Impact.
Not hard, but profound. He found himself resting on… something. Not earth, not stone. A gritty, greyish substance that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. The air here was thick, heavy with despair and the metallic tang of decay. Above, a bruised purple sky hung low, devoid of sun or stars, casting the landscape in perpetual twilight. Jagged obsidian spires clawed at the sky, and the ground was littered with crumbling structures that might have once been altars or tombs. This was Ògùnfà-Ṣán, the Land of Spilled Names. A graveyard for forgotten gods and discarded prayers.
Ayọ̀, no longer Ayọ̀míkẹ́, but something nascent, fundamental hovered as a fist sized orb of warm, multicolored light. He pulsed, sending out waves of gentle luminescence that barely pushed back the oppressive gloom. Confusion warred with a dawning, terrifying understanding. He was alive. But he was also utterly, profoundly changed.
A low, skittering sound echoed from behind a nearby ruin. Something stirred in the shadows, drawn by the unfamiliar warmth of his newborn light. Ayọ̀'s core flared with instinctive alarm. Survival. He had to survive. But how does a spark of divine energy fight?
The shadow detached itself, slithering into the dim glow. A serpentine form, long and sinuous, woven from solidified darkness and etched with faint, fading symbols that hurt to look at. Ọ̀rọ̀-Ẹni, the Whisper Viper. Its obsidian scales drank the light, and its gaping maw, filled with needle-sharp fangs, emitted no sound, yet Ayọ̀ felt a horrifying vibration that threatened to shatter his very cohesion – a sonic assault on the spirit.
Panic surged. There was no time for thought, only the raw, desperate instinct to exist. The orb of ashé that was Ayọ̀ didn't dodge. It lunged. Golden light flared brilliantly as he enveloped the viper's head in a searing embrace. The Whisper Viper thrashed, its silent scream vibrating through Ayọ̀'s core, a physical pain that felt like being unraveled thread by thread. But he held on, pouring his terrified energy into the act of consumption.
He felt the viper's essence, cold fear, fragmented syllables of discarded prayers, the bitter residue of forgotten names – flood into him. It was alien, horrifying, yet undeniably power. The dark form dissolved into swirling motes of grey and black energy that were absorbed into his swirling light. The terrifying vibrations ceased.
Silence returned, heavier than before. Ayọ̀ hovered, pulsating erratically. He felt… different. Stronger, his light steadier, burning with a warmer gold. And he knew things. He could feel the echoes of fear lingering in the stones around him, hear the faint, mournful whispers of the land itself. A voice spoke in his head "Resonance Sense acquired". A stolen power, integrated.
The realization crashed over him, cold and exhilarating. He could devour them. He could take their power to grow.
He was no longer Ayọ̀míkẹ́, the disconnected man. He was Ashé. And in this desolate graveyard of gods, he would learn to burn, or be extinguished. The Land of Spilled Names held its breath, waiting to see what this new, hungry spark would become. And deep within his core, a name echoed, a promise to a world that had forgotten itself: One name at a time.