Ball of Nothing

Travelling to Gummer wasn't easy. It was even harder than getting to Hyacinth! On the bright side, Poseidon allowed Zero to create a waypoint teleportation mark on Hyacinth so that the teen could return easily without riding on a lightning bolt. Although it wasn't a proper portal like those in Garden of Roth, Zero was happy that the titan was very understanding of his travelling difficulties. Still, it was only a waypoint that Zero could use. Nobody else could travel in or out of Hyacinth which was quite a downer for the young doctor who wanted to invite some of the chefs from La Boutique. Zero didn't know how to cook underwater so he was limited to making sashimi and seaweed salad for the blind titan who was getting bored of it by the day.

Navigating their way to Gummer was a huge risk for Zero and his mindscape assistants. Thankfully, Lily was a decent guide in the void. Zero couldn't believe that he was going to be stealing seawater again to help him for his personal agenda. If Poseidon knew about how much seawater he has stolen, he would be mad.

Hyacinth wasn't a very big planet. Amarania was bigger. While Zero didn't think that the amount of seawater he stole was anything significant, Hyacinth had already lost twenty percent of its water content. Zero felt slightly guilty. This meagre amount of water isn't enough to create even an island but the effects on the sea dwellers were huge! With lesser water, the salt content increased. Zero did his best to purify the water and absorb the salt as much as he could but that only solved one problem. For the sea creatures who lived deeper in the water, the change in density made many of them uncomfortable enough to start leaving their nests. The horror that spread about sea monsters on the loose only created chaos. Not to mention, the waters were slightly warmer even at a deeper level. Poseidon might be alright with it but some of his servants were not. Many had to leave 'shallower' waters and hide in broken chasms or ravines.

After Zero explained his predicament to the blind titan, Poseidon agreed to let Zero leave Hyacinth in search for 'building materials'. However, the condition was that Zero must leave a clone or something behind so that they could resume their training. Zero decided to create a golem similar to Bib and leave a few Parallel Minds in it so that Wii can control it on his behalf from the mindscape while Zero left for Gummer.

The young doctor changed into his tracksuit before he left. Poseidon and his clone stayed up really late after a challenging game of chess. Zero could already see the improvement he made after playing with an experienced veteran like Poseidon. Mii and Wii were also taking notes after each game and adding them into Zero's mindscape library for future use. Apparently, chess isn't just a game about possible combinations. It's a game that tries to secure victory by leading the opponents into traps and making calculated sacrifices. In summary, Zero thought that it was a multidimensional game that challenged both players to look beyond the pieces on that chessboard.

For the past few days, the teenager had been pulling out all the books about interdimensional navigation. It was a risky move but it was the fastest way they could get to Gummer seeing as that galaxy was a few million light-years away. Isis didn't approve of Zero's risk-taking attitude but the young doctor assured her that if anything went wrong, he would escape back to the lamp in his inventory and return to Heaven to ask for assistance to get to Gummer. He didn't know if he really wanted to ride on Zeus' lightning bolt express again but he would have to if he failed. Still, this made for a good experience ahead of time. Truen might be familiar with travelling on Earth but Zero would be more experienced in planet and galaxy hopping if he succeeded in navigating wormholes to Gummer.

\"Alright,\" Zero shrugged. He was using YY and Origin as his very convenient intergalactic transportation while Mii took over the communicator's compass app and advised her master which wormhole to look for.

\"Wormhole #356687 will appear in approximately 23 seconds in the northwest direction, seven hundred kilometres from here,\" Mii informed and Wii assisted Zero in changing directions and setting the correct speed while her master clung onto YY tightly with Origin in his other hand, increasing the barrier's strength withstand the high velocity. Who knew that tonfas and walking staffs could become very handy broomsticks for travelling without the broom? Now he understood why Merlin praised the witches and their brooms. It was too convenient.

Zero rushed to the wormhole that started to open in the void and dived into it before the tendrils of chaos energy could get him. Apart from the unknown, travelling in space was also dangerous because of how close it could sometimes be to the void. The chaos energy would often attack Zero from tiny cracks as if he had a target that says 'hug me' painted on his back. Luckily for him, Origin was a very fierce protector and neutralised the threat before it had any funny ideas. Wii and Mii didn't waste the opportunity to absorb some remains of the neutralised chaos energy for future experiments and analysis. So far, they'd collected a few crystal bits from those chaos energy neutralised. These crystals were as tiny as a grain of sand but with enough of them, the mindscape sisters were confident that they could create something.

Diving into a wormhole was an out of body experience for Zero. He felt like his body was being crushed and suspended in action for an unknown period of time. The experience was excruciating physically but freeing mentally. The young doctor was certain that if it hadn't been for YY and Origin helping him to ease the burdening pressure inside the wormhole, his vessel would have been destroyed again. Zero sighed. This vessel of his was really fragile.

After an unknown amount of time had passed, the wormhole shook and decided to spit everything out. Zero wasn't very well prepared for his landing and found himself stalling mentally for a moment before he understood that he was free-falling.

\"Anti-gravity! Flight! Dark Vision!\" Zero yelled and cast spells to regain control of the situation. He'd been slightly careless this time and neglected the signs of the wormhole's temper. The young doctor made a mental note to never let his guard down like that again. If not for his luck that the wormhole decided to spit them out on a planet in mid-air, he would have suffered great damage by now.

Wii and Mii got to work immediately while Lily monitored the intergalactic map and matched it to the tracking device on Mii's communicator app controls. Wii took the liberty of sending out a few feelers to get a better grasp of where they were.

Zero finally broke his long fall but was perplexed by the darkness that surrounded them. If there was gravity, they should be on a planet. Why was it so dark on this planet? He didn't feel any signs of life either but there was a mysterious force trying to pull everything to the centre of its core.

\"Where are we?\" he asked and Wii gasped as the feelers she sent out never returned.

Mii paled. \"Zero, get out of here! This is a galaxy eater... it's not the same as that wormhole!\"

Zero didn't run away immediately. He read up about these galaxy eaters more commonly known as black holes. They are born after the death of a major star that had expended all its energy and collapsed back into itself. Unlike the wormhole that actually spits the things it ate, the black hole simply ate without returning anything until it ate enough to neutralise its existence. Currently, Zero was able to withstand the pull of this starving dead star. Unlike the writers of the books Zero read about black holes, he could sense very strong resentment energy within this black hole now that he was staring at one.

\"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing,\" he smiled and told the panicking strawcherry assistant.

\"Wii,\" Zero called out. \"Calculate the force and pressure this guy is emitting. If I convert it directly into energy and sins, how much can we get from it? I see that this guy's already eaten a lot and digested quite a few stars.\"

The eggplant fairy got the cue and happily set whatever parallel minds she had left under her command to work on it. Based on the feelers she sent out that never returned, she could estimate that there would be at least twenty billion units of energy and maybe two billion units of sins.

\"Master, we cannot get a definite figure but this is certainly what it looks like right now. Also, there is chaos energy at play behind this black hole, we can sense it. Lily said that once the black hole disappears, there will be a huge tear in the material plane that leads to the void.\"

Zero thanked his assistants and grinned. \"Prepare yourselves, I'm going to feast!\"

True to his words, Zero didn't show any mercy and fought against the pull of this black hole. The star was losing the fight against power when Zero decided not to waste any more time and effort, diving right into its core to eat it from inside out. The black hole didn't stand a chance against a hungry Zero fuelled by greed. Gugu must be really happy to know how his memories had influenced Zero to be such an insatiable creature.

\"Master, the tear is appearing!\" Wii shouted when the first signs of chaos energy started leaking through.

Zero was still slightly flushed and high from absorbing his fill. Now that he had something of significance in his void space, he felt slightly better about the trip to Gummer. But first, Zero wanted to put Origin to the test and see if his grimoire was truly capable of defending him against Solo's attacks. This was a good opportunity and Zero wasn't going to pass it up.

When the first tendrils of chaos energy lunged themselves at Zero, Origin hummed with vengeance and returned the favour, biting back at it twice as hard before reducing it to sand-like crystal particles and went straight to Zero's inventory. As more tendrils appeared from the tear in the plane, Origin's might multiplied. Zero was very happy to see the book transform into its first real form out of five. He'd never been able to see Origin's true form back in the lab with Merlin simply because the amount of chaos energy attacking the plane had been mostly neutralised by Merlin's power.

The tattered-looking grimoire turned red and spewed attacks of its own without Zero's commands. The chaos energy tendrils were grabbed and ripped mercilessly while Origin worked to contain the tear, suturing it back with some materials borrowed from the remnants of this galaxy's remains. Zero watched his recreation magic patch the tear in the plane and return everything to normal. Origin didn't change to any other colour before it turned back into that tattered book in Zero's hands.

The magician sulked a little but decided to be satisfied with the results of his test. He was confident that he would be able to see the four other forms in the future. Each colour represented a different ability and Zero designed it after his beliefs. He didn't want to harm Solo too badly but he needed a grimoire who could protect him from the things Solo would throw at him. Origin wasn't a natural attacker, it was a natural protector and after watching it today, Zero had confidence in his grimoire's ability to be the shield he needed.

\"When is the next wormhole going to appear?\" Zero asked and mounted YY again now that the drama was over.

Mii and Lily marked out a few wormholes in the area that could possibly lead them closer to Gummer but nobody knew for certain where the wormhole would lead them.

\"We're currently two hundred thousand years back in time thanks to the wormhole. Gummer is about twenty million years away from us now. It wasn't the right wormhole to take but we did get something out of it,\" Mii said.

Zero grinned. \"That's what adventuring is all about. Alright, bring out the dice, we will make our decision using that.\"

Lily's jaw dropped. \"Are you sure you want to do that?\"

Zero nodded. \"I'm confident in my luck because I have absolutely no sense of direction. Unless someone else has a better method, I'm going to choose my wormholes using dice.\"

Mii shrugged. \"Might as well. But we have to choose quickly. They won't be open forever if we miss it.\"

Wii agreed and Lily sighed, going along with the flow. How bad could it get?