Chapter 49 - 46: What Keeps You Going Forward?
Ellen barely had time to react before she felt herself being pulled further into the abyss.
The void yawned open, stretching endlessly as shadows of the past consumed her. Nihility wrapped around her like an unseen force, seeping into her very being. She saw lives—countless lives—flash before her eyes. Creatures of all shapes and sizes, beings of great power and those of insignificance, all had fallen into Nihility. Each one a lost soul, their existence erased and scattered like dust.
She lived through their suffering, felt their pain as if it were her own. A mighty warrior who had fought for their people, only to be abandoned. A scholar who sought knowledge, only to realize the truth was hollow. A child who wandered alone, forgotten by time. Ellen became them. She felt their despair, their hopelessness, their longing for something—anything—to give them meaning. And each time, Nihility swallowed them whole.
Her mind cracked with every life she endured, her will trembling under the weight of their collective agony. But it didn't stop. It never stopped.
Then, through the storm of souls, a singular existence took form. A woman. The same woman Ellen had seen before—tall, beautiful, draped in white and red, with silver hair that cascaded down her back.
Acheron.
Ellen did not know her name yet, but she was forced to live through her story all the same.
It began with a girl who knew warmth, who knew hope. A girl who had once laughed under a sky of brilliant colors, whose heart had been filled with dreams. But those dreams were shattered. One by one, the people she cherished were taken away, devoured by a world that cared nothing for the bonds she held dear. She fought. She resisted. She refused to let despair consume her.
But in the end, even she was not spared.
Ellen felt Acheron's agony, her sorrow, the moment she lost everything. The moment the universe showed her that nothing truly mattered.
She felt the crushing silence of Nihility as it claimed her. She felt the shadow of IX wrap its cold, empty embrace around Acheron, stripping her of everything but existence itself.