Greyashe chapter 331 is entitled 'Universe of Everything.'

Previous chapter 330: What we found.

Next chapter 332: The necessity of walls.

Summary page.

-Short summary-

A person from the mere outset of Van's journey recalls his own path that brought him to the farseer.

-Long summary-

We are all mini universes…and a universe cannot exist alone.

The constant words from the only parental figure he knew are the ones that drive him even now.  If we as people are all mini universes then interacting with another and becoming one with their universe is next to godliness isn’t it? Rather than living as separate entities we should endeavor to become with each other, and see the view into those universes….

The universe that had informed him of the magic of others then passed away. He was a lone universe now, yearning to understand this ‘magic’ of being involved with others.  Perhaps he had put too much stock into these words, which could very well have been a gentle and well-meaning edge into the doldrums of normalcy, but words are all he is left with. Words would be the very elements that would damn him as well as lead to his salvation. Words are…

The entry into the universes he seeks.

The travel was lonely at first, frequenting the outskirts of cities and rivers. Universes are cold and expansive elements….how would one know when they have entered one and when they are to leave one? How does one even know when they are wanted in a said universe? If we are all the epicenter of our own expansive space then could it be dangerous for these things to collide?

Yet he still yearns to know that in a universe outside his own there is space for him. He travels not understanding that there are those who will let him into their universe but not at all for mutual benefit.  Those who would take advantage of his need to be involved in another universe, to be more than his own ‘space’, would do so until an accident –on purpose leaves him dying in on an open street, the universes he desire passing him by with nary a second glance.

This is Luxar the city that never sleeps.

It occurs to him now that the one who informed him about the universe never told him how he had ended up here. Not here, but in the universe of the universe.

A voice opens up his universe with it’s familiarity. The one who had brought him into the universe, the one he had never met. Even though it’s aura is cold, the voice is warm and he welcomes the entry into his universe. She is a dancer who uses a combination of her own wiles and potions she learned how to make from her own parental figure to trick others into giving her what she needs or what she feels she should have. He can tell upon meeting her that the universe she inhabits is cold and without others to inhabit it. Perhaps this is why he sought her out and despite knowing very little about his own universe he asked in uncertain terms if he may enter hers. Without hesitation she allowed him in, and he had gained what he had been looking for since his lonely journey began.

Or so it would seem…

She was already in the universes of several, and he in turn would be involved in those universes as well. The dancer girl Attica –who also runs in the universe of those who would identify themselves as con artists, thieves and those who’s universes are tainted by the corruption of the world. A corruption that seeps into the cracks created by the impact of purity meeting reality….an impact that only hastened the further he went into this girl’s universe. Soon he who had never once been in a fight had learned the arts of an assassin, and even learned to fight with chakrams, deadly weapons that are undisputedly created for the sole purpose of taking lives. He couldn’t say now that the universes he had so yearned to become a part of had driven him to this. For now he had taken on the role of one who takes universes away. For if something is created, it can be destroyed. Universes, lives, people, innocence…

The actions that he had taken which should have purged her universe of unwanted elements in fact only increased the problems within both of theirs. In turn it became evident that they would need to expand their universe to include more of the very same elements they had hoped to escape from. Others had heard of his reputation and soon approached him with a specific mission…to rid them of their prime enemy the ‘Goddess Killer’. Only then would they enter the universes of the two and protect them from the negative dwellers in her universe that had slowly encroached his and now dwell there too. It was an offer they couldn’t refuse. Mostly because one of the universes he had collapsed had been one of their top agents. Graciously they looked into his own and found something there that they wanted so they allowed it a continued existence. Little did he know that it would be a trek through the universe of the Goddess killer and the one involved with her that would signal the collapse of his own universe.

Hasjit. The strangely but appropriately named desert city where their universes were set to crash and grind. An exercise that he had been through several times before, and had strangely left his universe full of more rather than less. Full of what? The obvious being others who seek to bring his universe to an end. The not so obvious? Emotions. The signifying trait of a universe slowly expanding out of control is it beginning to fill with emotions that one cannot handle, and cannot understand. In his continued search for a way to cross universes and have someone in his own he had slowly begun to understand his own universe and despite it’s wide open nature that what should be in it, and what is in it are two very different things. Still to the one who had graciously entered his universe he would proceed.

The Goddess killer. To his surprise she had someone in her universe, and it had affirmed what he had heard as a child. For if even someone like the Goddess killer has someone in her universe, then he had been right to seek someone for his. However, what causes him turmoil is emotions. If his teachings had been right then why does he feel engaging her is the wrong thing to do? Is he beginning to doubt his own universe?

Maybe rightfully so he is enraged by his own inability to grasp himself, and decides that the immediate response to this is to be rid of the Goddess killer –the source of this discord. He and Attica separate the two in their own ways…him with violence and she with trickery. The irony that the two of them together could not take on their universes without first tearing them down to size completely unseen. He attacks the Goddess killer with an explanation that he needs to do this to protect the one in his universe…but it comes off as self-gratification. 

The two exchange blows, his chakrams providing cover for her flame magic, and him gaining the upper hand. He is right! This is all for his universe and the one within! The Goddess killer must be dispatched if his universe is to continue to exist! He is in the right, she is in the wrong, and he knows this from the countless universes that he had crossed through and the view that had been seen in each one of them. The Goddess killer is….

He makes a move. The wrong one. Like the fire she uses the Goddess killer is upon him in a mere instant, and it seems that the universe that exists only on the dead stars of other universes will become empty space itself until a voice rings out and explodes into his space like a new star being born. The one in the Goddess killer’s universe had unwittingly opened a path into his own. The voice of the boy asks that she spare him, allow him privilege of continued existence. Surprisingly the Goddess killer acknowledges this and allows him further passage into her own universe by starting that she has a name. No longer is she just the ‘Goddess killer’ but ‘Claire.’ So this is what it’s like to enter a universe….! Is this the entry he had been yearning for all this time? The two are so close in their universes that they cannot take action that would deny another their own space….their own cosmos..!! Yet had she…had Attica given him the same?

The illusion is shattered.

The boy who shattered it unknowingly then states the truth the emotions in his universe had been silently conveying. They (He) would never find happiness if they only have murder in common. So wise this boy is, and he foolish despite not even knowing this child’s name. What had started off as a young man’s search for comrades is now ---plain and simple a selfish desire to justify reprehensible actions. He had used her as a means to understand universes without first comprehending his own and she….

The universe he thought she had invited him into had actually just been a misunderstanding. He had wandered into a unknown section of his own universe, and mistook it for hers. He quickly understood this when those who wanted to purge the Goddess killer from any universe rescinded their offer upon his failure and offered another. After all he had been the one to erase the universe of one their own, not her so…

She took it. Without any hesitation. He clearly remembers the sound of the universe he thought he had been invited into being sucked away from him as silence. Not just any silence however, a silence that is pure and absolute. A silence that nothing could ever hope to reach. She would only have to enact their revenge by purging his universe. Simple in its elocution and execution.

Only by faking death had he survived the savage beating that she started and they had continued. He lie dying for the second time in his life, comforted by the scent of his own blood and the warmth rushing out of him. The universe is a cold and place after all…so it only makes sense that it’s end should match it’s existence.

Ironically that night she would be killed by the Challengers of Eternity when she tried to betray her current company. Or perhaps not. In any case it has nothing to do with him as his universe continues to shrivel away. What had he done wrong? Or the better question –what had he done right? The answer is a resounding silence isn’t it?

The Goddess killer for all that he had been told about her should not have been able to find a peaceful place in her universe for someone else to exist in yet she had. What then had he missed that she had found? Would he be able to find it if his universe were to become dead space here?

No!

Hadn’t he only journeyed out to find universes to cross with? So what is he doing giving up after being cast into space once more? Isn’t this where he first started to begin with?

With barely one leg and only one eye, he journeys alone again. Alone, but not lonely. Always with him is that purpose, and while it can offer no physical support it is what gets him from point A to B on even the coldest and darkest nights. Nights like the universe that surrounds the world.

It is on one of those space-cold nights that he happens upon her again.

The Goddess killer lies on a riverside, half her little body still submerged. She probably had struggled to get this far and her strength had given out when she made it to the top. She is noticeably without the boy who had been in her universe. Arguably she had also been the one who had caused his universe to come crashing down, and he could easily finish her off. These are the thoughts he has as he gingerly picks her up and takes her to an abandoned hut he had made his temporary lodging. What should he do?

It then dawns on him. If he had been able to erase her universe back then that he’d probably still be with Attica….and the Goddess killer…Claire would be…

He had gone from being in her universe to controlling it.

It’s a ghastly feeling.

Claire had saved him and whether he would ultimately find what he seeks or die trying is in a way her responsibility. Then he should in turn….

Acting as a specter, he took care of Claire until the boy who had been part of her universe once again entered her space….and his. Deep down he knew that the two would be reunited, and once again exist in each other’s universes, for what they have is real unlike what he and Attica had.  He learns the boy’s name as well….’Van’. So then ‘Van’, what would happen now that he had saved the one who’s universe who’s essential to his. Would their universes expand to greater heights or lows…?

He found himself curious to the point of obsession, and followed the universe he had saved and the universe that was intrinsically connected to it. There would be times where he’d lose them, but he’d always find them again. Eventually they became connected to other universes, and their universes separated ---all without never losing that sense of adhesion. Finally he lost Van for an extended amount of time (after Claire disappeared he had been unable to find her again.), and only became aware of his location when the boy popped up again at his hometown some time later, his appearance much like his own oh so long ago. The boy had lost track of his ‘universe’, and was aimlessly floating in space. So this is the fate of the universe connected to the universe he had saved? It’s truly a shame….that Van would lose his way so completely.

However even he had underestimated the power of universes connected by truth.

Van and Roysé are headed back to Greyashe when they encounter a strange man with an eye swollen almost shut and a limp to his walk. Van regards him for a moment before realization sets in. Roysé looks at her ‘brother’ and back at the man asking who he is and whether they’re acquainted?

Radam’s lips part in a small smile as he points at Van and then himself. He asks in a raspy voice if Van is enjoying the benefits of the ‘universe’ he returned to him?

Van’s expression doesn’t change as he regards the not stranger, leaving it uncertain if he comprehends the meaning of his words.