Percy glanced through the empty void, spinning weightlessly around. Death wasn't as boring with the voices in his head.
"You're not going to show yourself?"
He started swimming through the mercurial darkness of the Hollows towards one of the stars in the distance.
"What are you doing?" Not god hummed, stirring the darkness like trembling water.
"It's boring here," Percy answered. "I'm going to see what those lights are about, not god."
The ancient being sighed, it sounded like heavy wind in a nylon bag.
"My name is Nyx, and you can't escape the Hollows by just swimming away. Am I that boring? I thought meeting a god would be interesting."
Percy turned backwards, which was pointless since Nyx's voice came from everywhere.
"Didn't you say you weren't god? Not god."
"Stop calling me that," Nyx droned. "I'm not the god you were expecting. You aren't in the same dimension as before."
"What? Why not?"
As Percy studied the primordial darkness searching for Nyx, he realised it wasn't as empty as he thought. There were things swimming in the darkness below him.
Things far bigger than he could comprehend.
"Well, there was a fight between me and one of my brothers," Nyx explained, "I chased the bastard off but he got what he wanted. He managed to affect your world through the Hollows."
Percy suddenly remembered. The distortion of air on the road. The rain and colors of the world spilling and mixing like an oil painting.
The distortion twisted cars and swallowed people. It even killed him if that painful snap was his body.
"Your brother's an asshole," Percy muttered, rubbing his neck. "I don't mind being killed, but he couldn't wait till I was asleep?"
Nyx rumbled in agreement. Percy could see the things in the dark beneath them scatter as the being's voice reached them.
"My brother was never really one for caring how his actions affect the world," Nyx said. "He couldn't do too much with me attacking him, or I would have killed him. But he did manage to kill a lot of you in that time."
Percy nodded, his understanding of the situation only made him more excited.
"So this is an isekai situation, right? You brought all the dead people up here to give us new lives in your benevolence."
Percy couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face. This was it. This was the climax of all the light novels he had been reading. A new world filled with magic, swords, and a lot of fun. He was beyond ready.
"No," Nyx answered simply.
"Huh?"
Percy was dumbstruck for a moment. Nyx's bored voice seemed completely unconcerned with the deaths or aftermath of his duel with his mischievous brother.
But in that moment it made complete sense to him. Nyx was a god, what reason did it have to be concerned with the flimsy lives of millions of people?
Even Percy lived carelessly while millions of people died all over the world. From hunger, war, exploitation and corruption.
There was no reason for a god to take out time to reincarnate a meaningless life. One that even humans didn't value much over their comfort.
"You're overthinking things."
Nyx's endless voice interrupted his thoughts.
"I have no reason to help you because you'll naturally reincarnate into your world. Besides, reincarnating you into one of this dimension's worlds would just play into whatever my brother is planning."
Percy blinked twice, he had no eyes, but he was still confused as hell. The murky darkness of the Hollows settled heavily over his pounding heart.
"I have to go back to that shithole?"
Nyx sighed. "I was looking through your memories and saw your world. My siblings always say I'm too gloomy but that was depressing to watch."
Percy raised his clasped hands up to the dark deity. "So don't send me back!"
"Like I said, we have to be careful of playing into my brother's hands," Nyx explained. "He is very cunning and dangerous."
Percy searched his mind for something—anything—that he could use to convince her. He decided to start with the goal.
"Why did your brother come here?"
Nyx was silent for a moment.
"You know curiosity killed the cat—"
"Don't use my world's euphemisms against me!"
"—I don't know what Aether's plans are. They are often either wildly complicated or ridiculously simple."
Percy raised a hand.
"Exactly! So why are you assuming that he planned to have you isekai me."
Nyx was silent for a moment. The darkness was absurdly lonely without the voices in his head.
"You're saying Aether might have planned for me to just let you souls reincarnate back into your world?"
Percy nodded rapidly. "Very possible, am I right?"
"You are right. There are ways he could harm your world from this. His powers stem from possibilities."
"Yes, yes. So don't reincarnate me there."
"But."
Nyx's interruption sent a tremor running through the incorporeal body.
"Aether's plans are often double edged. Closing one door opens a window—"
"That makes no sense."
"—That's just it. Aether's plans don't often make sense to him either. He only creates possibilities and hopes they come to bite us in the ass. And I don't care if he destroys earth."
He gulped loudly. His destiny was in the hands of this ancient being, but he was in no way out of tricks.
"Are you scared that I'll someday bring him a way to kill you?" Percy asked. "I can swear some crazy oath—"
"I don't need any oaths from you."
"—Okay! Then let me just see you once before I have to go back there. Let me just see something that has never existed in my world."
Nyx was silent for a moment.
"How do you know I'm something with a body that you can see? What if you're already looking at me?"
"You don't talk like an endless realm of darkness. You talk like someone that had to speak before."
"I'm nigh-omnipotent here. I can talk however I like."
"You can appear whenever you're ready, not god."
Nyx sighed again. The darkness swirled and a tall woman with a hole in her abdomen swept from it.
She wore a glittering black dress that floated through the dark, her porcelain face was bored and indifferent.
Percy couldn't take his eyes off the gaping hole in her belly, it was like she had taken a cannonball to the gut.
"You've seen me." Her voice snapped his attention back to her pale lips. "Now what?"
"I didn't expect a woman."
"You really aren't helping yourself."
Percy slapped his face. "Now I'll tell you to your face that I won't side with Aether against you, and you can look me in the eyes and realize you can't send me back to that hellscape."
"This is so annoying. Why do I have to talk this much today?" Nyx tilted her head lazily.
"I'm not worried about Aether using you to kill me. You can't add anything to his already deadly arsenal of world-ending weapons. What I am worried about is you bringing suffering to the people of that new world. That's all Aether ever wants: to see people suffer."
"Then why did you bring me here!" Percy yelled, spinning around the endless void. "To show me what I'm missing out on while I slave away at my nine to five for some rich prick? To have a good laugh after you send me away?"
Nyx stared at his incredulous face for a moment. Her dark eyes were bottomless and alluring, they held in their reflection all things that could exist.
"I felt pity for you. And I was interested in all the things you could do. It's rare to see a soul so accomplished by your world's standards and still dissatisfied."
Percy grinned madly.
"If I had knees I'd slide on them and grab your feet right now—"
"You're so dramatic."
"—just give me a chance, Nyx. Once Aether brought us here it was over. The die has been cast, now the ball's in your court. You can send us all back to our Earth and we can have a few more years of suffering before world war three starts."
Percy looked deep into those fathomless eyes. "Or you can give us a chance to make a new future for ourselves in this world."
Nyx pursed her lips, staring into his pleading eyes. She tilted her head back and sighed.
"You keep saying 'us' to make me pity you as a group, right?"
Percy looked left then back at her. "No."
Nyx swung her hands up in defeat.
"Fine. But If I'm sending you into one of my siblings' worlds, then I'll have to give you something to make sure you don't destroy everything."