Beyond The System-Chapter 267: The Plan

The void around us warped, thickening like liquid glass. I was dragged through something half-solid. Then, all at once, sound crashed into my ears.

Stars exploded into motion. They streaked past me, brilliant trails slicing through the dark as the whiI rubbed my temples, a humorless laugh slipping out before I could stop it. “I know we just talked about not needing answers, but I’m hoping you can give something here.”

Janus didn’t so much as blink. He only nodded once as though waiting for the cue to begin a long-prepared lecture. “Naturally,” he said, a faintly proud smile curling his lips. Then, in typical fashion, he turned the conversation back on me. “Tell me, Peter, how many times do you think I’ve seen that same lingering will appear here?”

I started to shake my head, but he didn’t wait for a response.

“At least four,” he continued. “Each time he returns, he’s different. Sometimes angrier, sometimes calmer. But always more confused. Remembering less and less of what he once was.” His eyes unfocused, gazing past me toward some unreachable horizon. “There’s no one to talk to here. Just drifting minds, wandering endlessly through this infinity without reprieve.”

The chill of his words sank into me. I felt the emptiness around us grow heavier, colder. “For how long?” I asked, swallowing hard.

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “But I’ve seen it happen only once. Fading.” His voice softened, losing its steadiness. “There was no voice left in it. No response to my questions. It said a single thing—just one word of recognition, and then the sliver of Will that remained dissolved. Gone. Evaporated into nothing.”

A weight pressed on my chest. I forced my voice steady, trying to imagine what kind of life one had to leave to deserve such punishment. “Who comes here?” I asked. “What kind of person ends up like that?” The last one I’d seen didn’t seem evil. Angry, sure, but not cruel. Then again, I hadn’t known it long enough to judge.

Janus hesitated. His eyes fell, his voice lowering until it nearly broke. “From what I’ve seen… there’s no pattern. No judgment. No moral balance to it. Some arrive raging, others quiet and kind.” His jaw tensed. “Maybe a few deserve it, but not all. Not even most.”

A slow dread crawled up my spine as a thought surfaced, unbidden. “You don’t think it could be… everyone, do you?” My voice came out as a whisper; speaking it louder somehow felt wrong.

He met my eyes again, and this time, there was no hesitation. “I do. For one reason.”

I waited.

“Maybe he was drawn here because of me,” Janus murmured, his throat tightening as his eyes began to glisten. “He was a good man. Not perfect, but good. But… he’s gone now. Forever.” His words wavered. “All my questions, everything I shouted before he vanished—Asmund only gave one word in reply. My name.”

We sat in silence, still and heavy. I let the memories surface. The large man, broad as Griffith, with a heart to match his size. Grateful enough to potentially face a sect’s wrath for my sake. A giant who had loved bear hugs and tossing me high into the air. Despite the ache in my chest, I smiled faintly at the thought.

“He was good,” I said quietly, nodding once.

Janus wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Something awoke in me when he left,” he said softly. “It wasn’t just purpose, but revelation. Everything I’d seen, everything I’d lived through, converged into a single idea. A goal. Inspired by my visions. By my creator. And especially… by his dark path.”

My brow furrowed at that last phrase. The dark path of Kazriel, the man who would become the Great Ancestor. But I didn’t interrupt.

Janus leaned back, his gaze half-lidded, lost somewhere deep in recollection. “When I say his dark path,” he began, voice low and reverent, “I don’t mean the cruelty he became known for, but rather how he achieved it. How he sustains himself eternally.”

I frowned. “He’s immortal?”

The thought wasn’t entirely absurd. After all, even Janus had a lifespan of at least centuries. And after experiencing Drybel’s memories, I’d already accepted that some creatures could last for eras. Really, I’d never truly considered immortality before. One way or the other. The Great Ancestor was only an enemy.

Janus shook his head slowly. “Not exactly,” he said, voice low and deliberate. “His life should have ended. All things do. But he persists through death itself.” His tone shifted into something almost reverent. “It’s what inspired me. Survival through theft. Drawing strength from what’s already on the verge of fading. Weaving those remnants into himself. Creation born from consumption. A false immortality, perhaps—but a kind of eternity nonetheless.” He exhaled, eyes distant. “Yet it poisoned everything around him. The air, the people, the space itself all fell still. I barely escaped that stillness alive.”

The phrase struck a chord deep in me. Something about it echoed too closely to what I already knew. The Domain of Death. The chill of it. The quiet refinement in Sani’s voice as she spoke of time. The poised grace of her and some of the undead. How did they endure? How did they live?

“I’m truly envious of his talent,” Janus said with a wistful sigh.

I swallowed. “It sounds less like creation and more like… parasitism. You mean he steals something from the living to survive?”

Janus nodded without shame. “I’m not yet sure what he takes, but it works. His talent surpasses mine in every way, but because of him, I can form my plan. I can make this place different.”

He turned from me then, extending both arms to the vast white beyond. “Here, fragments of memory collapse into nothing over time. I’ve listened to their unraveling and their madness. Their screams, their apologies. No one answers them. No one but me.”

He glanced back, eyes clear with quiet conviction. “They were people once. Sentient beings. Social creatures who need voices other than their own. I can’t wield Creation on his level—not enough to birth new life—but I can anchor them. Bind their wills with just enough power to keep them from dissolving into chaos.”

I understood then what he meant, what his inspiration had driven him toward. “You’ll take from them?” I asked.

He nodded, unflinching. “Not everything. But yes. And it’ll probably shorten their time. Still—” He lifted a hand, as though sculpting something from the air. “What would you choose? Ages of silence and isolation, or a brief span spent alongside others? Others just as lost, just as furious, to shout at, to argue with, to exist beside?”

I couldn’t answer. The scope of it all pressed against me. The talk of creation, eternity, the weight of choice. Was this really purpose? Was any of it fate? Why had I been chosen for such power?

Sensing my unease, Janus snorted, then punched me in the shoulder with enough force to knock me sideways. “Stop brooding. With enough time and growth, you’ll understand.”

I blinked, rubbing my arm. “And if I don’t?” The words slipped out quieter than I intended.

He only shrugged, that same infuriating calm in his expression. “Then you don’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m doing this because I want to. If I hadn’t ended up here, I’d have never decided to forge a new energy at all. I almost talked myself out of it too. Told myself I lacked the talent.”

We both fell silent for a while, letting the tension drift away into the void. He was right, in a way. From everything I’d seen, from all I’d dreamed, Fate literally rested in my hands. My path was still mine to choose. If I found some higher enlightenment along the way, fine. If not… then living with my friends, with Thea—was enough.

“Speaking of,” Janus said suddenly, catching the turn in my thoughts. “Maybe I was wrong about my warning. If our worlds aren’t the same, maybe there’s no danger in you growing as far as you can.”

I huffed through my nose, giving him a flat look. “Feels like everything you say is a guess.”

Janus chuckled, the sound low and warm. But as it echoed, it began to fade, growing distant. “Maybe this is the last time for us,” he said, the words drifting like smoke in the vast quiet.

His form started to shrink, dissolving slowly as something unseen pulled me backward. I didn’t resist. Questions spilled to my lips before I could stop them. “What do you—” My mind stuttered as a sudden thought struck. The Master’s fusion. My eyes widened. “You’re going to disappear.”

Maddeningly, he shrugged—again. “Who knows?” he said, half-laughing as the pull grew stronger. “We can’t all be born with talent.”

te void dwindled to a tiny, fading speck behind me. I wasn’t flying of my own will; something else carried me, guiding or hurling me through the expanse.

When I focused enough to see, I noticed the constellations seemed dim. Fainter than during my Essence attainment. Then, just for an instant, everything slowed.

Impact.

I slammed into something gelatinous, a vast unseen barrier. It rippled like disturbed water, yet offered no resistance; I passed through it cleanly. The stars beyond were brighter, sharper. There was more light.

Suddenly—

“THERE YOU ARE!!!”

The voice thundered through existence itself. My soul quivered. My motion didn’t stop. If anything, it accelerated.

“WHY DO YOU RUN, PETER?!”

The shout tore through the cosmos, rattling every thought from my mind. My anger, my defiance all disappeared. I’d forgotten the sound of that voice, and the agony it carried. The very air around me shuddered with it, burning through the skin of my spirit.

Escape.

It was all I could think of. All I wanted.

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. I had no control.

Laughter rolled across the stars, cruel and joyous, echoing in a god’s mockery.

From the emptiness, terror took shape.

Two stars began to move slowly at first, then with purpose. They weren’t drifting, but following whatever unseen force was dragging my soul back toward my body.

I struggled. I willed myself to move, to resist, but my limbs were stone. My body was frozen. Helpless.

All I could do was watch.

The figure emerged from the starlight, clarity bleeding into horror.

A perfect pale face.

Two red suns for eyes shrinking as they drew closer, not growing, as though consuming their own light.

A man draped in a robe of black that melted seamlessly into the fabric of space, as if it was carved from it. In his hand gleamed a sword of violet, its edge veined with golden energy.

This wasn’t the giant I’d seen in dreams. It was real.

The same smile was there. A cruel, falsely comforting grin that now hovered only a few meters away.

Our sizes were nearly the same. The distance between us vanished.

As he reached for me, I knew. He was no longer just an idea, no longer the shadow of my loss. He had been a man. Just a person no greater than me at one time.

And now, he—The Great Ancestor had found me.