The Quantum Path to Immortality
Chapter 66 - 65: Test Drive – Universe: Slightly Used (May Contain Plot Holes)

Chapter 66: Chapter 65: Test Drive – Universe: Slightly Used (May Contain Plot Holes)

The Exo-Frames: Aeon Ascendant stood side-by-side in the Nexus Spire’s grand hall, radiating a silent, formidable power. Elias’s frame was a majestic obsidian and starlight behemoth, while Kaelen’s possessed a sleeker, more elegant form, shimmering with silver and deep celestial blues, perfectly sculpted to her. They were finally complete, gleaming testaments to cosmic engineering fueled by boundless ambition and a surprising amount of shared, late-night, nebula-infused tea.

"Well," Elias’s voice resonated, a low, rich tone subtly modulated by his helmet’s internal comms, "shall we take these beauties for a spin?"

Kaelen, stepping into her frame with a practiced ease that belied the weeks of intricate adjustments and Law-based weaving, gave a cheerful thumbs-up. "Lead the way, oh cosmic chauffeur! But try not to scratch the paint job, alright? They aren’t cheap."

Elias chuckled, a low rumble that vibrated through the very structure of the Spire itself. "Promises, promises. Though I can’t guarantee the universe we’re headed to will remain unscratched."

The universe in question was a recent discovery of Elias’s Quantum Divine Sense. It was... empty. Profoundly, utterly empty. Not a single star, no planets, not even stray cosmic dust. Just the barest whisper of spacetime.

"I call it ’Manuscript Dropped’," Elias announced as their Exo-Frames materialized in the pure void, their forms glowing against the absolute nothingness. "It smells faintly of forgotten dreams and unfulfilled potential, don’t you think? Like an author started writing a grand space opera, got halfway through the first sentence, and then just... gave up for a career in interdimensional accounting."

Kaelen’s helmet tilted, her visual sensors sweeping the profound emptiness. "Huh. You’re absolutely right. It does have that ’abandoned project’ vibe. Well, at least we won’t have to worry about accidentally flattening any sentient space-squirrels during our test drive."

"Indeed," Elias agreed, a hint of wry amusement in his voice. "Now, let’s start with the basics. Containment fields at optimal output?"

"Locked and loaded," Kaelen replied, a faint blue aura shimmering around her Exo-Frame, a testament to its active Containment & Stabilization protocols. "Ready to not accidentally melt timelines by sneezing, check. Ready to not cause existential bleed, double-check. Ready to look incredibly stylish while doing absolutely nothing... triple-check!"

"Excellent." Elias raised a gauntleted hand. "Let’s try a simple propulsion test. Nothing too dramatic."

He engaged his suit’s thrusters, a contained burst of pure Entropy-Reversal Singularity Core power erupting from his back. He shot through the void, a streak of controlled cosmic fire. His movements were instantaneous, the Quantum Pulse Meridians ensuring zero delay in energy delivery, and with a casual thought, he performed a Quantum Universal Teleportation, appearing hundreds of kilometers away in the blink of an eye, the space warping around his passage.

Kaelen followed suit, her movements displaying a newfound, fluid grace. Her suit responded with impossible speed, a blur of silver and blue as she zipped through the emptiness. "Wow, this feels... incredible! Like an extension of my own thoughts, but faster than thought itself!"

"That’s the Cognitive Compression Unit working in harmony with your divine senses and the new Overlight Circuits," Elias explained, decelerating smoothly. "Now for something a little more... engaging. Let’s test the combat protocols. How about a friendly spar?"

Kaelen grinned, a spark of pure competitive fire igniting in her eyes behind her visor. "You’re on, old timer! But don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because you built the place!"

"Wouldn’t dream of it," Elias replied, his Exo-Frame subtly shifting, settling into a combat-ready stance. "Though I will be... exercising a significant degree of restraint. Wouldn’t want to accidentally erase this meticulously empty universe before we’re done."

Their spar began. Elias, keeping his power output significantly below his true capabilities—a fraction of a fraction of his universe-destroying potential—launched the first volley. He didn’t just fire energy balls; his gauntleted hand snapped forward, manifesting the essence of a Nova Bloom Slash. A concentrated burst of radiant plasma erupted, not from a sword, but from his armored fist, streaking towards Kaelen.

Kaelen, her Tachyon Thread Meridians(which Elias has had reconstructed for her) was providing a subtle precognitive edge, dodged even before the plasma fully materialized. She bent spacetime around her in a practiced Space Warp Dodge, vanishing from one point and reappearing instantly meters away, the residual energy of Elias’s attack singing harmlessly through the space she had just occupied. She countered with a blindingly fast melee rush, her smaller, more agile frame closing the distance in an impossible blink, aiming a fierce, armored kick at Elias’s midsection.

Elias met her with an outstretched forearm, the impact resonating with a deep, cosmic thrum. The force of their collision didn’t just create a shockwave; it was as if two fundamental forces of nature had briefly, playfully, collided. The sheer energetic byproduct of this single, "restrained" impact caused a ripple in the pure nothingness of the universe. Far, far in the distance, a faint, ephemeral crackle of energy sparked into existence, then vanished.

"Impressive speed!" Elias complimented, adjusting his stance. "But your form still needs... refinement." He followed up with a series of incredibly rapid, neutronium-weighted punches, each strike moving with the precision of a celestial clockwork mechanism. They weren’t aimed to crush(that would kill her), but to test her suit’s shields and Kaelen’s reaction time.

Kaelen, her Quantum Pulse Meridians giving her instantaneous thought-to-action translation, met each blow with a furious barrage of her own. Her armored fists blurred, a symphony of silver and blue against Elias’s obsidian. The sound of their blows wasn’t thunder; it was the clashing of cosmic plates, each impact releasing suppressed energy that briefly illuminated the void around them. She weaved and dodged, her body bending reality with subtle micro-warps, the suit’s Reality-Tuning Functions instinctively shunting minor gravitational distortions away.

"You’re fast, I’ll give you that!" Kaelen exclaimed, parrying a kick that would have shattered a moon. She retaliated with a spinning strike, manifesting the conceptual force of a Supernova Detonation Fist. A compressed sphere of collapsing energy formed briefly around her armored hand, then expanded into a focused shockwave.

Elias met it with his palm, containing the blast within a rapidly formed mini-domain from his suit’s functions. The domain held, but the overflow of energy, even when suppressed, was substantial. This escaped energy, a mere wisp of their true power, expanded outwards through the empty universe.

It started subtly. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer in the pure nothingness. Then, like a cosmic whisper, the void began to coalesce. Particles, truly infinitesimal, flickered into existence, born from the raw energetic byproducts of their spar, then winked out.

"Uh oh," Kaelen said, her eyes fixed on the distant, nascent phenomenon. "I don’t think this universe was supposed to do that."

"Indeed," Elias agreed, a hint of scientific curiosity mixing with his amusement. "It appears our ’gentle’ sparring is having... unforeseen consequences. A rather rapid genesis, perhaps?"

But it was too late to halt the momentum. Their battle had set off a chain reaction in the utterly barren cosmos. Each energy discharge, each controlled (or not-so-controlled) release of power, was seeding the void. A stray Gamma-Ray Heaven Slash equivalent from Elias, a near-light speed cutting force, missed Kaelen but tore through empty space. In its wake, nascent clouds of hydrogen and helium, previously non-existent, began to swirl into rudimentary nebulae.

Kaelen, feeling the exhilaration of her suit’s capabilities, retaliated with a Tidal Disruption Wave equivalent. She slammed her armored fist forward, generating a brief, localized gravity well. There were no stars or planets to rip apart, but the raw gravitational potential caused the newly formed, wispy nebulae to violently churn, condensing rapidly. Far in the distance, a few pinpricks of light ignited – rudimentary, fragile stars, born from the cosmic violence of their play.

"Okay," Kaelen said, her voice tinged with a mixture of awe and mild panic. "Maybe that was a bit much. I just made a star!"

Elias, still taking it easy, decided to demonstrate some controlled power. He lunged forward, manifesting the essence of a Hypernova Blade Collapse with his full body, a radiant lunge that distorted space around him. He aimed not at Kaelen(that would kill her), but at a particularly large, newly formed protostar in the distance. The resulting detonation, even heavily suppressed, was an explosion of annihilation. The protostar, a billion times smaller than a true sun, vaporized instantly, leaving behind a swirling vortex of energy.

The shockwave from its demise didn’t just travel; it rewrote the immediate region of space. The nascent cosmic dust and gas began to clump violently. In a flash, a small, chaotic galaxy, composed of a few dozen sputtering stars, bloomed into existence from the void. Then, moments later, the shockwave of Elias’s previous attack, still expanding, slammed into it. Stars detonated in premature supernovas, planets that had just barely formed were vaporized, and the delicate, newly spun galactic structure began to unravel.

"Alright, alright, lesson learned!" Kaelen yelled over the silent, yet visually deafening, cosmic destruction. "This is getting out of hand!"

But the Exo-Frames: Aeon Ascendant were designed for cosmic engagement, and even in their ’restrained’ test, the sheer byproduct of their power was simply too immense for such a fragile, nascent universe. A desperate counter-attack from Kaelen, an ENT Godflare Obliteration equivalent – a concentrated, blinding flare of energy from her suit’s core – washed over a newly formed nebula. The nebula didn’t just disperse; it ceased to exist, replaced by a lingering Qi radiation field that warped local spacetime.

Then came the really problematic part. As their Failsafe & Detonation Modes ensured their own survival, the side effects became truly cataclysmic. The shockwaves from the prematurely detonating stars and collapsing nebulae triggered the formation of black holes. Singularities, born of casual energetic overflow, began to devour the newly formed matter with insatiable hunger. One by one, the nascent stars winked out, swallowed by encroaching darkness. Galaxies that had barely taken shape collided in chaotic, destructive dances, their forms ripping apart into streams of doomed stars. Nebulae were torn to shreds by gravitational forces, their cosmic dust becoming fuel for new, destructive singularities.

Even the black holes began to merge, growing to monstrous sizes, their event horizons swelling, consuming everything in their path. The universe, which had sprung into existence through their accidental touch, was now being systematically unmade by the escalating fallout of their "friendly" spar.

Finally, as they stood amidst the fading echoes of cosmic destruction, the last supermassive black hole shuddered, then vanished in a final, silent burst of Hawking radiation, leaving behind... the profound nothingness they had started with. The ’Manuscript Dropped’ universe had, indeed, been dropped, then written, then erased, all within an afternoon.

Elias surveyed the utterly empty void, his helmet-mounted sensors confirming the absolute nothingness. "Well," he said, a perfectly straight face belying the truly cosmic-scale destruction they had just wrought. "That was... some nice fireworks. The Exo-Frames appear to function as intended. And it seems even our restrained output is enough to thoroughly test the structural integrity of... well, nothing in particular."

Kaelen stared at the absolute void, a thoughtful expression on her face. "So," she said slowly, "even when you’re going easy on me, our version of a test drive ends with the complete and utter annihilation of a universe?"

Elias shrugged, a casual gesture that held the weight of cosmic inevitability. "It would appear so. Perhaps for our next outing, we should find a universe that comes with a slightly more robust warranty. Or at least one that’s already reached cosmic old age."

With a final shared glance at the utterly empty ’Manuscript Dropped’ universe, Elias and Kaelen activated their Exo-Frames’ Transmultiversal Travel drives and vanished, leaving behind a silence that was more profound, and somehow more meaningful, than the silence they had found. Their test drive was complete, and the universe, however briefly it existed, had certainly been tested. To destruction, as it turned out.