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Everything dissolved.
The world went white.
Akane felt weightless, as though floating between breaths. No air, no sound, no direction, only the faint awareness that he was.
Slowly, sensation returned. His body, or something like it, began to gather from the void.
Above him stretched an endless starry sky, the constellations shimmering like scattered memories.
Below, an infinite sea of silver rippled quietly, its surface reflecting fragments of the heavens and ruins.
The horizon no longer existed; only the balance between two infinities.
He drifted there, suspended between light and depth.
But soon, gravity, or something deeper, began to pull him downward. His limbs grew heavy, his body yearning to sink into the Silver Sea, to dissolve into its mirror surface and become part of it.
It called to him like a mother's lullaby, serene, absolute, and final.
The weight intensified. He could almost feel chains coiling around his body, dragging him toward stillness.
"No…" he whispered, struggling. His voice scattered like mist in the vast silence. His face is frowning and twisted.
The chains tightened, invisible yet unmistakable, the weight of thought, of doubt, of identity itself, the collective masses. His limbs refused to obey, sinking inch by inch toward the silver surface.
Then, a flash.
A surge of silver light burst from the void, spiraling around him.
For a brief instant, the darkness above and the sea below collided, two currents of existence merging into one.
The silver light filled his soul, flowing through every vein, every thought, every fragment of his being. The heaviness evaporated, replaced by something purer, energy, clarity, and fullness.
He exhaled.
And the chains broke.
The balance between Silver and Darkness tilted.
His body rose, drawn upward by the pulse of light. His essence burned brighter, transmuting into something beyond flesh or soul, something that belonged to both.
Symbols carved themselves into his skin, glowing cyan and silver. Lines of unknown pattern spiraled from his chest outward, weaving together like a living pattern, an unspoken law taking form.
Higher, higher, he ascended through the luminous currents, piercing through layers of stars until his form vanished into the darkness among them.
And then, he fell.
The impact echoed like thunderless lightning.
He awoke as if from a deep dream, body trembling, mind vast.
His soul felt different, elevated, completed, yet tilted toward something inevitable. His path had taken shape: Erudite.
Knowledge, structure, understanding, the principles of his new existence.
But his body could not yet bear the weight of it.
He sat cross-legged on the ground, breath uneven, energy surging through him like a raging tide. Power leaked from every pore, spilling into the air as silver mist.
He tried to breathe in, out, but it was useless. The power had no outlet.
Still, he endured. Eyes closed, he forced his thoughts into order, his mind churning faster than ever before.
Concepts collided, merged, reformed, logic built itself in seconds, problems once unsolvable now folding into patterns of elegant simplicity.
A minute passed.
An hour.
Or perhaps a century, time dissolved here.
Gradually, the tide within him calmed. The wild energy sank beneath the surface, guided by his will. His breathing steadied; his pulse matched the rhythm of thought.
His power, once chaotic, was now completely absorbed into the structure of his mind, refined into comprehension.
When he opened his eyes again, their grey hue had deepened into something else, a still whirlpool, faintly luminous, vast but lifeless.
He knew immediately what had changed. What he had become.
Rising to his feet, Akane surveyed the world around him.
His body is like a fish that has been taken out of the water; his skin has become paler even after this.
The transformation from before is invisible, as if it's just an illusion; now he behaves like before.
It seemed nothing had changed outside.
The endless Silver Sea was gone.
The void had softened into something tangible, a landscape under a starry sky. Beneath his feet lay solid ground, dimly lit by distant starlight.
His Inner Realm.
His Spiritual World.
It was quiet, barren hills rolling under a pale light, a single pond reflecting the sky, a lone tree standing beside it. The air was still. The silence, profound.
He took it in for a long time.
"Is this the reflection of my soul?" he murmured.
"Barren. Lifeless. Yet… calm."
He understood that he could change this realm as he pleased. But not easily.
The world of the soul would only change with its essence, unlike will, thus could not be forced.
His gaze shifted to a familiar sight — the Door.
Two remained.
The Maroon Door, near the pond.
The White-Golden Door, beside the tree.
The Maroon Door stood half open, the shadows behind it alive with depth. Six chains still coiled around its frame.
In the shadow behind, Akane glimpsed a landscape, vast and crimson under a dying sun. A castle loomed there, its silhouette framed by the red light.
The space around it seemed distorted, pressing against his Inner Realm, as though the world behind it was too vast to be contained.
The White-Golden Door, by contrast, remained silent. Pure. Waiting.
Akane took a slow breath. After looking around and confirming once again, he thought of something.
Then his eyes turned toward the empty ground between the pond and the tree.
He focused.
His irises deepened, the grey darkened into the depth of a black whirlpool. The air trembled.
Three steles rose from the earth, their surfaces rough and unpolished, but solid.
The left stele bore inscriptions, faint runes etching themselves as he watched.
The right was blank, awaiting something yet to come.
The center stele was strange, a carving of a tree-like diagram, resembling a sefirot, but incomplete. Two circles above connected to two below, then to another two, but midway, the pattern was broken.
Only four circles remained visible. The others were erased, or perhaps hidden.
A mystery yet unsolved.
Akane's breath grew heavier; the creation had drained him. Shaping anything here demanded the very fabric of his soul. Even so, it was enough for now.
These steles would serve as records, the memory and structure of his growth.
So it is easy to know what changes happen after his body and soul.
The left for what he was, Treader of the Path of Soul, Scholar.
The right, blank, waiting for his next evolution.
The center, the foundation, the symbol of his progress and choice.
He could, when the time came, inscribe two aspects upon it, two traits to develop, to expand upon his path. But that would come later.
Now, a more urgent matter called him.
The Physical World.
He longs to know the situation after he passed out.
Then he raised his hand forward, his body still.
He reached out, not with hands, but with intent. His consciousness found the faint thread connecting this world to the one of flesh. It pulsed, distant yet clear.
He inhaled once more. Then leaped forward in the thread of connection.
Light burst around him, his form dissolving into the horizon.
The realm trembled as his presence faded, until at last, it fell still once more.
The Silver Sea did not return.
Only silence remained.
And so, the Inner Realm of Shirakami Akane entered tranquility again.