The moment Evon heard Yena's scream from beyond the obsidian door, every rational thought fled his mind. The sound of her pain cut through him like a blade, overwhelming every tactical consideration, every cautious instinct he had developed through months of dangerous missions.
"Yena!" he shouted, slamming his shoulder against the door with all his enhanced strength.
"Wait!" Naia's voice called out in his mind. "This could be a—"
But it was too late. The door swung open at his touch, revealing not another landscape or chamber, but absolute nothingness. A void so complete it seemed to swallow light itself.
And Evon, driven by desperation and love, plunged straight into it.
### The Endless Fall
The sensation of falling through infinite darkness was unlike anything Evon had ever experienced. There was no wind rushing past his face, no sense of speed or direction—just the sickening knowledge that he was descending through a space that shouldn't exist.
The silence was the worst part. Not just quiet, but the complete absence of sound itself. His heartbeat, his breathing, even the rustle of his clothes—everything was muted to absolute nothing, as if sound itself had no meaning in this place.
"Can you hear me?" he called out to the goddesses in his mind, but their responses came back distorted and faint, like voices calling from the bottom of a deep well.
"Barely..." Naia's voice was like a whisper from a great distance. "This place... it's not part of normal reality..."
"Where are we?" Evon asked, trying to keep panic out of his mental voice.
"Nowhere," Veyra replied, her analytical nature struggling to process what they were experiencing. "This isn't a place at all. It's the absence of place."
Evon tried to use his Eyes of Fate to gain some understanding of his situation, but for the first time since awakening the ability, his enhanced sight showed him absolutely nothing. Not darkness—that would have been something. Instead, it was as if he was looking into a space where the very concept of sight had no meaning.
Minutes passed, or perhaps hours. In this place without reference points, time itself seemed negotiable. Evon continued to fall through the void, his enhanced stamina keeping him alert but unable to do anything about his situation.
"I need to try something," he said finally, making a decision born of desperation.
"What?" Sythara asked.
"Dragon transformation. If I can't see where I'm going, at least I can try to control how I get there."
Activating his Full dragon transformation for the first time, while falling through infinite darkness was an experience that defied description. The change began deep in his bones, which lengthened and strengthened as his skeleton restructured itself to support a much larger frame. His muscles expanded, gaining the supernatural density and power needed to drive wings capable of lifting a draconic form.
The emergence of his wings was the most dramatic part of the transformation. They unfurled from his back like silver membranes stretched between elongated finger bones, each one easily three meters from tip to base. The sensation was both alien and instinctive, as if he had possessed wings his entire life but had simply forgotten how to use them.
A pair of silver horns erupted from his forehead, curving back along his skull in elegant spirals. His hands elongated into claws capable of rending steel, while his entire body took on the streamlined power of a creature designed for flight and combat.
Most importantly, his transformed state seemed to interact with this strange dimension in ways his human form couldn't. Where before he had been falling helplessly, now he could feel the subtle currents that moved through the void—barely perceptible forces that governed movement in this place.
With powerful beats of his silver wings, Evon managed to stabilize his fall, transforming it into controlled flight. The relief of moving under his own power after the helpless descent was almost overwhelming.
"Much better," Sythara said, her voice clearer now that he was using her draconic nature more directly. "This form is designed for dimensional travel."
Evon tried his Eyes of Fate again, and this time, the enhanced sight functioned properly. The void was still there, still infinite in most directions, but now he could perceive subtle variations in the nothingness—flows and currents that suggested there might be destinations to be found.
"There," he said, spotting what looked like the faintest glimmer in the distance. It was so far away it might have been a star, but in this place without reference points, it was the only landmark available.
He began to fly toward it.
### The Watchers Outside
Back in the normal world, three days had passed since Evon had disappeared through the black door. The barrier that had prevented his companions from following him into the Shadowmere Swamps remained as solid as ever, but now the obsidian door had vanished entirely, leaving only empty swampland.
"This is getting ridiculous," Borin said, pacing back and forth near where the door had been. "Three days without any word. He could be dead for all we know."
"He's not dead," Quendor said with dragon certainty. "I can still sense his life force, but it's... distant. As if he's very far away."
"Or in a completely different dimension," Yulia added grimly, her elven senses detecting residual magical signatures that didn't belong to any known realm.
Seraphiel had been maintaining a constant vigil, her angelic nature allowing her to perceive dimensional disturbances better than the others. "The space where the door was continues to fluctuate. Something is still active, but I can't determine what."
Titania fluttered nervously around the area, her fairy magic picking up emotional resonances from whatever lay beyond the vanished portal. "I keep sensing... sadness. And longing. As if someone is waiting for something."
They had tried everything they could think of. Thorek had attempted to recreate the door using dwarven engineering principles. The elemental representatives had tried to force a new portal using their respective magics. Even combined efforts had failed to breach whatever barrier now separated them from Evon.
"We need to contact the Arbiter again," Yulia said finally. "This is beyond what any of us can handle."
The connection took over an hour to establish, and when the Arbiter's voice finally came through their communication device, it carried an unusual note of strain.
"The situation is more complex than I initially understood," he said without preamble. "The door Evon passed through has disconnected from your dimensional matrix entirely. It now exists in a space between realities."
"Can you get him out?" Quendor demanded.
There was a long pause. "Possibly. But it would require me to abandon several critical situations across multiple realms. I'm currently preventing a dimensional war between the Flame Kingdoms and the Ice Courts, mediating a territorial dispute between three different species of energy beings, and trying to contain a reality storm that's threatening to consume an entire star system."
"So we just wait?" Borin's voice carried the growl of a dwarf pushed beyond patience.
"For now, yes. Give me five more days to resolve the most critical situations. Then I can investigate Evon's location personally."
### The Endless Flight
Evon had been flying through the void for what felt like half a day, his dragon wings carrying him toward the distant glimmer that remained stubbornly far away. The strange physics of this place meant that distance was an unreliable concept—the light seemed to get both closer and farther with each hour of flight.
But gradually, it was definitely getting brighter. What had started as a barely perceptible speck had grown into a definite source of illumination, white and pure against the infinite darkness.
As he drew closer, the light resolved into a platform—a circular area of what looked like polished white stone floating in the void. It was perhaps twenty meters across, its edges perfectly defined against the nothingness that surrounded it.
Evon's wings were aching from the prolonged flight, his dragon form pushed to its limits by the strange environment. As the platform came within reach, he didn't even try for a graceful landing. He simply folded his wings and dropped onto the white surface, his claws scraping against stone as he struggled to maintain his balance.
The moment he touched the platform, sensation returned. He could hear his own breathing again, could feel the solid surface beneath his feet. After the sensory deprivation of the void, even these simple things felt miraculous.
"Finally," he gasped, allowing his dragon transformation to fade as he collapsed to his knees. "I was starting to think I'd be flying forever."
That was when the voice spoke.
"Oh my," it said, musical and lovely, carrying notes that seemed to make the very air around him shimmer. "Finally, I'm seeing you again."
Evon looked up, and his breath caught in his throat.
Standing at the edge of the platform was a woman of such extraordinary beauty that she seemed to eclipse even his memories of the four goddesses. Her long purple hair fluttered around her face as if moved by winds that touched nothing else, the strands shifting like liquid shadow against the white light of the platform.
She wore a majestic black dress that seemed to be cut from the void itself, its fabric somehow both reflecting and absorbing light simultaneously. Her features were perfect in a way that suggested divinity—not just beautiful, but existing on a plane of aesthetics that mortal eyes weren't designed to fully comprehend.
When she looked at him, her eyes held depths that spoke of eons of existence and knowledge beyond mortal understanding.
Evon found himself completely speechless, caught between awe and recognition. There was something familiar about her, something that resonated in the deepest parts of his soul, but he couldn't place the memory.
"I... who are you?" he managed to say.
Before he could say anything more, she stepped forward with fluid grace and gently placed her hand on his cheek. Her touch was warm and familiar, carrying with it a sense of safety and belonging that made his heart ache with longing.
"Continue your journey," she said softly, her voice carrying undertones of affection and pride. "I'm waiting to see you again."
"Wait," Evon said, reaching out as she began to fade. "I don't understand. Who are you? What is this place?"
But she was already disappearing, her form becoming translucent as she smiled at him one last time.
"All in due time, beloved," her voice whispered as she vanished entirely.
### Return to Reality
The moment she disappeared, everything went black. Not the oppressive darkness of the void, but the simple absence of light that comes when illumination is suddenly removed.
When vision returned, Evon found himself sitting on the black obsidian platform in the heart of the Shadowmere Swamps. The mysterious door was gone, vanished as if it had never existed. The oppressive atmosphere of the swamp had lifted, replaced by the natural quiet of a normal wetland ecosystem.
And there, lying on the obsidian surface before him, were two objects that made his heart race with recognition and confusion in equal measure.
The first was unmistakably Yena's seventh fragment—a sphere of golden light that pulsed gently with her familiar warmth and healing energy. But unlike the previous fragments, this one seemed completely stable, showing no signs of corruption or environmental adaptation.
The second object was another piece of the mysterious relic he had been collecting. But this piece was larger than the others, and when he picked it up, images flashed through his mind—not of the weapon the fragments seemed to be forming, but of the woman in the black dress, standing in a place of impossible beauty, waiting for someone who would never come.
"Seven down," he said quietly, his voice carrying across the now-peaceful swamp. "Six to go."
But as he prepared to leave the Shadowmere and return to his companions, one question echoed in his mind above all others:
Who was she, and why did seeing her feel like coming home?
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