Chapter 349: Beyond the Firmament

“A different world… As far as you know, what exactly was changed?”

Though this was not the first time Wang Yu had heard of the weapon known as the Morningstar, the more he learned about it, the more the scope of its power seemed to grow. Each revelation outstripped the last.

“No one knows,” Malfurion replied. “Not a soul can tell you everything that changed. The Morningstar’s detonation affected the entire world. Some alterations were observed and recorded; others, subtle and hidden, are beyond our reckoning.

“What I can share are only the obvious effects: the chasm known as the Sighing Canyon cleaving the continent in twain, the sundering of the elemental plane into four, and that breach in the bastion holding back the Endless Sea…”

She shook her head. “But such scars are not what mattered most. Morningstar altered the very foundations of reality, primal laws we still do not fully comprehend. And that alone was enough to render the abyssal spawn incompatible with our world.

“The explosion itself did not annihilate the Abyss entire. Many of its creatures endured. Yet the reshaping of the world beneath their feet became a slow-acting poison, weakening and degrading them until at last they lost all power to menace this realm.

“It is, perhaps, the one frailty in a race that can adapt and evolve beyond all imagination. And when they absorbed too much of this world’s essence—when its powers became their own—their alien nature unraveled. They ceased to adapt, ceased to change. In becoming part of the world, they lost the very strength that once made them invincible.

“And so, with their growth having reached a certain limit, the changes wrought by the Morningstar left them defenseless.”

Malfurion’s voice grew low as she laid bare the true reason the abyssal spawn had been defeated. In their endless hunger to learn and evolve lay a hidden flaw, an inexorable doom as their borrowed nature calcified.

“I do not know the kind of abyssal creatures you have faced,” he continued, lifting his gaze to Wang Yu, who sat listening intently, one hand now resting openly upon the table. “But perhaps an abyssal magician, or an abyssal knight?”

“Yes,” Wang Yu nodded. “Most likely some magician captured by Skyborne City and used as a test subject by the Central Assembly. It didn’t seem very strong—perhaps on the average side.”

Malfurion chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Then there is no mystery. What you fought was a wretch weakened over countless generations, barely clinging to existence in this altered world. The only reason it could even linger at all was because it had been artificially grafted to a creature native to this realm.”

With that sardonic laugh, she continued the lesson with a question of her own.

“Even now, with these abyssal creatures nearly extinct save for a few preserved within Skyborne City’s laboratories, all their records remain sealed. Do you know why?”

“Because of their divinity?” Wang Yu replied after a pause. “So long as we remember them, they can never truly perish. By recalling them, we nourish them.”

In this manner, they were much like evil gods.

“Exactly.” Malfurion’s eyes glimmered. “You know more than you imagine. The last vestiges of their might come from the void’s boon. That, at least, has never waned.

“And so, to ensure none survive by feeding on memory or the void, we restrict what information there is about them and wait for the world to forget their presence.”

Piece by piece, Wang Yu was connecting the dots. He knew why so little was written of abyssal creatures, why those he had seen were but pitiful shadows, why the very fabric of the world bore such scars.

“And what of their origin?” Wang Yu asked at last. “What do you know of the starry sky?”

In the end, Wang Yu decided to broach his main subject of interest as a segue from these abyssal creatures. Malfurion seemed particularly willing to talk about them, after all.

“The stars?” Malfurion’s tone grew thoughtful. “Little enough. We know it is the homeland of all voidborn beings, and only voidborn beings. From time to time, fragments fall into our world: stones, rare ores, sometimes trinkets of worth.

“The dissociation layer binds us to this world. Magic falters there, and even knights’ flesh will unravel as they ascend. Alchemical devices crumble. Nothing we have devised can pierce it. Perhaps someday—but not now.”

She waved a hand, dismissive. To her, the stars above remained a mystery beyond reach.

“Or,” Wang Yu mused after a silence, “could this dissociation layer be a shield, preventing what lies beyond from invading this realm? A protection against the voidborn?”

“Protection?” Malfurion’s laugh was harsh and cold. “No. It is but a snare, a lure. The dissociation layer does not hinder the void—it hinders us. Scholars by the dozen have perished trying to breach it. Its boundary shifts without warning.

“One moment, spells flow, engines hum, and fighting spirit courses without fail. The next, everything fails. Machinery collapses. Flesh decays. And before the helpless eyes of their comrades below, another explorer dies, swallowed whole by that unseen shroud.

She leaned back, bitterness etched in her words. “The stars glitter like bait, drawing us upward—only to drown us in the dissociation layer’s embrace.”

“But,” Wang Yu pressed, “astrologers exist, don’t they? Practitioners who claim to pierce the veil, to draw power from the stars themselves—those who can read the future and bypass mental defenses, among others.”

“Astrologers…” Malfurion’s expression darkened. “Yes. They exist, though they are rare, and many lose their minds. They say they hear a calling from the stars, see colossi walking among constellations unseen by any other. They claim power from those unseen truths and thereby conjure marvels.

“How they do so, we cannot say. But perhaps think of it like the void itself. Its gifts come unbidden, with madness as its price. Not the same—but not wholly different, either.”

“Indeed,” Wang Yu murmured. “A casual gift of power… visions that drive to madness… That does sound like the void. And the starry sky is not unlike the shifting depths of the Abyss.”

He had long suspected the stars and the Void were entwined. Malfurion’s words only confirmed it.

“What is the connection between the stars and the void?” Wang Yu asked directly.

“I’m no oracle. When you suggested that we chat, did you simply mean that I should answer your endless questions?”

Malfurion sighed. “Never mind. Let me put it this way: our knowledge of the void is meager. It has existed for an unfathomable span of time. Ironically, those who have plumbed its depths the most are not scholars like us, but rather wizards.

“The void stands in violent opposition to all that we know. We build within the lattice of order, weaving matter through logical, well-understood processes. The void skips the process entirely, conjuring results through chaos and raw disorder. To us, it is the very negation of what research strives toward.

“My mentor’s friend, Roland, may have been the only one to truly bridge the gap between our knowledge and the void. If anyone knew its secrets, it was him. But he vanished one day without warning, leaving no trace as to where he went.”

Despite Malfurion’s irritation with Wang Yu’s relentless questioning, she did answer.

Another name had surfaced: Roland, supposedly the greatest of wizards. What he possessed was clearly more than mere wealth or power; it was knowledge that rewrote the very foundations of the world.

“Roland again,” Wang Yu thought, his expression calm even as his mind raced. “What exactly did he bury within his pocket realm in the void?”

He himself bore some tenuous link to Roland through his Key, though he cared little for the so-called treasure. Still, he resolved to uncover more of this wizard’s designs.

Out of courtesy to Sieg, Wang Yu asked a few questions regarding dragons. Malfurion only shrugged, saying the records on that race were pitifully scarce. The conversation petered off. Wang Yu turned his focus to scavenging through the shelves, copying fragments of useful lore into his Endless Pages.

Perhaps the earlier exchange had fostered some small sense of familiarity, because Malfurion did not object to him plundering her library further. Time slipped by. At the appointed hour, as Astartes’ promised summons arrived, Wang Yu closed the grimoire he was transcribing—a forbidden eighth-tier spell—and tucked away the Endless Pages before leaving the archive.

The Machine Spirit Malfurion watched him depart down the corridor and return to the lift. Then she turned, seated herself at her desk once more, and spoke into empty air.

“A strange fellow in body and spirit. You sent him to me so I could take his measure, didn’t you?”

Astartes’ voice resonated from the still chamber.

“More or less. His soul is peculiar—utterly beyond my perception. That was what allowed him to take down Master’s disciples in the Central Assembly. Thanks to him, Skyborne City will finally begin to grow anew.”

Malfurion leaned back in her chair, a wry smile on her insubstantial frame.

“Should you really be doing this if he’s your benefactor, then? You were outmaneuvered and humiliated by your master’s disciples. If not for this Wang Yu, those disciples would still be clinging on to their seats. You want me to assess him—in preparation for going on the offensive?”

Astartes paused for a moment.

“I have not known him long enough to trust him fully. Guarded wariness is all we can share. The means at my disposal cannot fell him before he triggers that mark upon his right hand.

“And that power of his could obliterate all of Skyborne City. To oppose him outright would be folly. I only ask that you confirm what he is.”

Malfurion smirked, unimpressed.

“You’re blunt, but still too soft-hearted. He is certainly not what he seems. Who else but a scholar would immediately fixate on the stars, on the Abyss? Such curiosity is unnatural.

“And his absent soul, as if he weren’t a human at all… I cannot identify just what he is. Even so, he is clearly capable of thought and communication. He carries himself as if he were human.”

Astarte nodded, unsurprised by Malfurion’s conclusions.

“Mm.”

Malfurion rose, pacing among the shelves. Her spectral fingers skimmed over spines of leather and vellum until they rested on a single volume of chronicles. A faint, inscrutable smile lit her eyes.

“Continue dealing with him under your guise as a Machine Spirit. Test him, measure him, see what he truly is. I cannot say how much he discerns, but this much is certain: he has not pierced the mask you wear.

“That is, after all, the grandest lie you have ever cast upon this continent. History and success are far too easy to fake. The records write of spirits born from machines, even though we both know such a miracle lies far beyond us. Isn’t that so?”

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