Beyond The System
Chapter 181: True Inner Realm

“Changed?” I asked, confused. “Changed how?”

Thea sat down, crossing her legs and resting her hands on her knees. She swayed slightly as she spoke, her voice bubbling with excitement.

“Okay, so, you remember how I told you the Nexus sort of exploded before we finished our foundations?” she began, already halfway into the retelling.

I nodded and scooted closer to her, but Griffith frowned and shook his head.

“When were you going to tell me that?” he asked, voice dry.

She waved him off with a casual flick of her hand. “Once I understood what was happening with that.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “back then, the Nexus pulsed. Like a heartbeat. I could drag energy out of it briefly, but after that, there was nothing. It cut off.”

I leaned forward, giving her my full attention. “Yeah, I remember. So what changed?”

Griffith had already summoned his notebook from the storage cube, scribbling fast as she spoke. His eyes flicked up, ready to catch every word.

“Well,” she said, clearly trying to pace herself, “I’d been feeding the Nexus my energy regularly, but after a while, I hit resistance. Like a barrier. At first it worried me, and I started asking myself—was I going to explode again? Or maybe I was about to unlock something?”

She exhaled sharply. “And if so, what was causing the barrier?"

“Thea,” I cut in gently, lifting a hand. “Let’s stay on track. What actually happened?”

She took a deep breath. “Right. Sorry. So I decided to keep going. You, Elric, and Mister Ironscribe were nearby, so I figured it was safe enough. I pushed further.”

The scratching of Griffith’s pen halted.

“You mean,” he said, glancing up, “you pushed more Internal Force into the Nexus?”

I watched her fingers clench tighter around her knees, the tension barely containing her enthusiasm.

“Yep,” she said, speaking faster now. “And then something opened. My Inner Realm vanished, just… gone, and my consciousness was pulled somewhere deeper.”

My eyes widened. “You mean?”

She nodded so fast I half-feared for her neck. “I was inside the Nexus. Sunk right in.”

A pen thunked softly into the sand.

I turned to Griffith whose face had frozen, cheeks taut, eyes wide, and brows arched in disbelief. Jaw slack, he finally managed, “Your Nexus? As in the center of your entire power structure? Are you absolutely sure?”

I glanced back at Thea. If I had to describe her in that moment, it would be completely, unshakably certain. Her gaze was focused, filled with something calm and burning all at once.

“It was strange,” she admitted, closing her eyes as if trying to summon the feeling again.

“At first, it was just black. Completely black. An endless void in every direction. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even think clearly. It was honestly kinda terrifying.”

She pulled her legs under herself, knees tucked up slightly, and I slid a little closer, sitting side-by-side with her now.

“But then,” she said, voice softer, steadier, “my mind began to settle. I started to see. First, a thread of Precursor Energy swirled around me, like I was its center.”

Her eyes sparkled, firelight from our camp crackling in the reflection, grey irises glowing with dancing orange.

“Then I noticed something else. Just a little bit. A really small amount of this greyish energy. Not quite like anything I’ve seen before. It flowed into me and then vanished.”

Griffith stopped writing again, brow furrowed in deep thought.

“You might’ve been at the doorway to your Nexus,” he said slowly. “Or maybe you were the door.”

I frowned, trying to wrap my head around it. I understood the Nexus was the core of our power, that it could absorb energy, yes, but I’d never imagined it could consume consciousness like that. Still, something tugged at my memory.

“Was it Internal Energy?”

Thea shrugged, but her words didn’t match the uncertainty of the gesture.

“I think it was the energy I used during the fight,” Thea continued. “The Internal Energy I was still recovering.”

She sighed, her voice softer now. “But that’s just a guess. I could barely sense anything in there. All the energy I had poured in? Gone. Nowhere to be found.”

This is what I’ve been training for? Luna groaned inside my mind. I’m sure there’s more, but—

This is merely the opening, Wyrem interrupted, his tone firm. And with how long you’re taking, I’m certain there will be much more to show for it. Have faith in me.

Faith in the worm that calls itself a dragon? Luna shot back.

YES!

I sighed internally and cleared the mental noise away, refocusing.

“Was that it?” I asked.

Thea shook her head, eyes narrowing as she stared at the ground. “There was one more thing. Right in front of me. Just barely visible at first.”

She looked up at us, moving her hands together to shape an uneven oval in the air.

“At first I thought it was a stone. But it wasn’t completely solid. It was glowing faintly, and there were these vein-like lines running across it. It looked kind of like an… egg?”

I blinked. “An egg?”

My mind jumped instinctively to the Voidrace. To the thing inside me. “Not a seed?”

She tilted her head at me like I’d just asked if water was dry. “No. I mean egg. You know, crack it open, yolk inside, fry it, delicious.”

Before I could respond, a flash lit up the space beside us as Griffith pulled something from his cube.

“Speaking of delicious,” he said, holding out a sandwich.

Thea leaned across me without hesitation, her chest brushing lightly against my thighs. Pure thoughts, I reminded myself.

“You have an egg inside you?” I asked, while she was halfway to taking a bite.

“In my Nexus, yes,” she clarified, giving me a mildly confused look.

Griffith leaned forward, eyes intense. “What happened next? Did it move? Have you tried Spiritual Refinement again? Can you cultivate in that space? If you enter the state again—can you see it?”

“Dunno,” Thea replied, already mid-bite.

Griffith reeled back like someone had yanked a hook through his spine. “D—dunno?!”

“Mhm,” she mumbled through a full mouth. “As soon as I could force myself out—not easy, by the way, I did. Then, well, present time,” she said with a shrug, already going in for another bite.

“How’d you get out?” I asked, curious now. It didn’t sound like it had been simple.

She slowed down, chewing more thoughtfully, likely saving the last few bites the way she always did.

“I kinda… waited?”

“Waited?” I frowned. “And that was hard?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Not just that. I—uh… it’s like…”

I started to notice some of her sister’s traits surfacing. Though usually, Thea was the better explainer. Definitely better than me, anyway.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said, pushing her hair back. “I waited, yeah, but it was more than that. I felt locked in, and time stretched out weirdly. It wasn’t hard in the way fighting is hard. It was more like…”

Her voice trailed off into something quieter, rawer.

“…painful. Again I couldn’t move or talk. Couldn’t do anything. Just watch the nothing save for the few things there. For what felt like ages.”

“You couldn’t interact with anything?” I asked gently.

She shook her head. “Just me, an egg, and a thread of Precursor Energy.”

Griffith put down his notes, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder.

“How long?” he asked, his voice lower now.

Thea blinked slowly. “I don’t know. It didn’t feel unbearable, just... Maybe a day? Maybe more. Maybe less. I couldn’t tell. But I never thought just existing alone could feel so horrible.”

I reached out and took her hand, squeezing it softly. “You’re here now.”

She smiled, tired but genuine. “Yeah. And now we all know what to expect. I’m just glad I got to it first.”

I smirked. “You want a rematch?”

She answered almost immediately. “No! ...Well—yes, but no.”

Taking a short breath, she added, “You’re always the one taking risks. I just wanted to take some of that weight for once.”

Her voice softened as she leaned into me more, burying her head in my chest.

I glanced at Griffith, eyebrows raised in silent prompting.

“I’ll, uh... go check on Elric,” he mumbled, clearing his throat. He stood, brushing sand from his legs, still hardly dressed, and wandered off a short distance. Not that it really mattered. At this point, privacy was more symbolic than anything else.

“You’re not gonna let me look at you?” I teased. “I swear, half the time you say something sweet, you either vanish or we’re in the middle of—”

“Peter?” she cut in, voice sugary, but in that way that meant I shouldn’t finish the sentence.

“...Getting it on,” I said anyway.

A sharp smack echoed behind us, Griffith’s palm likely colliding with his own forehead.

Crackle.

I tensed as a flicker of lightning crawled up Thea’s hand, but there was no shock. Just the sound of her stifled giggles, her shoulders trembling before she gave in completely.

“You—” she gasped between laughter, “you really can’t just have a moment, can you?”

I shrugged and pulled her closer. “This is how I have them.”

She wriggled a little, trying and failing to resist the embrace. “You’re not about to say something cheesy again, are you?”

I scoffed. “Cheesy? It was poetic. Some would say the height of romance.”

That made her laugh even harder. The little green slime, squished between us, squeezed free through a gap in our hug then hovered close, probably trying to avoid predators.

“What was it?” she giggled. “Something like, ‘A flower and a worm are listening... This is our moment?’”

“Almost,” I said with mock indignation. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

She shifted around, settling with her back against my chest. “Really? I don’t ever mean to.”

Her voice had lost its teasing tone, quiet now.

“I know,” I replied gently. “I was only—”

“That suucked!”

Elric’s voice rang out from behind us, loud and unmistakable.