Chapter 200: The Goblin Queen’s Sacrifice
The void-wave had passed, leaving behind a silence so absolute it made Shia’s ears ring. She floated in nothingness—not darkness, but true void, where concepts like up and down held no meaning. Her emerald lattice had shattered when the barrier failed, yet somehow she remained conscious, suspended in the space between existence and oblivion.
Reed is gone.
The thought struck her like a physical blow. Through the Network’s dying echoes, she had felt his final heartbeat fade as the spire consumed him. The man who had promised to bring back the dead had become death’s latest offering, and she... she had failed to save him.
But failure was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Not when void corruption pulsed through her veins like liquid midnight, not when hundreds of Legion souls were scattered across this lightless expanse, and not when The Dark itself seemed to be watching her with cosmic hunger.
Shia forced her eyes open—though in this place, sight meant something entirely different. Her Soul Sight activated involuntarily, revealing the truth of her surroundings. She wasn’t floating in empty space. She was suspended within the heart of a vast web, each strand pulsing with corrupted consciousness. The void-touched members of her Legion hung like flies caught in amber, their forms flickering between flesh and shadow.
The Corrupted Goblin Echoes.
She could hear them now—whispers in languages that predated speech, voices that belonged to her fallen soldiers but carried words no living throat could form. They called to her across the darkness, begging for release, for understanding, for a connection that could bridge the gap between what they had been and what they were becoming.
"Captain..." The voice belonged to Korr, though his form was barely recognizable. Half his body had become translucent void-stuff, shot through with veins of purple fire. "We’re still here. Still... fighting."
"I know." Shia’s own voice sounded strange in this place, as if the void itself was learning to speak through her throat. "I’m going to get you out."
But even as she spoke the words, she knew they were a lie. There was no "out" from this place. The void had claimed them all, and conventional escape was impossible. Yet as her Soul Sight probed deeper into the web’s structure, she began to perceive something else—a pattern within the chaos, a rhythm that spoke not of destruction but of... transformation.
What if Reed was wrong? The thought came unbidden, heretical. What if consciousness and void don’t have to be enemies?