The Weight of an Endless Sky

The Void receded not into darkness, but into form. Where silence once stretched without end, shape and color began to gather—slowly at first, like paint bleeding into water. Light spilled outward from unseen horizons, illuminating a lone island suspended within an endless celestial sea. It did not drift upon ordinary waters; instead, it rested within a cosmic expanse where fragments of starlight and drifting landmasses floated like forgotten thoughts of creation.

​At the center of this isolated world stood a single, colossal tree: Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life.

​Its trunk rose from the heart of the island like a pillar holding existence itself in place. Bark woven with the faint sheen of starlight spiraled upward beyond mortal scale, its branches spreading into a vast canopy of emerald brilliance. Roots thicker than mountains burrowed deep into the land, some surfacing and stretching across the terrain like ancient veins, shaping rivers, valleys, and the very bones of the earth.

​Around the Tree, the land unfolded in a perfect, deliberate balance of extremes:

To the North: Jagged mountains crowned with eternal snow pierced the heavens, their frozen peaks gleaming like silent sentinels. Among them, a sleeping volcano loomed, its icy summit belying the molten fury within. Beneath it stretched a rocky valley, encircled by massive roots, where the earth itself seemed alive—volcanoes split the land open, spilling molten fire that flowed like living blood across blackened stone, a domain of fury and relentless rebirth.

To the West: Dense forests stretched in layered waves of green, alive with whispers of wind and calls of unseen creatures. Hills rose gently, punctuated by woodland thickets and the shadowed depths of darkwood groves, where sunlight pierced the canopy in scattered shafts, revealing quiet glades and hidden clearings. The forest pulsed with life, each layer a maze of roots, vines, and foliage.

To the East: Lowlands stretched wide beneath the open sky, rolling grasslands blending into quiet meadows, golden savannas, and wind-swept prairies. Streams carved gentle paths through fertile earth, scattered trees provided shade and shelter, and tall grasses swayed like waves under the sun.

To the South: Life Wetlands spread across the southern lands, alive with reflective waters, reeds, and floating flora. From the roots of Yggdrasil flowed small streams, branching through the terrain within the roots before merging into a great river that carried life toward the ocean.

​Io stood at the base of the trunk, his boots pressing into soil that felt more like compressed starlight than dirt. He looked down at his hands. They were his—tall, slender, familiar—yet through the pale skin, a faint, rhythmic shimmer of celestial nebulae pulsed. His eyes, now a piercing pale blue flecked with spinning gold, mirrored the cosmic sea above.

​"You seek to measure the immeasurable," a voice resonated. It didn't come from the air, but from the empty spaces between his thoughts. It was the Void—not an entity, but a consciousness of pure entropy and potential. "Speak the command. Observe the truth of what you have become."

​Io swallowed, his throat dry despite the lush mist rising from the Tree’s roots. "Status... open," he whispered, the words feeling heavy, as if the air itself struggled to carry them.

​A veil of dark, translucent energy rippled in front of his vision.

​[STATUS WINDOW]

• ​NAME: Ioeane “Io” Dimlow Jaerrow

• ​RACE: Voidborne Primordial (Sovereign Class)

• ​TITLE: Keeper of Yggdrasil | Master of the End-Beginnings

• AUTHORITIES:

- Void Authority (MAX): Erasure, Spatial Collapse, Conceptual Nullification.

- Absolute Magic Creation (MAX): Reality Revision, Law Manifestation, Origin Sorcery.

• STATUS: Beyond Mortal Calculation.

​Io recoiled, his breath hitching. He reached out a trembling hand, his fingers passing through the shimmering text. "This... this isn't a 'level.' This is a disaster." He looked at the emerald canopy of Yggdrasil, the sheer scale of his power making the world feel like fragile glass. "If I trip, I might delete a continent. If I get angry, I could unmake the concept of fire."

​He knelt, pressing a palm against a massive, glowing root that broke the surface of the soil. The wood was warm, humming with a rhythmic, maternal vitality.

​"You chose me," Io said softly to the Tree, his fingers tracing the patterns in the bark. "But I’m just a student from a library. I like patterns because they make sense of the chaos. This much power... it’s the ultimate chaos."

​"The Void is the canvas," the silent voice of the Void echoed, colder now. "You are the brush. Why do you hesitate to paint?"

​“Because I don’t want to lose the person who appreciates the painting,” Io snapped back, his voice echoing toward the frozen northern mountains. He stood up, shaking his head. “If I rely on this—if I use 'Absolute Magic' for every minor inconvenience—I won't be Io anymore. I’ll just be a function of the universe. A machine of ‘Absolute’ will.”

​He looked up into the vast emerald depths of the Tree of Life. “Do you hear me? I will protect you. I will be your Keeper. But I will do it with my mind first, and this power only when the stars themselves threaten to fall.”

​The Tree pulsed a soft, reassuring green. A single leaf, glowing with a soft white light, drifted down and landed in Io’s hair.

​“Discipline matters,” Io whispered to the wind, echoing a thought from a world he had left behind. He closed his eyes, consciously pulling the starlight shimmer back beneath his skin until he looked, once again, like the university student who had fallen off a roof. “A steady mind keeps magic from becoming a danger—to me and the world I’ve been given.”

The power stirred at his call, eager, vast, ruinous in its potential. It did not resist him. It never did.

He could have split the horizon. Could have scorched valleys clean. Could have bent the air until it screamed.

Instead, he let only a fraction flow.

Just enough to feel it. Just enough to remember it was his — and that he was not its servant.

The leaf trembled, but did not burn.

Io lowered his hand.

Power was not proven in devastation. It was proven in restraint.

​He turned his gaze toward the north, where snow-capped peaks and glaciers stretched across the horizon, their icy surfaces glittering in the pale sunlight. Amid the frozen expanse, a sleeping volcano loomed, its icy summit belying the molten fury slumbering within. He didn’t fly; he didn’t warp space. He simply began to walk, his leather satchel still slung over his shoulder, a scholar entering a library of a billion years. And today, the world would remain unbroken.