Beyond the Bloodline

Jamie suddenly found himself in a different space, a cosmic dreamscape resembling the boundless expanse of the night sky.

Stars of every conceivable hue adorned the space around him, their brilliance sparkling like a cosmic mosaic and forming constellations that told tales of ages past.

Majestic nebulae unfurled their opulent veils, the vast swirling clouds of colour and luminescence painting the space that seemed to stretch on to infinity with vibrant hues.

But what truly caught his attention the most were the starry rivulets, cascading liquid light, pouring from a colossal rift torn across the expanse.

These rifts, gaping wounds in the very fabric of space, wept streams of brilliant stardust into the waiting embrace of the nebulae, and Jamie who was supposed to have been watching a movie on the plane, had now abruptly been granted a front-row seat to this surreal fusion of creation and destruction.

“This place looks so familiar, but I can’t seem to recall exactly who it belongs to…”

He placed his fingers on his chin and spoke with a pensive look on his face, remaining in that position for a few seconds before sighing.

“Nope. Can’t remember who owns this domain.”

The instant he said that, a fair slender arm suddenly manifested in the space behind him, stretching out towards his neck and grabbing it from the back with enough force to strangle a grown man.

[Jamie Fucking Westley!]

Despite the unmistakable undercurrent of anger that the speaker’s tone was laced with, there was an uncanny enchanting quality to their voice, leaving anyone who listened unable to tear themselves away from the paradox of soothing fury.

“Now I remember who owns this place…”

Jamie twisted his body lightly and pulled the arm off his neck, before completely turning around and continuing.

“…it belongs to a certain World Consciousness that loves me so, so much.”

He had not even finished turning around when the arm broke out of his hold and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, before flinging his body towards the “floor” with force.

[Loves you?

Pfft.

That can’t happen, even in the dream dimension.]

The Hybrid only chuckled lightly as he got to his feet, fixing his now rumpled shirt as he replied to the other speaker.

“Ain’t that a bit too harsh for a reunion…”

His clear blue eyes seemed to gleam with an inner radiance as he shifted his sight, fixing his gaze upon the other being within the space and completing his words.

“Don’t you think so, Estea?”

Height-wise, she seemed to be a bit below average, and she was draped in an elegant gown that cascaded down her form.

The bodice of the dress was a deep, captivating black, in contrast to the rest of the attire which flowed in pristine white, with a daring slit on each side of the dress allowed that her legs unhindered freedom.

The black sleeves, independent from the gown, reached up to her mid-upper arms, then cascaded down to encircle her delicate fingers through ornate rings. Her feet, however, remained unadorned by any footwear.

Her visage was striking, with features that could captivate the hearts of most, but it was her eyes that truly held a celestial allure.

Within those captivating orbs, one could discern a reflection of the boundless starry expanse that surrounded them, an endless tapestry of stars and planets.

Long tendrils of hair cascaded down her back, mirroring the expanse around them with their stunning lustre.

Seated seemingly upon the very air itself, she held her arms crossed over her chest, while sending a cold glare in Jamie’s direction.

The Hybrid had called her ‘Estea’, a name that the very planet he originated from was called.

However, there was nothing wrong in calling her that.

“She” was the planet itself, after all.

Estea was an Ancient World that had existed since the birth of the universe, and was still going to exist for an innumerable number of years more.

A World as old as that undoubtedly possessed a consciousness—whose incarnation was the woman who was currently looking at Jamie like he was some sort of scourge.

On a side note, the name ‘Estea’ would not have been recognized as the name of their planet, if she herself did not agree to take up that name.

Under the woman’s cold gaze, Jamie silently dusted his clothes—an action he really didn’t need to take as he wasn’t really her in his physical body but in his astral form, but he still did it anyway.

An expression of remembrance suddenly flashed across his face and he lightly slammed a clenched fist into his palm before turning to Estea and speaking.

“Oh, I almost forgot to remind you. It’s ‘Franklin’ not ‘Fucking’.

Make sure you don’t get it wrong next time, okay?”

If there was an annoyance level metre beside Estea, it’d definitely be rising fast given how hard her brow was twitching at the moment.

‘Well, it’s not really a ‘Her’ given that Planets are not exactly existences that have genders, but this one’s incarnation just so happens to take on a female form and so is addressed as such.

Something about picking this appearance from one of the first team of people to ever discover her existence.’

Jamie thought to himself, trying to remember exactly how and why the current appearance of the planet’s consciousness’ incarnation in front of him came to be.

“So, Estea. Mind telling me why you pulled me out of my movie-binging session?”

[…Are you really asking me that?]

“Yes, I am.”

Estea narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to Jamie until their faces were merely inches apart before asking.

[You really don’t know?]

“I wouldn’t be asking if I did, you know?”

The incarnation looked at Jamie in silence for a few moments, her eyes watching him closely for even the most minute change in his expression.

[Since you seem to ‘not know’, how about I jog your memory for you?]

Saying this, she leaned backwards and held out her right hand, snapping her fingers and creating a floating screen that had a video on it.

Displayed on the screen, was the scene of Jamie from a few days ago when he used the Galaxy Sword to cut the four-armed giant Hecragar in two.

“Damn, I look cool even under a veil.

But…why did you show me this?”

Jamie tilted his head to the side as he spoke with a perfect poker face, something that Estea did not fail to notice and subsequently used to confirm that Jamie was not as clueless as he was making himself out to seem.

[You may have lost a lot of power, but I’m sure you certainly have not lost knowledge of what your weapons are capable of now, have you?]

Hearing her question, the Hybrid was silent for a moment, a short moment that seemed like an Eternity as he locked gazes with Estea.

In the next, he slowly turned his gaze to the side and began whistling suspiciously.

[So, you DO know what you did!]

Jamie flinched reflexively when he heard her shouting, however, he steeled himself and turned his gaze back to the annoyed woman before replying.

“In my defence, with how weak I am currently, there’s no way I could have done any lasting damage to the World’s Fabric of space.”

[So, you’re aware of the fact that you did deal damage to the fabric of space!]

“No, I was not until now.

I’m guessing you concealed it so I was not aware that I had left a slightly larger-than-normal tear in space.”

[There are no ‘normal’ tears in space!]

“What about the ones every sufficiently skilled spatial magic user creates? They seem pretty normal to me.”

[…]

Estea deadpanned at Jamie and the Hybrid quickly figured that it was high time he kept his mouth shut.

The Planetary Consciousness’ Incarnation took a deep breath to calm her emotions, before pointing towards the floating screen and speaking.

[You used a ‘Dimensional Slicing’ technique right there.

I believe they are called ‘DIMENSIONAL SLICING’ for a good reason!]

“That much is true.”

[So tell me, did you not know that using it was going to leave a semi-permanent dimensional line which would have caused any objects AND persons who passed that area to be unceremoniously sliced into pieces?]

“Come on, I do that a lot. It was gonna go away after a couple of minutes, a few hours at most.”

[You do realise you also did that using the ‘Galaxy Sword’, right?]

“…

Oh.

Yeah, that wouldn’t have faded even after a couple of hours.”

[OF COURSE, IT WOULD NOT HAVE IF I DIDN’T FIX IT MYSELF!]

In contrast to the raging woman, Jamie heaved a sigh before holding out his two thumbs up as he spoke.

“Would have been bad if anyone got caught.

Good job, Estea.”

**SMACK!

[GOOD JOB MY ASS!!]

His actions earned him a smack on the top of his head from the woman whose annoyance was reaching heights she never even thought possible.

[You’d barely been awake for a week and you were already messing things up.]

“Oh, come on. You say that like I mess things up all the time.

Besides, this was actually a pretty small matter, no need to make such a big fuss.”

Upon hearing his words, Estea genuinely felt tempted to break open his subspace and pull out the Galaxy Sword before shoving it in his face and asking him what was ‘small’ about him using that dangerous weapon.

Too bad she could not do that.

She just gave him a deadpan gaze that made him rethink his statement, holding up two fingers in the air as he spoke.

“20% Only 20% of the time.”

[…]

The woman only raised a brow with a gaze that seemed to be asking Jamie if even he believed what he was saying.

“Okay, 30%.”

[…]

“40! It doesn’t go any higher. Only 40%”

[You say that like it’s something to be proud of…]