The literal soul-wrenching pain affecting Alicia wasn't distracting enough to prevent her from being seriously irritated at Jack.

“You're crazy, you know that?” Jack said. “Not like 'oh my girlfriend's kinda crazy'. Not like 'that party last night was crazy'. No. You need help.”

“So... he- help me,” Alicia panted. “And don't... call me your girlfriend.”

“It was an example,” Jack said. “Rather than girlfriend, all I want to call you is an idiot.”

“Not like... you're any b-better,” she panted.

“I got two cracks in my soul for healing Lisaseron,” he said. “Your soul is in two pieces.”

“I'm... focusing,” she said. “Shut up.”

Alicia's attention went back to her soul. Her soul wasn't quite broken in half but it was nearly there. The rest of her soul wasn't looking better, other major cracks had widened and an alarming number of microcracks had formed and expanded, giving her soul the texture of a partially shattered windshield.

Lisaseron put her hand on the girl and looked closely at her. The Goddess turned away, but Alicia still noticed the displeased expression on her face.

“Fifteen more minutes,” Lisaseron said. “No more than that.”

Alicia swore under her breath. She'd improved a lot with manipulating her aura and improving her soul defenses but for the price it cost, it wasn't worth it. Alicia wasn't entirely sure how bad off she was but she knew it would be a week minimum before she could do anything more strenuous than a light walk.

She'd grown more familiar with her aura and her giant sword of an Innate but the 'path' Lisaseron had spoke of was nowhere in sight. Alicia wasn't willing to let Jack get further ahead of her. Although she didn't know exactly what happened when Jack advanced his Innate, she could sense a special clarity gripping the boy, a sureness in the way he saw the future ahead of him. Most of all, she could feel he was really working in harmony to understand and direct his Innate's development while she was struggling to even exist with hers.

She wracked her exhausted brain to figure out a plan. What was she supposed to understand from the collapse of her soul? She was sure there was something special about her aura, given that Lisaseron wanted to use it for her own purposes but staring and fiddling around with it didn't bring her any closer to understanding the secrets within her aura.

Nothing seemed to lead anywhere. The big sword of her Innate just laid in the middle of the room, menacing but inert. She didn't have the slightest clue what her way forward to develop her Innate was. As her soul crumbled apart, Alicia realized there was one thing she could learn.

She pushed her soul perception deeper into her soul, carefully examining how her aura broke apart her soul and exploited the weaknesses it created. She thinned out the aura lingering in her soul as much as possible while also urging her aura to do more damage to her soul. She shuddered as the pain ratcheted up another degree.

“Alicia, what are you doing?” Jack asked.

“Less talky more healy,” she said.

She encouraged her aura to seep deeper into the small cracks of her soul. As she pushed deeper, her whole body shook without stopping. Tears silently streamed down her face. She couldn't bring her brain to think a single thought through the excruciating pain as she burned the movements of her aura into her brain.

What felt like hours passed, before she felt someone rip her hands off the formation. She opened her eyes and saw Jack's concerned face in front of her. She couldn't really understand the words he was saying but he seemed more worried than she'd ever seen him before. Seeing him like that made her smile. Jack seemed taken aback by her action, which made her even happier. She blew a raspberry at him before her consciousness dimmed.

***

“You two are seriously hardcore, you know that?” Diana said. “I've never seen anyone below Akashic-Touched train like you two.”

“Tell me about it,” Jack said. “It better get easier. Just look at this mess I have to deal with.”

He gestured to the unconscious Alicia sitting in his lap.

“I should be relaxing now,” he said. “Instead, I'm basically training every moment my eyes aren't closed. I'm done with it.”

Jack felt a familiar laser-like stare pierce into him.

“Am I hearing correctly?” Lisaseron asked. “You claim yourself done with my training?”

“I mean it's just-”

The intensity of her gaze increased.

“Just a little... much I-”

He felt his entire body seize up under her pressure. He couldn't move an inch.

“It is rigorous training, yes,” Lisaseron said. “But there are many dangerous things you must face. Perhaps once you get a bit stronger we can consider relaxing your training menu. What do you think, Jack?”

“M-Mayb-”

“What was that, dear?”

The boy was covered in a faint sheen of sweat before Lisaseron let up the pressure enough so he could speak.

“G-Good idea,” he gasped. “No complaints!”

“Excellent,” Lisaseron said. “The two of you have done well, both of you supporting each other and me throughout this whole process. The embryonic Stellar Direwind is in fantastic condition and my Divinity is in better condition than expected. You both have my sincere thanks.”

Lisaseron turned her head back to face the outside of the disk again.

“But words mean little,” Lisaseron said. “We arrive in twenty minutes. I hope you both get to really see the good work you have contributed towards. Shadow, please cast out the second set of blood.”

“With pleasure,” Syraviel said.

Lisaseron continued to work with the collected starlight, shaping its formation at the cost of her well being. The glare of the starlight faded into a gauzy light purple swirls. The Void Tunnel shook. Everyone's eyes went to the outside before looking at Lisaseron.

“Hmm,” Lisaseron said. “It would seem that Alicia contributed more than I expected.”

The Tunnel shook harder than before.

“Shadow, please continue casting out the blood for the Behemoths.”

A small tear broke on the Tunnel's exterior.

“Quickly please, Shadow,” Lisaseron said.

Syraviel sighed, dispensing the buckets of addled blood into the mouths of the Behemoths.

The Behemoths turned even more frenzied than before, snapping at the disk but oddly they seemed to struggle with pinning down the Disk's location. Lisaseron's face soured.

“The Tunnel is denaturing faster than expected,” she said. “I am accelerating our pace.”

“Void,” Syraviel said. “I still need you to have some Divinity left before we arrive.”

“Some? I can do some,” Lisaseron said.

Jack felt the squeeze of spatial transportation grab him tight once more. The Tunnel frayed at a visible rate. The howl of a haunting gale overtook the background noise of the Void. Lisaseron observed the forming Direwind with mixed nervousness and excitement. Jack felt the speed of the Tunnel pick up even more, much to his discomfort. Syraviel also looked at the tunnel anxiously while preparing some sort of shadow magic.

The roar of the wind pulsed for a brief moment. Lisaseron turned the Disk sharp to the right. Jack looked the Goddess in confusion, before he felt pain and anger in one Behemoth's auras. He looked back to find one of the worm Behemoths sporting a gash dozens of meters long. The section of Tunnel behind the Behemoth was completely rent apart.

“Very well,” Lisaseron said. “It would seem the Void Tunnel has had enough. That is perfect. We have reached a fine distance to say farewell to our guests.”

With a snap of her fingers, the four Void Behemoths vanished from the tunnel.

“Perfect,” she said. “Now, to make sure all my effort isn't squandered by poor aim.

An assortment of magical formulae, geometric and more arcane forms of calculations appeared before Lisaseron in a large projection. The Goddess switched a few numbers in her calculations before eliminating a quarter of the screen and redrawing it differently.

As the Goddess pondered over calculations, the Void Disk made another sharp turn. The wind clipped the Void Disk, effortlessly severing a fifth of the spell. Lisaseron's nose leaked out blood. She continued to draw, her hands still swift but halting occasionally. Jack could see the Goddess's eyes go out of focus every now and then.

Lisaseron let out a sigh.

“Workable, it must do for now. I have readied the transport. Exiting in three, two, one...”

The pressure on the humans eased up as they exited the Void Tunnel. They found themselves sitting inside the cockpit of a vehicle entirely made of rock, seeming to lack anything to steer or interact with at all. What their ride did have was a large opening to view the world in front of them.

Blues and purples were the most prominent colors of the surface but, oranges, reds and purples were woven in. But more unnatural than the colors was the overly sharp and distinct divisions between areas, reminiscent of a patchwork quilt. Above the surface, the clouds moved erratically and alien flashes of radiance lit the atmosphere at strange intervals forming even stranger projections of nascent bestial forms with too many claws and teeth lashing out into the Void.

Surrounding the planet was a ring of meteors circling the planet in perfect circle with speed Jack could barely follow even from a distance.

“It's certainly... colorful,” Jack said. “Does Licirmon look like this too?”

“No, Licirmon doesn't look like this depraved fringe world,” Syraviel said.

“Indeed,” Lisaseron said. “This planet has been stripped of its natural harmony and engineered into being another cog in the Unceasing's engine of war. There are no civilians or innocents to worry about here. Everything from the wildlife, to the planet itself and the golems circling around it are our enemies.”

“Sorry, golems around the planet?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” Lisaseron said. “They are powerful and easily produced in mass quantities. By connecting them directly into the detection formations, the Unceasing circumvent their simplistic intellect and instill them remarkable perception and coordination. They are one of the cornerstones of the Unceasing's mass war potential.”

“Are there a lot of them?” Jack asked. “Are most of them hiding or something?”

Lisaseron gave the boy a strange look.

“There are enough to circle the planet,” Lisaseron said. “I would not consider that an insignificant force.”

Jack looked back at the planet. His eyes popped open as the realization dawned on him.

“That's not space junk and meteors orbiting the planet?” he asked.

“Worry not,” Lisaseron said. “Shadow, I will deploy the decoys now.”

A couple dozen meteors appeared next to them. Lisaseron stepped out of their ride- which Jack quickly realized was a meteor just like the decoys- and adjusted their flight paths, looking off in the distance every couple of seconds before moving the meteors a few dozen meters or more. Finally satisfied after a few minutes of tweaking, she rejoined the rest of the team.

“Perfect,” Lisaseron said. “The Behemoths should be here soon.”

The ring of golems circling the planet fanned out of their orbit, forming a defensive screen on the other side of the planet. Massive red spell formations appeared between the gaps in the ranks of golems, pulsing with destructive potential. Jack felt the familiar auras of the berserk Behemoths in the distance.

A spiral beam of red magic shot out into the Void, causing the aura of the Behemoths to grow more frenzied in turn.

Syraviel scoffed.

“Pathetic,” Syraviel said. “Imagine missing a Behemoth-sized target at that range with a Devil Skewer of all things. Seems like our best-case scenario isn't happening.”

“It is unfortunate, but expected,” Lisaseron said. “It will not be so simple to force the appearance of one of their Eternals on such a desolate world.”

Jack could see another two Devil Skewers charging up, but the Behemoths also came into sight. The worm Behemoths quickly closed the gap, charging half the distance to the golems before the enormous magical beams fired once more.

The boy blinked in confusion, his brain unable to process the way the worms slipped through space to dodge with the barest of grazes. The golem defensive line advanced forward, covering the spell formations while they recharged.

“Their aim is disappointing,” Lisaseron said.

“It's as we suspected,” Syraviel said. “We've known what the strongest of the Unceasing have valued for awhile now...”

On the planet itself, the clouds turned into a whirling maelstrom while the golems suffered heavy losses clashing with the worm Behemoths. The pyramid Behemoth got in range to fire boulders like colossal buckshot, mangling the golems and tearing apart their ranks. The golems did not falter. Despite the powerful initial strike, they swarmed the more injured of the two worm Behemoths, ferociously mobbing it.

A massive fork of lightning erupted from the gathering clouds, striking both worm Behemoths and the approaching razor squirrel Behemoth. The worms suffered significant damage but the swarmed worm also got more breathing room, having its attackers disabled or destroyed by the strike.

As the squad's meteor-cum-ship drew closer to the Unceasing's planet, the fight stabilized. While the golems continued taking losses from the razor squirrel and the barrage of the pyramid Behemoth, the damage from the lightning attacks was piling up on the melee Behemoths.

They continued to get closer, undetected and unharmed. Jack could feel the charge of the lightning come and go as the Devil Skewers violently sucked up all ambient mana around them to charge up. Amidst all the chaos, Alicia stirred in his lap. Jack frowned. Her soul had barely stabilized from the precipitous decline a few hours ago. Despite his complete lack of experience in healing, he knew she wasn't well enough to get up.

Still, he could feel something driving her return to consciousness, a consuming desire to see something. Her eyes fluttered open. Jack felt his tenuous stabilization of her soul wavering.

“Go back to sleep,” he said. “You're making more work for me.”

Alicia turned around on his lap as if to look at him but instead he was ignored. She seemed to through the rock into the far distance, a mix of longing and curiosity on her face. The Goddesses didn't miss her actions.

“The girl really might've done it...” Syraviel murmured.

“From unconscious to this?” Lisaseron added quietly. “And do not forget how much stronger she made the Direwind.”

“It might not be... The extreme can manifest in odd ways,” Syraviel said. “Take Fatesnatcher, for instance.”

“True, but if it is the case...”

The two Goddesses shared a sly grin.

Alicia had turned back around, now carefully scrutinizing the Unceasing's planet.

“I need to stay awake for a minute, Jack,” Alicia said.

The boy was already sweating again, trying to hold her soul together.

“And I need a new partner for this soul bond crap, but we don't always get what we want, do we?”

“Please, Jack?” she asked.

Jack didn't know if it was the intensity of her desire, her almost cute level of focus or the slight waver of vulnerability in her voice, but he couldn't bring himself to say no.

He held the enraptured girl tight, as she kept her eyes glued to the planet. As he was starting to tire, a faint sense of dread passed him as if he'd barely avoided a passing car. The girl sucked in a breath, excitement radiating through their bond.

Soul Bond Mastery Lvl 2 → Soul Bond Mastery Lvl 3

As soon as he saw the faint, gauzy swirl of starlight flash past them, he knew what excited Alicia so much. The Stellar Direwind struck the Unceasing's planet with blinding speed and minimal visible impact.

The boy was disappointed for a second until he noticed the magical formations around the planet shuddering.

TheAscendentQuill

We've finally made it to the planet! Risks are being taken, plans are coming together and Jack cannot catch a break. We're learning some of the Unceasing's capabilities. Soon, the challenges of this world will become quite clear. If you thought this Void section had a lot of action you better check your tickets because this ride ain't stoppin' anytime soo.

As always, let me know if you see any errors or inconsistencies. If you have any ideas or adjustments you'd like to see, feel free to share and get my creative juices going! Thanks for your support!