Astrid watched in silence from the edge of time.
The screen of the void returned crystal-clear images: Aetheris reduced to ashes, stars going dark one by one, Elisa's ship moving away among the remains. She saw Elisa's utterly resentful expression and the faces of thousands of other beings who had been enslaved.
She took a deep breath. The Third Existence had been young, barely a sigh, and it was already stained with blood and broken decisions.
She did not allow herself to appear surprised — she had seen worse endings — but that did not make it any less unbearable.
"This has turned out horribly," she said quietly, speaking to herself. "Far too soon, far too violent. This isn't what I wanted."
The word horribly weighed upon the silence like an exposed truth. Astrid went over every decision she had made when restarting: erasing the point at which Elisa obtained the hat; giving Elisa a normal life; hoping that the artifact's absence would be enough to change the course of events. It had been a simple calculation, far too variable. And yet, human nature, or whatever remained of humanity in that world, had found new ways to break itself.
"Why does the story insist on hurting?" she wondered. "Why, if I mend one thread, do I keep weaving tragedy somewhere else?"
She had no clear answer. Perhaps causality was more complex than simply relocating a specific event. Perhaps violence was not merely the consequence of objects or powers, but of the way lives intertwined under pressure: rejection, fear, loneliness. Erasing a trigger was not enough if social wounds, judgmental looks, and everyday acts of subtle cruelty remained untouched.
Astrid clenched her fists. She would not abandon her purpose because of disappointment. She had decided to restart the world to find a worthy ending; the need to find one would not disappear because of a setback. If there was one thing that defined her, it was her stubbornness: to learn, to correct, and to try again.
"I will not give up," she said firmly. "This wasn't the ending. Just a version that didn't work."
She thought about the flaws in her plan. She had attacked the symptom: the hat. She had believed that removing the object would eliminate everything else. She had underestimated just how deep the social roots ran: distrust, fear of change, the pressure of social norms. In Aetheris, Elisa had been pushed into isolation not only because of an artifact, but because of the way the community reacted to her. The aggression came from stares, from silences, from parents who feared for their children; none of that could be fixed by erasing a single moment.
Then the idea came to her, clear and cold:
"Perhaps the mistake wasn't focusing on Elisa," she murmured. "Perhaps what I need to change isn't whether she finds the hat, but how her world reacts to her."
It sounded simple when she said it aloud, but it was a profound change. Instead of manipulating the fate of a single individual, she would modify the very fabric of that entire world: its norms, its institutions, its expectations. She would make acceptance — or at least understanding — the natural response to difference and risk. She would make the world destined to welcome Elisa.
"This time, I won't lift the burden from Elisa by erasing events," she continued, her gaze fixed on the still image of the city. "I will change the world that receives her. I will make rejection no longer the first response. I will make sure she finds support, not persecution. I will make sure she can create without her life ending in ruins."
She allowed herself a small gesture that almost felt like closeness: thinking of Isabella, her sister, whom she had also integrated into this reality, not as an inevitable victim, but as someone who could have been the guiding hand rather than the one who reported her out of fear. She thought of the parents, of the terrified mother, and of the council that had judged before understanding. She could reprogram those reactions: education, different institutions, support networks. It would not be simple or immediate, but it was more honest than erasing an object and expecting everything to take care of itself.
Determination began to burn within her once again, more deliberate and less impulsive than before. This time, she would not play the witch who cuts a thread; she would be the architect who remakes the entire fabric.
"I'll start with Aetheris," she said, her voice low and confident. "I will change its rules, its fears, its ceremonies. I won't prevent the hat from existing; I'll prevent it from becoming a sentence. I will make sure Elisa is accepted."
The final image left behind in the void was that of Astrid, small and stubborn, leaning over the table where the threads of the world were being rewritten. She promised no miracles; she promised work, patience, and another, harsher kind of patience: the patience required to reshape the way things happen.
"I won't change Elisa," she repeated before dissolving the vision. "I will change the world that receives her."
And with that resolution, she pressed restart.
Elisa had always been a prodigy.
From childhood, she had stood out in everything she did: mathematics, physics, strategies, political science, even philosophy. But what distinguished her most was her insatiable curiosity. Where others saw limitations, she saw paths. Where others spoke of respect, she spoke of understanding and mastery.
In this version of the world, that quality was not condemned.
Aetheris had changed. It was no longer the innovation-fearing nation it had once been; now it was an intergalactic empire that encouraged progress and unrestricted expansion. Here, ambition was not dangerous: it was the driving force behind civilization.
Elisa was recognized from an early age as a genius without equal. By eighteen, she was already part of the Intergalactic Council. By twenty, she was the mind behind the energy networks connecting entire star systems. And by thirty, she had been elected High Director of the Federation of Aetheris, ruling over thousands of worlds and allied civilizations.
Her rise was meteoric, almost supernatural.
But her mind never rested. Every success awakened a new question, a new goal. When her empire stabilized a star region under its administration, Elisa was already looking to advance beyond it. When she colonized the edges of her galaxy, she ordered expeditions to the edges of the universe. When her people asked her to settle down, she smiled and replied:
"Knowledge expands, just like the universe."
Aetheris prospered under her rule. Cities were built on the edges of black holes, inhospitable worlds were inhabited, and portals were created to shorten the distances between galaxies. In the eyes of the people, Elisa was a hero, a person that wanted a better future for everyone and was going to achieve it.
But in the eyes of history, she was beginning to become something more unsettling.
Each of her discoveries gave rise to a new technological era; each of her words gave a new direction to all of existence.
But within her, something had not changed: that curiosity and hunger for knowledge she had always felt, which was now beginning to resemble an emptiness, like a voice whispering to her that it still wasn't enough, that there was still something more to discover, to explore, to integrate.
Despite her empire and control continuing to grow, Elisa seemed to become increasingly dissatisfied.
Admiration was not enough for her.
She did not just want respect; she wanted more.
She wanted her name to be eternal.
She wanted every star shining in the sky to do so for her.
And for years, she succeeded.
As time passed, the empire became so vast that its shadow reached worlds that had never wanted to be part of it. Rebels, free colonies, civilizations that valued their independence — all of them began to resist.
Elisa, however, did not see this as a sign that she was doing something wrong, but rather as an inefficiency in the system of order. And when members of the council asked her whether they were becoming dictators, she replied:
"This isn't about control," she told her advisers, "but about balance. If we don't unite them, they will destroy themselves, I know what future is the best for everyone and this is the way to achieve it. "
But her methods were no longer diplomatic. The armies of Aetheris marched across entire planets. Neutral systems were "absorbed" for the greater good.
Soon, her empire ceased to be a federation of cooperation and became a dominion under a single will.
Elisa justified it by saying it was for the future, that her vision could ensure the survival of the entire universe.
And for a time, even her enemies had to admit that her rule brought order and stability.
But within that order, there was fear.
The fleets of Aetheris traveled without rest. They colonized worlds, transformed atmospheres, created new races of automatons to work, terraformed dead planets, and turned them into colonial bases.
Elisa watched all of this from orbital palaces floating above the conquered suns.
But the more she obtained, the emptier she felt.
Each victory faded within a matter of days, replaced by a new goal.
"More worlds," "more knowledge," "more control."
It was not material greed, but existential greed: the desire to fill a void she did not understand. She wanted to silence that emptiness, that voice whispering in her ear, but every "victory" only made it grow louder, and the worst part was that Elisa did not realize it.
And when more and more worlds began to rebel against her dominion, Elisa felt neither guilt nor concern. She felt… irritation.
"Why do they resist?" she once asked her generals. "Don't they understand that I've given them everything? Light, resources, security. Would they rather live in misery than under my protection?"
No one dared to answer her.
Elisa lowered her gaze and murmured, "If they cannot be grateful for it, then they do not deserve to have it."
The rebellions were crushed without hesitation.
Entire worlds lost their leaders so they could be ruled entirely by Elisa, serving as an example to others.
From that day onward, fear became the foundation of order.
Isabella, her old friend — now one of her closest advisers — was one of the few who dared to tell her.
"Elisa..." she said one night, as they watched the star map from the orbital palace. "You've achieved everything. There isn't a corner left that hasn't been touched by your rule. What more do you want?"
Elisa did not answer immediately. She looked at the hologram displaying galaxies connected by her energy networks, the thousands of points of light representing worlds under her dominion.
"I don't want 'more'," she finally said. "I want everything."
Isabella looked at her with concern.
"And what is 'everything,' Elisa?"
"Everything is the limit, and limits… are made to be broken."
At that moment, Isabella knew that her friend had become lost in her own reflection.
It did not take long for Elisa to find something new to feed her desire.
During an expedition to the edge of a galaxy that had only recently formed, a region of space where the laws of physics seemed distorted, they discovered a forgotten planet. Among its ruins lay an object sealed inside an ancient capsule: a black hat, of unknown design and with a composition impossible to analyze.
Elisa examined it personally. Her intuition told her that it was more than a mere relic. It resembled no known artifact: it emitted no detectable energy, yet the machines studying it would fail for no apparent reason.
No one could use it. No one except her.
One night, alone in the laboratory, she put it on.
The world stopped.
Her mind expanded in every direction. She saw not only galaxies or universes, but something greater: planes of entirely different new realities, dimensions coexisting like layers of the same fabric. She saw the very structure of existence and understood that the universe she ruled was nothing more than a fraction of something immeasurable, an entire multiverse.
Her body trembled, but not from fear.
"So this is… what lies beyond," she whispered.
That night, the word limit lost all meaning.
The following morning, Elisa summoned her council and announced her new goal: to expand Aetheris not only into other galaxies, but into other planes of existence. She explained what she had seen when using the hat and all the other realities that were still waiting to be explored.
Her advisers stared at her in silence, unsure whether the proposal was a stroke of genius or madness.
Isabella tried to oppose her.
"Elisa, what the hell are you talking about? Other realities? You already have all of creation under your command, and even if other universes existed, you can't rule over places you don't understand. You already have everything."
"No, Isabella," Elisa said with a chilling calm. "I barely have one universe."
Elisa ordered the development of a new technology: interdimensional portal generators, capable of piercing the boundaries between realities by using the power of the hat as a battery. Thousands of worlds were devoted to building them under her command.
The cost was immense. Resources were depleted, entire civilizations were restructured to serve the project. Aetheris became an empire obsessed with the impossible.
For years, Elisa worked without rest.
She did not sleep. She did not smile. She spoke only of her vision.
And when she finally managed to open the first stable rift between universes, she smiled for the first time in decades.
What she saw on the other side could not be described in words: a vibrant void, filled with echoes and energy. It was the reflection of another existence, another universe, another everything.
"So this is what I was missing…" she said. "Not power. Not acceptance. Infinity."
Elisa looked at herself in a nearby mirror and simply said, "If reality has no limits, then I don't plan on having any either."
From that point onward, her empire stopped looking toward the stars and began looking beyond reality itself.
The history of Aetheris became that of an empire that knew no satiation.
Elisa was no longer the admired leader of old, but a deity in the making.
Her name became synonymous with dominion.
Her trail, with conquest.
And at the far reaches of time, where Astrid watched, the scene came to a halt.
Elisa, the woman who had once only wanted to be understood, had now devoured everything she could possess.
And even then, it was not enough.