'I have died once, but the act of dying itself doesn't seem to have much effect on my path.'
'Though, it has been such a long time since I arrived in this world. I wonder how my faraway home is. I still can't trace it...'
This was the thought the regal man on an august throne had while reminiscing, his home and his journey till now in a dimly lit palatial room, his figure indistinct. He wore a royal robe of black while his eyes were of a crimson hue that shone like two majestic red suns.
His presence was as overwhelming and overbearing as an outburst of a thousand thunderous storms. All while, the sea of stars outside the magnificent floating palace in the infinite sky had started to glow with a hazy brilliance.
▪▪▪
-The Past, in an Unknown Time, in an Unknown Space.
In between a bright flash of light and the booming noise of a great explosion that felt on par with the explosion of a stellar mass, the man felt the world and his cognition collapsing around him.
He suddenly found himself in a dreamlike kaleidoscope world of colors, both known and unknown to mankind. He couldn't feel his body. His body seemed to have transformed into something ethereal, strange, and exotic. Something that wasn't bound by the laws of physics or at least whatever physics he knew of. There was a vortex below him... or was it above him? His senses were distorted while his mind became increasingly muddled and his thoughts fell into extreme disorder.
Normal Time and Space did not make sense here, they seemed counterintuitive.
The edge of the 'vortex' seemed to stretch forever. And as he looked towards the edge he saw the whole universe receding away from him faster and faster... while the entirety of the cosmos was laid bare in what he felt was the single most beautiful and the most majestic painting that was ever created and that mankind had ever laid their gaze upon. A painting that could never be made in the hands of mortal men. At this moment he regained a sense of clarity.
At that moment, he seemed to have heard the rumbling of the universe. This wasn't a sound that could be heard using a sensory organ but rather a fluctuation or a wave that he could feel. Strangely, it felt like a farewell to him. Before he could think along this line of thought any further he was suddenly sucked into the vortex. Inside the vortex tunnel, there was only darkness. He probably passed by a fuzzball or maybe it was a hole? But this darkness was peculiar. It felt different though like there was a substance to this darkness, not something that is naturally created due to the absence of light.
At the end of the vortex, all he saw was a crimson curtain of light. He pierced through it at once. Suddenly, he heard a wretched indistinct horrifying scream. It seemed to come from all directions or maybe it was himself who was screaming like a dying dog? It was like the first scream of creation.
AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
His soul felt extreme horror before everything went black. The endless flaming crimson light suddenly dimmed, followed by deep darkness again. He suddenly woke up with a jolt, while clutching his head. His ears were ringing. He felt an extreme headache as he woke up in a state of confusion. He thought the dream had messed with his head. It was as if his brain was pierced by a needle as he could not form coherent thoughts.
He did not know what had happened and did not know where he was, but pain arced through every inch of his body. He had even momentarily forgotten his own identity. Fortunately, it all came flooding back in an instant. His body was currently drenched in sweat. His eyes were burning. His vision first blurred before it was screened by a faint crimson red. He suddenly sat up and opened his eyes slowly while looking around in alarm at his strange and dimly lit surroundings.
Looking around, he figured that he was not in a hospital ward, no matter how he looked at it. But...
'What's going on? WAIT!'
'I remember the explosion and then that...black hole or was it a wormhole vortex... swallowing me up. Well, well, well... so where am I now?'
Screech~
"Oh Fuck!"
When he looked around he saw a little rat right near his face, screeching its tiny head off. Suffice to say, he was completely startled and his head recoiled too fast in fright. The headache that was already bad became worse and nearly split his skull in half. At least, he felt like it did.
He looked around himself and found that he was currently in a room he could only describe as small, shabby, and suffocating. And it wasn't just a problem of free space horizontally but vertically the ceiling was too low. Anyway, the four brown walls made him feel quite anxious as he found himself in a tiny coop that seemed too small for anyone to live in. Not to mention, the materials that were extremely primitive for a house. Even if he didn't look closely he could already tell that. A streak of yellow light shone on his eyelids coming from a small wax candle. There was a faint sound of water dripping behind his back, making him feel uneasy and nauseated. The air tasted like stale bread and centuries-old stale water.
He tasted no oxygen; this place was sterile somehow.
The man drew a few shaky breaths to calm himself down. The straw bed beneath him was wet and slick beneath the weight of his body. He rubbed his throbbing forehead fretfully and sat up on the bed. With his feet touching the floor he felt it was too soft with the dank moss and mattings of many long years of decay. He examined himself first; he was wearing a loose and worn-out black-colored tunic with faded golden strips along with some loose-fitting pale brown colored trousers that were closed at the ankle. They look shabby and ragged now yet it was clear that they once were a relatively expensive article of apparel.
"So, uh...did I die or not? Was that a dream maybe? Or is this a dream? Strange, so strange." He muttered to himself in a daze.
"Am I having dreams inside my dreams? Eh, is this like that movie 'Inception'?" he thought to himself in nervousness and confusion clouding his mind.
His slightly damp hair was disheveled while his body felt stiff. His gaze was scanning the room he found himself in. He wanted to discern 'any' clues on the kind of preposterous situation he had found himself in right now. After adjusting his sight to the dim room, his gaze was attracted to the Crimson light coming from behind him. He looked behind to find that the Crimson light wove its way through the slit of the narrowly opened windows.
The Crimson light permeated the back of the room in a soft sinister glow. The light seemed to ebb and flow; it seemed to have...a life of its own? The man's eyebrows shot up at this ridiculous thought. He was as nervous as a cat in a dog pound.
He gave a nervous chuckle to shake off his ridiculous thoughts and took a few deep breaths. He stood up; however before his legs could fully straighten themselves they lost strength as he fell down uncontrollably. His buttocks slammed heavily onto the damp straw bed. He struggled to take a single step from the straw bed. He stood up again after a few seconds of stabilizing himself. He walked towards the only windows in the room. He held the poorly made wooden window handles tightly and opened them suddenly.
He was speechless for a few seconds at what he saw outside.
He put his hand over his mouth.
'Fuuuuuuuck....' he whispered in a low voice.
In the cloudless sky, a crimson moon and 3 other silver moons hung high above the backdrop of a 'black velvet curtain' glowing in silence. The crimson moon's glow was overpowering. No stars were adorning the skies for some ungodly reason.
His utterly blank and stupefied expression soon contorted into a grimace. Despite all the scenarios he had in mind before opening the windows this was not at all what he expected. Earth did not have 4 moons and not to mention such a goddamn crimson moon.
He was not at the hospital as he should have been after that blast or hell or heaven or the underworld or any place where the souls of the utterly dead went.
He felt very alive at this instance.
This means there is only one conclusion one could draw from the present facts.
'I couldn't have been this lucky, right?' He thought in a self-deprecating manner.
'It happened, didn't it?'
'How is this even possible? No fucking way, this is not at all scientific in any way!'
After half an hour of lampooning his miserable fate, he finally came to terms with the hilariously tragic conclusion that he had "Transmigrated" to a different world. It was hilarious because he had just been thinking about this scenario before the blind date he had in the morning. He was reading another shitty "isekai" novel to free up his mind a bit before the girl arrived at the venue of the date as he was a bit too early. This was an ironic situation for him. He imagined this situation himself for the first time in many years out of the blue. He was an adult after all, silly deliberations such as these rarely filled overworked minds of the 2nd millenium adult.
At least, that was so in his consideration.
It was tragic because a world like this was too unpredictable and 'unresonable' in the treatment of its inhabitants.
These fleeting daydreams could make the daily grind of life more enjoyable. But, he knew he couldn't hope that fantastical things would happen to him so that he would be rid of his problems, his frustrations, or his slight boredom towards the world and life in general.
However, he still thought about it rather intensely for some reason that morning. Life in another world... he felt it would be a better life than his current one. But in the end, he rejected this idea after considering it for some time. A living being's life would be hard regardless of which world you were born in, especially an intelligent and emotional being. Suffering is the main theme of life no matter the world.
He has even thought of a scenario where a god or goddess would give him a choice, probably influenced by the shitty "isekai" fantasy. A choice of choosing between an extraordinary life of fantasy or the slightly monotonous and otherwise predictable life of Earth.
He wasn't a very religious person when he thought of this scenario. He was, what people would call a staunch agnostic or rather, completely impartial agnostic. To whom 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable'.
If God suddenly popped up before him holding a jar of immortality granting honey he wouldn't have been surprised or scared or excited for that matter. He wouldn't have felt much of anything. Because that wouldn't have changed anything about his life. No, this was just him; a man who was making his peace with the fact that life was hard and slightly boring. As well as the fact, that he may very well die someday in obscurity or temporary relative fame.
It was useless to think about where he would go from there. No one could prove 'afterlife' on Earth afterall.
It wouldn't matter much even then. Since, everyone will be forgotten one day from saints to emperors to scientists to actors. If he was given a choice in his youth he would have chosen the life of fantasy in a heartbeat but in adulthood, he would always choose this world and this life if given a chance. Maybe, try doing better next time. Because to him, any other choice would be running away from this world in fear and that would be a disgrace. He wasn't being dramatic when he thought like this. It's just he didn't want to bend in front of this 'mundane' life on Earth.
Anyway, after all, was he given a choice, so that he could astonish the god or gods with his answer?
Well, he wasn't.
Most of all, he felt utterly vulnerable in this world. This world was probably extremely sinister and absolutely more so than his old one. He didn't have any proof of it currently, but his gut was already screaming while telling him that this world was too dangerous after he looked at the giant crimson orb.
He suddenly felt an intense pain in the parts of the brain which housed the temporal lobe and hippocampus. With the debilitating pain he could only crouch down while holding his head while groaning and whimpering.
Even in pain, he could only think about not having a choice in all this. At least, he wanted a goddam choice to not feel this pain right now.
'FUCK THIS! GODDAMNIT!!!'
***
While the "transmigrated one" was cursing every god he could think of for the pain in his head, for being thrown into this unknown world, there was a great disturbance and upheaval around the world.
When the man from Earth first opened his eyes a dark bluish star of chaos broke out from an unknown place with a blazing tail consisting of a multitude of colors streaked across the skies of the metaphysical world or what it is generally called the Etherium. Only those who were sufficiently powerful enough could see it or feel it. However, the magnitude of disturbance caused by the chaos star was so large that it shook all planes of existence for a dozen picosecond or two.
Though that amount of time was too short for any normal living organism to detect any other time this time though, they did. Even the lowliest of creatures like elemental wisp attuned to the Etherium could 'feel' the disturbance in the world. Something had fundamentally changed for some inexplicable reason and they knew instinctively that a great 'shift' was truly about to begin.
Not unlike what they all felt 10 years ago too during birth of that child who remains unknown till date.
On the summit of the Grey Ash Valley. An old man with Argentum clothes stood with his hands behind his back. Behind him were ten thousand venerable beings that even great masters would address as Paragons were... half-kneeling as if waiting for some command.
*Grr*
Suddenly, images of a dark red star were projected onto the skies above. The star seemed to be in a world made up of pastel paintings. This world didn't distinguish between directions, and the past, present, or future could even intersect there. It was like infinite knowledge, information, and illusions were spiritually gathered and compressed into a strange sea. It was different from the "world" as one would imagine according to usual concepts or logic.
However, even against the backdrop of all this the dark star moved stably. The projected images were shattered a few moments later.
The old man's eyes were abnormally bright and his excited body had even begun trembling by this point. A purple-haired young man stood beside the old in reverence. He only spoke after the projection was shattered.
"Congratulations, Old Master. Your grand path to ascension has finally opened up."
"Haha, indeed. Finally, a chaos star has blessed this dull wretched world. Moreover, it's such a special one too. Unlike the time when that child was born and restructured the world but caused no meaningful chaos. The world will finally be 'lively' in the coming years."
The Purple-haired youth could only smile wryly. His old master has always been like this. A troublemaker. Even though his path to ascension has finally been opened up after a millennium of wait, he seemed happier with the fact that the world will be more 'lively' and 'fun'. Truly a man who just wants to see the world burn. He soon, however, noticed an oddity in the statement. He knew his master needed a chaos star for his designs but what could make it special? He raised his eyebrows in question.
"A special chaos star? What's so different about this one?" the Purple-haired youth asked in an inquisitive tone.
The Argentum-clothed old man though only gave him a wretched sly smile. The purple-haired youth rolled his eyes and could only sigh at the antics of this old monster.
The old man then waved his hand and ordered the kneeling ten thousand Paragons.
"Go and spread the news about the advent of the chaos star. Let it be known that "I" have prophesied the approach of The Great End Times. It shall be marked with a time of unprecedented upheaval and great carnage. No one shall be left untouched by the tide of times. As for the fellows who want to or are already plotting to dominate the world send them this prophecy- 'A Falling star has brought with it the Halo of Chaos, shrouding the world. The Throne of Fate has lost its master while the Palace of Destiny is empty. The nonbeliever and his heralds who walk in light and darkness will make their debut'. Now, Go!"
"Yes, my Lord!"
The thunder-like response resonated past the horizon as the ten thousand Paragons spread across the lands to make words of their great master be known to all. On the chilly summit of the Grey Ash valley now stood only the old man in Argentum clothes. His silver eyes were now languid and his expression had turned to one of indifference. With his hands held behind his back, he stood there as he did for centuries. The only difference was the indiscernible wretched smirk on his old wizened face as he faced the chilly winds coming from the Cox moors.
'The great showdown will soon begin. It's finally here, heh.'