Everyone had their unique way of explaining the unexplainable, which was doubly true for Broken Souls explaining the so-called power of all existence: 'Sani.'
Zack summarized everything Soul-related by comparing it with a simple balloon: the air within the balloon was Sani, and the thin rubber inflated to ridiculous means was the seventh layer of reality—a.k.a., everything visible, invisible, and unexplainable.
Zack, like the other gods, controlled part of the air inside the balloon. Now, with enough power or skill, he could shape the outer layer, much like clowns make balloon animals, but to a more mind-boggling degree. And yes, "Clowns" was the new word for Broken Souls—from Zack's perspective at least.
The immortal part was a bit tricky: a hypothetical person in control of the entire air still couldn't eliminate someone like Zack, while, in the same instant, a simple misstep was enough to erase his existence—by him losing control and becoming the air itself.
"A loop within a loop with both loops connected," was the only way the smartest of the Broken Souls (Soul King) had explained this phenomenon.
'In simple words, don't try to understand it, just feel it.' Zack made a note to himself, while the journal automatically copied his words for future generations.
"Ah!" Zack realized and sent countless negative words toward Solgrave.
"What's with the hot air?" Solgrave complained as his eyes, mouth, and skin dried visibly.
"Someone figured it out," Virith said, chuckling at a meditating Zack.
"Anyone could've accessed those journals?" Zack blurted out after snapping from his trance.
"Don't keep changing your sub-space every time you think you can improve," Solgrave scolded him.
"There's never a right way; the personal, unchanged one's the best." Zack completed Solgrave's lecture. "Thanks. I know. It's not like it's forever etched in my mind... oh, wait! It is."
"Sarcasm?" Solgrave asked Azrith.
"Yup."
"You haven't answered me yet." Zack's eyes turned into daggers.
"Seeking knowledge is the essence of any sentient being. Can't blame me for your lack of thirst." Solgrave snorted.
At his current level of control, Zack had his consciousness split into two different places. One Zack clone remained inside his Soul Core, accessing and transforming information faster than supercomputers. In contrast, the second clone manifested in the real world, utilized this information, and behaved in a human-like manner. As for the real him... There was none, except for his consciousness existing in Sani.
"From a human being to a simple thought that exists within realities." Zack chuckled to himself.
Seriously, Zack wasn't sure why they were all standing when they could be floating or transforming into aliens while having these mundane conversations. Zack tried making a third clone exist in the energy stream of reality, but gave up once the clone inside the Soul Core began disappearing. Instead, he allowed the one present in the real world to disappear while he slowly studied the energy realm.
Zack dedicated several colors and shapes to separating the energy stream of this realm for better understanding, and only upon re-entering did he see how childish and utterly moronic the idea was.
Zack stood in a realm where hundreds of colorful streaks of light zoomed past each other, some colliding to form a new hue or transform into a shape. He was already out of colors once he had allotted different palettes to the visible and invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Add the complex network of different energies mixing—Dhi, Yún, and Rhythm being a whole other concept, each having its unique strength and realms—and the variations of everything above, and this realm became the personification of bonkers.
Zack shredded the journal he had been writing in his Soul Core and threw it into an active volcano, watching it burn.
"You've got an eternity, kid. Take it slow." Lux boosted his morale.
"I'm never gonna get that privacy I requested, am I?!" Zack groaned.
"Not until you've become stronger than us. No." Pinky giggled. "There's just so much fun watching a recruit struggle."
"I know." Barbie snorted, looking at Psycho.
"No! How did you get mine?" Psycho turned red, his eyes darting at Lux and Pinky.
"Couldn't care less," Lux said, crossing his heart.
"Might have been me." Pinky shrugged. "I don't remember."
"Yo, yo, yo." DJ raised his three hands—creating one other to compensate for the extra word. "Can I get in on some action for old times' sake, tho!"
"For sure, sure, sure." Barbie high-fived DJ, transferring the memories.
While the gang focused on Psycho, inside the core, Zack briefly wondered what others' superimposed visions of the energy realm looked like before recreating the journal.
'How is this weird, you may ask,' Core-Zack jotted down in his notes while Energy-Zack commanded a thread of ever-shifting formulas into his hand.
'This is knowledge, quite literally.' Zack referred to it by a separate journal, in which each energy and its corresponding color/shape was noted according to his perception of reality.
Rhythm held the second layer, yet like every other layer below and above it, its presence affects every other layer—either through intervention or chance. Zack could barely understand the seventh layer of reality; the others might take him an eon or two, so he chalked it down for the future him to solve.
'Who cares how it works?' Zack frowned upon himself, dragging information out of the ' Energy Stream' of 'Knowledge,' in which everything that was, was present in this stream. And every development—in any layer—is updated in tandem with its occurrence.
'In simple words, I can become all-knowing by connecting with this stream.' Zack noted. 'Fun—yes. Will die—for sure.' He highlighted.
Splitting his consciousness in two helped Zack cover more ground and absorb more knowledge, so he filtered through the 'knowledge stream' with sheer willpower, concentrating on and absorbing only Broken Soul techniques, while simultaneously delving into core creation. Dozens more books appeared in Zack's soul core, with some forceful entries made by the Soul King; it seemed like he changed up some of his rules and sent out notifications to every god within the soul realm.
The part where the information casually bypassed everyone's defenses and entered their soul core—a simple reminder of his power.
While Zack took it as it is meant to be—a joke and show of power—all his taunts at the group fell on deaf ears, and a quick trip to the seventh layer clarified the reason why.
The entire party of eight was frozen stiff, utterly baffled by the experience. One had to remember that, unlike Zack, entities such as Solgrave had eons to understand Sani better and fortify their Soul Core; seeing so much hard work being bypassed as if it were nothing was never a pleasant experience.
"Power!" Psycho said, trembling. And for once, his demeanor didn't show interest in said power, but genuine fear.
"God amongst gods." Zack shrugged before smacking himself within his core and pulling his 'Emotion Keyboard' out.
"Auto." He slammed the big red button, realization dawning moments later. "Baker was right." He waved his hand, creating an arc above his table that read: 'Keep Auto active—always!'
A mixture of anxiety, depression, fear, and anticipation knocked out Zack. Only hours later did he realize why, and when the group projected their mixture of unresolved feelings on him.
"How dumb are you?"
"You can't have your emotions on Auto during such a time."
"Auto in the energy realm is suicide, not that we can die, but why try?"
"Shut up!" Zack removed the concept of sound, effectively shutting them up, but the insults started piling up in his core, pushing the clone out.
Still under 'Auto Emotions,' Zack couldn't help but feel anxious as he was being forced out of his core—his home, the place that was truly his and his alone.
Zack's heartbeat resonated around his soul as his pupils zoomed in on the sword floating over his bed. He reached out, and the sword flew forward, bypassing every restriction.
Psycho chalked it down as a fail, for he was in Zack's Sub-Space, but Solgrave knew there was more to the artifact than meets the third eye, and he was proven right the very next instant.
Zack grabbed the sword with both hands and slashed through the very 'Concept of Connections', forever separating himself from the group—never to be found.
———<>||<>——— End of Chapter Seventeen. ———<>||<>———