Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Ashema donned a face only a man with a huge amount of leverage would wear. 

He was only too glad to see the ignorant look on Skullius the moment he used the word 'Abyss'.

He didn't intend to be stingy with the information, though. It wouldn't do him much good. The dark Carven had decided to stick to the unique being that was the Hybrid Luman and learn as much as he could... among other things. Turning out to be a nuisance would ruin the much-needed relationship he was cultivating with the only 'reasonable' surface dweller he had met so far.

It was only necessary until Lord Boron rose anyway.

Skullius raised a brow at the Carven.

"Are you going to tell me what you mean by Abyss or not?" he asked.

Ashema waved his hand at him.

"Don't get all hostile. I don't want to be difficult," he cleared the tension that he knew for a fact was about to rise. "You seem particularly interested in this, moreso than with anything else you've asked me before."

"It's a big deal. As far I know no one knows where these creatures are summoned from. It's certainly not from within Aigas. Is it?" a sharp look of suspicion crept on Skullius' face as he spoke.

Ashema grinned.

"You're wrong… but also right. Hmmm?" he said.

In the next moment, the Carven felt Skullius rush to grab him and with a whipping of the boundless air around them, he felt his feet land on a different swathe of ground, moist and livelier than that from before.

Skullius had moved them both.

A swarm of the discount sea life had rushed towards them both from the skies since Ashema had drawn away from Skullius and the Hybrid Luman had deactivated [Absolute Zero] in order to make his interaction with the Carven less awkward; he much preferred to have a face-to-face conversation.

"What do you mean by that?" Skullius responded to Ashema's vague answer just now.

The Carven didn't resist Skullius' lingering grip as he reactivated [Absolute Zero].

"The Abyss is an endless world of darkness. However, rather than a sunless world, like my home, it is defined by its unshakeable depth of dark that doesn't respond even to the greatest source of light. It is stable, perhaps it is even the embodiment of stability itself," Ashema said as he drew a thin line of black in the air.

"An endless world of darkness…" Skullius recited with a growing frown. "Where exactly is this Abyss then?"

"Its too vast to be identified as something that resides in a specific location. A large part of it runs through the sub-layers of this entire world that the Traitorous Deities made, and also my own. A larger part of it also exists outside it, bleeding into the Beyond Death, unseen by the casual eye."

Skullius' frown grew even deeper.

"The Beyond Death? Do you mean the Yormuness? Where souls go after death?"

"Yormuness? What an odd name. But yes."

Skullius slid his finger across his chin.

"You and your people seem to have many liberties despite being sealed away. I thought everything to do with Aigas couldn't affect your world. I never imagined your souls would have the same destination after death as those from up here," he said.

It was indeed rather curious. Skullius had always been under the impression that the Yormuness was created by the three Deities, and perhaps that was still true, but he imagined that to the Carven, being sent there after death was the greatest insult. Perhaps that was true as well.

"Well, that is the case. We are not too fond of it, but the saving grace is the promise of Lord Boron to resurrect all fallen souls, stripping them from the Beyond Death and into new vessels – the Great Incarnation, we call it – is so close. If I died right now, I wouldn't have to endure that place for long," Ashema said.

He had a tone of pride when he exposited all this.

The Great Incarnation.

Skullius scoffed inwardly. 

The Carven had a suspiciously intimate relationship with their Deity Boron, so much so that Ashema was pretty justified in laughing at how practically 99% of the population of Aigas didn't know anything or even care about Quintess, Listafelle and Suzamete.

The Hybrid Luman wondered just how the Carven spoke to Boron so easily. Was it similar to how Luserus seemed to hold his limited race of Luminants so dear and thus dotted on them?

All this was extraneous thought, however. Skullius shifted the subject back to its original course.

"This Abyss. It reaches even the Yormuness, which, as far as I know is outside Aigas, and transcends the seal that locked you from the surface world. If it exists everywhere, could you move through it?" Skullius asked.

…!!!

The moment he asked this question, a spark ignited in his mind. Before it was fully realized, Ashema was already answering his question.

"Of course, you can. Some of the elders among the Carven theorized that it could even be used as a shortcut to cover vast distances. You could pop into the Abyss, and out in a new location. The skill required to perform something like that is ridiculous, though. Navigating the Abyss is impossible for us. Worst case, given how the Abyss connects to so many places outside of Aigas, you could end up lost, trapped in the same place these colorful creatures were summoned from."

Skullius didn't respond to this despite having heard it.

"It's Stagnant Space…" he suddenly muttered.

"What?"

"The Abyss. It's Stagnant Space! So, all along…" Skullius said with twinkles in his blank eyes.

Of course! How could he not have thought of it sooner?

An endless world of black…

It was indeed the concept he knew as Stagnant Space!

This concept had been made known to Skullius back when he used an Arcane Teleportation Scroll for the very first time. 

(A/N : Refer to Chapter 108).

Then, he had seen it in Fortune, on the stout mountain, entangled with concepts like Distorted Gravity and Spatial Lightning – with whatever was struck by the latter being fed into it only to be returned in the next moment, split in half; a telling tale of how dangerous travel into the dark space was and how it was only reserved for the truly skilled.

That…that was the Abyss.

It was like a channel to all sorts of places, but also like a lengthy mineral belt under a sand plain, keeping everything stable.

Skullius felt like he had truly been enlightened.

'So, Summoners reach into the Abyss and draw in unfamiliar beasts outside of Aigas. I suppose that's how they make contracts, and then master creating portals that reach these abnormal spaces through Stagnant Space to lighten the load on their mana. Funny that none of them know…' the Hybrid Luman thought.

Now that was suspicious. Maybe the Summoners in Pelian and in Maqi didn't know, but those in Emeradis…

Some had to know right? If Skullius now knew and after only a few months of focusing on the more energy-based side of his powers, then surely the nation known for pioneering and fostering the art of Magecraft since millennia ago had to have an inkling of the idea at least.

The Hybrid Luman had found access to Stagnant Space through the Cluster world that was now Fortune; through the stout mountain and its—

'Replicus… I gave the stout mountain to Replicus so he could learn all the concepts on there…' a dark look emerged on Skullius' face as he thought of this.

Spatial Lightning.

Stagnant Space.

Distorted Gravity.

If Replicus had mastered them all…

At that moment, Serenity's last words to Skullius rang within his mind:

'You think you've won. You believe you've lost. I pity you. He will set you straight.'

The Hybrid Luman grew annoyed.

Instead of dwelling on the subject, he tugged at Ashema.

"Good to know," he said. "Now, about that thing with how you Carven manipulate darkness… tell me all about it."

Before the horned Carven could respond, he and Skullius had vanished, heading towards the Preeminent Attegoth.

Like all living, mana-based things, it was being attacked ceaselessly, and finally needed the Hybrid Luman's help.