Death… And Me

"Here, take it," Roan threw one of the bracelets to Rean.

Rean caught it, quickly checking it with his Spiritual Sense. "Oh, so that\'s the trick behind it, uh?"

"Can you replicate it?" Roan asked, curious.

Rean pondered a bit and immediately shook his head. "The runes are so small that my level of Spiritual Sense simply doesn\'t allow me to get a full grasp of them. But I do understand what it is doing. The oscillation runes interact directly with the Werdlem Stone in our bodies. No doubt this bracelet has the same origin."

Roan narrowed his eyes. "Doesn\'t that mean they are useless for us? We aren\'t using the Werdlem Stones, after all."

"It matters not," Rean shook his head. "What it interacts with is the energy of the Werdlem Stone, and the system is emulating the same type of energy. The bracelet is also useful for this since it thinks our energy is coming through the Werdlem Stone."

Roan heard that and quickly took out the octagonal object. Yet, it didn\'t shine with red light like it did before. "Seems like you are right. What about the other issue?"

Rean nodded. "Yes, it does have a tracker, and the tracker was added recently, no doubt. It would be a little complicated, but I think I can deactivate it. Should I do it?"

Roan shook his head in response. "No, leave it. Wait until we finish our business in this city, then you turn it off. If you do it now, Karev will definitely come looking for us, and we can\'t leave now."

With that decided, the twins went to the hotel and met Foliana in the lounge. She was already waiting for them there... with quite a few more cultivators around her. Foliana saw them and immediately came forward. "Oh, Asterix, Obelix, you are here! Come, come, let\'s go to the back. I already prepared a table for us." Right after, she looked at the cultivators following her. "I know what to do, so don\'t worry. Just stand on the back and let me have a conversation with these two." Finally, Foliana was left alone with the twins.

"Royal Family experts?" Rean asked, looking at the emblem on those expert\'s clothes.

"Yea..." Foliana sighed. "They are just making sure I won\'t say anything I shouldn\'t now that I get access to the database. Anyway, that\'s not why you came to look for me. Say it, what do you want to ask?"

Rean changed into to Spiritual Sense conversation. \'So, this is a little complicated. Do you perhaps know anything about other Universes not related to the Werdlem Empire?\'

Foliana didn\'t expect that question. She knew a lot about the history of this Universe thanks to the all-encompassing network of the Werdlem Empire. However, she didn\'t exactly have a lot of access, so her knowledge was more about this Universe. \'That is hard to tell. There are a few records in the Werdlem Empire Database of our Universe mentioning other Universes that aren\'t part of the Werdlem Empire. Unfortunately, there are very few. Why such a question?\'

Rean continued. \'I can\'t tell you much now, but we need to know more about Universes not related to the Werdlem Empire at the moment. Anything is valid. The best will be if you know of some universal Great Void chart to navigate or something like that.\'

\'Great void...\' Foliana pondered more about the topic. \'That\'s the region that separates the Universes, right? From what I read, the distance between Universes is filled by the emptiness of the Great Void, and these distances are countless times bigger than the Universes\' total lengths too.\'

\'That\'s exactly the case,\' Rean didn\'t deny that. Too bad he also didn\'t know much about it.

Rean nodded. \'Alright, so we are not in the Great Void anymore?\'

12:03

\'No,\' Foliana shook her head. \'The space between Universes of the Werdlem Empire is still called the Great Void. It\'s just that this isn\'t the same Great Void as the one before the Separation. As far as it is written, the Werdlem Empire Universes exist in a completely different plane. As to what it means, I\'m afraid I have no idea.\'

\'Well, I don\'t know any map of the great void. Such a thing probably only exists in the Higher Realms,\' Foliana explained. \'However, there is an event in history that makes such information pretty much useless.\'

\'Oh?\' The twins\' interest was picked. \'Tell us more.\'

Foliana nodded. She loved to speak about history. \'It happened a long time ago to the point that there isn\'t really a precise time in the databases. Well, at least not in the ones available for the public. In any case, the event I\'m talking about was the Great Separation.\' n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Those words immediately reminded Rean and Roan of the story they had heard from Soul Gem. Soul Gem didn\'t know much about the Werdlem Empire, but he did know the Werdlem Empire had suddenly disappeared one day. For some reason, their own Universe had three treasures related to this same Empire.

Foliana knew nothing about that and simply continued speaking. \'According to the history in the databases, the Werdlem Empire had grown to become the greatest power of the Great Void. However, being the strongest also means being the target of everyone else. As strong as the Werdlem Empire might be, if all the other known Universes in the Great Void were to join forces to destroy it, they would be able to do so.\'

\'That said, the Imperial Family decided to simply leave the Great Void and bring all Universes under its command with it,\' Foliana couldn\'t help but feel excited when talking about it. \'Can you imagine that? The Werdlem Imperial Family had the means to move entire Universes away! How ridiculous was that?\'

Rean nodded. \'Alright, so we are not in the Great Void anymore?\'

\'No,\' Foliana shook her head. \'The space between Universes of the Werdlem Empire is still called the Great Void. It\'s just that this isn\'t the same Great Void as the one before the Separation. As far as it is written, the Werdlem Empire Universes exist in a completely different plane. As to what it means, I\'m afraid I have no idea.\'

And as always, any Golden Tickets and Stones are welcome. ;)