Sen couldn’t argue, lying on his back against cold, damp cobblestone while his magical matrix reconstituted his physical body.
“Souls. The first entities to perceive the consciousness of the cosmos. They were the void’s first children. The first thing created from nothing.” Uladin crouched down to get closer to Sen, keeping his heels on the ground, and resting his forearms on his knees. His skeletal face loomed over Sen, imposing as doom itself.
“We were created from that nothingness. You and I. Senadin and Uladin, we came to name ourselves after some time. Before we had names, we had something else: Chaos. We were formless, existing on no particular plane, before the planes were developed. But we were conscious. We travelled endlessly. We were everywhere, we saw everything, all at once, before time itself was even a concept. I cannot express to you in these mortal words the beauty of it all. That was before the veil thinned, the astral emerged, and Fragments began to form.”
“Upon the shoulder’s the of the Fragments-”.
“Yes…” Uladin confirmed. “-The derogation of reality abides. My words. My prophecy.”
“Am I the vessel of creation unmade?”
Uladin laughed. “We shall see, won’t we?”
Sen’s eyes shifted away from the lich, not liking the answer.
“The Fragments eventually found themselves too far away from their progenitor.” Uladin looked around. “This place. This… womb. They lost their connection to it, and with that loss, came the creation of unstipulated existence.”
Sen was already getting lost in Uladin’s words. He focused with an understanding that he was most likely not prepared to fully comprehend the concepts he was being explained. He kept up as best he could.
“They personified the primordial concepts sacred to their creator. They became its demons, stealing the concepts, taking its power as their own. The first of these Fragments became known as the Usurper.”
Sen’s eyes snapped back at Uladin when he said the name he recognized from a message he had in his Soul Core state. Uladin simply stared at him, noticing Sen’s recognition in the look on his face.
“Yes. The guide of lost souls. The taker of the dead. The Reaper.”
“Death himself.” Sen said.
“The First Death. Taker of the First Souls. Our eternal enemy.”
“Ours…?” Sen looked away, and cleared his throat, letting out a sigh. “I can feel it. My soul knows you. That’s why you seem familiar.”
“Yes. Souls generated directly from the void during the thinning of the veil, such as you and I, are known as the First Souls. They are prized by the Usurper. He loves nothing more than to take them and keep their knowledge for himself.”
“And Zulli, too.”
“The starlight that pierced the void? No. Her soul was not a First One. If she were, our mother-void would have welcomed her more freely.”
Sen’s face crinkled. The more answers he was given, the more questions he had.
“The Usurper began claiming souls that lost their way. But he could never claim us. We had something that could never be lost. We had chaos, the greatest gift from the void. It needs no reason for its existence, it is the singular self-proposed truth that still abides after all this time.”
“Time.” Sen said. “One of the Fragments must have been time, then.”
“Yes. Time herself started the War of the Flash, as it became known. Because with its dimension of time, the planes also formed. Time judged the speed of perception of the consciousness of souls. Layer after layer after layer was formed from Time’s conception. Reality became a far cry from this perfect place.” Uladin said, looking around again. “And thus, upon the creation of what is known as reality, the anti-void was born within it. The All-Devouring Eye.”
“So you and I were best buds, just traveling the cosmos, free to do what we wanted, and then these… concepts, these gods, started putting barriers on our existence.”
“They are greater than gods, they take to calling themselves Great Astral Beings, now.” There was silence for a moment. “Only something so self-centered would think that name, in itself, would be righteous and truthful. Proof they have lost touch with their creator.” Uladin shook his head. “To answer you, no, we only travelled the cosmos after the cosmos began to form. This was the early time, when the dimensions were connected and easily travelled, when the Astral was thin, and permeated all things.”
Sen could feel Uladin’s aura leaking out a sense of hatred for the Great Astral Beings. It was the same as what Sen felt when talking to the priestess of the goddess Knowledge. Sen could also feel his brotherly connection to Uladin in the aura, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like how this dead-looking thing in front of him knew all of this, and preached to him the beginning of his own existence, and in effect, his purpose. Maybe he was making it all up. But why would he? He was surely watching Sen’s Soul Core the entire time he was regenerating. He could have just crushed it, or perhaps worse.
“I’m so lost.” Sen said. “You’re telling me you’ve been waiting for me to come back for billions of years? Why did I leave?”
“Eventually, you gave in to it, their new reality. They could not beat us with violence. That was our domain. They wore us down by other means. They took and took until the void became less and less of a primordial crucible, and became more of this cold, empty, perfect place. The fragments broke from it, and left our mother-void an empty shell.”
“Okay, go back, what was the War of the Flash, then?”
“When the cosmos formed, and the dimensions were birthed, we ourselves, were bound to physical form. Every soul was. If they didn’t, they found themselves bound to a physical body in the celestial forge, taking control of a singular concept on that celestial body, thus imprisoning themselves to it.”
“So those were gods.”
“Gods, they called themselves. We were equal to them, sometimes greater, but we were not bound to any one world. We knew the void and its ultimatality before it had a name.”
“Ultimatality? Is that a word?”
Uladin looked down at him. “What is a word?” He asked curiously. “What decides the meaning of a word?”
Sen had no answer, not one that would further the conversation in any meaningful direction.
“We were bound to the void by chaos, and we would not forsake it. We travelled from world to world. We found souls like us, and we found souls that were not like us. Those souls accepted The Fragments’ new reality. We wanted to bring reality back to its perfect, unified state.”
“The state of pure chaos.”
“Indeed.” Uladin said, using his sharp bony finger to poke into Sen’s chest. “Your soul knows.”
“It’s madness.” Sen retorted.
“It is more than that.” Uladin said solemnly. “Once you left, I knew your mortal mind would never comprehend it ever again. You did too.” He looked away, seemingly disappointed in something he accepted long ago. “The War of the Flash was exactly that. A flash. The moment the entire cosmos was created, we fought, we used violence, and unimaginable concepts and souls were developed and destroyed in a single instant. We lost. We had no hope of winning. The mother-void had spread too thin, perhaps it knew what it was creating, and didn’t care about us anymore.” Uladin looked back at Sen. “I chose to stay with the void. You chose to leave. The void’s most violent, chaotic souls, her greatest sons, were split in twain. You gave your soul to the Usurper. You believed you would come back, that the void wouldn’t give up on us. I had to stay, because I wasn’t sure, but I believed in you. Either way, the void had an agent on both sides.”
The different waves of emotions coming from Uladin’s aura were too real and too varied for him to just be putting on a show. He was letting it all out to be witnessed. Sen hadn’t been able to read an aura like his before, and perhaps his soul’s familiarity with Uladin’s aura helped him to understand it, which in itself would be proof enough that Uladin was telling the truth, at least about their connection.
“So, you waited in the void, this whole time, for me to return?”
“I did more than wait. I communed, I witnessed, I experienced.”
“And you’re still iron rank?” Sen asked, not understanding how something so old, and so wise, could be the same arbitrary power level as him.
“My soul was… captured. Summoned by a ritual comprised of old magic and new.”
“That cult… they took you from the void.”
“Lunatics. Fanatics. Zealots. Claiming they know the ultimatality of the void.”
Sen looked away at the use of the non-word again, schooling a smirk he so wished to make, but he knew now was not the time. Inside his body, he could feel his magical matrix binding conscious control into the physical nature of his arms and torso. The cold of the void was biting at him, and he attempted to conjure his Abyssal Vestments to cover his body. Before, outside Silverwind and along the frozen tundra, the black oily-latex had done well to stave off cold. When he summoned his armor, the black chrome plates appeared at his arm and chest, with the black lining appearing underneath, but only the point around his bellybutton. He lifted his head to look down at the rest of his body to see his naked lower half.
“Great. Just Pooh-Bearin’ it.” Sen said as he sighed, noticing his hair was again gone from his body. He set his head down on the cobblestone once more. “Hey, what’s up with this roadway, anyways? There shouldn’t be anything here, should there?”
“There should not. It is… unusual. There should be no order here. No structure. It appeared when your body touched it. Before you woke.”
“Maybe the mother void has a favorite son.” Sen jested.
Uladin’s silence, and immediately retracted aura, told Sen he struck a nerve.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Hey that was a joke. What’s chaos without a few jokes here and there, right?” Sen said. “Anyways, I think we were talking about the cult?”
“The cult used their heretical mixture of old and new magic to summon me from the void and imprisoned me into a mortal body. This put my soul at risk of being taken by the Usurper. I had to strip myself of my void-given power and develop some method of protecting my soul from being taken while I awaited your return. The cult, which came to call themselves Calamity’s Tide, provided me with the magical implements needed to take this…” Uladin opened his large skeletal hands, faced them toward himself, and looked down at them. “Grotesque form. Necromancy. A tool only possible thanks to the Usurpers blasphemy.”
“So that’s not who you really are?”
“No.” Uladin said, his hands turning to fists. “I await the day you wrench my soul from this semi-mortal coil. Then my Soul Core will be released, and I may begin anew.”
Sen glowered. “You actually want me to kill you.”
“I want violence. As do you. As we always have. Exacting violence upon me within the mother-void will release my soul.”
“Tell me then, why not just let me? Why kill me so quickly?”
“Do you not listen?” Uladin asked, his voice raising slightly through his aura. “Violence. Chaos. Beauty. After all your time out there, have forgotten all of it?”
No, Sen had not forgotten. He vehemently craved to be a savage, but he refused to accept that he was a madman. All his life he chose order. That was the right thing to do. But the need for violence was a deep-rooted need, one buried within his ancient soul. A fleeting thought traced through his mind. He wondered if his current life’s consciousness could overpower the need of a consciousness lying dormant within him. One that had taken form in countless other lives, with countless other needs, for billions of years. If it couldn't, what would that mean for his own free will?
“I always thought I was an old soul. But I never had any proof that truly meant anything tangible.”
“Like an unheard whisper, I assume. Like when someone calls your name, and you turn, and no one is there. Your soul speaks to you.”
“Something like that, yeah. So, what was your plan? Just wait for me to show up again, and then what?”
“The void has the power to take anything, but it also gives back. During my time here, I have seen many things. Miracles, calamity, planes, beings, microcosms created, then eaten, or frozen, or cloned and reshaped, not in your reality, but within the unreality of the void. Some beings have been able to permeate the void, I have had many visitors. Few have the tenacity to stay, most end up consumed. As the void was the beginning of all things, I assumed your return would be a signal that the end of all things would be near. The Ouroboros. The snake eating its own tail, creating an endless loop.”
“An endless loop? The end would be just another beginning? And there are other people here? I was here a long time, before. I saw nothing. Endless nothingness.”
“The mother-void is endless. Her power is unimaginable, even to the Fragments. You were merely a speck of salt, in the ocean of a million worlds.” Uladin’s head jerked with a sense of urgency that didn’t make him seem surprised, but his attention was taken by something that stirred within the void. “This manifestation. This road. It is drawing the attention of undesirables.”
“Undesirables?”
Uladin stood straight up, and his axe appeared from his own voidspace. He walked away from Sen, and Sen was able to lift himself up on his elbows, while he still had no feeling in his legs. The stitching of his magical matrix was at least a familiar feeling, and he could make a decent guess as to how long it would be until he could stand again. As Uladin walked away, off the road, his form slowly disappeared as the haze of the void engulfed him.
Sen stared into the point where Uladin disappeared. He heard muffled sounds reminiscent to Uladin’s voice, with other sounds following that he couldn’t make out. His eyes drifted back and forth throughout the space, trying to make out what was happening, when he saw Uladin again. His axe was gone, supposedly retracted into his voidspace, and the damaged bones on his neck and chest were as fully formed as when he first saw them in the sanctum, free of the damage Sen had caused before he was killed. Uladin stopped to stand in his statuesque fashion a few steps away from Sen.
“Uladin. I don’t think I’m that same being that you once knew.”
“You could not be.” Uladin said, his hand moving up from his hip to be witnessed by the bright sparks that were his eyes. “And I am not, either.”
Sen set himself back down to stare straight up into the void again. “I don’t think I’m an agent of chaos like you are. I don’t think the void and I share the same will. I don’t want to consume everything. I don’t want to end everything.”
“We can never know what the void truly wishes for us. But within it we find providence. I had the means to bring you up to this rank. The same rank I was brought down to. This rank of iron, as it is called. There is providence in that. Serendipity. A break in the chaos enacted on chaotic… agents, as you say. It is a message from our mother-void that we are where we are meant to be.”
Sen couldn’t argue with the sign of fate Uladin eluded to. It was an odd coincidence that they were both iron rank. If Uladin was as old as he said, his power level should be leagues beyond Sen’s. This fact didn’t make him any more comfortable with it and he chose not to dig into it any further. “You say that like iron rank is not a universal thing. Are there other worlds, or dimensions or whatever, that have different magical systems than this? The void seems to abide it.”
“Not in the most direct sense. The void, the astral, the physical planes, the weave between it all, were all free and unrestrained before maligned souls took that power to become Fragments. As more Fragments formed, more restrictions were placed on reality. These restrictions created the fettered structure of this ranking system, which is now predominantly cosmoversal. As are the Essences that awoke your innate magical power.”
“How many Fragments are there now?”
“Countless. Mortal minds can only understand the concepts of less than a dozen. The rest are known as The Nameless.”
Sen’s eyes opened wide. “Oh.”
- Racial Ability (Voidwalker)
- Child of the Nameless: Your body has undergone a transfiguration touched by primordial concepts. You gain resistance to higher and lower versions of magic, as well as magic used outside of this universe. This is a growth racial ability and is subject to change as your rank gets higher or lower.
“You know of the Nameless?” Uladin asked him.
“I’m a Child of the Nameless. Do you know what that could mean?”
“I do not. It is… curious. Perhaps there are those within their ranks that wish to return to the void.”
Sen looked away, his mind racing with all the information he was given. His purpose was, for the most part, laid out in front of him now. This was why Garrus wanted him to come here. And Garrus had been right all along. He needed to thank him if he ever made it back to Vitesse.
“Do you ever meditate, Uladin? It’s been a while since I’ve done it, and the void taught me the last time I was here.”
“I commune with the void, yes.”
“Why don’t we do that while I finish reconstituting? I’m not sure how much more exposition I’ll be able to comprehend.”
Uladin said nothing and slowly dropped to his knees. He kept his back straight and lightly bowed his head. The pinpoint sparks in the sockets of his eyes idly dimmed before disappearing completely.
To Sen, Uladin’s presence had completely disappeared. He resembled the same lifeless skeleton that was sitting in the chair back in the sanctum. Sen folded his hands over his belly and slowly let his eyes drift closed.
“From wanting to annihilate him, to meditating with him. What a wild ride. That’s chaos, though, isn’t it?”
Sen threw the thought away.
“It’s all too complex to be one big lie. Your soul is billions of years old. One of the First Souls.”
He found it difficult to be mindful.
“Well, yeah, I’m trapped in an endless empty space, I just died, and I have another impending battle to the death scheduled. It’s a little difficult to clear the ole’ noggin.”
Sen took a deep breath. He focused on the breath and let it out slowly. He repeated this several times, until focusing on his breath was all he did. It wasn’t easy, but his relaxed state eventually fell upon him, and he was able to finally clear his mind.
“We shout with listening antennae. Plant your eyes upon the waves of the melody.”
The melody was sung to him, not a physical tune, but an ethereal feeling guiding him into a deeper state of meditation. The more he listened, the deeper he sunk.
An unknown amount of time past, and Sen’s eyes opened. Looking down to his toes, he found his armor covering his entire body, manifested during his mediation. The black chrome plates on the tops of his feet shone from nothingness, and he wiggled his toes wrapped in oily latex. He stood. His feet, unburdened by the bulky soles of boots and only protected by the thin black layer, contoured to the minor convex shape of the damp cobblestone beneath him. Covered by his Abyssal Vestments, the balls of his feet made no sound as he took a few steps around the roadway. They stuck to the stone like frog's feet.
Light came to the empty sockets of Uladin’s skeletal face.
“This is a little bit on-the-nose I’d say.” Sen said, walking around to view the road. It wasn’t just a road, it was an intersection, a crossroads, and that’s all it was. “Do I have a choice to make?” He asked himself. His eyes moved to Uladin, who was standing back on his feet again. “Do you have a choice to make?”
“I was given the visions of paths I may choose.”
“Does the void actually talk to you? I’ve been getting these weird messages since my tablet was… Corrupted? Blessed? Cursed?”
“Augmented. Yes, in this fettered form the words of the void reach me in cryptic conceptualizations. The mortal mind could not dream of understanding her musings.”
“So, these paths… Have you chosen which way you’re going to go?”
Uladin’s axe appeared in his hand.
“It’s not a choice for you, is it?” Sen asked him.
“It is not.”
“Violence.” Sen muttered to himself. He took a readied stance, and attempted to summon his sword from his voidspace. But it wasn’t there. A look of panic struck his face, which he immediately tried to hide. He remembered the sword flying from his grip when Uladin flung him around like a ragdoll. More panic struck him when he thought about his tunic, the one Zulli gave to him. Attempting to conjure that from his voidspace was a success, and it lightly fell around his torso like a security blanket. It must have been able to retreat into his voidspace since it was in contact with his body upon death. He let a sigh of relief. “Well then. Didn’t want to pick up my sword for me?”
“The void took it before I could. Perhaps you weren’t meant to have it.”
Sen’s mind raced to think of a weapon he could use. He had his ice picks, and wreathing them in his aura would make them indestructible. He had pitons, a hatchet, and a sledgehammer as well, part of the adventuring tools he convinced Zulli that they needed. None of them seemed to fit his style. Maybe the hatchet. He made a glance down at his hands. His left hand was bare, and his right was wrapped in armor. He felt he was fated for a weapon, but he didn’t have it yet. Maybe he could make use of his new ability to overcome his lack of a weapon. Maybe he was the weapon.
“Are you ready?” Sen asked Uladin, pointing his bare palm at Uladin.
“Are you?”
The image of Uladin blurred and warped as energy swallowed him. He was surrounded by a swirling vortex of dark energy that pulled him towards its center. Since he was already at its center, moving in any direction was difficult, but not impossible. He strained against the force, as rapid ticks of resonating force damage swiped at him, seemingly from the vortex’s epicenter.
- Uladin has been affected by [Slow]
- Uladin has been affected by [Weaken]
Uladin made labored steps out from the vortex, its gravity becoming weaker as he reached its edges. A black metal-clad fist surrounded by white flames found its home on the side of Uladin’s head. He had seen it coming, and tried to raise an arm to block, but his reaction time and physical speed were slower than he expected, and the fist skipped just behind his forearm to make direct contact with its target.
Uladin jerked his head back after recoiling from the haymaker to see Sen in front of him. The oversized lich was leaning forward at the edge of the vortex, trying to stay out of it, fighting against its gravity and his Slow debuff, but he still made an attempt to swing his axe at Sen’s neck.
Sen was already pointing his hand at Uladin, and used his Unreal Grasp not to create a pulling force, but a pushing force directed at Uladin’s chest, enough to send him back in the middle of the vortex to continue taking the ticks of resonating force damage. Sen then activated his weightlessness to jump away from Uladin and the vortex.
“That’s a lot of mana.” Sen chided, taking a few labored breaths. He didn’t have full mana from being reconstituted, and summoning his armor was one of his most mana-intensive abilities. Every move he just made consumed at least a little bit of his mana reserve, and it was clear by the pain he felt in the back of his head that his mana was getting dangerously low.
Sen stood far back as he watched Uladin pull himself out of the Vortex. His two special abilities were on cooldown, his Vortex being two minutes, while his Unreal Grasp was twenty seconds. He had to plan around this, and keep himself out of danger while they cooled down. That, and he didn’t have the mana pool of a dedicated spellcaster, so he had to be judicious about when he would cast his abilities.
Looking at Uladin, the vortex finally dissipated, and the resonating force damage had done a number on both his armor and his bones. He was scratched and scuffed along all parts of his body. Sen’s new ability was certainly effective. Perhaps it would be the ticket to killing the lich and releasing his soul. Sen now realized he shouldn’t get too hasty until he knew a way out of the void.
“Before I kill you, will you tell me how I can get back?” Sen asked, shouting from a couple dozen feet away from Uladin.
Uladin stood up straight, and balled his skeletal fists. Behind him, the haze of the void coalesced like a thick fog that enveloped his giant frame. He disappeared into it. After disappearing, Uladin’s voice then came from all around Sen, not originating at any singular point.
“Do you see anything around you, brother?”
Sen stood at the crossroads and looked around, despite the question being rhetorical.
“There is no way back. You are with the mother-void now, and she does not give back in full what she has taken.”