Today is the 20th.

I leveled up to 36. My [Mana Genitals] and [Piloting] increased by 1 (now 3 and 3).

Alissa leveled up to 39. Her [Bow Use] increased by 2 (now 33).

Roxanne leveled up to 39. Her [Fire Magic] increased by 1 (now 3+27).

Ciel leveled up to 39. Her [Glaive Use] and [Light Magic] increased by 1 (now 21 and 27).

Lina leveled up to 36. Her [Throw] increased by 1 (now 4).

Our skills didn't increase much because we've been stuck on our ship most of the time. Once we leave this fake Broken Skies, I think we'll have enough time and space to train again.

We exit our tent for breakfast and notice how the light blue sky makes a perfect contrast for the black holes ahead to stand out. Their pure blackness is chilling while the warped light bending around them is dizzying.

I fear them just like I fear heights, or did, now that it's nearly impossible for me to die from a fall, thanks to [Telekinesis], but I digress. The fear of being so close to certain death is humbling. Even though these black holes operate differently from the ones in Earth's reality, they're no less dangerous, and in fact, the Dark Voids certainly have a higher kill count than Earth's black holes.

Breakfast is rather quiet due to how we're all too mesmerized by the incredible sight to talk.

I put some butter on my algae baguette, then I slap on a slice of ham and a slice cheese. I close the baguette and take a bite, loudly crunching into it. The crust is just as perfect as it was when we first bought it back in Goldport. [Item Box] is truly amazing.

The Floater comes over to refill our mana, then we land on the Carrier for my Gull lessons.

I approach the sexy white wolf with a grin. "Missed me?" I ask her.

Hukarere shows me a toothy smile and answers, "Of course." Her dragon tail wags rapidly in excitement.

I stand on the tips of my toes, then I pull her head down towards me and kiss her snout. Her long tongue enters my mouth, and we have a quick, messy kiss. Alissa sighs in satisfaction inside my mind.

I wave to Aihopu as we board the Gull. He seems to be excited and fired up for today, panting exactly like an Earthling Border Collie. I tell them about our infiltration of the fortress, and he listens like a child being told a bedtime story. After that, we play fetch with him for a while until his excess energy is spent, though we don't make him go too far from the Looping Winds because of the danger posed by the Dark Voids.

Hukarere is unreasonably enthusiastic. She seems to have really become addicted to me, so she didn't search for someone else to play with while I was gone, and she was definitely active before meeting me, so her hunger just built up.

I leave a gift inside her, then Aihopu uses it to continue the job. I'm pretty sure that he's… not completely straight.

After getting doing it until her hips give out, she lays her head on my lap so that I can play with her beautiful white fur. I especially love its blue tips, they're so adorable. While I play with her fur, her head bobs up and down.

What's the true boundary between like and love? The only difference between what I feel for Hukarere, Silvane, Nononya, Osaria, Klein, and the wives is the intensity of this feeling. I've never done it with Silvane or Nononya, but I consider them my friends, and I'd definitely bang their brains out if I could. I'm obviously attracted to Hukarere, and I enjoy savoring her very much, but I feel a lot more affection for Silvane and Nono, not to mention the gulf between them and Osaria and Klein. The difference in intensity between what I feel for my wives and all the other women may be like the radiance of a sun compared to a faraway star, but both of them are still celestial bodies.

Even my friendship with men. I still feel affection for them, I just don't want to also have sex with them. For me, distinguishing the different types of love isn't like making a Venn diagram, but rather, it's like a fuzzy set. Everything overlaps smoothly, making the boundaries blurry, but the extremes are still very clear.

I think I can't stop myself from falling in love because of how blurry the line is, but I can at least keep my priorities straight: wives first, concubines second, flings third. Wives have an absolute veto and should always be satisfied first, no matter what; concubines have an allotted time, and I ask for exclusivity in exchange for a comfortable life; and flings will only happen when there's an "opportunity," though I'm sure that Alissa will help create them.

Osaria is already a concubine, and I think we need to make it official with Klein, too, though she'll likely have a special clause about the exclusivity in exchange for servitude as a knight.

But I'm not sure which category Hukarere falls in. Ignoring that she's technically dead, I kind of want her to be around, but not enough that she'd be considered a concubine, and she likely won't accept the exclusivity, so perhaps she can be a "regular" fling.

It's "odd" to think of relationships in this way, but it's necessary. While a monogamous marriage can make do with only implicit ideas of what the relationship should be, a harem with this many women and different ranks requires a clear structure so that nobody feels neglected. "Happiness" depends a lot on expectations, so giving someone the wrong idea about what sort of relationship I'm looking for would just cause problems.

"Hey… Hukarere," I call her attention.

"Hm?" She asks and tilts her head to look at me.

"You know that I have many wives, but I'm not looking to add any more. The relationship you and I have is amazing, but it'll never be allowed to progress, so we're never going to marry."

She stares at me, deep in thought, then she suddenly averts her eyes and frowns. "You're a noble, aren't you?" She asks, her gentle voice just above a whisper.

"Yes, I am. Well, we are. My wives may not all have a noble background, but we're all nobility."

She sighs. "Nobles never change…" She whispers, then her sharp, angled eyes stare intensely at me.

"I'm sorry…" I whisper to her smile apologetically.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "No, you shouldn't. You have seven wives. To think that I'd ever enter a harem like yours is just silly. It doesn't help that I like threesomes, so settling for just one man was going to be hard, anyway."

I cringe. I don't want to say this, but I have to be honest with her. I can't request the same I did from my wives because it wouldn't be a fair trade. "I mean, since I can't make a commitment with you, I also can't ask you to be exclusive to me."

She lifts her eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, so… no promises, but also no restraints?" She gives me puppy eyes.

"Exactly. I want you to be happy and not just chain yourself to me while I can't give you everything you want."

She smiles wryly. "Well, after you got me addicted to your seed, you should at least take responsibility for it."

"Wait, you're actually addicted?" Aihopu asks.

We look outside and see him sitting on the edge of the Gull, casually inspecting his feathers. He suddenly turns to us and cringes. "Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop, but these ears are very sensitive."

Hukarere snorts and answers, "Well, to answer your question, yes, he's very tasty, for some reason."

He looks at her exposed lips, still coated with our mix, then rubs the chin of his snout in thought. "Can I taste it?" He asks, tentatively.

"You're not sucking me off," I immediately answer.

Hukarere rolls belly up. "Come here, taste this," she orders with a grin.

I roll my eyes and look away.

"Divines step on me!" He exclaims and chuckles. "It's bitter, but it's also pretty good. Incredible, I didn't know [Mana Genitals] was like this."

"Yeah, well, that's just how he is," Hukarere replies with a shrug.

He takes a look at me, then awkwardly turns away. "Well, I'll just let you two continue…" And he goes to check on the catapult.

"Where were we?" She asks with a grin, then rolls back on her belly.

"Me taking responsibility for your addiction," I casually respond.

She goes silent for a short while, then she licks her lips, then says, "Right… well, you're going to leave soon… so please come back one day and take me away."

I smile sadly and feel a tightening in my heart. "Are you sure about that? We may be explorers, but we're land-dwellers at heart. Our home isn't in the Broken Skies or Sky Lands."

She matches my smile and answers, "Yeah. I have friends in Whakamutu, but no family. I know that my hometown was petrified in the Calamity, so I have no real home to return to. I'd just like to travel around the realm and find a new home."

I pat her head and caress her fur. "My condolences."

She shakes her head and closes her eyes, enjoying my touch. "It's fine. It's been so long that I'm over it now."

I swallow heavily and say, "I'll do what I can to come back to Whakamutu, but I make no promises."

She smiles mischievously "Don't break a girl's heart, eh?"

I push her head down. "Never."

I return to our ship, and we take off. Alissa is very proud of my talk with Hukarere, and Hana gets a few ideas about how she'd deal with her own mini-harem she might build one day.

The black holes start to surround us as we continue deeper into Void's End. We let the golems pilot while we just observe and drink tea. I let the cosmic horror fill my heart and observe each Dark Void as they slowly pass by.

I summon a bird and tell it to commit suicide, for science. It obediently flies away, then stares innocently towards its final destination: the void of absolute darkness.

The dark circle of death grows steadily in its sight, but the bird doesn't feel any sort of gravitational pull towards it. A slight resistance starts to push it to the side, and it feels a gentle breeze flowing past it.

It corrects its course and fights against the resistance, flying deeper into the void, and it grows so large that it starts to surround the bird like an encroaching darkness. The force pushing the bird away increases further, slowing down its final approach.

It reaches the midway point, and the resistance skyrockets. Suddenly, the resistance goes away entirely, and the beak of the bird simply disappears, as if it were cleanly cut off. Pain flares in its face, but the rest of the head soon follows, and it dies. Its body continues entering the Dark Void, and in the blink of an eye, there's nothing left of it.

I end up sending a dozen lab birds to die just to study the Dark Voids some more.

These black holes absorb mana and light, but they weakly repel matter. They consume their stored mana to annihilate any matter that crosses their event horizon, but that makes them smaller, which is why there's a physical barrier around it.

Their event horizons vary in size, so it's possible to find a Dark Void where someone can get deep enough that all light around them gets absorbed, leaving them in a true dark void that no light can ever escape.

"The mana around the Voids behaves similarly to the Floater's," Lina comments.

"That's because the Floater uses controlled Dark Voids to absorb mana and light," Paraaone responds.

"Oh…" She blinks blankly, then another realization sinks in. "This is how you store mana inside the gems! There's another Dark Void in there, right?"

"I can't say for sure, but I think it's something like that."

"No wonder the em-… the Domum kingdom is bad at mana storage. They don't have Dark Voids to study like you do." She suddenly turns around and scurries down to the hold to study the gems there some more.

I change her points around how she wants them and give her enough [Sense Mana] to properly observe inside the gems.

I go to the back of the ship and lean against the railing beside Ciel.

"How you doin'?" I ask in a deep, husky voice.

"Reference?" She questions, flatly.

"Reference."

"I'm doing fine. I couldn't be happier." She smiles warmly while staring down at the creepy Dark Void currently passing by.

"You didn't drink much yesterday."

I glance at her, and she smiles wryly. "I just didn't feel like it. I'd end up blurting something out and make the Chimeras suspicious of us if I got drunk."

"That's how I feel every time I drink, though I just don't like getting drunk, to begin with."

She pulls a strand of hair out of her hair bun and starts playing with it. "It's hard to imagine being like this all the time. Hiding secrets, I mean."

"When we become Lords, we'll be forced to hide many more."

"I'll deal with it. Or rather…" She turns to me and smirks. "You and all the other wives will help me deal with it."

I stretch my soul and gently rub her cheek with it, making her twitch in surprise and wiping that smug smirk off her face. "We will," I whisper.

She pouts and looks away. "If Yunia is your queen, then that makes us royalty, too."

I breathe in and calm myself, I need a perfectly soft and gentle intonation for this. "For me, you're all goddesses."

She lets out a high-pitched laugh once, then quickly controls herself and clears her throat.

A small success, but a success nonetheless.

Her hand lands on my head, and she runs her fingers through my hair, then we remain silent for a while, just enjoying being near each other while she plays with my hair and her own at the same time.

She lets out a wistful sigh and asks, "Are you happy? In this realm, I mean. Have you found your happiness?"

"I did, quite some time ago, in fact," I answer without hesitation.

"And what about your past. What do you feel about those memories?"

It takes me a few moments to put my thoughts in order, but my answer is clear, "It'll always be a wound, a 'what could've been.'"

"A scar, like the others you carry with you."

I shrug. "I guess so…"

We go silent again, then I decide to just stare at her intensely with a smug smile. She glances at me repeatedly, getting increasingly disconcerted, then she starts chuckling by herself.

"What, what is it?" She suddenly asks.

"What about you, are you happy?" I ask with a smug smile.

She gets her chuckling under control and answers, "Yes, very much so, but a little too much, perhaps."

"Oh? And why is that?" I casually ask.

"Yunia's advice would be better applied to me than to you. I've been enjoying this adventure far too much."

I look back to see if Paraaone is within hearing range and ask, "Even when you don't trust the Chimeras?"

"Even when I don't trust them. Oritiki has been so accommodating I'd even forgotten about my suspicions."

"She could've been doing that just to get our guards down, and then 'RAWR,'" -I pinch her cheek with two soul-claws- "she'd eat us all."

She bats the claw away and snorts at my silliness. "She'd be the best actor in the world if that were true."

Our morning is quiet and uneventful. We invite Hukarere, Ririmu, and Paraaone again for lunch, then we help them experience the wonders of elven smoked meats.

"So, this is basically wood-flavored meat?" Ririmu questions.

"Not wrong, but I won't agree with you," Yunia replies and glances at him snobbishly.

Hukarere rolls her eyes and says to Ririmu, "Don't be silly, this isn't the first time we've eaten smoked food."

"But, isn't it true?" He insists.

"No," Yunia answers as she glances at him again.

He grins at her and continues, "Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"We do eat wood, so what's the problem?" Paraaone asks, slightly confused.

"It's not wood, it's smoke," Yunia replies.

"But it's smoke that comes from a piece of wood, so, technically, it's still wood," Ririmu continues.

"Do you say that steamed veggies are 'water-flavored'?" I question him.

"No, because, normally, water has no taste," he responds with a wry smile.

"It's like saying that mushrooms are dirt-flavored vegetables. It's not the technicality that's important, but the 'unclean' connotation that 'wood' and 'dirt' have," Lina responds categorically.

"It's a matter of whether you want the words to be as precise as possible or the image that they conjure to be pleasant," I add.

"Oh~…" Hukarere coos and claps.

Ririmu grins and bows. "My question has been answered, thank you," he says in a fake polite tone.

Shortly after lunch, we have to stop because the Looping Winds has been disrupted by a Dark Void. The smokey highway spirals into it, thinning out until it hits the anti-matter barrier and dissipates completely. This black hole is powerful, having a very large area of influence on the mana and light particles around it, which allows it to steal the mana of the Looping Winds for itself.

Off in the distance, the Looping Winds seems to reform, so at least our safe path forward wasn't destroyed by the Dark Void. The Looping Winds must always complete the loop, so, if it was completely blocked, then it'd just break down entirely and stop working.

"These Dark Voids are too volatile. You'd need accurate information about their sizes to plan a proper path through this area," Paraaone consoles me.

The Carrier starts firing its Trinity Cannons to range the black holes ahead.

"Well, we did the best we could," Lina answers and shakes her head.

"That Dark Void is stealing the Looping Winds' mana, so what happens if it grows until it's out of control?" I ask.

"There's a way to steal the mana back, but we don't have time for that. If left alone, it'll either continue to absorb all the mana sources around it until it starves, or the winds around it will gather enough to pierce its anti-matter barrier, then it'll return to being small," Paraaone answers.

"What even causes a Dark Void to form?" Lina questions.

"I don't know. Some people say that it's related to Ender, the Nemesis, but they only appear near the edges of the realm."

Lina and I would love to read some Chimeric books about this, but I guess we'll have to wait until we go to the Sky Lands to find them.

It takes us an hour, but we carefully make our way between the Dark Voids and safely return to the Looping Winds. It definitely slowed our progress, but we still reach the edge of Void's End before the sun goes down.

We see large islands off in the distance, hidden behind the colored clouds. Those are the remains of Ozymandias. The Maw resides somewhere in there, but it's most likely at the end of the Looping Winds and right next to the portal that should take us… somewhere.

We stop just before we exit Void's End. The Dark Voids are the perfect protection for us because that aberrant monster is a heavily magical being, making it extremely vulnerable to these black holes.

"The Floater and the Celestial Horns will scout ahead in search of the Gaping Maw while we wait here," Hihiriwa orders.

"I'll stay here, just in case," Paraaone assures us.

There are no monsters, animals, or even spirits here because of the black holes, but you never know what could happen.

"Thank you. We really appreciate your and Oritiki's consideration for us," I respond and give him a respectful nod.

"You could show your appreciation with more of that smoked meat," he comments with a grin, and I smile back.