The days seemed to pass quite quickly for Lloyd, and that was probably because he had his entire daily schedule planned for him.
After spending the last three months training and doing nothing else, he had grown used to such a routine. However, while grief took his mind off training for a little while after Rex left, Lloyd quickly became more restless by the day.
Every day Lloyd went without training made him feel more empty on the inside. So when he finally got to do it again, it was as if he had become whole again...
Lloyd had trained a week before coming to the Glade manor. While it may seem like he had become whole again from his perspective to everyone else, it looked like Lloyd was trying to hold himself together, training being the only clutch for him to hold his sanity on.
His family grew more worried by the day, as Lloyd's training did not seem to lower in intensity but instead only increased.
Once they reached the Glade manor, Lloyd holed himself in a training room and trained without stop, his new first commandment vitality allowing him to train for 24 hours without feeling even moderately fatigued, forcing him to only increase the intensity of his training every time he felt that way.
Whenever he finished his day's training, he would leave the training room to visit Tina's. After seeing how close Tina and Lloyd were, Benjamin decided that she should also come with them.
Of course, he would have usually asked her parents if he could take her with them, yet after seeing that her parents hadn't shown up even after being on the news several times, he saw that it was probably for the best if he didn't involve them.
As per usual, Lloyd's family was worried about him. At a certain point, they thought that he might have slept inside the training room. Yet, after seeing him go for hours without a break, they were worried for a completely different reason, finally choosing to intervene, ruling his training schedule too unhealthy and too dangerous for anyone his age.
The council of parents ruled him to 8 hours of slumber behind bars (his room), yet when he did finally sleep, slumber was far from what happened.
[Eris's Palace]
"Welcome to the void."
"We have been expecting you."
Lloyd opened his eyes, the dark abyss around him suddenly being replaced by a bright void that spanned for as far as the eye could see.
To any normal man, it would have looked like they were in a white box, yet Lloyd resonated with this area. He could feel its power channeling into him and invigorating him far more than any sleep could.
Lloyd was so intoxicated with the power that surrounded him that he could not help but close his eyes and channel some of the energy into his void rune, yet a moment before he could allow the power to touch the purple rune inside him, it paused.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you." A melodic voice echoed throughout the infinite space, but while it might have caused anyone in its presence to relax into the soft, warm chimes of her voice, to Lloyd, it felt like the voice of the grim reaper.
"Eris..." Lloyd instantly got into a fighting stance, his flashing for a moment as he readied [Void Step]
"Is that how you thank me for keeping you alive?" She asked with a chuckle, making Lloyd raise a brow.
"What do you mean?"
"Did you just 'What do you mean?' me? I gave you my blessing, that's what!" Eris pouted before standing up from her chair that seemed to have been carved out of an enormous purple and black crystal.
While there was nothing but her, Lloyd, and the chair in this infinite white void, with a snap of her fingers, she quickly changed that, making the entire area around them change in an instant as several pillars came out of the "ground."
Walls lines in gold appeared out of thin air, in within an instant, a golden palace was formed around them, Eris's black and purple crystal chair cementing the room they were in as the throne room.
Of course, the chair looked quite out of place in a palace made of gold and the whitest marble, yet at the same time, it added a sense of gloom to the place, as if there was a light, yet permanent shadow hung over the entire palace.
"Oh yeah... Wait, was that the reason why I could use Terraigne?" Lloyd asked, making Eris raise a brow momentarily before widening her eyes and nodding.
"It also reset all your cooldowns while giving you a little boost in the strength whenever you used you manipulated the void element." She explained, making Lloyd's heart soften in appreciation and completely eliminating his previous hostility toward her.
"Wait, why can't I remember you when I leave this place... And why am I in this place? Shouldn't this be a void walk?" Lloyd asked, making Eris sigh in disappointment and flop back into her throne.
Eris was a beautiful woman who looked like she was in her late 20s or early 30s. She had waist-long black hair with a tinge of purple whenever the lighting was right.
She had a pair of beautiful violet eyes, yet one look into them would inform the person looking into them that the person before them was not a young woman in her 20s, but rather an ancient being as old as time itself.
She wore a long modest black dress that hid most of her body, as well as a pair of black heels that clicked every time she took a step.
Her natural expression was a mischievous one, as he lips coated in black lipstick would always curl into a smile that would send shudders down the spines of any man who saw them. That, combined with her unnaturally pale skin, would have made the minds of most men scream crazy, yet to Lloyd, she seemed quite normal... No... She seemed attractive.
'Should I propose.' Lloyd thought to himself jokingly, yet when he saw a look of panic appear on Eris's face, he quickly understood that she had heard him.
So he did the only thing a gentleman like himself would.
Lloyd put on a wry smile and walked up to Eris's throne before taking her hand and getting onto one knee.
"Lady Eris, thou art a fine mistress who has caught mine own eye.
Thou art the star that shines brighter than any other. I'd liketh to asketh for thy handeth in marriage. "
"..."
"..."
Lloyd raised a brow, thinking that maybe she didn't understand his Shakespearean linguistic ability.
"Lady Eris, you are a fine woman-"
"Wait, no, stop! I understood you!" She cried before slapping his hand away with a little too much force, causing him to be shot back several meters before he could regain his balance.
"Ugh. Thou art's rejection hurts mine, own heart!" Lloyd cried out dramatically before grasping the general area of where his heart would have been.
Eris, on the other hand, cried into her own hands as cringe overcame her. Never in a million years did she think that she would feel embarrassed by the actions of someone of Lloyd's status, but that lack of socialization over the last few thousand years had come to create a situation like this.
Lloyd's dramatic act lastest a few more minutes before he finally had enough fun embarrassing her and decided to get back on track.
"What were you questions again?" Eris asked with a small blush on her face that was a huge contrast to her abnormally pale self.
"Why can't I remember you when I leave this place... And why am I in this place? Shouldn't this be a void walk?" Lloyd asked again, this time smiling from ear to ear while looking at Eris, who couldn't keep proper eye contact with him.
'Serves her right for killing me last time.'
"You remembering this place, and especially me, would not bid well for you. No matter what form I take, the image of me in your mind is like signing your death warrant. Think of the memory of me as a signature that will alert anyone strong enough to feel it or even see it." She explained.
"Then what is the point of meeting you if I'm going to simply forget it the moment I reach the outside world?" Lloyd questioned her logic.
"Because, while I'm not allowed show up in your mind as a memory, the things I tell you here are ingrained into you like a talent or an instinct, the same way a baby horse knows how to walk the moment they leave the womb." She explained, a little annoyed at the fact that Lloyd was questioning her logic, but she understood it.
Humans tend to question everything, and Lloyd used to be human, so it made sense.
"Wouldn't that also leave a mark?"
"It would, but I've gotten the void walker thing down pretty well. Have you ever asked yourself why you weren't discovered during the awakening ceremony?" She asked, laking Lloyd raise a brow but allowing her to continue.
"Void walkers are the fastest evolving species in the universe... Well, the fastest evolving humanoid species. Slimes are terrifyingly efficient as evolving." She shuddered before continuing.
"There's no real point in telling you since you'll forget it the moment you leave this place, so I'll summarize it. Void walkers, before becoming void walkers, we a completely different species."
"What species were-"
"Don't interrupt me." She snapped her fingers, forcefully shutting Lloyd up.
"Millions of years ago, a group of people got stranded in a bubble of space that happened to be in the void. The bubble was small, barely pluto-sized, but it was lush to the brim.
However, no matter how lush it was or how little aggressive wildlife there was, the bubble adapted to the void, while the stranded people didn't.
Many of them died due to being poisoned by the void's radiation within the food and the air itself... However, there was a woman among them who survived.
While the rest died within a few days of eating the fruits of this place, this didn't. Her body adapted to the area, and before she knew it... she awakened, becoming the first of her species to awaken, and the first of her species to mutate.
She did her best to keep the others alive with her newfound abilities, yet no matter what she did, she failed to keep them from dying, so she did the second best thing she could.
She was a scientist, so she experimented and did everything she could. Within a few years, there were only two others left, and the mother was about to have a baby, and that's when it happened.
The couple hated her for what she did but were far too weak to fight back. The woman experimented on the unborn fetus, and when the baby was finally birthed, despite the mother's death, the woman had achieved her final goal.
She had finally created a being capable of surviving the void radiation, just like her...
That woman was my grandmother, Zingra Khaos Erelm."
