Anomaly, she said.

It reminded him of the first piece of the puzzle presented to him by the screen, when he’d first woken up in this strange place. It called the Crypt of Fiendish Worms an anomaly.

Were they the same thing? Or was this whole thing a hoax, and she was just having him on?

“Your paranoia makes for good amusement at the most inopportune times,” Inanna’s lips curled. “Your schema is correct. This place,” she extended out her hands, as the scenery around them changed back into the stoned walls he had gotten so familiar with, “is an anomaly. A tiny crack in the fabric of reality, created by the superimposition of an Omphalos’s will upon the environment.”

“I... see.”

He didn’t.

Offhandedly, Lukas wondered whether he should have taken up a physics major back in college instead. It would have certainly helped him better understand all this reality-altering, space-warping, mind-bending crap. As it stood, learning about anomaly-mechanics felt like learning to ride a bike. Except the bike was on fire, he was on fire, and everything was on fire.

Because he didn’t really know how to make sense of it all.

An Omphalos, from what he understood, was like a star. A hot ball of energy that kept radiating light and heat everywhere. Only, the omphalos thing didn’t emit heat or light or—

He paused, placing a hand inches above his own chest.

Nope. No radiation whatsoever.

The goddess looked at him in amusement.

Ignoring her expressions, he considered the important bit. An omphalos didn’t radiate light or heat, but energy. Energy that terraformed and built entire… anomalies.

So there was an omphalos manifesting on one of those subastra that had expanded into a full-fledged anomaly? That begged the question—

“How do I get out of this anomaly?”

Inanna arched an eyebrow.

“Right. Only one question.”

She continued her explanation.

“Apart from terraforming a anomaly around itself, the energies radiating out also mutate the creatures that are exposed to them, turning them into… twisted caricatures of themselves. The anomaly takes control of these creatures’ schemas and enslaves them.”

“Is that going to happen to me too?”

“Must we have a conversation where you keep interrupting me?”

Lukas raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Please continue.”

The goddess gave him an empty smile. “In time, it learns how to create new creatures. Monsters. Ones that can protect it. Ones that can learn, grow, birth new skills, and pave the way for stronger and more powerful monsters. That is the most dangerous kind of anomaly there is. The strongest version.”

Lukas felt his throat go dry. Knowing his luck, her next words weren’t going to be anything but damning.

“Like the anomaly you have found yourself in. I must admit, I have impeccable taste. This one is an absolute gem, judging solely by how good it is at murder.”

Lukas opened his mouth, but mere words failed to express the confusion and shock he felt from that one statement. Failing, he closed it and tried again, only to arrive at the same result. Did that mean she was the one that put him inside this anomaly— thing?

“You chose to put me here?”

“Not exactly. Making a choice is difficult when you are incorporeal and unconnected to the Origin save by a mere thread. But lucky me.”

“Lucky you,” Lukas murmured, as the significance of those words settled in his mind.

Well… he mused, that changes things.

For the first time, a gleam crossed his eyes as every inch of awe and uncertainty slowly began to seep away.

“Tell me more.”

“Anomalies evolve into greater existences called singularities, leaving the subastra they were born in. Singularities further evolve into realms, and realms function as new subastra. That is all there is to them.”

“Wait a minute, just that? What happened? Someone created a wiki page on singularities and left it blank? How’s a singularity different from an anomaly? And what is even a realm for that matter?”

“Irrelevant to our little lesson,” Inanna washed her hands off the matter.

“No they're not,” Lukas fought. “When I look up at the night sky, I see the moon. I see stars. I read about galaxies and stars burning into supernovas. I watch blackholes on television. You can’t just come waltzing it saying that my world is not real, expecting me to believe some jackshit about singularities and realms without any evidence.”

“Evidence?”

“It’s an earth-based reality thing. You wanna prove something? Prove it with evidence and logic.”

“A dinosaur has nothing to prove to an ant.”

“Size doesn’t right a wrong.”

“Right and wrong are illusions you’ve created to justify your own actions, mortal. All you’ve done is look at the universe through a keyhole that you should have broken down with a crowbar. I am that crowbar.”

He could feel the growing annoyance bubbling inside her, despite her outward smile. It was like standing atop a volcano, armed with the knowledge that there was boiling hot lava beneath the flimsy layer of rock, but still wishing to believe in the small tulip plants growing on the surface.

Lukas decided to wisen up and keep his ever-commenting mouth shut. As much as possible.

That seemed to pacify the goddess.

Just a little.

“As members of a race have their individualism, so do realms. But the one common thread about realms is they are always connected to the Origin through their Omphalos. Always.”

She paused, slightly smirking. “Aside from those that are not.”

Lukas felt his throat constrict as he sensed what she was implying.

“Question. You told me a while back that people in the outside world have schemas just like mine. Is that only limited to the subastra or—”

“The realms as well,” Inanna finished for him. “Species born in a singularity will have their own schema.”

And that led to the next deduction.

Before coming to this world, he didn’t have one. So he must have gained it here, by whatever mumbo-jumbo had happened before he woke up.

So far, his experience and information had made certain things very clear in this mind about this bizarro world he’d found himself in. Organisms had something called an Essence that produced lifeforce, and they had soul capacity that got consumed from generating skills. But Earth didn’t.

Humans, animals, birds, micro-organisms… Nothing he knew of from Earth displayed any of those characteristics. Logically, if the Earth was still connected to the Origin, they’d have a schema like he did now.

But they didn’t.

Because it wasn’t.

Lukas caught her smirk from the corner of his eye. He liked her smirk. It did interesting things to her lips, which were already attractive.

Beautiful.

Inanna raised an eyebrow.

He kept on staring.

Someone, somewhere, made a noise. Or maybe that was just his imagination. It did however, break him out of his stupor.

“...What?”

If anything, it only deepened her smirk.

“Realms that have their bond with the Origin hindered break away, becoming existences in their own right. Regions that depend on their existing reserves merely cling onto survival until they run dry. Until they become deadlands.”

Well that didn’t sound ominous. Not at all.

“Such realms are called lostbelts.”

“Like my home planet?”

“Your home planet was a very different thing when I went to sleep the first time. Back then, it had a cluster of stars encircling it. Now? It is a dying body with dead remains floating in the cosmos, waiting for oblivion.”

“A lostbelt.” Lukas confirmed.

“Quite so,” the goddess continued. “Unlike a proper realm, a lostbelt is not replenished with forces of creation from the Origin. It functions on its own. I’ve been trapped inside that pendant for eons, and even I have noticed the slow degradation of the world around you.”

And here I thought global warming was to blame.

Lukas suppressed a snort. Frankly, if not for everything he’d witnessed for himself, he would’ve called her a lunatic and walked off. But he knew better now. And the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Even the anomaly, as impossibly small as it was in the grand scheme of things, was capable of regenerating itself. Basic logic indicated that the regenerative abilities of a realm should be far superior, especially considering how stuff like evolution and potential were very literal concepts here.

Yet, nothing of that sort happened on Earth.

The Earth he’d left behind was dying, poisoned by humanity’s need for comforts. If it were connected to the Origin, replenishing itself would have been a simple task. But without it, the rate of regeneration was too low— far lower than the rate of environmental damage. Without the extra support, greenhouse gases were accumulating in the atmosphere and causing further damage until it would eventually turn the planet into a—

A—

Lukas swallowed.

A deadland.

That was the term Inanna had used to describe such worlds. Was that what happened to Mars? To the other planets? Was that why there was no life on any of the other bodies of their solar system? Because they had reached their limit and turned into planet-sized corpses, filled with nothing but rotting dust and gas?

...Was that what Earth’s future would be in time?

It was a deeply disturbing image, one he really didn’t want to imagine.

And now it was stuck in his mind.

This was a mistake. Asking about this of all things. It would have been better if—

The thought gave him pause. Would it? Sure, the information was far from promising, and the dark picture the goddess painted for his planet’s future didn’t help matters. But even so, it was his prerogative to know about all this.

And on that note, it was time to learn about his main question.

It was an answer that he dreaded to receive. An answer he was sure he’d be better off not knowing. An answer that she was oath-bound to give.

Who knows? Lukas tried to justify. Maybe I’ll find something useful in all this. Maybe even a way back home.

Right. And maybe dragons would fly out of his ass next.

“Then tell me this,” Lukas looked up at Inanna with slight trepidation. “If my world was a lost belt, how am I back on a subastra?”

A bloodthirsty grin was how Inanna chose to begin her answer. “It all started with an earthquake...”