When Xara started to test Aether's blood, it wasn't as easy as she thought. His blood was alive in a way, shifting, resisting, almost defiant against every attempt she made to break into its secrets.

It rejected her instruments, her probes, every method she tried. It was as though it held a will of its own, refusing to let her pry deeper. That strange defiance made it nearly impossible to determine what was truly happening within his blood. As for the semen… what she discovered there left her frozen.

Unique semen and... contains energies?

A hypothesis began to form in her mind. A terrifying thought of what could be happening within his seed, and how energy itself seemed to flow and linger inside it.

But she couldn't accept it. It sounded absurd... Too impossible to even exist. It was nothing more than a hypothesis, and yet…

Unthinkable!! Unnatural!!

Her hands trembled as she worked. And when she finally scanned the rest of his body, her breath caught in her throat.

What she saw made her heart pound violently. Her voice slipped out, cracked and faint, because the image in front of her was not something any scientist, any priest, or any scholar should ever witness.

Was that even possible?

Was that something forged by Gods themselves?

But how?

How in all the countless realms of existence could such a thing exist?

Her eyes twitched as they locked onto the display, refusing to blink, refusing to look away from the nightmare and miracle unfolding in front of her.

What in the world had she just seen?

What revelation had struck her so hard that it shattered the very foundation of her knowledge, her science, her reality?

Because…

!~Ding~!

[New Title Acquired: The Hollow Being]

Aether, lying on the strange round scanner, his body covered only by the barest hint of cloth, lifted his head faintly. His eyes caught the words that had appeared before him.

He blinked, blankly staring, his face a mask of confusion and silent dread. Slowly, his gaze shifted toward Xara.

Her expression twisted, growing darker, more unhinged, her lips trembling as she bit into them. She muttered under her breath,

"Oh… oh… how in the world… how in the world… w-what's going on here… what in the name of the gods… oh shit… oh shit… ha… ha… this is madness~" Her breath grew shallow, her chest rising and falling as an almost feverish light burned in her eyes. Excitement and fear tangled together, spilling into laughter and panting gasps.

Aether shook his head sharply before moving suddenly from the scanner. Without warning, he pressed his lips against hers. The kiss was abrupt, fierce enough to tear her out of the madness threatening to consume her mind.

Xara gasped against him, her body stiffening as her eyes widened. She pulled back with trembling hands, cheeks burning with an involuntary blush. She blinked again and again, as though struggling to return to herself, before whispering,

"How… how are you even alive?" Her voice quivered with awe, her eyes filled with raw fear and wonder.

They darted over every inch of his form, searching, desperate to understand what kind of miracle stood before her.

Aether did not respond. His lips pressed into a thin, grim line as his gaze hardened on the floating image above the scanner. The display revealed him, revealed what lay inside his body.

...Nothing.

Aether swallowed hard. His entire torso was hollow—an empty shell.

Nothing there.

No heart, no lungs, no organs.

The very things required for any being to breathe, to live, to even exist… absent.

He was nothing but an empty vessel.

And yet…

Something stirred within that emptiness. Not organs, not flesh. Shapes faintly resembling them, but with whisper-like outlines.

Xara's fingers danced over the display as she adjusted it.

She pointed at his hollow torso,

"The very thing I thought was impossible… here it is, proving me wrong again." Her voice cracked, heavy with both dread and fascination. Then she turned to him, her eyes piercing into his.

"When I checked your semen, I found something that should never exist. The energy mingled within you… it was impossible. Even if you absorbed energy from your surroundings—which itself should be impossible—you somehow did it. But even so… something like this could never happen unless that energy was your very foundation."

She lifted her trembling hand and pointed at his chest. Her voice dropped to a whisper as though afraid the world itself might hear.

"I can feel a heartbeat… but… it's not the same as ours.... You don't have a heart"

Aether didn't say anything for a second. His entire face twitched as his eyes locked on the display, as if he was processing something too large to put into words.

Finally, his voice broke the silence,

"So… how am I alive?"

Xara shook her head quickly, her lips parting with a mix of awe and helplessness.

"Honestly, I don't know… everything about this feels like a miracle, but—" She leaned toward the display again, her finger tracing over the strange, ghostly motions inside his body. It looked like pale whispers of light shifting and coiling in place of flesh.

"The energies you're storing… they're the ones acting as your internal organs. Replacing what should never be replaced and is impossible to replace with energies.

Fuck! How could they even do that?"

She still couldn't understand how pure energy could act as a substitute for organs, the very foundation every living being needed to exist.

Ghosts? Liches? Sure, if one spoke of them, they were different. They sustained themselves by pulling power from outside sources or feeding directly from a master.

They never acted normally, never needed food, never felt pain… they were not alive in the human sense.

But this… this was something else entirely. Aether's body hadn't changed into anything monstrous or unnatural. The energies had simply adapted to him, moulding themselves into a perfect imitation of what he should have had.

A miracle?

Maybe!

Her lips trembled as she whispered, almost to herself, "Interesting… isn't it?"

Meanwhile, Aether stared blankly at the image of his hollow body.

Then his voice slipping out in a shocked tone, as if a buried realisation had finally struck him.

"Organ traffickers."

Xara flinched violently at the words. Her body stiffened. She had already heard fragments of his story before, and now those memories rushed back.

She blinked rapidly, connecting the dots as her brow furrowed into a sharp frown.

"That's not possible… I mean, your body in that world was separate. This body is separate, right?"

Aether gave a slight nod, his eyes narrowing. "That's what I thought… but—" He clenched his fists and frowned harder as he summoned his Log for an answer.

!~Ding~!

[You already have the answer.]

What do you mean?'

The Log gave him nothing.

Aether frowned... thoughts spiraling as he tried to force meaning from the emptiness. His soul had been moved, planted into Earth so he could grow there… only to die again and again, trapped in a cycle until he reached some so-called perfect state.

He didn't understand.... None of it made sense!

And yet the Log declared he already had the answers within him.

His expression darkened as he sank deeper into thought.

Just as the air grew tense, Xara hummed suddenly, a thoughtful sound, as if she had pieced together something of her own. Aether's eyes flicked toward her.

"Didn't you mention you have a laughing problem?" she asked softly.

Aether nodded slowly.

"And you still have that… don't you?"

Aether's frown deepened, his head lowering slightly as he gave another small nod. A strange chill ran through him, a striking sense of something clawing its way to the surface.

"Hmm…" Xara hummed as her eyes swept over him from head to toe. Her voice carried hesitation, but also a sharp edge of curiosity, "Both of you have the same physical structure, right?"

Aether gave a small nod. "Used to."

After all, he had grown too much now. But before, both versions of Aether were exactly the same—except for the difference in their hair colour.

Xara hummed again, her finger lifting slowly as a thought formed. "I have a hypothesis but… what if the you that stayed on Earth was actually… a kind of replica? A mirror of you?"

Aether frowned in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"I mean… tsk." Xara clicked her tongue in frustration, her expression tightening as the ideas in her mind raced ahead of her words. Everything was connecting inside her, but putting it into clear speech felt impossible.

"I mean… come on… You still have the laughing problem, even though you're practically in a different body?" Her brows knit together, her lips pressing tight before she groaned.

"Not a different body but… a reused body? Arrgh!" She clenched her hair with both hands, her face twisted in exasperation.

Aether, on the other hand, nodded softly. He understood what she was trying to say. His previous body had PBA.

Was she suggesting… not only his soul, but even his body carried over as the same?

If so… wouldn't that mean he was infertile again?

The thought made his face pale. Horror spread across his features as the memory of what that meant returned to him... infertile, unable to father children.

Xara caught the flicker of terror in his eyes, the way his expression collapsed as though something irreplaceable had been stolen from him. She frowned for a moment, puzzled, and then it struck her.

She remembered the other problem he had. Her gaze softened, and her voice followed in a quiet murmur.

"Don't worry… You can still impregnate a woman."

The words fell on him like rain after drought. Relief surged through Aether's body, as if a giant boulder had rolled off his shoulders. His hands trembled, his breath shaking with sudden reprieve.

"However…"

Aether flinched instantly. His face snapped back into horror, almost breaking into tears at the thought of what else she was about to reveal.

Xara chuckled softly at his reaction, though there was a bittersweet edge to it. "Don't be too shocked. You're perfectly fine… it's just… the woman cannot get pregnant."

"…Pardon?" Aether blinked, his mind failing to process the words.

Xara blinked as well, biting her lip as her eyes widened. She slapped her own lips as though she had let slip something she shouldn't have. "Oops…" Her shoulders stiffened, then she quickly shook her head. "W-Why don't we focus on the current matter… your insides first!"

"It's not that important… for me. What do you mean they could not get pregnant?" He pressed forward, his expression grim and serious.

"A-Aether… let's focus on what's inside you. W-We can talk about that later…" Xara stammered, her hands shaking slightly. But Aether didn't budge. To him, nothing else mattered.

He didn't care about the hollow within his torso or the energy sustaining him. None of it compared to her words.

His eyes darkened, begging and sharp at the same time. "Please… Xara."

The plea in his voice stopped her heart. She bit her lips hard before exhaling a defeated sigh.

"No woman now could ever have your child."

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