Beyond

Chapter I: Through the White Threshold

The void had always fascinated him.

Edwin Cross stood before the swirling portal. It was a white, distorted anomaly, the heart of Nexoria. The Catholic year was 4003, and the known universe, now fractured and exhausted, could no longer satisfy the ambitions of living beings.

Earth was dead, its ashes scattered among colonized planets and dying stars. Galactic wars had devoured every notion of justice, every single attempt at peace. Galaxies kept moving further away from one another, and chaos reigned unchallenged. Yet Edwin cared little for all of that. He was no soldier, no diplomat. He was an explorer, a man in search of something beyond comprehension: the truth.

The Eidolon, his interdimensional vessel, had been forged by the Gythona from materials gathered from B756, a planet thousands of light-years away from Earth. Made from Hypercarbon Weave, the pinnacle of post-terrestrial engineering, a lattice of interlocked diamonoid chains bonded at the quantum level. It is resilent to radiation and self reinforcing when exposed to high energy environments. Project Eclipse had been born to answer humanity's oldest question: what lies beyond? For Edwin, the answer was now before him. Nexoria was not merely a gate, it was a passage to the unknowable.

Nexoria was lit, projecting a cone of light through the portal, stabilizing its energy with Edwin's Ketax molecules just enough for passage. He was ready. The Eidolon's synthetic voice echoed, pulling him back into reality.

"Edwin Cross, authorization granted. Passage to Nexoria stable. Remember: no return is guaranteed."

Edwin rose, his hybrid body wrapped in Eidolon's adaptive phase gear. The shell-like vessel was tiny, a little capsule adrift in the immensity of the whole cosmos, but to him, it was everything he had ever wanted.

"Proceeding." he whispered .

Fear tightened his throat, but determination kept him moving forward. He stepped through the portal and the Eidolon started to fracture, warping like a wormhole. So he took got up and jumped out from the emergency exit door, into the unknown.

Nexoria greeted him with blinding silence.

There were no sounds, no scents. Only white light, stretching infinitely in all directions. Beneath his feet extended a checkered floor, stretching endlessly, and in the distance loomed a colossal structure: a marble temple, its Greek columns piercing into the white.

The air, if it could be called air, was unnervingly calm, yet heavy. A shiver ran down Edwin's spine. This was a place of transition, a bridge between the known and the unknowable. He was no longer in space, but in a domain built to host all forms of existence. Nexoria.

He walked slowly toward the temple and each step closer grew heavier, as though he was walking through cobwebs. When he reached the entrance, a figure materialized before him.

It was tall, ethereal, and yet unmistakably defined. It had no face, but its presence radiated undeniable authority. Light folded around it in impossible geometric patterns, constantly shifting, yet it was clearly one singular entity. Edwin felt a voice, not in his ears, but deep in his soul.

"Edwin Cross, habitant of Telluria, from planet Gythona, half-human, half-ketax. Welcome to Nexoria."

"Is this God?" he thought to himself.

The entity was the only stable presence in this realm of transition. Its role was clear: to evaluate every traveler who crossed the threshold, to decide their fate, to determine if they were worthy of moving forward.

"I am no deity, only arbitier. Divinity is not mine to claim." he said, as he could hear every thought on Edwin's mind.

"You are here to access the universes," the Judge continued. "But first, you must be measured. Who are you, to cross the boundary of your mortality? What are your intentions?"

Edwin swallowed. He had never considered that he might have to justify his existence.

"I'm an explorer," he answered. "I seek the truth. I want to know what lies beyond."

The figure moved closer, its presence flooding every corner of Edwin's body and mind.

"The truth is not an object to be found. It is a weight to be carried. Are you willing to pay its price?"

Edwin nodded, though he did not fully understand. There was no turning back.

"Very well," said the Judge. "You will face your judgment."

Light enveloped him. He could not move. He could not speak. He felt the Judge sliding into his mind, dissecting his memories, his fears, his deepest desires. Every fragment of his life was being laid bare, dismantled, analyzed and put back together

"You have known the pain of loss," the voice declared.
"You have betrayed and been betrayed. You have sought power and failed.

The first image came alive: the blistering surface of Gythona, his mother Lykaz crouched beside a failing reactor, the air thick with ozone and sparks. The hum of machinery vibrated through his chest and he could hear her voice, see the worry furrow her brow, smell the burnt metal and alien flora.

Then the scene shifted without warning. He was aboard the Eclipse research station, decades earlier, watching his father, Dr. Elias Cross, calibrate a particle accelerator while debating with councilors over the ethics of testing a quantum fissure generator. The debate unfolded like a stage play: their gestures, their exclamations, the flickering panels, the easy rumble of the machinery, all perfectly real, as if he were there again.

Another shift. The Battle of Orion's Rift: human ships, plasma cannons, Drakari warships. Edwin's own hands clutched the controls of a hybrid fighter, sweat on his brow, as he dodged quantum blasts that turned nearby stars into supernovae.

Each memory was a stage: And yet, it was not mere playback. The Judge dissected, highlighted, and probed, exposing Edwin to truths he had buried: his hesitation during the collapse, the allies he abandoned, the faces of those he failed to save.

Through it all, the Judge did not speak judgment. Only observation.

And then he said "You are a shadow of your own humanity, and yet, even shadows may cast light. You are worthy. Your portal will appear, and when the moment comes, your journey will begin. But remember: every step will change you. None cross the boundaries without leaving something of themselves behind."

Everything blinked, and Edwin found himself before a new structure: the Ostium Capsulae, a place that seemed to exceed the laws of physics. Portals opened and closed like hungry mouths, each revealing different glimpses of other universes.

Edwin sat on the floating black and white floor, overwhelmed by all that he just went through, watching the portals open and shut .