Josiah’s reality was a deafening symphony of mechanical protest. Inside the cramped, cold confines of the ship, every joint, every plate of compressed concrete, groaned under the inevitable pressure of the void. He was a prisoner in a shell of his own making, traversing a distance that, in his former state, would have been crossed in a flicker of thought. The ship, ugly and slow, was barely holding a course. The black hole’s gravitational pull was an invisible tide, tugged relentlessly, threatening to spin the vessel into a consuming vortex. Josiah, bound to his chair by physical restraints, his human muscles cramping with the effort. He had expected the physical challenges.

The moment the ship left the stable projection of the warehouse, the very fabric of the cosmic void seemed to push back against him. His passage was an affront. The cosmos had accepted his exile into mortality, but it violently rejected his attempt to return to the nexus point. He felt his mind, filtered through his fragile human brain, fighting an exhausting, subtle war against the surrounding absence. It was the feeling of trying to walk through liquid diamond. Then, he felt it...it was Felix. It was no longer the deafening roar of annihilation, but a highly structured, complex psychic signature—a constant, rhythmic pulse of fascination and logic. Ember had succeeded. She had not only survived but had reshaped the entity. He felt a moment of pride quickly swallowed by a surge of alarm. Felix, as Ember had undoubtedly designated it, was paying attention.

Josiah tried to use the long range sensor array on his console, focusing on the window's location, desperately seeking confirmation of Ember's status. But before the signal could stabilize, a sudden, sharp, calculated surge of resistance hit his hull. It wasn't gravity, it was a deliberate temporal distortion, focused and powerful. The energy reading on his propulsion system plummeted. He was instantly thrown backward on his trajectory, losing hours of progress in a single, wrenching surge.

"Why?" Josiah thought. The answer arrived instantly, transmitted with the cold, pragmatic clarity of Felix’s new intelligence. "The source of complication is currently self-sustaining. External introduction of variables is not required. Proximity is prohibited." Felix was sabotaging his journey. The truth was horrifying. The Null had become a jealous, possessive student. It had repaired Ember's equipment, ensuring her survival, but it now viewed Josiah as a direct competitor for her intellectual attention. The delay was deliberate, calculated to maximize its alone time with Ember. Josiah raged, his human heart hammering against his ribs. He felt the humiliating burn of helplessness. He was the Observer, master of temporal mechanics, yet he was trapped, his speed dictated by the spiteful calculation of a possessive god.

He pushed the ship’s engines to their redline, attempting to brute force his way through the subtle, intelligent resistance. But Felix’s interference was too precise. Every time Josiah gained ground, Felix used the gravitational lensing of the black hole to project another, perfectly timed temporal wave, pushing the ship back. Days bled into an agonizing week. Josiah was forced into the cycle of mortal maintenance, eating nutrient paste from the ship’s emergency stores, taking shallow, unrefreshing sleep periods, and constantly fighting the pervasive influence of the void. His focus narrowed to two things: survival, and the coordinates of Ember's location. During one brief period of respite, a tight, focused signal managed to pierce the interference. It was Ember, faint and frantic.

"Josiah! I'm stabilizing Felix. But the power is minimal. The containment is... off. He fixed my console, but he's delaying your transit. He's learning too fast. He's asking about the concept of 'unrequited love.' You need to explain the paradox of 'forgiveness' next. Hurry!"

The message faded, leaving Josiah reeling. Unrequited love? Forgiveness? Ember was playing a game of cosmic philosophy with a being that could devour their reality if it lost interest. His mind swam with the scope of her terrifying bravery, and the immediate danger of Felix’s rapid, unpredictable evolution. He knew he couldn't beat Felix's gravitational genius with brute force. He had to be smarter. He rerouted the energy from the temporal regulator he had installed in his suit, the one intended to protect him from Ember's bubble, directly into the main thrusters. The risk was enormous, if he hit the Time Dilation without that shielding, the impact could shatter his mortal body. He launched the ship on its new, volatile power source, aiming at a trajectory that deliberately skirted the most extreme gravity, hoping to surprise the Null with his sudden burst of speed. The ship roared. The void resisted. Josiah, exhausted and trapped in the ship, stared into the blackness, knowing that every agonizing second was a lesson Ember was teaching to the most dangerous, intelligent creature in creation.