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"Aha! The crystal has established its connection with the world vein," said Ven\'thur triumphantly. He clapped his skeletal hands together as he watched purple sparks fly from the body of the huge structure, lighting up the dark of the cavern in an almost ghostly glow.

The ground began to rumble gently, and a whirring sound, the kind you would hear in a generator, began to emanate from the depth of the crystal as it began to grow increasingly brighter.

An aura of purple energy began to shimmer around it, and the aura shaped into coiling tendrils as they snaked up, trying to reach the cavern ceiling.

"Normally," said Ven\'thur. "The crystal\'s mana channels would attach above, linking it to the rest of Kel\'thor, but the blast has destabilized the citadel\'s position and ruined much of its capability to connect with the crystal.

I, however, am still more than capable of processing this power."

Ven\'thur reached a beckoning hand to the crystal, and the aura of purple began to flow towards it, as if magnetized by the bone. As streams of pure, condensed mana flowed into Ven\'thur, he sighed.

"Oh, how thoroughly overwhelming the raw power of a world vein is," he said. "And yet, still nothing in comparison to the blindingly bright power you showed me."

"I realize I have a flair for showing off," said Li as he remembered the fusion seed incident with Ven\'thur on the moon. "I am glad you appreciate it."

"Certainly, I do. You know, at first, I mocked your mingling with mortals, but upon witnessing your power, I became more open to the idea that you could seize the future of these mortal lives and bend them to a better path." Ven\'thur brought his hands close together, and a flowing channel of purple energy began to flow between them. "And now, we begin the ritual to aid you in that noble goal."

"Will papa be hurt?" asked Tia worryingly as she looked up, her head craning far up as she tried to look at the tall figures of Ven\'thur and Li.

"Your father is quite a sturdy one," said Ven\'thur. "A trait that you, it seems have inherited, majestic little dragon. Now, there is a matter of dimensional fluxes potentially locking him away eternally in the cosmic void he wishes to traverse."

"Ven\'thur," said Li admonishingly, knowing the lich\'s words were going to concern Tia. "I chose you for this ordeal for I believed you to be able to minimize risks."

"Do not worry, good seer, the probability of such accidents is at less than one percent. But, as I have said before, there is no such thing as true certainty." Ven\'thur\'s eyes lit up, flashing far brighter red than usual, and his robes began to billow around him, surges of wind rising from the energy he channeled.

The two channels of energy that collided between his hands began to form into a spherical shape, and Li realized it was in the shape of his heart.

"Does that mean papa safe?" asked Tia, tugging at Li\'s branched finger.

Li nodded to Tia. "There will be no harm made to my body, Tia. That, I can guarantee."

"Hm, yes, good, good," commented Ven\'thur as he focused on the heart pulsating between his hands. "This is how I recalled the structure of your being, and as an accomplished artisan, I must say that I have done quite a wondrous job of replication. Now to tether it to a location that bears its same essence.

Though, I must say, this is the first time I am linking another to…themselves."

"It does sound odd, but trust me, that is what is required here. Somewhere in the depths of existence, there lies a space, a dimension comprised entirely of my own power. A dimension that may as well be a part of myself embodied."

"This is the first I have ever heard of such phenomenon. I am all too curious to see how this ritual operates. The theoretics of it, I have all accounted for, but to see it play out will truly be a test of my knowledge." Ven\'thur took the heart and gently pushed it out towards the crystal.

The heart of purple flickered like an image cast upon moving water as it drifted slowly to the crystal, as if magnetically drawn to it. The heart sank into the crystal, and then, the light of the crystal dimmed entirely, leaving the cavern in darkness.

Nothing happened.

"What happen?" asked Tia.

"That, my dear, I am not entirely sure," said Ven\'thur, scratching his skull. "It seems…the crystal has been drained utterly of energy. But that is nigh impossible. The amount of mana stored here is unfathomable, more than enough to establish a link so intimately close as that between an individual and themselves. By sheer metrics of power, this should be enough even for an avatar of a divinity to reach their higher form should they wish."

In disbelief, Ven\'thur tapped at the crystal with a fist in very much the same way someone would hit an electronic device in an attempt to get it to work again. 

The crystal responded by releasing an extreme flux of energy that blasted omnidirectionally outwards. Ven\'thur flew backwards at high speeds, and Li reacted by immediately sheltering Tia, covering her with his body.

The shockwave broke apart almost every single undead in the cavern, blasting their bones into fragments that scattered away like dust in a strong wind. Only the bone drake remained entirely unscathed.

The crystal had begun to shine with energy colored like the night sky, as if someone had sliced a part of visible space, all its little stars and planets, and painted it over the breadth of the structure. The whirring sound it emitted became immensely powerful, almost deafening, rumbling the cavern.

The fissures underneath the crystal began to crack and grow wider, exposing fiery crackles of magical energy that leaked out dangerously.

With an ear-splitting cry that sounded eerily similar to a distorted scream, the crystal projected a burst of energy above it that tore apart space, forming into a rapidly swirling portal that pitch-black darkness.

Ven\'thur floated back to the crystal, recovered from the sudden shockwave, and the red points of light in his sockets narrowed in focus.

"A connection has been established!" he declared triumphantly. He cocked his head as he scrutinized the crystal closer, triumph giving way to sheer awe.

"But the location – I cannot tell where it is. It is not anywhere that has been mapped, not in the millennia this citadel has stood, and we have mapped even to the stars. I cannot even begin to grasp a sense of physical coordinates.

This place – it does not exist in a realm abiding by the material laws that bind us here. It is entirely foreign. Unbound by this world, unknown even to the stars so distant."

"I ask of you only this: can you pull me out whenever you wish?" said Li.

"That, I can do. I simply have to remove the crystal from the world vein," said Ven\'thur. "The loss of a mana supply should destroy the portal, and with the link broken, you will be shunted back to this plane of existence."

"Good. That is all I need," said Li as he looked up to the portal awaiting him. "I will handle everything else." 

Li felt Tia\'s hand tighten strongly around his finger as she too looked up to the portal, at the mass of undulating darkness that must have felt and looked so unknown to her.

"Don\'t go, papa," said Tia once more as her eyes widened. "That-," she said, pointing a clawed finger to the portal. "Cold. Bad cold. Dark cold."

"I will be gone just an hour, Tia," said Li. "Is that not right, Ven\'thur?"

"As you wish, good seer. An hour it is," said Ven\'thur as he positioned himself in front of the crystal, his eyes reading the flow of magic echoing from it to gauge that all was right.

"So don\'t worry," said Li to Tia. "Father will not be gone long, and he has to go this time, remember? It\'s to help keep you safe. To keep Old Thane safe. To keep sister Jeanne and Sylvie and uncle Azhar all safe."

Tia kept a hold on Li\'s hand for several seconds before finally relenting. "Okay," she whispered.

Li patted her head, wishing he could comfort her more, but there was no changing the fact that he had to go. The sooner he got through with it, the better.

He willed a platform of branches to grow under his feet, raising him up to the portal until he stood face to face with it. The aura emanating from that entryway into darkness was familiar.

Too familiar, in fact, like he was almost looking into a reflection of himself in that mirror of dark.

He knew this was the right place.

Li stepped into the darkness to once more claim what was part of himself. 

==========

A sensation of falling.

Then, nothingness.

No light, no space, no sensation, just pure, absolute, unadulterated nothingness.

There, Li manifested his consciousness, and with it, he remembered everything from the last time he was here. The talk with the entity which was still equally as confusing as it was the first time he heard it. He remembered too his choice. The decision to flow for order.

He remembered how after making that decision, he felt like he had become something else.

Something else, and yet, just the same, and in that state, he had affected time, reaching into the past and blessing the hero of the Chattering Woods with power to defeat the demons.

Power that condemned her to suffering, and yet, he had promised to save her, and he did, destroying her darkbeast form in the present. 

Power. Direction. Flow.

As these words entered into Li\'s mind, he began to realize that the nothingness around him began to take shape, turning into an enormous body of water shaded in black, its breadth stretching out to infinity. Or rather, maybe it was the nothingness that adapted to him, molding into a form he could more easily grasp.

Power hummed from the waters engulfing him. Power immeasurable and unfathomable in scale.

And yet, it was not power he could take in. He tried, willing his consciousness to draw in the seemingly unending vastness of strength that flowed all around him, and yet, it was excruciatingly difficult.

He felt like a man dying of thirst surrounded by the ocean.

Eventually, he managed to take a droplet of the water around him, and with it, he manifested a body. His Elder Leshen form. He felt it as familiar as it always was, fully charged with all his usual might, and he used it to swim upwards, for though the waters extended infinitely horizon wise, they seemed to have an end vertically.

He breached the surface of the waters and paused, startled. The world above the black waters was completely gray and muted, devoid of colors. There was no sun, just a consistent gray shade that mimicked a sense of dreary lighting.

Strangely, it reminded him of Valhul, at how it had deteriorated into muted dark and grayness.

But most surprising of all was that standing still atop the waters, as if frozen in time, was the cottage, painted in the same grayscale as everything else above water.

Li drew himself out the water, standing on it as if it were solid ground, and drew near to the cottage door, knowing deep within himself that if he wanted to access more of the power around him, the answers lay in the cottage.

He opened the door and hunched himself to step into its cramped innards.

There, sitting atop the stool that Old Thane usually occupied, was himself.