being more social. But not anymore.

"No clue, this is Claire's mistake. So it will be Claire that fixes it. Ask her." I state, with no room for discussion. I didn't become head of the Adventurers Guild for nothing.

With my piece said, I start walking away. So many people were injured from the blast, and I have to check on them before writing more reports.

Damn it. He would have been good at the Guild too.

Arthur's perspective

I don't know how long it's been. Time is even funkier here than in the Demon Realm. At least this Void is quite cozy; ordinary people would be freaking out about being in nothingness, but I am not an average person, and this was my fault too, so I might as well relax. The pyramid long ago shattered and disintegrated, but I am still here, with my trusty glaive and Eden.

Just sitting here in the void feels comforting, like when I was back at the lake, so I am honest when I say I have little want or need to leave straight away. When you live forever, you can just put things like escaping the Void on hold. Or at least I would have if a voice didn't wake me up.

Greetings

The voice was like The Voice, such as it sounded like both a female and male voice. Something like if you heard a bunch of people say something at once. It echos all around me in a very alien way, and when I look for it, I can't see anything other than the normal void. It also makes me realise I am obviously not talking to someone normal.

Normally if a god-like being contacted me, I would respond with 'Ello, but this voice, while it doesn't sound like The Voice, seems familiar like when I first met Eden. So I want to make a good first impression and actually seem slightly responsible for once in case I make another eldritch friend.

"Hello," I said with simplicity. "What did you want to talk about? I have all the time in the world right now."