Ares looked on in awe at the sheer number of treasures floating before him. There were probably more treasures in this void than there were dimensions and one of the two had been piling up since practically the dawn of the pillars. The other, the treasures, would have only started appearing once a mana-ridden cultivation society first formed in whichever dimension had that honour. There were all sorts of colourful doodads and curious contraptions, each with a power all unto their own that could level towns or cities if used appropriately and by the right person. Ares almost wished he could reach out and touch them but he had a feeling that wasn''t possible right now as he was inevitably going to be too weak to interact with them. If Ares had to guess, they were still somewhat attached to the few lingering remnants of the soul of the deceased cultivators that owned them before they died. Maybe disintegration could sever that but, again, not right now. In fact, Ares might need that enhanced disintegration, as well as some more nothingness mastery, to be able to separate these things from the void and actually make use of them.


    This meant Ares technically had ''infinite'' treasures at his disposal and, on the off chance he ever killed someone who had something he liked the look of, he could come searching for it here later if their soul wound up here. That being said, wasting time sifting through these things, only to keep finding niche treasure after niche treasure that he could do basically nothing with, was a problem in and of itself. It was absolutely better to wait until his divine sense was considerably stronger and then hunt down specific treasures he''d heard about beforehand and already knew were good for him. The time he could potentially spend looking for something that suited his fancy would monumental and, at that point, any strength he gained from such a treasure would have been made up for the by the cultivation gains he could have gotten if he just sat in closed door cultivation for that same time period. This opportunity wasn''t as incredible as it looked at a first glance but it was certainly a unique option available to Ares and Ares alone. Or, well, him and anyone else he permitted to come here as they could have their pick of the litter. If one of the four matriarchs, say, had killed someone with a treasure they were envious of, then Ares could chauffeur them through this swarm and deliver it to them. His omniscience would make locating particular objects much easier provided he knew roughly what they looked like in advance, via a sketch or Past-Present Polymerisation, so this was definitely the correct way to use this Final Epitaph properly as opposed to random searching. When Ares was done internalising the current state of things regarding this new discovery he turned to Astraeus and waited for a proper explanation.


    "First, allow me to explain what happens to a revenant soul when they die. You already know about the age regression and what not but there''s a part that comes after the soul regression but before the regeneration of the body. In order for the revenant to be reborn in a random location, their soul must first be dragged toward this void of nothingness like everyone else''s, that''s unavoidable. Because their soul is immune to everything, however, they do not suffer the same fate as everyone else and the nothingness rejects them, flinging the soul off in a random direction. Most of the time, this happens back towards whatever dimension they were just murdered in but, in some cases, if the dimension happens to drift out the way, for example, the soul can miss and go flying off into the distance and hitting another dimension entirely. There are plenty of revenants who have been reincarnated in alternate dimensions with entirely different systems of life and been abandoned there. They could maybe make it back if they kept killing themselves over and over but a lot of them choose to just stick the landing because a lot of those dimensions are weaker overall than yours so they tend to thrive and live good lives. Some get trapped in empty dimensions, however, and that is where I come in. If I come across any of these such revenants, lost in the middle of nowhere, I kindly ferry them back to this planet free of charge.


    I do not find every revenant out there, however, and I''ve no doubt some have been stuck in what could effectively be considered a padded cell dimension all by themselves for tens of thousands of years at this point. If ever you come across a revenant looking for a family member after death, and they''ve never found them even in all their years of searching, this will probably be the main reason why and you can reassure them they are out there, they''re just miserable and will need a stroke of luck to return any time soon. Thankfully you are an eternal race and so the chances of you sling-shotting your soul back in a convenient direction eventually , either towards me or their original dimension, is not slim. Naturally you will be an exception to this because A, you have access to the void and, B; you have an affinity for it deep in your soul so it won''t reject you. The only reason your situation wasn''t normal when you were a baby is because of the rune your parents set up that effectively cut out the void''s involvement entirely and picked a destination for your soul to fly off to. Had they not done this, you would have been reborn inside the void where I suppose I could have taken care of you if need be. That or I could have simply sent you back from where you came, right into your mother''s arms for a second attempt at looking after you. Ironically, her own desperation to keep you safe and sound in Sheryashka is the reason she didn''t get to keep you around. Not that anyone could ever have known such a thing, anyway.


    But that''s for revenants specifically as they''re a rather fascinating race. If I were to make a guess, they''re definitely one of the top strongest races I''ve ever seen throughout my entire lifespan thus far. They may even be at the very top but it can be a toss up at times between a few other races you haven''t met yet. Infinite life is a very tricky thing to deal with and many opponents will truly come to detest you if you play your cards right. On the subject of your opponents, let''s discuss what happens every time you kill one, shall we?


    First of all, I have to inform you about heaven and hell. They exist and they have watchers that pluck up the souls of the deceased, yanking them into their realm before they can wind up here. This process is ignored for revenants, because they can''t catch what they can''t touch, so only mortal races wind up there. Which one you end up at is random but your soul then gets sorted based on the data contained within it and sent to the appropriate ''afterlife''. Heaven and hell are places that can be entered freely without dying but those who wind up there as nothing but souls have their essence bound to it which makes it impossible to leave without certain conditions, namely revival treasures. If their body is healed then the soul is automatically freed and they get to return. If the body is destroyed but someone finds a way to bring them back then that typically comes in the form of a treasure that can regenerate a body from near or absolutely nothing. Anyway, the soul in heaven or hell requires a functioning body to escape and it usually has to be their own. There are exceptions to everything but this is just the standard outcome I''m mentioning here so take everything with a grain of salt as anything is possible under the right circumstances. In heaven or hell, the soul takes on the form of the dead person and resembles whatever they looked like before they died so, if you want to go see someone who you''ve personally put in the dirt at any point, you''re free to do so. For the most part, only the denizens of heaven and hell can actually interact with these souls, though, so the most you can do is have a verbal confrontation from behind locks and keys as they''ll be kept safe by the angels and devils respectively.


    This is the status quo and those souls are kept in heaven or hell basically forever. As personal treasures follow the souls they become the one thing the dead actually get to keep with them even after death even if they can''t really use them for anything. This doesn''t mean people can never die for good, though, as this is where what you see before you comes in. Put simply, strong enough attacks can kill a soul if they''re designed specifically to do so. Only revenant souls are invulnerable and the rest can all be affected by these highly specialised arts but it''s worth noting that they are both rare and misunderstood. Cultivators in the higher domains think that these attack do damage to the soul, considerably more than normal arts, and break them but that isn''t strictly the case. They certainly do damage, yes, but what these arts actually do is create a severance in reality, flinging the souls into the void and bypassing heaven and hell''s nets to bring them here where their fate is sealed provided I personally do not intervene and send them back to your dimension.


    When most things wind up in the void, they merge with whatever else happens to be nearby basically instantaneously. That is a fairly consistent property of the void but what happens when there is nothing but void and a soul? Obviously, the void merges with the soul and thus a unique type of entity is born. You may have heard of this term before but this is where ''venators'' come from. Their souls merge with the void and their minds are usually mostly broken by this process. Their appearance changes drastically and they never remember who they were in life. As their soul, with no memories or emotions, merges with the essence of nothingness, they seek nihility and to ravage until there is nothing left which leads to their affiliation for war and pointless violence. As the body is made up strictly of void they are extremely tough to kill and can regenerate to the same extent, if not sometimes more, as revenants in specific cases. It''s their soul that really needs to be attacked to deal with them properly but, again, soul arts are few and far between which is what makes venators a real problem for your dimension. As for every other dimension... If venators appear the dimension typically dies, that''s all there is to it, as the inhabitants are mostly too weak to fight back and do not possess the means to attack a soul at all.


    But that''s one half of the equation because not all souls that end up in the void are merged in such a fashion. In some cases, something else entirely happens and this even I do not understand. Sometimes, the souls are ''eaten''. Rather than the void seeping into the soul and warping it to become a venator, the reverse happens. The soul seeps into the nothingness and simply vanishes. I have no idea where it goes and this is truly a mystery to me. What I do know, however, is that before these souls are snuffed out and absorbed for good, they progressively weaken like they are being drained by some kind of process. It''s all rather strange but it is what leads to true death of the soul. That, or the rare few instances in which a soul is actually broken via standard application of damage. The latter is highly rare though and has only happened a handful of times in your dimension because souls are usually sturdy things that can''t be broken before they get flung around to somewhere safe.


    That being said, when a soul is absorbed in the void, the personal treasure clinging to it becomes static. It gets stuck to the place the soul once was and starts drifting, permanently attached to that spot of void. The gathering of treasures here is not random as this entire chunk of void is one giant piece of nothingness wherein souls are frequently absorbed. The treasures all move as one because they are following along that segment of void to chase the forever vanished souls like puppies awaiting their owners'' returns. Essentially, any lost soul that winds up in the void suffers one of three fates. They warp and become a venator. I find them and return them if I''m interested in doing so. Or they fall into this area of nothingness and get absorbed without being able to escape. Even if I try to intervene it''s impossible to save any soul here as they''re effectively glued to it, stuck inside the endless abyss of nothingness swallowing it. I''m aware asking you is an exercise in futility, but do you have any idea why the void is absorbing souls? When a venator spawns, that''s a natural occurrence and no input is required, leading me to believe it''s all happenstance. The souls being absorbed seems more intentional, however, but I can''t quite pinpoint why."


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Ares shrugged. "I genuinely don''t know. It''s not that I''m trying to avoid answering the question or anything, I really couldn''t tell you why this is happening. You know about the enhanced disintegration, right? Well maybe this is a form of enhanced nothingness and whatever is happening is somehow related to that. It could be that the destruction pillar is simply trying to reduce the number of venators spawning by thinning out lost souls? Every soul absorbed means one less venator after all so it could just be a preventative measure, that''s my best guess." Ares was half-expecting the correct answer to be beamed into his head by the destruction pillar any moment now but it simply chose not to comment on the matter either because Ares was right or because he didn''t have to know right now. The pillar really did have a mind of its own and sometimes Ares wished it would be a bit more co-operative. They were in this together so it should damn well trust him a bit more! Maybe it was moody because Ares had been saying a fair bit as of late? As in, the less Ares knew the less he could subtly blab about when asked? It wasn''t a bad idea, honestly, and Ares might even prefer it that way. He knew what he had to do and he understood why. Small details could be kept from him as the overall layout of what was happening was clear enough for Ares to be unconcerned with anything minor. That being said, he did just accidentally reveal something quite considerable within the last few things he said but, thankfully, neither he nor Astraeus realised it.


    "Understandable. If the destruction pillar does inform you then, though I doubt you will, I ask you to please inform me as well."


    "Yeah, sure, I''ll see if the mood strikes me... Didn''t you say you would expose me in due time when you had enough evidence? Why should I make things easy for you! On second thought, I won''t tell you jack shit! Hmph! Hmph I say, Hmph!" Ares crossed his arms defensively and swung his head up and away from Astraeus who was utterly confused by this series of actions but didn''t want an answer because it was likely just Ares doing Ares things.


    "Hm, before you go back, I''ll give you a friendly piece of advice. Tonight, on the Federation, you''re going to run into some troubles based on the course and speed of your travels."


    "Trouble? If its based on our journey details then it has nothing to do with the Firestarters... Are we gonna run into some monsters or something?"


    "Precisely. You''ve read many books on monsters so I''m sure you''re familiar with these lot but I figured I would warn you just in case. The last thing you''d want is to go to sleep in your warm bed and wake up to find yourself at the depths of the freezing oceans, drowning while stuck in the jaws of a living dead."


    "Ah, the ''twisted'' are coming, are they? Well this will be a good opportunity to teach Aejaz a lesson or two about being prepared for any and all situations. Those monsters are probably naturally greater assassins than even Aejaz so I''m sure he could stand to learn a thing or two from them. Anyway, I''ll be sure to alert the Federation as a heads up will save lives for sure... Though, given the nature of the twisted, some people are going to disappear for good regardless... I''ll see what I can do to keep people alive myself as any debt I can make the Federation owe me will be something that nets me a great deal of stardust. You wouldn''t happen to know of any other troubles we''ll be on a collision course with?"


    "It''s hard to say. There are certainly a great many threats on the way from Central Land to Xasca, it will mostly be a matter of luck whether you run into them or not. If I were to hazard a rough guess, based on previous journeys, I''d say the Federation will be attacked on a large scale at least four more times after today, not including the Firestarters. Two of which will mostly be minor inconveniences, the other two will require a greater deal of unity with the Federation to overcome."


    "And they are?"


    Astraeus shook his head and refused to give an answer. "I prefer to deal in absolutes. I will not give you information that may very well become false. You can find out yourself and I''m only really warning you about the twisted due to the way they work. Though I doubt you would ever die to one, as you have the necessary skillset to avoid such a fate, it can''t hurt to be prepared. On the subject of the twisted, your brother, Aejaz, has a fantastic skillset for dealing with them. It''s funny how the small things in a bloodline can sometimes end up being the deciding factor for reasons previously unexpected, is it not?"


    Ares couldn''t help but agree with Astraeus on this one because Aejaz'' bloodline was about to become extremely relevant tonight. Ares would watch on to make sure nothing untoward happened, and he got out of the situation safely, but he would wait and see how long it took his brother to react properly and escape his predicament on his own. As for the other issues coming later, Ares could hazard a guess on what a few of them might be just based solely on rumours he''d heard about the typical troubles of the Federation. Swashbuckling shark pirates, the hybrid Krakyrn, a monstrous Scylla, and some seagulls... That last one really wasn''t a joke either, the seagulls around here were mean! Anyway, though this prediction wasn''t guaranteed to be accurate, and Ares had no idea which order these problems would arise in, there was a good chance at least some of these problems came up during the journey. Ares had shown the value of being prepared back when he dealt with the official so coming up with counter measures already was on his to do list. Ares made a mental note of the various problems he was expecting and clapped his hands to signify he was done here. "Well then, that will be all for now. I''m not sure if we''ll see each other again for a while so do take care not to get chomped by Xhilihx in the mean time!"


    "Xhilihx is still a few hundred million years too young to be chomping on me in any meaningful way but I thank you for your concern. I will let you know when I am ready to be summoned again but, until then, as you put it, take care."


    Ares bid Astraeus adieu and took his leave. Clearly he''d been in the void longer than he thought as the second he returned he could feel the boats swaying to and fro. It wasn''t as rough as he was expecting but that probably had a lot to do with the fact that everything was connected, making it harder to push around. People near the centre of the Federation would feel barely anything which also probably meant that that was where the main headquarters lay. Ares was starting o get a feel for how these business minded folk operated! Everything was clever and made sense from an efficiency and economic standpoint as money could flow freely and safely without risk of falling overboard. There was an issue with this whole layout they''d conceived, though, as it was strictly for business. it could not withstand an assault of any kind which just made pirates all the more tricky to deal with and contain the threat they posed in a short time span.


    Things were spread out and hard to access quickly so it was a good thing the Federation didn''t really have any enemies as all it would take was one equally clever country with the proper resources and this Federation would sink real fast. It was an integral part of the domain, though, and so even those with small grudges usually kept them pent up as Sheryashka would lose its standings in the domain rungs immediately if the Federation disappeared. It, at any given point in time, was said to hold roughly two thirds of Sheryashka''s wealth in this one location so the Federation banked on everyone else understanding this. The harm that would befall Sheryashka, and the massive set back that would occur should this place disappeared, was pretty catastrophic. This just made the whole Torchbearer situation even more complicated though but Ares wasn''t going to worry about that. The Firestarters were the issue that needed solving ASAP for all the reasons listed above and the Torchbearer wasn''t even present. Granted, Ares was leaving Sheryashka later, so what happened to it really didn''t concern him, but he had a gut feeling the Torchbearer stuff would follow him into Vraizon if he let it all happen. Plus there was the whole thing with Red Sun maybe being in the firing line too so measures needed to be taken at some point.


    Anyway, Ares looked around the house and eventually found Aejaz chilling with a grin on his face. Apparently his spoils on day one were already amounting to a pretty significant gain. Seeing him be so content with his ''earnings'' was pretty rare as he almost always thought he could have done better. His haul would need to be massive to overcome that feeling and not just in terms of immediate gain either. He must have scouted out multiple locations that were all too juicy to explain with words. The stench of money was in the air and Aejaz was a sniffer dog, ready to hunt it all down; that was what his face screamed and so Ares didn''t even need to ask how things went. "Hey, muppet, I''ve got some friendly advice for you." Ares was planning on giving Aejaz a cryptic warning here as throwing him to the twisted without so much as a word would be pretty cruel. Ares wanted him to know he could escape if he put his thinking cap on no matter how hard and fast the dangerous predicament would come at him because a great many people who were capable of saving themselves panicked in the moment and died silly deaths to these abominations. Ambushed by twisted was something that admittedly sounded like a horrifying situation to end up in, based on what Ares had read about them, so Ares understood completely how people flailed ''till death but he didn''t want Aejaz to fall short here and need saving. This was a good opportunity to help teach him the value of staying calm under pressure and almost literally at that. "When you go to sleep tonight, you''re gonna wake up in a real awkward situation later. I''m telling you now that, unlike the cleaver prank I pulled a while back with the Prowler, this threat to your life is going to be 100% real and you''re going to need to solve it. I wouldn''t be telling you this if it wasn''t for the fact that I know you can otherwise I would be going about this in a very different manner. Just make sure you exhaust all your possible options and understand what is needed of you in the moment to save yourself."


    The smile vanished from Aejaz'' face and, though he had no idea what Ares was on about, he made a declaration that made Ares'' eye twitch. "Then I shall simply not go to sleep tonight!"


    Ares had a feeling this might happen, Aejaz was the type to avoid problems before they became a serious issue rather than solve them in the moment and be forever done with them. Though he really didn''t want to do this, Ares had come prepared for this potential roadblock in his plans. Ares activated his physical pressure and cracked his knuckles as he advanced towards Aejaz, prepared to knock him out and chuck him in his bed ne way or another! "Brother, this is for your own good!"


    Whack!