________________________________________________________________________
LOCATION: THE ORIGINLESS HORIZON (THE VOID BEYOND DIMENSIONS)
Silence.
It was not the peaceful silence of a library, nor the tranquil quiet of a sleeping forest. It was a heavy, suffocating silence—the kind that exists only after the death of a universe. It was the sound of time refusing to tick, of light refusing to travel, and of laws refusing to govern.
In this place, concepts like "Up," "Down," "Past," or "Future" held no meaning. There was only the Here and the Now.
This was the Originless Horizon. A realm that existed outside the multiverse, a graveyard where the debris of failed realities drifted like dust motes in a sunbeam.
In the center of this endless, monochromatic void stood a structure that defied architectural logic. It appeared to be a cathedral, yet it was vast enough to house entire solar systems within its nave. Its pillars were not made of stone, but of solidified nebulas, spiraling upward into a ceiling of storm clouds composed of dead stars and forgotten memories.
And at the very heart of this cosmic cathedral, atop a dais of fractured reality shards, sat a single throne.
It was carved from Primordial Obsidian—a material darker than black holes, pulsating with a faint, dying azure rhythm. It was a throne meant for a god, yet the figure sitting upon it looked nothing like a deity.
He looked like a boy.
Ashmal.
To an observer, he appeared to be a human of perhaps eighteen or nineteen years. His frame was slender, deceptively fragile, wrapped in a high-collared coat woven from the fabric of midnight. His hair was a chaotic mess of abyssal black, strands falling over his closed eyes. His skin was pale, possessing the marble-like quality of a statue that had never known the warmth of a sun.
He sat with his head propped against his left fist, his elbow resting on the cold armrest. His breathing was so slow, so shallow, that tectonic plates moved faster than the rise and fall of his chest.
He was not meditating. He was not planning. He was simply... waiting.
"Three thousand years..."
Ashmal's voice broke the silence. It was a whisper, yet in this vacuum where physics had no dominion, his voice carried the weight of a decree. The sound rippled outward, causing the dead stars in the ceiling to shudder.
"Three thousand years since the last one. And the silence is already becoming loud again."
He shifted slightly, the fabric of his coat rustling like dry leaves. His eyes remained closed, but his senses—which encompassed every atom of this realm—picked up a disturbance.
Far away, at the edge of the Horizon, the fabric of existence began to scream.
It wasn't a sound audible to ears, but a vibration felt in the soul. It was the sound of dimensions being torn apart by brute force.
The air in the cathedral grew heavy. The temperature dropped to absolute zero, then fluctuated wildly to burning heat. Purple arcs of chaotic lightning began to crackle, tearing through the void like jagged scars. A pressure, heavy enough to crush galaxies into marbles, descended upon the hall.
If a High God from a standard fantasy world were to stand here, their mind would have shattered instantly from the sheer malevolence of this aura.
CRRRAAAACK!
The sound was like a spine snapping, magnified a billion times.
Space itself was ripped open in the center of the hall. A jagged, bleeding rift appeared, leaking colors that the human eye could not comprehend—hues that induced madness.
From this wound in reality, an Entity dragged itself out.
This was not a creature of biology. It was a catastrophe given form.
"Malak-Thul," the entity announced itself, not with words, but with a psychic shockwave that assaulted the mind.
It was a colossus, standing thousands of feet tall within the expanded geometry of the hall. Its body was a shifting mass of rotting flesh, exposed bone, and living shadows. Where a face should have been, there was only a vertical slit—a mouth lined with rows of teeth made from crystallized agony. Dozens of tentacle-like appendages, each ending in a weeping eye, flailed around its body.
This was Malak-Thul, The Devourer of Dimensions. An Outer God who feasted on the cores of vibrant worlds.
"ASHMAL!!"
The monster's roar shattered the pillars of nebulas, sending cosmic dust spiraling into the void.
"I have found you!" Malak-Thul bellowed, his voice layering over itself like a thousand screaming choirs. "The Cowardly King who hides in the Void! I have consumed seven hundred universes to fuel my journey here! My hunger is insatiable! Today, I will crack open your skull and drink the essence of this realm!"
The entity took a step forward. The floor, made of hardened reality, groaned under its weight.
Malak-Thul raised two of its massive, misshapen arms. Between them, a sphere of energy began to form. It was a Singularity Star—a weapon composed of pure gravitational collapse. It swirled with black and red energy, distorting the light around it. It was an attack designed not just to kill, but to erase the history of the target.
"Prepare yourself!" the monster shrieked. "Witness the power of a True God!"
The sphere grew larger, humming with the promise of apocalypse.
On the throne, Ashmal finally moved.
He didn't summon a weapon. He didn't erect a barrier. He didn't even stand up.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he opened his eyes.
They were terrible.
They were not red with fury, nor glowing with divine power. They were Pitch Black. No sclera, no iris, no pupil. Just two infinite pools of void that seemed to look through the monster, through the dimension, and into the nothingness behind it all.
But the most terrifying thing about those eyes was the emotion they held.
It wasn't fear. It wasn't anger. It wasn't determination.
It was Boredom. Utter, crushing, existential boredom.
"Script number 4,012," Ashmal muttered, his voice flat.
Malak-Thul paused, the massive energy ball pulsating in his hands. "What?"
"The introduction," Ashmal sighed, rubbing his temple as if nursing a migraine. "Why is it always the same? 'I found you', 'I ate some universes', 'I will drink your essence'. Do you Outer Gods share a hive mind for terrible dialogue? Is there a manual you all read before coming here?"
Malak-Thul's flesh rippled with indignation. "You dare mock me? I am the End of All Things! I am—"
"You are noisy," Ashmal interrupted softly.
The boy on the throne lifted his right hand. He didn't clench a fist. He didn't chant a spell. He simply extended his Index Finger and pointed it casually at the mountain-sized abomination.
"You speak of destruction as if it is a weapon you wield," Ashmal said, looking at his fingernail with mild interest. "But you misunderstand the hierarchy, little beast."
Malak-Thul roared in fury, throwing the Singularity Star. The attack launched forward at superluminal speeds, tearing up the floor, dissolving the air, promising to turn Ashmal into nothingness.
"I don't wield destruction," Ashmal whispered. "I am the definition of it."
Flick.
Ashmal's finger twitched. Just a millimeter.
There was no sound.
There was no explosion.
There was no grand flash of light.
The laws of cause and effect simply... stopped.
VOOOOOM.
The massive Singularity Star—an attack capable of wiping out a galaxy—didn't explode. It simply ceased to exist. One moment it was there, roaring with power; the next, it was gone. Erased.
Malak-Thul froze. His thousands of eyes widened in collective horror.
"Wha... What happened? My attack... where did it go?"
"I revoked its permission to exist," Ashmal replied, leaning back into his throne. "And now..."
He turned his gaze fully onto Malak-Thul.
For the first time, the Outer God felt something he hadn't felt in eons. He felt small. He felt like a bug under a magnifying glass. The pressure radiating from the boy wasn't magical; it was Ontological. It was the pressure of something that was more 'Real' than anything else in existence.
"Wait!" Malak-Thul stepped back, his massive form trembling. "Who... What are you? You are not a Ruler! This energy... it's older than the Void itself! Mercy! I will leave! I will—"
"Too loud," Ashmal said.
He closed his hand into a loose fist.
CRUNCH.
Space collapsed.
Malak-Thul didn't even have time to scream. The space around the monster folded inward. The flesh, the bone, the souls, the dimensions—everything was compressed. The thousand-foot giant was instantly crushed into a sphere the size of a marble.
Blood didn't spill. It was compressed.
Screams didn't echo. They were compressed.
Ashmal opened his hand, and the marble turned to dust.
Poof.
Silence returned.
The cathedral was quiet once more. The rift healed itself. The dead stars stopped shaking.
Ashmal stared at his empty hand. A translucent, blue holographic panel flickered into existence next to his face—a limiter he had placed on himself eons ago.
[System Alert]
[Threat Level: Low (Outer God Class)]
[Power Output Used: 0.000000001%]
[Status: Disappointed]
"One billionth of a percent," Ashmal murmured, dismissing the window with a wave of his hand. "And even that was overkill. I could have just blinked."
He stood up, his legs feeling stiff from centuries of sitting. He walked down the steps of the dais, his footsteps echoing on the obsidian floor like the ticking of a doomsday clock. He approached the edge of the hall, where the wall was replaced by a massive pane of glass overlooking the abyss.
Outside, reality churned. Massive continents floated in the void, tethered by chains of gravity. It was a view that would drive mortals insane, but to Ashmal, it was just... scenery.
"I am tired," he confessed to the empty air.
He looked at his reflection in the glass. He saw a young man who held the authority to rewrite existence, yet had nothing to do.
"When you are at the bottom, you fight to survive. When you are in the middle, you fight for glory. But when you are at the Apex... when there is nothing above you... you fight against the only thing that can kill you."
Boredom.
He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a coin. It was a simple thing, forged from the core of a dying white dwarf star. One side depicted a Crown, the other a Skull.
"Heads," Ashmal said, his voice void of hope. "I stay here. I sleep for another millennium. I wait for the next challenger."
He paused.
"Tails... I descend. I seal this power. I seal these memories. I go to a world where gravity feels heavy. Where food has taste. Where a sword cut actually bleeds."
He flipped the coin.
It spun in the air, a blur of silver light against the darkness of the void.
Ashmal watched it rise and fall. He could have used his authority to force it to land on Tails. He could have rewritten probability to ensure the outcome he wanted.
But he didn't. For the first time in ages, he let Chance decide his fate.
Cling... clatter... spin.
The coin wobbled on the obsidian floor and fell flat.
Ashmal looked down.
The Skull. (Tails).
A breath he didn't know he was holding escaped his lips. The corners of his mouth twitched upward, forming a smile that reached his eyes.
"Retirement it is," he whispered.
He raised his hand, and the air in front of him shimmered. A complex geometric circle appeared, glowing with a soft gold light—different from the cold blue of the void.
[Protocol: DESCENSION initiated]
[Target World: Elandria (Sector 404)]
[Civilization Level: Medieval / Magic]
[Power Sealing: 99.9999999999%]
[Memory Suppression: ACTIVE]
"Elandria," Ashmal tested the name on his tongue. "A world of knights, dragons, and guilds. A place where I can be... insignificant."
He stepped forward. The golden light engulfed him, warm and inviting. Behind him, the obsidian throne sat empty, the silence of the void reclaiming its dominion.
But for Ashmal Aeternum Solaris, the silence was finally over.
The first thing he felt was... Pain.
A sharp, throbbing ache pulsed at the back of his skull, as if someone had taken a heavy hammer to it. Then came the heaviness. His arms, his legs, his eyelids—everything felt incredibly heavy, as if gravity was trying to glue him to the floor.
Ashmal struggled to peel his eyes open.
Light. Blinding, searing light.
Sunlight streamed directly into his vision, piercing through the gloom. He instinctively threw a hand over his face, shielding his eyes, and let out a deep, ragged breath.
"Where... am I?"
His voice was dry, cracking with disuse. It sounded foreign to his own ears.
He tried to sit up, but the room spun violently. The rough timber walls, the broken furniture, the dust motes dancing in the air—everything was unfamiliar.
He tried to force his mind to work. What happened before this? How did he get here?
Silence.
There were no memories. Just a thick, white fog. It was as if someone had torn all the pages out of the book of his life and left only the empty cover.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, staring down at his hands.
Slender fingers. Pale skin. A slight, uncontrollable trembling.
"These hands..." he whispered, flexing them slowly. "Are they mine?"
There was a strange, lingering sensation in his chest. For some reason, he felt like he was used to something else. Something... bigger. Something infinite. But the moment he tried to chase that thought, the pain in his head spiked, forcing him to stop.
He looked into a small, grimy mirror hanging on the wall.
Messy black hair. Deep, dark eyes. A simple, ordinary eighteen-year-old boy who looked like he hadn't slept in days.
But as he stared into his own eyes, a single word floated up from the dark abyss of his mind.
"Ashmal."
He spoke the name aloud. "Ashmal."
Yes. That felt right. That was his name. But beyond that? Nothing. Who was he? What did he do? Where was his family?
Blank.
"Maybe I'm a traveler," Ashmal mused, looking around the shabby room. "Or maybe I'm a victim of some accident."
Suddenly, something shimmered in the air in front of him.
Ping.
A translucent blue window materialized, floating in his vision. Ashmal recoiled slightly, eyes widening in shock.
"What is this... Magic?"
[STATUS]
[Name: Ashmal]
[Class: Mage (Beginner)]
[Mana: Sealed]
[Memory: Fragmented]
Ashmal read the text. The fact that he could read it gave him a small sense of relief.
"Mage..." he repeated the word. "So, I am a magician? One with a broken memory?"
He tried to touch the window, but his hand passed right through it. The screen flickered and vanished on its own.
Ashmal let out a long breath. He should have been afraid. He should have been panicking. But the strange thing was... he felt **Calm**.
Despite knowing nothing, there was a deep sense of peace within him. As if this 'forgetting' wasn't a punishment, but a gift. As if a weight the size of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
Grrrroooowl.
The silence of the room was broken by a loud, demanding sound.
Ashmal looked down, startled. The noise came from his stomach. A hollow, twisting sensation.
"Hunger," Ashmal identified the feeling. "First, food. Questions later."
He stood up. His legs felt a little steadier now. He put on the clothes resting on the chair—a simple white shirt and trousers. They fit him perfectly.
As he moved toward the heavy wooden door, he took one last look at the room.
He didn't remember how he got here. He didn't know what lay on the other side of that door. But he wasn't afraid.
Instead, he felt a new emotion rising in his chest. Something he felt he hadn't experienced in eons, though he couldn't remember why.
Excitement.
"Let's see," Ashmal said with a faint smile, "who this Ashmal really is."
He turned the handle and began to descend the stairs.
The moment the door opened, a storm of noise crashed down upon him.
The silence of the room upstairs vanished instantly, replaced by the heavy thud of boots on wooden floors, the raucous laughter of patrons, and the clattering of ceramic plates.
Ashmal closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing his temples. A dull throb pulsed behind his eyes.
"So much noise..." he thought, wincing slightly. "Have I always preferred silence? Or is my head just sensitive today because of whatever happened to me?"
He moved down the hallway and began to descend the creaking wooden stairs. Every step groaned under his weight, announcing his arrival to a room that didn't care.
The main hall was exactly as one would expect of a busy inn at peak breakfast hour. The air was thick with the mixed scents of stale ale, unwashed bodies, and roasted meat.
Ashmal scanned the crowd, searching for a familiar face. A friend? A family member? Someone who might wave him over?
Nothing. Every face was a stranger's. A strange, hollow feeling of isolation washed over him. He was alone in the world, with no past to anchor him.
"Focus, Ashmal," he muttered to himself. "Fill your stomach first. Worry about your identity later."
He found a small, empty table in the corner, shrouded in shadows away from the bustling center. He sat down, the hard wood uncomfortable against his back.
"You new here, lad?"
A heavy but friendly voice broke his concentration. Ashmal looked up to see a middle-aged woman with greying hair and a stained apron standing by his table. It was Martha, the innkeeper.
Ashmal paused. Was he new? He didn't know.
"Perhaps," he answered honestly. "I just woke up upstairs. To be honest... I can't remember how I got here."
Martha gave him a sympathetic look, mistaking his amnesia for a heavy hangover. "Ah, the ale must have hit you hard last night. Don't worry, son. Eat something hot, it'll all come back to you. What can I get you?"
Ashmal reached into his pocket. His fingers brushed against three cold metal coins. He didn't know where they came from, but he was grateful for them.
"Whatever is cheapest," Ashmal said.
"Bread and soup it is," Martha nodded and bustled away.
Left alone again, Ashmal stared at his hands resting on the table.
"These aren't the hands of a laborer," he observed. The skin was pale and relatively soft, lacking the calluses of a farmer or a blacksmith. "Was I a student? A scholar? Or maybe a runaway from a wealthy family?"
The food arrived quickly. The soup was thin and watery, and the bread felt as hard as a brick.
Ashmal took his first bite. The taste was bland, bordering on terrible, but his empty stomach roared in gratitude. He ate carefully, analyzing every texture, hoping that a specific flavor might trigger a memory.
BAM!
The front door of the inn slammed open with violent force.
The entire hall went silent. Spoons froze mid-air. Every eye turned toward the entrance.
Three adventurers walked in. Their armor gleamed, though it was caked in road dust, and they carried themselves with an air of arrogant superiority. The leader was a massive man, standing well over six feet, with a huge Battle Axe strapped to his back.
Ashmal glanced at them but felt no interest. "Local celebrities, perhaps," he thought, returning his attention to his soup.
Unfortunately, the massive man walked straight toward Ashmal's corner.
A large shadow fell over Ashmal's bowl, blocking the sunlight.
Ashmal looked up. The leader, Goran, was staring down at him with a sneer.
"Oi," Goran grunted, his voice deep and gravelly. "You're sitting in my spot."
Ashmal blinked, genuinely confused. He looked around the table. "Your spot? But there is no name carved here."
He wasn't trying to be funny. He was simply applying logic. But to Goran, this was blatant disrespect.
"You trying to be smart with me, boy?" Goran slammed his hand down on the table.
THUD!
The force of the blow shook the table violently. Ashmal's bowl tipped, and half of his precious soup sloshed out onto the wood.
Ashmal's heart sank. That soup was the most important thing in his life right now.
"My food..." Ashmal said, looking up with genuine distress. "You spilled my food. That wasn't very polite."
Goran laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Food? I'm about to spill your teeth!"
The large man reached out, his meaty hand aiming to grab Ashmal by the collar and hoist him out of the chair.
In that instant, something strange happened to Ashmal.
Logically, he should have been terrified. He should have flinched. He should have scrambled backward.
But his body... moved on its own.
It was as if a switch had been flipped deep within his nervous system.
To Ashmal, the world seemed to slow down. Goran's hand looked like it was moving through molasses. It was clumsy, telegraphed, and incredibly slow. Ashmal could see exactly where the fingers were aiming.
Instinct.
Ashmal simply tilted his head slightly to the right. Just an inch.
SWISH.
Goran's hand grabbed nothing but empty air. The sudden lack of resistance caused the big man to lose his balance. He stumbled forward, his chest colliding with the edge of the table.
Ashmal quickly grabbed his soup bowl with his other hand to save the remaining liquid.
"Close one," Ashmal sighed in relief, setting the bowl down safely.
Goran scrambled back up, his face red with shock and embarrassment. "You... How did you dodge that?"
Ashmal blinked, just as surprised as the bully.
"I... I don't know," Ashmal stammered, looking at his own shoulders. "I just... thought about moving, and I moved. Maybe you're just tired? You seem a bit slow today."
He was being sincere. He genuinely thought the man was sluggish. He had no realization that he had just utilized superhuman reaction speed.
Goran's face turned a shade of purple. "Me? Slow? I'll show you slow!"
With a roar, Goran reached over his shoulder and unsheathed his Battle Axe.
The patrons in the inn screamed. "Run! Goran's lost it!"
Ashmal felt a spike of fear now. "Brother, we can talk about this! There is no need for weapons!"
"Too late!" Goran raised the heavy axe high above his head and brought it down with lethal force, aiming straight for Ashmal's skull.
Death was inches away.
Ashmal's mind went blank. I'm going to die.
But then, it happened again.
Ashmal's hand shot out toward the metal fork resting on the table. His fingers moved with a fluidity that defied conscious thought.
It wasn't a decision. It was Muscle Memory. A memory not stored in his brain, but etched into his very bones.
As the axe descended, Ashmal's hand flicked upward.
TING!
A tiny, sharp sound rang out.
Ashmal had tapped the tip of the fork against a specific nerve cluster on Goran's wrist. Just a light tap.
Goran's hand instantly went numb. His fingers spasmed and opened involuntarily.
The axe slipped from his grip. Instead of splitting Ashmal's head, it tumbled sideways, spinning through the air before burying itself deep into the wooden floor.
CHOP!
The heavy blade quivered as it stuck in the wood, exactly two inches from Ashmal's boot.
Ashmal's eyes widened. He held his breath, staring at the deadly weapon that had almost ended his short second life.
"I'm... alive?" Ashmal thought, his heart racing. "How did I do that? I just threw my hand up in panic!"
Goran stumbled back, clutching his numb wrist, staring at Ashmal with pure horror. "You... You're not a Mage! Are you an Assassin? Who are you?"
Fear filled the adventurer's eyes. He was convinced this boy was a master killer pretending to be a novice.
Ashmal slowly placed the fork back on the table. He noticed the utensil was completely bent out of shape.
"Cheap quality," Ashmal noted internally, frowning at the ruined fork. "Inn cutlery is terrible. It bent just from touching his arm."
(He remained completely oblivious to the fact that he had bent steel against bone without hurting himself).
"I... I am not an assassin," Ashmal said earnestly, standing up. "I'm just... I think I'm a Mage? Maybe?"
Before Goran could respond, Martha came running out from behind the counter with a hammer, chasing the troublemakers out.
When silence finally returned to the hall, Ashmal sat back down. His heart was still pounding—or at least, he thought it should be.
He stared at his hands again.
"I have no memories," Ashmal thought. "But my body knows how to fight. Was I a soldier? A guard? Or a fugitive on the run?"
He clenched his fist.
"Whoever I was... I wasn't weak. That is good to know."
He finished the remaining cold soup in one gulp and left the copper coins on the table.
"I need to find out who I am," Ashmal decided. "And the best way to do that is to find work. If my body remembers how to fight, perhaps the Adventurer's Guild can help me."
Ashmal stepped out of the inn, squinting against the bright morning sun. He walked onto the streets of Elandria, an "Ordinary" boy with no idea that he was a monster walking among men.