The dragon's harem

Chapter 1648: Gravastar

The archons surrounded Amaterasu in the blink of an eye. Some massaged her shoulders, some tended to her legs and arms. Those harrowing powerhouses’ main purpose in life was tending to the goddess’s divine body, and they took their job very seriously.

As Amaterasu relaxed, Eris did the same. She created a small puff of purple plasma to use as a seat, and then had Zia sit beside her. She didn’t want to be here alone listening to Amaterasu’s mind-boggling tales on her own.

So while poor Zia wanted to stay as far away from Amaterasu due to her fear of the sun, she had to sit there with Eris. She had never expected that a day would come when she would see the goddess of the sun, let alone sit beside her like this.

Amaterasu explained to Eris how the sun works. How they burn fuel in their core, generating enough power to push outward against the crushing gravity generated by their sheer mass. That balance is what keeps a star alive, and so, when a sun runs out of fuel and gravity wins, that’s when a sun dies.

Hearing that, Eris understood that if she didn’t want an early death, she must make sure her sun is always topped up. Albeit that, with her current power, any early death is thousands of years into the future.

When the gravity wins, the sun’s surface collapses down with unimaginable force, crushing the core. The core compresses as the entire sun’s mass hits it, and then, that mass bounces back as a massive shockwave of light, energy, and fire. That’s a supernova.

Suns are arrogant, powerful, and dramatic. If they are to die, they’ll be sure to make it known.

In the end, the crushed core would remain floating in the empty space, a glowing hot sphere of pure Iron, solar ash. Arad already found one in the world Euri ruled. That’s called a white dwarf, and for a funny reason.

Amaterasu told Eris how Mora, the dwarves’ god, needed a forge and an anvil to make the dwarves, so she created the forge for him using several dead suns. She then named those dead suns upon that deed, white dwarfs. Because they glow white, and were used for the dwarves’ god forge.

To Amaterasu, that was a funny story. To Eris, it was a scary tale. This goddess probably wasn’t joking when she said most gods would suck her toes if she asked.

But this death only applied to small suns, like Eris or the sun of the Mortal world, which came as a surprise. Eris expected the mortal world’s sun to be some kind of powerful titan, but it was one of the smallest and weakest suns in Amaterasu’s arsenal.

Once more, Eris started sweating. She wanted to ask Amaterasu about her biggest sun or star, but she was afraid of hearing the answer.

There are still three more outcomes to a sun’s death, and each of them is so much more harrowing and destructive that they are all kept as far away from the worlds where life exists.

The weakest of the remaining three is what Amaterasu showed Eris before, that blinding blue star. A neutron star. When a sun much bigger than the mortal world’s sun dies, the iron core can’t take the crushing force of the gravity, so it gets crushed and compressed to a point where matter mixes and loses its nature.

The gravity, light, and heat emitted by those radiant blue stars are some of the strongest in the universe, with enough power to evaporate the mortal world if its sun were replaced by one, all thanks to their unimaginable magnetic field generated as they spin at near the speed of light.

Then comes the last two, the strongest of them all. The most powerful and dangerous ones are the black holes, the space-bending and time-ripping titans of the universe. Eris saw them, and Amaterasu was more familiar with their existence. They are born when a massive amount of matter collapses on itself, usually a sun, but not limited to it.

Arad had made one not so long ago, and even Gojo did it. Void dragons can create them with relative ease, as long as they got enough matter and energy. Which is probably what got Arad and Gojo in hot water with Entropy in the first place.

Then, the last one, it’s not as strong as a black hole, but far more harrowing than a neutron star. Amaterasu’s genius creation to push the laws of the universe to their utmost limit, without breaking them.

When a massive sun runs out of fuel, its core collapses under the massive weight of its mass, crushed by gravity. But instead of turning into a neutron star or collapsing into a reality-breaking black hole, Amaterasu decided to dip her toes in the mix.

The core is crushed and pulverized into dust and turned into pure energy beneath Amaterasu’s power. That energy is extremely dense and wants to expand, violently growing inside and pushing back against the rushing mass of the dying sun, fighting gravity back.

Amaterasu wanted to create one in front of Eris, but she feared that it would only result in Eris’s death. Such a cosmic event is so violent and destructive that not many can withstand being near it. She can protect Eris in a safe bubble, but that would defy the purpose of watching up close.

The sun’s matter finds itself stuck between two unimaginable powers. Amaterasu is striking down on her anvil, trapping the sun’s matter between an unmovable object and an unstoppable force. The energy from the inside, and the gravity from the outside.

The sun’s matter gets crushed, then flattened against itself, and turns into what resembles a soap bubble or a balloon in space. Those two harrowing forces had reached a stalemate.

Then, everything stops. We’re left with a gravastar, a lightless, immense, and insane creation bordering on the realm between reality and impossibility, brought forth into the universe by Amaterasu’s hands and will.

Amaterasu waved her hand, and the gravastar shifted a bit.

The clouds of mist and plasma that Amaterasu and Eris sat on started drifting, and the two approached the massive gravastar.

As they got closer, the accretion disk of the gravastar parted away, allowing them to reach and float just a few meters above the tenebrous shell of the gravastar.

”Don’t land. This thing is extremely cold; your toes would melt into the shell and get stuck there.” Amaterasu floated down, and for the first time ever, Eris could see her landing on something.

Ten toes down, all resting on the dark surface of the star. That scene alone was enough to make Eris’s mouth drop. She almost expected one of the archons to rush in and throw a napkin for Amaterasu to stand on, or just use their face.

She looked at Eris and smiled. ”You can’t land. With your current power, you’ll get crushed the moment you touch its surface.” She lifted her foot and tapped the shell a few times, looking at it with an amused, happy face.

”This shell isn’t made of normal matter; it’s far more compressed to the point that the tiny particles of matter were crushed into a dough and stretched like a bubble of soap.”

She fixed her kimono and lowered herself to the ground, sitting in a seiza. She took a deep breath, then smiled. A flow of energy rushed from her body and engulfed the entire gravastar in a second.

”This shell is so thin that matter’s particles look massive in front of it. If this shell were as thin as paper, a single matter particle would be as massive as the entire mortal world.” She rubbed her hands on the ground, then clapped them three times.

”But it’s been forged by two impossibly powerful forces. It’s the hardest, strongest, and most durable material in the entire universe. No one can shatter it beside me.” She took another deep breath, then exhaled with a melodic chant, causing the gravastar beneath her to ring in resonance.

”You can land now. I applied my protection to this whole star.”

The archons landed first, then Eris followed by Zia. The two slowly put their feet down, feeling as if they landed on a cold steel sphere.

As Eris and Zia looked around, Amaterasu’s archons approached her and prostrated themselves toward her. One of them then walked behind the goddess and prostrated herself so her face would land right in the palm of Amaterasu’s feet. Why did she do that? No one knew and Eris wasn’t going to ask.

”Guess what’s inside.” Amaterasu looked at them, and Zia looked down. ”Since this shell is that thin, then all of the matter of the sun is inside.”

Amaterasu giggled. ”You’re wrong.” She looked at Zia. ”Sorry, this one is just licking a bit too much. You see, I stepped on the surface, and she is cleaning me.”

Zia glared at her with a disgusted face. ”This surface is the cleanest thing I’ve ever seen.” Slowly but surely, Zia was starting to lose her fear from Amaterasu the more stupid tomfoolery the goddess showed.

Amaterasu nodded. ”Of course, it’s just an excuse.”

Eris looked down, sat like Amaterasu, and touched the dark surface. ”All of the sun’s matter had been compressed into this shell... so, the inside is simple. It’s empty.”

Amaterasu smiled. ”It’s not just empty, it’s filled to the brim with nothingness, an endless void all pumped inside and pressurized to a level beyond imagination.”

Amaterasu reached down and slowly tried to scratch the surface with her nails. Eris expected the whole star to pop like a balloon, but the ones getting damaged were Amaterasu’s sharp ruby nails. Of course, they healed in a second.

”This was my answer to a void dragon egg. When Tiamat gave birth to the first void dragon, and he died because his egg collapsed, I created this and gave birth to the second one through it. Until this day, all void dragons born get an egg crafted by those old hands of mine.”

Amaterasu relaxed on the surface. ”This is the last possible ending for a star. To become the eggshell of a void dragon.”

She looked down. ”The gravastars, gravitational vacuum stars, are filled with nothingness, and that nothingness is boiling with energy, wanting to expand and mix with the rest of the universe. It pushes against the shell, and the shell pushes back thanks to gravity and its extreme durability.”

Amaterasu lifted her palm and summoned a much smaller gravastar, one the size of a melon.

”Once a void dragon fetus is planted inside, it starts consuming that void to rapidly grow. As the void inside loses pressure, the shells start shrinking. But that isn’t linear. The shell shrinks faster than the pressure is lost, trying to regain balance. In the end, after some time, the shell shrinks from this size to about a pea, then disappears.”

The gravastar in her hand vanished. ”A new void dragon would emerge into existence where the shell was.”

Eris looked down. ”So, why are you showing me this? It’s not like I can make one.”

Amaterasu nodded. ”That’s right, you can’t make one. That’s why I’ll have to make you able to make it.” She smiled. ”Otherwise, that critter inside you would die just like what happened to Tiamat’s firstborn void dragon.”

Eris froze, ”Wait... I’m pregnant?”