“Floating in the center of nothingness, something occurred. Slits of everything creaked through the barrier of nothing and became something.

The abyss was granted consciousness, and twenty-six pedestals were erected. Each pedestal comprised a singular color, consistent in its dullness—if it could even be called that. The pedestals were nothing; they existed, but not in reality. They existed, but they were surrounded by nothing, even though they were something.

Time passed, and the pedestals remained as they were—colorless and without substance, until one of them disappeared. Then another vanished, then another.

It was only a matter of time until nothing became nothing again—the twenty-six intruders returning to a faraway cosmos. However, the occurrence was not natural.

Delving forward through the realms of space and time, the pedestals could be found. They sat in a realm of stars and planets; each pedestal subsisted by itself with an individual celestial body as a companion—separated by distance and time from the others.

This was until the pedestals were found. Twenty-six beings were unbounded by the restrictions of nothing, just as everyone else who existed was.

Gathering the pedestals, these twenty-six beings congregated and discussed. They discovered and learned more and more about the universe, fate, and the cycle.

Leaving their celestial bodies, the pedestals were reunited again under the twenty-six’s whims.

“It must be stopped.” One of the twenty-six proclaimed.

The others agreed; how could they not when the cycle was about to repeat.

“If we gather ourselves with all our insights, the cycle can be bound.” Another said.

Commanded by their morality, the twenty-six congregated upon the pedestals. Each stood upon one.

On one cosmic night, these twenty-six figures merged their energies all in one location. During that extended night, the ichor of the universe wept; during that cosmic night, the free cultivators floundered as they lost everything; during that cosmic night, nothing encroached onto something.

The pedestals—silent up to that point despite habaiting in the real world—lit up with color. Each one of them gained their own hue, and nothing could change that now. The light spread from the pedestals until the twenty-six colors were the only ones that remained.

The cycle had been stopped; the energy had been bound; everyone moved forward.”

“Then what are you?” A human man asked as he stared forward at the glowing amber figure. Its resplendent light danced across his iris as he watched.

As he spectated, the man noticed that in the dark confines of nothing, even more lights began to flash: amber, red, yellow, blue, purple.

The man stepped back—a black saber materializing in his hand.

“We are the boundless, and just as everything else within the universe has been bound, so will you, Thorne Kramer!”