"Hold me now~ I'm six feet from the edge, and I'm thinking~" Zachary moved with a spring in his step, the mood swirling around him just right for a private serenade. He butchered the tune and mangled the rhythm, but he couldn't care less. Happiness was all that mattered.
Zachary found this brief journey surprisingly fun, with mysteries lurking and drama simmering just out of reach. He resisted the urge to play detective, not wanting to get tangled up in this world for too long.
He would be back later, after checking what was currently going on in Aggrae. Opening the portal back to Aggrae was as easy as expected, though after passing through and entering the inter-universe void, Zachary suddenly felt something was wrong. Even though he couldn't quite place his hands on what exactly was wrong, or why he even felt that something was wrong.
Of course, Zachary wouldn't even consider chalking it up to just a misplaced feeling.
That fleeting sense of wrongness just keeps getting stronger, and that had stopped him from continuing his humming. His guard and vigilance were raised high, and his senses were working at full capacity, ready to react to any disturbance.
In this eerily quiet void, even the slightest bit of disturbance means a huge thing, and it would be way too easy to notice as he travels through it.
However, Zachary couldn't sense what was wrong. The feeling keeps on getting stronger, much to his irritation. Just to be safe, Zachary stopped drifting in case whatever was watching him followed him all the way to the other side of his destination, the world of Aggrae.
Zachary stayed still in the void. It's not the best decision, but Zachary knew continuing his travel would be the worst thing he could do.
The void had no concept of time, nor concepts of space like the realities. It's like the gap between two books placed side-by-side. Letting go of the "ribbons," which were meant to be his guide to Aggrae, was his decision.
Zachary didn't know how much time had passed, if any. He felt like an instant, and an eternity had passed simultaneously, which is disorienting to experience.
From the corner of his eyes, Zachary perceived a mote of light appearing in the void which should have been impossible. There is no sense of distance in the void, which makes it hard for Zachary to judge his current situation. The mote of light keeps on growing bigger, or closer, as Zachary keeps his attention fixed on it.
The first probability is that Zachary had been found by an Outergod. The second probability could be just a phenomenon in the void. Zachary, however, thinks this isn't the case because it wouldn't justify the sense of wrongness he's feeling.
After the giant greyish light reached a certain size, or a certain distance that Zachary couldn't quite place his hands on, it unfurls into a massive eye. The eyeball looked around a little before its sight fell on Zachary.
After a brief moment, Zachary personally saw countless more eyes abruptly appear, and that unsettled him quite a lot. At his current power, he's not yet ready to throw down with a genuine Outergod, though it seems that might happen.
Whatever this thing is, Zachary knew he had drawn attention to himself somehow. Zachary tried to look at its Life Code and was hit with a very intense migraine that confirmed a few things.
Yes, it is an Outergod. No, it didn't come for peace. And yes, Zachary is in real danger.
It also seems that Zachary's action of trying to peer at the thing's existence was really bad. The countless eyes surrounding him split horizontally at the iris, and revealing a horrible gaping maws as the gap grew larger and larger.
Now, Zachary is clear of their intent. It wants to devour him, or something he has. Most probably his soul, but Zachary wasn't about to just let things happen, nor was he in a situation where he could afford to let anything to happen.
Zachary had to admit he's definitely weaker than an Outergod right this moment, but he's not entirely outclassed. Though what he's about to do next might only have two outcomes.
Outcome number one, he ended up as this thing's "food," outcome number two, he ended up turning into a void hybrid.
Zachary doesn't want any of that. The second one is still a better outcome than literally becoming food for an Outergod, though.
Fighting an Outergod in the void isn't the smartest thing to do, especially for beings that had yet to achieve immortality, or for anyone that does not possess reality-altering power. Even if they have either or both, winning or even surviving isn't a guarantee.
That said, Zachary's current situation doesn't fall in the same categories.
The sheer size of just one eye became clearer to Zachary as the struggle of life and death began. Each was at least the size of the moon, and the largest was even bigger than a star. While the sight proved otherwise, Zachary had actually encountered just one entity and not multiple.
The battle between Zachary and the entity was more metaphysical than anything else. Zachary is basically exerting the entirety of mindpower and soul power he could muster without actively damaging himself, and it proves to be effective albeit very little. Judging from how much 'damage' he took for every retaliation, the battle was supposed to unfold like a foregone conclusion. It's supposed to end with his demise.
In front of absolute power, tricks amount to nothing. Now, Zachary understood the despair of his enemies in his past life. It was numbing and crippling, but he refused to accept this outcome.
The spectrum of his emotions in this life were colorful, vivid, and the best thing that had happened to him for so long was his whimsical choice of reincarnation that led to everything.
Joy and excitement were what he felt first after waking up, and now he discovered hope again. What a delightful life a mortal goes through. Fleeting yet fulfilling like a streak of comet in the night sky.
In this brush against certain demise, Zachary finally discovered what Path he shall take in this life. Rediscovering the spectrum of emotions that he had discarded in his last life for the sake of absolute power.
His soul pulsed with newfound vigor despite being on the verge of breaking. Golden streaks of light shone bright from the cracks, as Zachary let it escape to his immediate surroundings, into the blank space of the void, through his orifices.
Golden light brimming with power shone through the darkness, and the entity took the brunt of it. Against the light, the entity was utterly powerless, like a small lamb in the presence of a grown tiger.
The enormous eyes don't only dissolve, but are devoured by the light. Sensing the futility, the entity finally realized it's impossible to devour this prey for now and retreated.
The golden light doesn't stop pouring out even when the entity is no longer around, and only slowly recedes. As it did, Zachary's entire being that had been washed by the unexpected power could be perceived again. His injuries, which are mostly metaphysical in nature, slowly healed, and the absorbed parts of the entity were consumed to facilitate the healing.
It was the power of hope, or rather, the power of the emotional spectrum. Zachary had walked an entirely different path in his last life, and even though he had met many who wielded power through seven emotions and six desires, this had been his first real experience of the mechanics behind it.
'What in the world was that?!' was the first thought he had, followed by the tight beating of his heart.
Zachary wasn't hearing the thumping, but he felt warmth spreading that originated from the inside of his chest. His heart.
All this while, after waking up, Zachary doesn't think too deeply as a mortal. The memories of his past life had affected him way more than he realized. Now, he realizes that his heart isn't just another organ that keeps the body alive. It has a deeper layer to its existence, especially to a mortal. It is the source of the wondrous tingles that Zachary had honestly forgotten how it truly felt.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Zachary let the warm sensation spread. This encounter with an Outergod had ended up as a blessing in disguise, though the danger had been very real.
It was unexpected, but welcomed. As he regained his calm and rationality, Zachary began inspecting his Life Code to find out the phenomenon he had just experienced, and as he expected, things weren't as wondrous as they seemed.
Without realizing it, Zachary had managed to trigger the phenomenon simply because he satisfied a few hidden conditions, and one of them was entirely impossible to fulfill if he didn't reincarnate into Aggrae.
Zachary would pretty much like to stay put and just spend this time in introspective meditation to see and understand how much of him had changed, and in what manner, but he's not actually in an optimal setting for that.
The disturbance his battle against the entity had caused would surely attract even more Outergods. The smartest thing to do was to bail as quickly as possible into conventional reality.
Zachary were forced to initiate a random world travel in haste, and it's great that he did because mere moments after, the void literally roiled and trembled as droves of entities even more terrifying gathered like sharks that had smelled blood.