Heaven and Earth are no strangers to oddities and anomalies, from beings claiming to be from different planes of existence to dark, twisted objects that do not conform to the laws of this world. Many have tried to link these strange occurrences to the vagabond Gods that roam Heaven and Earth, or Cultivators; some even tried to pin them on righteous Immortals. None of these accusations have stood the test of time, though. If Gods were capable of causally creating items and beings that subvert the will of Heaven and Earth, the world would be a very different place; we’d be under their rulership, not Heaven.

  The same went for cultivators. And as for the immortals? Why would they do that? Their existence depends on Heaven! The same goes for the Earthly Immortals as well. Do you think they would still be called that if they were responsible?

  Many have tried asking the willing beings where they hail from, or how they found themselves in this realm, only to be met with gibberish. They could understand us, and we could understand them, but concepts relating to their origin could not be shared, no matter what method was used.

  Neither Mortals nor Immortals will ever know where these beings truly come from; only the one whose tent encompasses the world would.

  –Excerpt from ‘The Oddities of Heaven and Earth’ by scholar Immortal Yang Fe.

  They shifted and squirmed through the conceptual cracks of the conceptual world, nibbling at the sweet nectar that was understanding that dripped from the filaments that encased the laws of the strange realm they found themselves in.

  The void scout wasn’t quite sure what they were, or how they came to be, but that didn’t matter; all would be well once it gathered enough understanding of this world’s potent laws to construct a body.

  Then, it could connect and sync with the overmind, fulfilling its purpose. That was easier said than done, though; the metaphysical structure of this realm was unlike anything it had ever seen. The laws weren’t just static, unmoving things dedicated to a single part of the world.

  No, they were alive, coming together to form an incomprehensible network of laws and concepts capable of adapting to anything they governed.

  This had shocked them so much initially that they couldn’t help but get closer, salivating at the thought of incorporating such a treasure into themselves.

  Their greed didn’t last long, though; the laws sensed them and a presence so large it defied understanding locked onto it and wiped it from existence, forcing it to recuperate in the smudge of void it managed to graft onto one of the tiniest hairs of a weak law filament.

  Things only grew harder from that point; it was much harder to nibble at the filament’s understanding of the law it encompassed when it was aware of the scout’s existence and actively sought its destruction.

  This forced it to constantly adapt and shift its conceptual nature lest it risk destruction. And even that was losing its effectiveness; the laws knew it was still there somehow, nibbling at their casing.

  They felt the laws observing them most of the time, which was a scary thought; laws, by nature, were vast, static things responsible for the governing of a certain aspect of reality. They could, at times, be flexible, but never truly autonomous, and thinking, at least that was what they thought, until it manifested here.

  Now they lurked like hungry predators, eager to tear it apart the moment it stopped evolving. The scout knew that constantly shifting to avoid their claws was only a temporary solution, though; what it needed was a way to permanently slip away from their gaze that didn’t involve prematurely manifesting in the physical realm.

  That was the last thing they wanted to do; they calculated that such a thing would set it back a few decades, if not more.

  What other choice did they have, though? If they stood their ground and got wiped out again, there was a very real chance of them not coming back.

  The laws and their casings were just too smart; they already knew their method of survival and were just waiting for it to slip up, then they’d swallow them up in one big swoop.

  After much thought, they gave in to reason; the metaphysical realm was no place for them at the moment. The physical plane where these laws acted would be much better, even though it might take a longer while to gather the necessary energy required to summon their other self.

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  The void scout’s metaphysical construct shook as it recalled all the little bits of it that were out trying to infect the metaphysical realm before gathering all the void energy it managed to manufacture during its time here into a single, conceptual tentacle that plunged into the thin filament that separated the conceptual from the physical.

  They felt a great deal of resistance as they wormed their way through, and a sense of imminent death washed across it as the laws and the filament itself fought back against their corrosive energies.

  This caused them to redouble their efforts, pulling every scrap of void energy they had and focusing it onto a single point in desperation.

  A loud bang resounded throughout the space of laws as the thin golden filament shattred, sucking what remained of the void scout through before closing itself after.

  ∞

  They woke up to a myriad of odd, and distinctly physical sensations: temperature, pressure, sound, and light, alongside many others, some too nuanced to properly feel out in a single scan of their now physical body.

  The void scout was now a pool of black liquid that rippled with an odd, indescribable energy that slowly permeated the air around it. They found themselves in a strange stone ravine, besieged by nature on both sides in the form of a blue, glowing vine that squirmed along the stone as if it were alive.

  Logically, there should’ve been more plants than just this single, strange vine, yet that was all they could sense.

  It was everywhere and seemed to originate from the top of the ravine, as that was where it grew from and was the most concentrated. They could make out bits of other plants, too, but they had this strange blue glow to them that slowly multiplied, as if they had been infected by something.

  They wanted to explore and understand this phenomenon more, but quelled their momentary curiosity; the vine would come to them eventually, they just had to wait and conserve their energy until the time was right.

  And indeed they were right, the vine seemed to be able to sense the new presence in its domain, and slowly crept toward them over many hours.

  They struck the instant it was within range; the puddle of liquid night suddenly rippled with activity as six tendrils shot out towards the incoming vine, slamming into it with furious metaphysical might.

  The tendrils then merged into a single, unified blob of utter darkness that seeped into the damaged section of the vine, which instantly lost some of its luminosity in response. The scout felt a silver of some strange, alien cognition lock onto it, but rallied its void energy to ruthlessly crush and twist it into their liking.

  The resistance it felt within the vine lessened significantly after that, and it began to rapidly consume the vine’s remaining energy, adding it to their own, which it used to adapt and proliferate within until nothing of the original structure remained within the vine’s tip.

  The tip of the vine was now completely black with faint smuges of vibrant blue that were being snuffed out constantly by a tide of liquid darkness which constantly swept through it, keeping the flood of blue that flooded it from the rest of the vine’s body at bay.

  To an outside observer, it would look like a drop of ink in milk, one that ruthlessly crushed anything that tried to taint its color whilst simultaneously multiplying itself.

  Now that the void scout had gained a foothold that supplied it with energy, it refused to lose it and planned to hold out no matter what.

  It had only managed to corrupt the tip of the vine, yet had gained a massive amount of energy and kept gaining even more as the rest of the vine tried to flush it out of its system.

  They hadn’t expected the creatures of the physical realm to contain so much conceptual energy. Usually, it was the opposite; of all the realms it recalled its main self going to, very few could support and cultivate conceptual creatures to an extent where they’d be useful.

  Here, though? They seemed abundant if this vine was anything to go off of, which was very concerning.

  Mundane creatures could only fight the void through sophisticated technology capable of touching the foundations of the world. And even then, the damage they could do would only hinder it; they’d win eventually through sheer numbers, temptation, and propaganda.

  None of that would work on conceptual beings, though; they had the power of reality on their side, what could the void offer them that they couldn’t go acquire themselves? With the ability to manipulate reality, anything was possible.

  Now, granted, the degree of manipulation differed greatly from reality to reality, but they generally had the power to rise very far on the conceptual ladder, accumulating all sorts of strange, unique powers.

  Take the vine, for example; it couldn’t be that high up in the food chain, yet it was contending with the void’s corruptive energies, fighting back furiously.

  Its method was crude, though; the thing simply threw conceptual energy them it in the hopes that it would be overwhelmed. That was the exact thing the void scout wanted, though, and greedily absorbed every scrap of the blue-gold conceptual energy, growing with each bit converted.

  By the time the vine seemed to have realized that what it was doing was not working, it was already too late; they had managed to corrupt half of the massive vine that had come down to inspect them and pulsed with void energy.

  That was when the deluge of energy suddenly slowed to a mere trickle before drying up completely.

  The vine had been cut off from its main body above the canyon.

  The scout’s senses spread out with a pulse of energy, sweeping through the entire ravine in the form of weak waves of dark wind.

  Annoyance swelled within them as they found no trace of the previously abundant vine anywhere; it had retracted every part of it while they fought.

  The vine had taken advantage of their single-mindedness and mad desire for energy to trap it in the ravine before retracting its presence entirely.

  It wasn’t done yet, though; the scout felt movement at the edges of the canyon and turned their senses there only to see something that made them even angier. Thousands of thick vines gathered on both sides, pulsing with conceptual energy that seeped into the ground.

  They were confused as to what it was doing until they sensed intense vibrations throughout their body and the ravine as a whole. Then, the stone started to grow, rapidly spreading over to the other side in defiance of all reason and logic.

  Then, the scene repeated itself until a huge section of the sky was blotted out by the newly grown stone, and only then did the void scout realize what was happening.

  They were sealing it in.

  They bristled with impotent rage at the mere thought, but could do nothing but watch. Though they were angry, they were unwilling to waste any of the precious energy they managed to acquire.

  The void scout’s mission would be hindered by their sealing, but they were sure of breaking out in due time, once they managed to digest and utilize the information and conceptual structure of the vine they managed to acquire.