Surrounded by the cold icy empty expanse, Cain blinked a few times before looking around and spotting Ren He a few meters away. The Headmaster had a golden thread connected to him, and Cain had one as well. the threads led into a crack behind them where there was a poorly lit underground chamber.
"Well, it seems it did more than open a crack in space." Ren He commented.
Cain's face had lingering hints of confusion. "Indeed.....what now?"
Ren He grinned. "What now? We explore, of course! There might be something here and with this thread, we can safely return!"
The headmaster zoomed off, Cain had his suspicions but he followed along. He would rather cultivate but his curiosity about this place was boiling like molten iron, he wished to explore and see if there was anything of value just as much, if not more than Ren He.
Hours passed, but nothing. The void was called the void for no reason, if one were to find something, it was rare, especially so when specifically looking for something. Luck was a main factor in these things.
"Hah, I suppose we found nothing. Let's go back, I'll inform my sister of this and perhaps we can hold a few more explorations. I thank you for helping me." Ren He called it quits, he couldn't waste any more time in here, and neither could Cain.
But at that moment, a small light flickered through the emptiness, narrowing their eyes, both cultivators saw a butterfly surrounded by flames. The flames flickered and burned out before lighting again. The flames surrounded the butterfly akin to little lights.
Seeing it, Cain's mind immediately found its description within the text of the past Emperor of the Sun Dynasty.
'A Star Flame Butterfly! It's at least a Tier 6 and can reach up to Tier 9!'
Disregarding Ren He, Cain flew at great speeds towards the butterfly, Ren He was no later to act and moved through the void at around the same speed as Cain.
As they neared it, the Star Flame Butterfly noticed their presence and sped up at the cost of losing its flames. But when it did, its speed increased ten times more than Cain and Ren He!
"What type of Mystical creature is this? I want it haha!" Ren He took out a pill and swallowed it, he immediately increased his speed by seven times.
Pills were rare, the ones that could affect Growth Stage Cultivators were few and far between, not to mention Enlightenment Stage Cultivators whose pill recipes had already gone extinct. Pill Makers were a dying breed.
A chase ensued, one where Cain was losing.
...
"Huff....huff....huff...." Ren He was out of energy, the Star Flame Butterfly had escaped into a giant asteroid floating through space.
A few minutes later, Cain was beside him.
Ren He could only sigh and compromise, "Fellow cultivator Cain, how about we both go inside and whoever can catch the butterfly first can keep it? How about it?"
Cain laughed, "Fellow cultivator He is smart, that is a perfect way to decide a winner, let the best man win!"
"Indeed ha ha!"
Both of them quickly entered the asteroid with blistering speeds. It was like two worms invading an apple, they squirmed and squeezed themselves, ravaging the apple to get inside.
The asteroid already had many tunnels, following the scorch marks, Cain and Ren He had a path to take. Following the trail, it soon became cold, the burnt rocks no longer holding the telltale signs as they did before.
Now, the two cultivators had to search aimlessly.
Grunting, Ren He smashed into a wall and began to throw himself about akin to a wrecking ball, his thought process was simple and inefficient. He was trying to destroy the massive asteroid from the inside, but for such a gigantic stone in space, it would take months if not years to succeed. Yet he still attempted it anyway.
Cain too only had an inefficient method, and that was to continue looking, this time he would have no path to follow and could only fly about.
The void wasn't like outer space, there was oxygen along with a bunch of other things in the air. The void itself was like a copy of outer space, only it was empty, and only when things entered through rifts did it fill. This was how this asteroid came to be, it must have entered the void through a crack.
But this also meant things from outer space could enter the void, and Cain didn't know what those things could be, he only ever knew of the Landfill, everything outside it was like a myth.
This was why after a week of searching, when his luck blessed him and he finally reached the core of the asteroid, he was horrified.
One of the tunnels looped around itself and had a small crack, through this crack, the core of the asteroid came into view. With a simple punch, Cain entered the center and beheld what lived in it.
It was a colony of Star Flame Butterflies. However that wasn't all, the butterflies only lived on the walls and pillars around the core chamber, their light burning bright like miniature stars. What was in the center of the chamber scared Cain even more.
This was a fear that came from something more than foreign. An instinctual fear on a spiritual level.
In the center was a machine, one emanating dominance and supremacy. Although Cain didn't know what sort of technology this was, it was the most advanced he'd seen to date.
In the center, a black and red pod flashed continuously. It was like an egg but it breathed. Panels lift over in quick succession like a chest rising and falling after taking in air. It was strange, far too strange.
Beyond the pod was a titanic wall of a strange material, one that reflected the entire room. Cain didn't know what type of stone had such an effect but the mirror stone only existed on that side of the chamber. Similarly, no Star Flame Butterfly went close to the mirror wall.
In light of this, Cain cautiously approached the breathing pod, when he was at arm's length, he walked around and found the pod was opened.
On the ground was a body in armor, but the body was so old there were only gray bones with webs. The armor was worn and ancient just by seeing the damage of time.
It was hard to find anything of significance, this left Cain to peer inside the pod, which, unlike the corpse, looked as good as new.
There wasn't much inside besides padding for a human body, but attached to the wall was a strange gun. On the gun were three strange symbols Cain didn't understand.
If he were to translate them, the three symbols were three letters, IGE.
"The dead can speak volumes if you let them. However, if you wait too long they will no longer speak, for they learned the blessing of peace." A soft ethereal voice echoed.
Cain's scalp became numb, he jumped out of the pod to find the source of the voice. It was that of a woman and had a strange accent he'd never heard.
"Oh, do not be scared. I know what you are, Vessel of Thought. Do you have an interest in the expired vessel beside you? That one is from another Universe. A place not of your own if you couldn't tell."
Cain turned to the stone wall, the wall no longer reflected the chamber but black. In the emptiness was a giant woman in white fur. The fur had many slits all around it and appeared infused with the woman's gray flesh.
The giantess's eyes were pitch black, she had no eyebrows or nose, not even a mouth or arms, it was just a torso and head covered in fur from what Cain could see. His spine was audibly rattling.
He could barely choke out the words, "Who are you?"
The creature giggled, "No one you will know of." She began to talk to herself, "Oh how I would have liked to be a Vessel of Thought, how lucky you are. My birth wasn't so simple and easy, what I am is harder to create, a mistake of the natural order as it's called." It sighed and looked at the Star Flame Butterflies. "You've come for them? I found them pretty enough from the place they come from. They like it here and I like them, but I can part with one, think of it as thanks for giving me interaction, even if it is only little."
Cain was at a loss for words. What was this creature even going on about?