Arthur and Jamie's voices gradually faded back in, and as Evan pieced together more of their conversation, his focus drifted away from Orithyia.
"…a Quasar in the middle?"
"…looks like it."
"…like the galaxy's way of saying, 'I'm still hungry.'"
"…a black hole with a light show. Just the universe showing off.
Finally, Evan stabilized his mind. He turned away from Orithyia, toward the direction they were staring, curious about what had caught their attention.
In the process of turning, his gaze snagged on something. He snapped back to it and saw it was a star.
TWO
A rogue giant star drifting silently through the void, its surface a turbulent swirl of crimson and gold plasma. It radiated a quiet, ominous light, standing out against the endless black of space like a solitary beacon.
But its glow was nothing compared to the brilliant light of the Quasar pulsating in the distance.
The Quasar gleamed brightly outshining the surrounding galaxies with its intense light. Its radiant jets stretched across space, spewing energy streams that cut through the darkness like radiant lances.
Even from their vantage point, it looked like an intergalactic lighthouse.
THREE
Evan squinted, trying to picture what lay beyond the dense layers of star-forming matter.
"There's a black hole behind all that, right?"
"Yeah, it's behind that entire swirling mass. But you can't see it—not with all the gas, dust, and star births going on."
Arthur's response set Evan's mind racing, imagining what it would be like to see the black hole without all the surrounding chaos. He'd have to be a lot closer, but before he could voice the thought, Jamie cut in.
"Yeah no, I can't take you closer. If I did, you'd pass out again. Only this time, you wouldn't wake up here—you'd be on the reincarnation path, right before your soul gets tossed into its next life."
Arthur burst out laughing, the sound ringing through the emptiness. Jamie quickly joined in, their laughter bouncing around in Evan's already frazzled mind.
Evan just deadpanned at them.
"Yeah, not like I wanted to be that close to a black hole. I just thought it'd be cool to see the whole thing, you know? The accretion disc, the jets, all that."
"Fair enough. But trust me, there's only so far you can go before the black hole itself becomes the least of your worries.
Anyway, let's go a bit further away so you can clearly see whatever you want to see."
With a snap of Jamie's fingers, a strange sensation washed over them, dimming their vision for a brief moment.
When the light returned, everything had shifted. Orithya was now much farther away, its spiralling beauty stretching out before them.
It no longer dominated their view; instead, they could see beyond it—to the vast cosmic expanse where other galaxies, previously hidden from sight, now emerged.
"Whoa..."
Evan exhaled, then his eyes narrowed as he focused on one particularly close galaxy.
"Hey Jamie, isn't that galaxy like, really close to Orithyia?"
Jamie simply shook his head with a knowing smile.
"They might look close, but they're actually incredibly far away. That galaxy you're pointing at is running parallel to Orithya, not moving toward each other.
Their gravitational fields are aligned. In other words, they're on the same track but never destined to meet—unless, of course, something big happens to shift them."
Evan nodded, though the answer left him confused.
"Shift them?"
Galaxies didn't just shift for no reason, right?
"He's talking about an external force—something huge enough to alter the balance of entire galaxies.
But Orithya's safe. If anything like that happened, the Race Kings wouldn't sit around twiddling their thumbs."
Arthur's words reminded Evan of the powerhouses residing within Orithya.
Take Gozon's demons, for example. Just among them, there were 71 beings capable of detecting any major galactic shift in advance and doing something about it.
And that was just Gozon's forces. Other Race Kings from different worlds would step in as well.
"So yeah, Orithya's not randomly colliding with any galaxy anytime soon."
Evan gazed out at the vast expanse before them, his mind spinning as they casually discussed galaxies and beings powerful enough to protect entire star systems.
But instead of feeling awed, he just felt… overwhelmed. Maybe it was better not to overthink it. There was only so much cosmic trivia he could handle at once.
"Yeah...let's not bother with all that."
He muttered to himself, shaking his head as if to clear his mind.
Instead, he focused on the breathtaking sight before him—the swirling stars, glowing gas, and drifting dust clouds of Orithya—far more comfortable admiring its beauty than worrying about galactic collisions.
"But…we're much further away, right? Millions of lightyears away, right? How did we move so fast?"
Evan couldn't help but ask, realizing that with just a snap of Jamie's fingers, they had been transported so far that Orithya was now a distant spiral, with entire galaxies stretching beyond it.
"I'm the Child of Space. In space, I'm more at home than a fish in water."
Jamie shrugged as he replied, and Evan narrowed his eyes.
"So, you're saying the 'Child of Space' skill is that broken?"
"To an extent. You need to be a Deity to use its full power. Don't also forget that 'Space' is my main attribute, so it naturally shows even more power in my hands."
Jamie explained it casually, and Evan fell silent, countless thoughts swirling through his mind.
'So, the Second Finger has something this powerful in their hands? Their main attribute is also Space, so even if it's not on Jamie's level, the skill's potential is still far greater than I estimated.
Damn, the boss fights in Aidos Online didn't do justice to some of these skills.'
Evan immediately began revising his plans for Tarse in the future.
'I'll need Kolvar to power-level me with whatever comes out of the rift. No, I'll make sure the Demonic Hand summons one of them, then have Kolvar weaken it just enough for me to land the finishing blow with that magic I was preparing.
There's a chance Artemisia might figure it out, but since I left the magic circles incomplete, she won't realize until it's too late to stop me.'
Lost in thought, Evan remained unaware of something crucial—something neither he, Arthur, nor Jamie had noticed.
This was supposed to be his first time outside his galaxy, yet for a first-timer who had never seen the vast sea of galaxies with his own eyes, he was… strangely calm.
Sure, he was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all, but that was it. His reaction was no different from someone marvelling at something absurdly massive, coupled with the natural instinctive fear that came with witnessing a place capable of producing millions of stars' worth of energy every second (The Quasar).
Without realizing how unusual he was reacting, Evan turned to Jamie and asked.
"Hey, Jamie. Just asking, but after this, is it possible that you could, I don't know…maybe train me on how to deal with your skill?"
"…"
Jamie blinked, then pulled a cotton swab from his subspace and checked his ears. Nothing. No wax. Which meant Evan had actually said what he just heard.
"…why on Estea would I teach you my skill's weaknesses?"
Evan had no idea where 'Estea' was, but he had expected that reaction. He simply shrugged nonchalantly.
"Twas worth a shot."
No normal person would willingly teach someone the weaknesses of their skills. But Jamie wasn't normal.
The man had a few screws loose and he knew it.
"Oh, well. I'd teach you."
"…."
Instead of feeling pleased, Evan narrowed his eyes in suspicion.
"What's the catch?"
Jamie just laughed.
"It doesn't matter if you knew what the skill's weaknesses were. Even if you became a High-Tier Deity right now and had that knowledge, it wouldn't help you much in a fight against me.
After all, the 'Child of Space' skill is just one of my Unique Skills."
Indeed, while Space was Jamie's main attribute, it wasn't his only attribute. He had other powers to compensate for any weaknesses, so it hardly mattered.
"I see. In that case, thank you in advance."
Evan gave a small bow, but Jamie waved him off, telling him not to worry about it. The man could already tell that one of Evan's future enemies possessed the same skill, and he was looking for ways to counter it.
With that settled, Evan turned his attention back to the vast intergalactic expanse, his gaze shifting as if searching for something—whatever it was the voice in his mind didn't want him to see.
'Ever since that day I joked about wanting to see a black hole with Laurene… That thing has been in my head since then.
It went quiet for a while, but now that I'm here, it's louder than ever.'
"…where's that Rogue star from earlier? We're so far away that the light from everything else is overshadowing it."
Hearing him, Jamie glanced toward Orithya, then casually snapped his fingers, casting a simple Tier 3 spell.
Suddenly, Evan's vision sharpened, zooming far beyond its normal range. In an instant, he could make out the rogue giant star in the distance, blazing like a wayward sun near the edge of Orithya's galaxy.
"Whoa."
The sudden shift in focus threw him off for a moment, but just as quickly as it had happened, his senses stabilized, and the disorientation faded.
It felt as if he were truly that close to the star, despite being millions of light-years away.
What's more, the spell had an autofocus, so when he turned toward Arthur and Jamie who were right next to him, it didn't zoom into the microfibers of their clothes.
Instead, it let him see them normally, but the moment he shifted his gaze to distant objects, it automatically zoomed.
'I should get him to cast it again so I can mimic the spell circle…
Now then, where's that star again?'
Earlier, when he was still trying to stabilize himself, the rogue star had caught his eye when he first looked away from Orithya to spot the quasar Jamie and Arthur had been discussing.
Its burning light stood out like a torch floating in the endless darkness of space.
"That one's been floating out there for a while. Pretty cool, huh?" Jamie muttered.
"You're looking at something completely untethered from any galaxy, just drifting through space."
Evan gave a small nod, acknowledging the information, but something about it pricked his mind.
He felt...off.
His gaze shifted automatically, returning to the Orithya galaxy—the familiar, sprawling spiral of stars, its brilliant centre glowing like a beacon.
He hadn't even realized he was looking at it, but there it was, pulling at him in a way that was both comforting and deeply unsettling.
"Orithya…"
The word slipped from his lips, barely more than a whisper in the cold void of space.
For a moment, he felt that strange force again, trying to lock his focus onto it. But he forced himself to look away, shifting his gaze back to the rogue star, lingering on it for a second time.
Then, almost instinctively, his focus drifted again, to the quasar they'd pointed out earlier—a dazzling point of light surrounded by a swirling accretion disk, radiating an immense, almost blinding energy.
Arthur followed his gaze, then turned to Evan with a questioning look.
"Is that the one you want to go after? You're not gonna be able to see shit, though? Too bright for that."
"I just—"
Evan started to respond, but then he paused.
He remembered the night when he had jokingly voiced his desire to see a black hole to Laurene. He remembered Kayla's reaction, and the voices.
"Something… pushed back when I first mentioned it as a joke with no real intention behind my words. It's hard to explain. And then just now, when I said I wanted to leave the galaxy, it happened again."
Evan brought a hand to his temple, rubbing the spot where the migraine had throbbed earlier.
"You think something's trying to stop you?"
Arthur raised an eyebrow, watching him closely.
"I don't know," Evan admitted, his brows furrowing. "I'm not even sure what it is. But the more I try to focus on it, the more I—"
His words trailed off as his eyes shifted again, almost involuntarily, locking onto a faint, nebulous cloud lingering in the distance.
FOUR
'…'
Evan emptied his mind and tried not to think about it, consciously ignoring it just in case it stopped. He quickly moved his gaze to Jamie and asked.
"Hey, Jamie, what's that?"
Evan pointed at the translucent, shimmering formation beyond them, prompting Jamie and Arthur to follow his gaze.
Arthur squinted a bit since unlike Evan, he did not have a spell enhancing his visual prowess.
"Ah, that one's just some old stellar remnant," Jamie said casually. "You're catching the last traces of a supernova from millennia ago."