Shards of the lost is a 5 star Light cone of the Nihility path.
Description:
In her world of stillness and nothingness peace only existed when she stood idle on the sidelines. Naive hope of eternity full of quiet and unchanged repetitive cycles kept her there and for a long while she refused to meet the image in the midnight clad mirror that haunted her dreams. There, she could see stars flicker out at the legs of the mirror that did not show her reflection. Mystery shrouded itself around the endless sea of black around, swallowing her whole.
Her peaceful solitude shattered, mirroring the state of the broken glass in which fragments of her likeness appeared. In each fragmented piece, she glimpsed someone else—eyes like hers, but filled with a passion for all things corrupted.
In her dreams she saw herself reaching for the reflection’s neck, fingers slipping through the glass as if it were silk to choke the woman within, squeezing hard until life burst from her and the mirror's reflection showed the dark glimmering skies and only herself, and then the dark swallowed her again. Trembling hands withdrew from the mirror, reaching to brush her fingertips across her own neck. Anger, sadness, pain, confusion, curiosity - it all boiled within.
“Listen here- No matter where you are hiding, no matter how powerful you have become. I will bring your reign of terror to an end. In these vast worlds, justice is true and absolute, always. It will catch up.. I will put this to an end”
“But first you’ll have to catch me” The voice replied from the darkness.
To repeat how and why you ended up in this position would be like trying to recant the story of several centuries of here and there, so at some point, you just let it go—let the words you had once told centuries ago washed away into the ever-flowing stream of the intergalactic void.
But as an emanator of the Nihility —perhaps this suits you best.
Today and yesterday and tomorrow and last year and a century have been blended together like an ever-growing vortex of void—at some point, nothing really matters that much, including your life story. Perhaps this is how IX feels, all the time. Maybe they were a breathtakingly beautiful creature that rivaled that of the Aeon of beauty and the abundance Yaoshi—but then they had touched the darkness that is the pit of this universe, and—and now they lost all those faces because it hardly ever mattered which form they took.
You understood you thought—as you have touched nihilism too. Or, to be accurate, IX has gazed upon you. Only those with an unrestrained arrogance dare to compare their plight to those with Aeonic status. But you thought, at the very least, you get a fraction of how they felt.
“Big or small, all things are touched by the same bottomless meaningless vortex,” Aeon of Nihility told you once, a fraction of truth is still truth nonetheless.
“Why are you planting seeds into the ground?” IX asked. Although their voice was low and acoustic; bouncing all over this fabricated dimension used for holding IX themselves when they went to sleep, you can feel the genuine curiosity behind those blob eyes of theirs.
“ Someone has said to me once that beautiful flowers help people get into a better mood,”
“ Maybe for mortals, but those tricks don't work on us who knows,” IX said. Even with a rather distant and monotone, there is a hint of somewhat concern.
“I know,” you said—your voice, too, was bouncing off the metaphorical wall. It created the signature acoustic sounds that, as you remember, were once disorienting when you first arrived here. Now? It would have been weird to not hear a slight echo in your or their voice.
You kneeled, the gray and tender sand soil you have gathered in your palm felt cold. It shines against the soft light emitting from the other side where IX was crawling opposing it. The light existed alongside the nihility, belonging to the Doctor of Chaos. “—You don’t have to be too worried. This is mostly for them,” when you continued speaking, the sand was allowed to slide past your hand—it flowed down, but immediately dissolved mid-air into nothingness.
“All things that exist would come to its conclusion. And all things exist for one single purpose; to exist, to continue to exist, and then struggle for that existence—against the unknown, against the others. Only when they no longer could stomach this any longer, shall they perish—left nothing behind,” the Nihility said, Their tone was rather melodic despite the absolutely horrifying speech they have given to you. Yet, it didn’t shake you. Perhaps, being their emanator has some interesting and useful additional benefits.
“I understand, and you are right more than wrong. Still, I plant this for them,”
“ If I am right, then who else is them ?”
“ Those who will walk this path, the same path that I did, and those who will receive that gaze of yours,” you said with an amused yet exhausted smile on your face.
“ No, no. There will be no others. You are selected, but there will be no more others. You are my first and the last emanator,” IX burst out—a rather strange demeanor from those who hold the status of an Aeon; but then again—we don’t really know all that much about Aeon after all. They almost sound anxious—almost but you just burst out laughing.
“Are…you laughing? At an Aeon..?”
“Who else would I be laughing at?”
“…why?” The aeon exclaimed with a voice filled with a hint of annoyance. You inhaled—trying your best to suppress the laugh that seemed to be indefinitely pouring out.
“You are wrong about most things, you were wrong then before you gazed upon me, and you’re wrong now that you assumed you won’t gaze at anyone again,” you said. Most of the dirt in your palm was already gone. Turn around to face your Aeon who, to best describe it—seems to be in absolute shock. Mortals or immortals with less significance do not challenge Aeon, and if they do it will be done not in such a flippancy like this. IX has faced hostility by mortals before by the name of ‘annihilation gangs’, it was…something for several seconds…and then they were nothing, swallowed whole by the crushing weight of nothingness. But—you are special, IX recognized that genes the Aeon’s gaze that craved a mental scar of nihility into your mind. Yet, uniqueness does not exempt you from absolute nothingness. In time, you will perish, and the millions of steps you have to take to be at this point will quickly be washed away by the current of time…and the ever-looming, uncaring silence of the universe. Like the dirt that no longer sits among your fingers, your life will soon slip from the grasp of the Aeon.
And yet—yet, this fact did not dim your light, not one bit. You know full well of the approaching darkness at all of the universe’s corridors—they have let you see it yourself. Still, you have insisted on the very same stand you have held before. Despite not chasing foolishly trying to create artificial meaning to life and the universe—you have understood and even believed the same thing IX believed, you have chosen to face such issues with a totally opposite reaction they have expected.
You faced your Aeon now, the metaphorical barren land of gray and emptiness was now occupied by blooming bio-fluorescent white flowers. It shines bright, but not too bright where it hurts—but bright enough to stand firm against the blackest of black sky that enveloped the garden and both entities facing each other.
“Before you crowned me as your emanator, you had none before. You don't believe in bestowing your ‘blessings’ upon anyone—you have seen no point in it, and you believed no beings could tolerate such nihilistic gaze anyway. Then you gazed at me, I suffered from you and I survived, and I got better. You said, in the face of looming darkness, I will understand and change my way—and I have not changed, before or after,”
IX looked straight into the eyes of their emanator and thought— why is she so difficult? But perhaps that is why she interests me…
“You are unbelievable, breathtakingly chaotic,” IX said with exasperation but their gaze was soft, as soft as a freshly cleaned wool. Something rather surprising coming from the Aeon represents coldness and emptiness.
“Now stop bothering me, I want to sleep…” With that, IX closed their eyes—essentially turning themselves into a mass of darkening black hole that seems to suck away all the life force surrounding it. This made-up space for you and them has dimmed its light, the world was asleep now as both you and the garden of light fell into the dark. You sat down, in an environment with minimal light, and closed your eyes too—drifting into a state of inactivity like your Aeon. Still, you and the garden emit soft light like a nightlight for the Aeon to anchor on. IX didn’t need it, and yet… you wanted to do it.
This place should be hell for any other, but for you—you felt comforted by the presence of the Nihility. It’s true that you were now in the darkness swallow but this darkness itself soothed you—just like the Nihility has too. Tomorrow, there will be work to do; but now you just want to rest beside your aeon. Basking silently in each other comfort.
The colors in the sky, so vivid and fluid, represent the strokes of an old brush upon a canvas. Long strokes of purple and dark blue weave through and by lost asteroids and stars ready to explode. Everything is so eerily still. The comet that was on its way to burn through the atmosphere looks like a scratch over a metal plate, a crack in time and space, and the ship’s motor no longer purrs as it began to stir to life. It is evident that the IX, Nihility has cursed this place with their presence. Cursed. Yet I can’t care to look away. It’s poison spreads through my hands, and the cask of materials doesn’t seem even the slightest bit important. Why should it?
Perhaps, if I look closer, harder, I’d be able to see an eye of the IX just beyond the horizon.
“-re you just going to stand there and gawk?”
Instead of the unblinking nothingness staring back at me, it’s the darkened gaze of the superior peering into my soul, gazing through it like the midnight sun searching for the sinner. I have been looking at her for a while, judging be the tightness that hugged my throat and the look she gave me. Her eyes were always dark, sharp, yet a few shades warmer than the cold night beyond the ship. The feeling does not wash away, but I can hear again. The team moves around me like a hive, packing bags, materials, storing away tools and papers, and her and I stand still.
“Give me the materials. You go back and take your medicine, you’re looking pale again.. Don’t look outside the windows anymore, understood?”
“..Yes, ma’am”
This idea was inspired by this post here on twt !
I really loved the idea and I have been looking for ways to draw Jien as something more Nihility related and that post just lit that spark in me. Jien as Nihility themselves. Bc spoiler (or not tbh) - she has some connections to Nihility. I often joke and think about how it would be if she even ascended to that role of an aeon of Nihility, and the possibilities are fun to think about, mainly how it would impact Proxy and other characters that are in close relations to Jien.
