NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 1: Prolouge:
"We began as wanderers and we are wanderes still."
"We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean."
"We are ready at last to set sell for the stars"
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"My destination is unknown but as long as I exist, the Milky Way will be my path and the universe will be my destination."
— ███████ █████████
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In the ethereal expanse where existence thinly veils the void of nothingness, the frigid tides of an unseen ocean brush against the shores of reality.
The girl is lost.
She can't remember when she became lost. She just walked and walked, on and on into the dark night, chasing the sun and the moon, over and over again — until she falls, lying face down in the mud.
Looking up to the stars, what she should have seen was meteors streaming down: one, two, three... And then more, smaller ones, flickering and flashing ever so finely before a magnificent blaze tore open the night.
Yet, she couldn't find any.
The giant black sun in the sky emitted a dim, gloomy light that covered the place, giving off an ominous, strangely mournful feeling. The gray sky with blood-red mists was like the hazy memories that appeared in her mind.
Her limbs drag her forward, leading her on to where the land meets the ocean. These waters, ice-cold and relentless, like the felling she found in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay when looking for herself beyond this boundless world.
At the shoreline, the waters jostle against her, the rain whispers secrets, each drop a word, a story, a plea. It is a symphony of existence, a tragic melody of life and death intertwined, playing endlessly in the heart of nowhere.
"Is this... the 'Death'?" The young girl with her severely injured body raised her arm that was being corroded by the black curse up towards the black sun. Every piece of her flesh was slowly disintegrating into dust, as were her memories, she seemed to be standing on the blurred line between life and nothingness. "It's more peaceful than I thought...."
She could no longer feel anything, no longer felt the pain from the rot and erosion, no more light entered her eyes, only the white of blindness remained. This is perhaps the beauty of death.... "In the night of death, hopes to see a star...."
"And may I blessed by THEM (Idrila)...."
She muttered with her last breath, as she still gazed back up at the giant black sun. The girl's breathing gradually slowed down then gradually disappeared without a trace, her eyes were slightly closed while looking up at the sky. In her vision, there was a light of a comet streaking across the grey sky, perhaps it was just a hallucination of her while she was dying, a little illusion to comfort herself that death is not scary.
"Why I am floating...?" When the girl opened her eyes she realized that she was floating in the air and drifting aimlessly towards a being with white skin and red pupil eyes lying on it. Waves of green and yellow energy gently wrapped around her body like a warm embrace was embracing her, placing pressure on the wounds the curse was causing.
"Poor child...."
THEIR gazes were gentle and kind as THEY opened THEIR eyes to look at the unfortunate young girl. THEIR mouths moved to speak but no sound came out, but she could hear them clearly in her ears. Maybe it was the voice of someone she met in the past, or maybe it was the voice of her soul trying to encourage her, she never knew.
The girl was drifting towards THEM more and more, she couldn't resist at all. The green energy glowed even brighter under THEIR gaze as it began to be absorbed by the girl's body. The energy began to flow through her veins, regenerating her body from the inside out.
"What is life.... And what is death.... Do you know, ███████?"
"Why ask if you can seek the answer yourself.... Ruan Mei?"
She felt like she was falling from a great height as fragments of memories appeared before her eyes, voices that seemed so familiar yet so foreign echoed in her head. She fell freely in the pitch black space until her senses gradually returned and she saw where she was going, to a place that looked like a giant temple.
...
"Member #80? I thought you were still in contact with her, Ruan Mei?"
"Speaking of which, I also had the desire to cooperate with her. Just like many other members of the Genius Society, finding her was a BIG problem."
"Some said she was crazy enough to drink all the toxic cocktails created by Member #55 and jump straight into IX to find the answer for herself or killing people and resurrecting them somehow as she coined the philosophical phrase "Death is Alive"."
"There were also other information such as Polka Kakamond assassinating her during her search for the truth.... But I believe that even if she dies, she is still alive."
"She had become Emanator before me for not one but two Aeons anyway, showing how crazy and determined she was to skew Nous' calculations of outcome and solution again and again making THEM glance at her in confusion, interested and frustration that I have to say at least when she's disappeared."
...
The light once again flooded her vision causing her to reflexively close her eyes, until she opened them again to see a new figure appear in front of the girl. It was something look like a massive robot eyes without a figure simply a giant android head that emits low frequency sounds and continuous decoding.
A large and bright red light, vaguely reminiscent of an eye, is implanted on the side of THEIR head it suddenly glows and makes robot-like startup noises as THEY see the girl walking towards THEM looking like she wants to say something. THEY glance at her once more making chills run down her spine then slowly close her eyes again.
Darkness descends before her eyes, reminiscent of the chaos before the birth of the universe. There is a little light at the end of this cold dark path, it draws her in, once again engulfed the space, pulling her mind back to reality.
"The erosion of Nihility was temporarily stopped by the power of Abundance, merely keeping the girl alive...." As the girl was still half awake, she caught a glimpse of someone's conversation, causing her to tilt her head towards the source of the voice with difficulty. It was a bespectacled man with brown hair talking to a red-haired woman. Judging from the man's tone and face, he looked curious but also very worried at the same time. "Where did you find this girl, Himeko?"
"This girl was floating in space, it seems... someone saved her before I got involved." The woman with hair as red as fire named Himeko responded, she tilted her head to look in the girl's direction, seeing that she had woken up, Himeko slowly walked closer. "How are you feeling?"
What happened after that, the girl couldn't remember clearly anymore. Being still a Self-Annihilator and under the influence of the Nihility's shadow, her memories were gradually fading and her senses were gradually becoming numb. Only her body existed because of the power THEY gave her to survive, however her arms were still the same as when she was near death, from her elbows down to her fingertips were pitch black but it had not spread any further.
Even so, Himeko still welcomed her to Astral Express. So every day she wakes up trying to remember Himeko and Welt's faces, their names, and even Pom-Pom, the conductor. Remembering that she herself was no longer the same person, she had been reborn with a new identity, as a Nameless who travel the stars in the name of Akivili and the path of the Trailblaze.
She appeared at the train on February 14 so she decided to named herself after that is "Valentina", an event that came from a planet named "Earth" with the last named is "Vanitas". Because the name is so similar to her condition, it is quite ironic, and also expresses her dark sense of humor about her empty past.
And thus, on that day, a girl with a strong passion for philosophy and Astronomy and enthusiasm was born with the name Vanitas Valentina.
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"Miss Vanitas! We have arrived at Herta Space Station!" An excited and playful voice kept calling her name along with shaking her shoulders, waking them up....