NOVEL NEXT Chapter 43: The projection plane
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For the first time, Xane and Zayn stared at the projection plane and their strange, glowing soul forms drifting within it.
Xane opened his eyes only to find himself floating in a dark space with nothing around.
He tried to look around, only to find darkness surrounding him.
Just then, he saw bright dots all around. It was like looking at distant stars in the night sky, except the stars were everywhere.
From the above to below, left to right. The starry sky surrounded him on all eight sides. Also, each of those stars had a different color.
Just then, he heard a mental voice.
[Oh, I'm also here.]
Xane focused on his soul projection with interest.
It was sort of weird, as in this empty place, he could see two dark grey balls floating in space, linked to each other.
What was weird was that he could feel the ball on the left was him.
So, in a sense, he was looking at himself from a third-person perspective.
It was like those games where you see your character from above. Kind of weird, but when he focused on the Zayn ball, everything returned to normal again.
Even though it felt strange, it was the first time he was meeting Zayn face-to-face.
He greeted him excitedly. <Oh, hello, Ball Zayn.>
Zayn remained quiet for a moment and then suddenly asked, [Dude, how come you're bigger than me?]
<Oh, really? > Just to compare themselves, Xane thought about moving next to Zayn.
To both of their surprise, the link between the balls suddenly vanished as the two balls touched each other.
But it didn't stop there. The two balls continued pressing against each other until they merged into one large ball.
It was then that Xane felt he was in the upper 60 percent of the new ball, while Zayn was in the bottom 40 percent.
At this distribution, Xane nodded. <Oh, you're right. I was big.>
Zayn cursed. [Dude, it's so tipsy. I suddenly feel like I'm just legs with no upper body.]
<It's the opposite for me.>
Xane was about to say more when he noticed a slight shift in vision. <Wait… did you just move?>
Zayn stopped complaining. [Ahh, no!]
Both of them stopped their banter and stayed there in silence.
Xane calmly looked around, trying to sense any change.
It took him a moment, but then he noticed a minor shift in his vision.
He focused on one of the dots, and sure enough, after a while, the dot slightly shifted to his left.
Not only that, it also moved a bit up in his vision.
Zayn, who was also experiencing the same, said, [Something is pulling us toward the right.]
Xane focused to the right and, sure enough, he spotted a couple of grey dots far away in his vision.
He checked the other directions, and except for the bottom side with two grey dots, he didn't see any grey dots at all.
It was kind of shocking, as there should be a couple of thousand dots all around him.
He sighed, <Okay, so we have 7 grey dots out of a couple thousand. Not a poor start, I say.>
Zayn added, [Dude, I am more concerned with those 5 dots. They are pulling us toward them.]
Xane nodded. <Well, it makes one thing clear. We cannot stay indefinitely on the projection plane. The presence of those worlds makes it impossible to remain still.>
[Yeah.]
Xane said to Zayn, <Hey, let's check a few of those worlds.>
[No, wait. I want to test something.]
Xane had no problem with Zayn's wish. He also understood that the most important thing for them right now was gathering information.
He asked, <Okay, so what do you want?>
Zayn didn't think long. [First, Xane, you try to move toward those planets while I think about moving in the opposite direction. Let's see if we can split back into two balls.]
<Sure.> With that, Xane thought about moving ahead.
As he focused on one of the distant grey dots, it began to swell, slowly growing from a pinprick into something the size of a marble.
He also noticed another grey dot growing in size next to the first one he had chosen.
The other dots stayed small despite that, unmoved by his attention.
That's when it clicked. While the worlds looked close together, they were super far apart.
What was interesting was that the closest world to the grey one was another grey world. He could feel the pull from the grey balls increasing.
Just then, he felt a tug on his back as the dots stopped growing.
He looked at the soul projection and was surprised to find he was back to a small ball with a stretched-out link that now extended super far.
As he focused ahead, he was surprised to see that, except for the two golf-sized balls, there were multiple bigger dots in the sky now. Too bad none of them were grey.
What was interesting was that he also started to feel a bit of repulsion from those bigger dots. But the power of repulsion was much lower compared to the pull force of the grey golf-sized balls.
He tried to move further ahead, only to feel a backward pull that rooted him in place.
He turned back and saw this thin line disappearing into the darkness. He couldn't even see Zayn. It became clear this was the farthest he could get from Zayn.
He focused on the link and tested something. <Hey Zayn, can you hear me?>
After a few seconds, he heard Zayn's voice, this time through the link. [Yup. How far are you?]
<Ah, I can see two golf-sized grey balls.>
After a short delay, he heard the response. [Wait, I'm coming toward you.]
Xane realized there was a delay in their communication.
Not long after, he saw the thin link start to shorten, and soon Zayn's ball rushed toward him.
Zayn stopped just a few centimeters from him and looked at the grey balls. [Oh, this one was interesting.]
Xane asked with interest, <What did you see?>
[Actually, I picked a random red dot, and I saw 10 red dots grow to the same golf-ball-sized. There were a couple of different colored dots that became a bit bigger, but none of them compared to the red balls.]
<Wait, does that mean we are avoiding other element balls when we choose to move closer to one type of ball?>
[I mean, this entire projection plane is kind of weird. I don't think we are moving in a normal way. Something odd is going on here.]
Xane sighed. <Yeah.>
Zayn added, [By the way, even though we can divide into different balls, this connection technically makes us a single soul projection.]
Xane nodded. <Yup, I thought the same thing. There's no possibility of us leaving a mark on two worlds.>
[Yeah. Let's merge back and this time, how about both of us move toward the same ball?]
Xane wasted no time thinking about merging with Zayn. Sure enough, they combined again into one large ball.
Xane said. [Okay, let's move to the left ball.]
This time, the movement was instant.
Their vision shifted as the soul projection stopped before this massive,three-story-high, dull grey ball.
Xane felt like he was standing in front of a massive beast—a beast that was trying to pull them into its mouth. Even though the beast was big, it was not strong.
It was only now that Xane noticed that, compared to the whitish-grey color of the world, their soul ball was practically a premium glossy grey.
Zayn said, [Dude, even if we concentrate this world to our soul size, it would still be a far weaker grey.]
Xane mentally nodded. It was like someone placed an extra foggy layer on the giant world ball that dulled all its color.
Zayn said to him. [Hey, just think about following me.]
<Okay, but don't move any closer to this world. I feel that if we move any closer, we might get pulled in.>
[I know. I just want to revolve around the world and see if that's possible. By the way, focus on the other grey world.]
Xane looked back and saw that the size of the closest grey ball had shrunk to marble size, and some new dots now increased in size.
Xane just focused on the grey marble and told Zayn. <Okay, do what you want. I will follow your movement.>
Zayn said aloud. [Let us move to the opposite side of the grey ball.]
The moment he said that, their vision shifted again.
Though nothing changed for Zayn, he still saw the massive grey ball. It was as if he had not moved at all.
He asked Xane, [Did it work?]
Xane nodded his head. <Yup. I can't see any grey ball or any grey dot, for that matter.>
Zayn said in a dreaded tone. [Shit, so now we have to check all directions to see if the planets are hiding any grey dots or not.]
<Hey, no need to panic. Just move back and let's check the other grey marble.>
Zayn said in a low, dejected tone, [Okay.]
He just thought about turning back, and as he saw the grey marble, he thought about moving toward it.
It was once again an instant movement as their vision changed.
This time, they found themselves standing next to a much bigger giant ball. This one should be around five stories high, but it was even duller than the first giant ball.
Xane suddenly said, [Zayn, look, from here I can see another grey dot at the top.]
Zayn nodded in a bit of optimism as both of them started to travel from one grey ball to another, only to get more and more depressed with each of their travels.
As they were about to move toward the 10th grey dot, their soul projection shrank to nothing, and both of them once again blacked out.
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