The Empyreal Gem Master

The air felt somber.

The atmosphere felt constricting!

Yet in the midst of it all, Alexander rose across the skies of Ephesus.

His figure, adorned in a golden robe and with crimson gold wings of lightning flowing from his back looked extremely ethereal as he crossed the many layers of the skies, the Sacred Gold Mountain below him that spanned over 1,000 miles slowly becoming smaller and smaller!

And yet, he could still feel the 'atmosphere' of Ephesus itself that felt like a stifling, ever-present air that contained everything.

As he rose up, he looked at the layers and layers of clouds he was passing, his gaze even going towards the base of the inverted Obsidian mountain that floated in the skies in a manner that made no sense whatsoever.

What could possibly be holding an inverted mountain in the skies?

Even as he asked himself this, Alexander could feel a tug of gravity similar to the hollow earth within the Sacred Gold Mountain permeating different regions far away.

There were too many mysteries occurring all around for one to even question how some things were possible.

He kept his head high, seeing the fantastical darkness of space approaching as minutes passed. Continue your saga on empire

He was traveling a bit less than 1 mile every two seconds as within half an hour, he had already crossed close to 2,000 miles!

He couldn't feel the air he normally felt and breathed this whole time as everything was becoming unfathomably heavy.

Around him, he already felt a subtle layer of protection encasing his body as he had long since crossed the stratosphere and mesosphere of Ephesus, and he was now crossing the thermosphere and about to enter the exosphere- the true outer space!

At such a time, he turned around.

"..."

And the scene left him breathless as he saw…a hazy layer of green gold covering a truly expansive landscape.

As a distant marker, far down below, he could see a small golden outline that represented the Sacred Gold Mountain.

Around it, white storms were reduced to a scenery of white blackness and snow as near it, another marker that was an obsidian mountain could also be seen.

And now, Alexander could see much more as past the region of whiteness surrounding the Sacred Gold Mountain, he saw what looked to be crimson black earth where even from this high up, he could almost feel its heat!

This area…should be close to where the city of Anan used to be as by now, everything may have been burned to ash.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

A distance away in this region, he saw a rising crimson mountain that released scorching fumes above and all around.

As he rose up and he could see even further, the outline of a vast blue body of water that was far wider than any stretch of land so far could be seen, but he couldn't see any brilliantly shining marker of a mountain until during his continued ascent, he observed a massive blue mountain floating above the waters of that endless sea!

A mountain. Floating atop a sea.

There were likely other Sacred Mountains within the depths of this sea as well, with an area that covered this much of Ephesus likely not being barren, with an unknown number of Mutant Gem Chimeras moving within.

But even all of this…seemed to only be a fraction of Ephesus as even thousands of miles past its earth, Alexander was only looking at a portion of it.

A single side as in the corner of his eyes, there were still more landmarks that could barely be seen!

"..."

He held no words as he felt unfathomably small in the grand scale of Ephesus.

He didn't actively use the boons of the Light of the Void, and yet he felt weightless.

No air flowed through his nostrils, but his heart still beat and his blood still pumped.

At this moment, he turned away from Ephesus and into the space above as when staring out, a sense of desolation overcame him as for the most part, he only saw endless darkness.

A twinkling of stars every now and then in a certain direction.

The rays of a far too distant sun even further away that Ephesus itself seemed to be obscuring from them nowadays.

It all seemed so vast and endless that it almost terrified him, with one major thing being utterly deafening!

And that was...the silence.

Up here, in the void of space, it was so quiet.

Inside the vacuum of space, it was unfathomably silent.

He opened his mouth.

"...."

And no words came out.

No matter how he tried to vocalize them, he couldn't even hear his own words!

As this sense of desolation and terror seemed to only be creeping in and making his mind buzz…

HUUM!

His chest vibrated and shone with waves of multicolored splendor.

[The Abnormal Mental State has been cleared.]

[It is advised to only delve into regions such as these once a Covenant of Nature has been grasped, or after the Gem Constellation, Light of the Void, has been augmented further by Ruler's Covenant Authority.]

He couldn't hear anything, but amidst the deafening silence, the voice of the Enneagram rang out.

It was there with him as his mind felt a closing sensation flowing through, and any negative emotions that were there faded away!

He stared out into the emptiness of space as he felt like he could clearly observe it without feeling a sense of desolation, his eyes becoming firm as he gazed down at the massive expanse of Ephesus below.

At his world that wanted to kill him and all others on it!

It arrived at such a logical conclusion in the answer to constantly depleting resources as was this truly the only solution?

He denied this conclusion.

He denied its methods of decimation on hundreds of millions of humans of the Four Human Lineages!

As he felt the warning signs of the Limited Vacuum Adaptation flash, his expression was resolute as he turned into a streak of crimson gold light that dove back towards Ephesus, his will made known only by him as he bellowed it out in his heart.

He would find another solution.

Not the one that his own world came up with!

And to live long enough to find such a solution, he had to ensure his survival in this deadly landscape that Ephesus was setting up!