Divine Apostasy Book 6 - Prologue

Prologue

Shelly entered the corona of the blue giant and increased her diameter to a modest three thousand miles, boosting her energy absorption. The helium burning in the star’s center gave it a slightly sour taste, but it replenished her Core the same as the sweeter hydrogen.

The spatial thickness required to anchor the new wyrmhole lay nearby, and it would be inefficient to search for another, hotter star. Shelly calculated this wyrmhole’s exit would mark the halfway point to their destination, and it had only taken her six months to reach it. Satisfaction coursed through her like burning plasma. Even among her kind, few could match her ability to fold space.

Just like the previous star Harvests, Shelly felt the energy dense Celestial exit her shell and accelerate downward into the star. The tiny creature radiated pleasure. Shelly shared this same joy, and slowly rolled as she dived deeper as well.

Shelly hadn’t expected to return to the great sea so soon. Now that her golden-eyed soul companion had learned to quiet his mind and body, communication had become easier. His request, clarified by the bookwyrm, had shocked Shelly, and excited her. Not only the chance to swim the darkness again, but to do it with purpose.

Thousands of years, a blink in her existence, had passed since the Axiom had turned this Universe into a desert. With the easily available Spirit gone, the souls here became hard to hear, the notes distant. Faced with such silence, her family and friends had departed for other Universes. She could feel them still, even across such immense space, their souls all quantumly entwined.

But for reasons Shelly could not explain, this Universe had pulled on her like a gravity well. She had traveled alone from galaxy to galaxy, swimming through nebula, surfing event horizons, and bathing in exploding stars. She missed the sound of soul notes, but the vast silence had a beauty of its own.

Seventeen years ago, an echo of an echo reached Shelly. The faintest vibration, only detectable because of the oppressive silence. A sound she had never heard before, and she immediately plotted a course to bring her closer.

Shelly found the source three months later, nestled in an Ancient Wyrm’s lair. A wyrm Shelly recognized. This close, the faint vibrations had turned into a symphony of notes unlike anything she had experienced. It soothed a sorrow she didn’t know existed.

For the first time in millennia, Shelly felt joy.

Seventeen years passed in a single heartbeat. And the creature responsible for such beauty, a young human, left the wyrm lair. Shelly followed, the new location another place she recognized. If the silence in this Universe had a center, it resided on this planet.

To Shelly’s surprise, the boy shifted Realms, leaving the Material for the Spirit Realm. Curious, Shelly peeked into the probable near futures, and was shocked at how difficult the strands had become to see.

Something significant was happening here, causing the Universe to exert its will, and setting the Resonance Offset to zero. But Shelly had glimpsed enough to place herself in the boy’s path.

Shelly had never experienced such bliss. The sound, so close, almost overwhelmed her senses. She shuddered in anticipation for the day the boy could organize these soul notes into a true melody.

Traveling with the boy was another, who Shelly quickly recognized as responsible for the Resonance Offset. This blue-eyed companion warped the strands of probability, and stood at the bottom of an enormous gravity well, pulling the world and its deities into his orbit.

Silence shrouded this blue-eyed friend so completely, it felt like an open wound in Shelly’s mind. She wondered if the boy had a soul at all. It made her uncomfortable, but she soon realized this profound stillness acted like an amplifier for the soul music of her companion, which made the silence bearable.

Sensing the collapse of the level forty-four boss, Shelly confirmed her golden-eyed companion and his friends had cleared the level. She constructed a level forty-five deep in her shell so they could continue to battle, making it twenty-percent easier since the Celestial had left their group to swim in the star.

Shelly enjoyed creating essence creatures for her passengers to fight. It gave her something to do and increased her occupants’ skills and experience, making them stronger. The last time she had done such things, the Axiom and his disciples had traveled with her.

As Shelly Harvested the star, she contemplated the similarities between that period and now. Had the time spent in the distant past with that Axiom somehow entangled her in a path that led to the rescue of yet another Axiom? Had her reluctance to leave this Universe somehow been planned or foreseen?

Shelly knew such thoughts were pointless. She had spent thousands of years contemplating the relationship between Resonance Offsets and fate. She still didn’t have an answer.

Shelly turned, rolling through the arcing plasma, spinning to the melody of her soul companion.

None of it mattered, because the path Shelly had taken, guided or not, destined or by choice, led to this moment, and she had never been happier.