Having been running for quite some time, Adam felt his lungs bellow from the strain, all while his heartbeat sounded like drums in his ears.
His legs trembled from exertion while his already empty mind clouded from pure exhaustion. It was to such a degree that even the echo deep within his mind failed to urge Adam to move forward.
Thereby, without the urge to push him forward, Adam slowed and eventually ceased moving. At least, bar his chest as it finally had the time to cool and settle down. At the same time, Adam started to shiver from the sweat cloaking his skin mixing with the damp cold air of the forest to seem even colder.
Yet, it was a kind of pleasant cold.
After moments passed, and Adam recovered from his exertion reasonably well, the urge finally returned to full power, and Adam once more underwent his unknown journey. Only this time, he did not need to run.
As such, Adam slowly made his way through the forest.
Where he was going, he did not know. Neither did he care. All that mattered was following the command echoing deep within him.
Hence, when he switched routes multiple times, it was par the course.
Hence, when Night came and Darkness arose, Adam did not stop.
Hence, even after Darkness swallowed every shred of Light, and Adam’s eyes only witnessed blackness before his eyes, he knew where his next step ought to be, where he had to leverage his weight, where to hold on, where to descend or ascend and where to swim to cross a river even though he had never swum before in one.
However, while those left plenty of mysteries on how the echo knew all that, what counted, even more, were those times when Adam ceased moving forward and instead hid. Sometimes behind a tree and sometimes behind a bush. Sometimes, he climbed upon a tree. And sometimes, he even dug himself into the soft earth.
Every time Adam did any of those, tremors shook his body as invisible forces played over his body with hunger in search of something he did not possess. Thereby, everything that hid in the Darkness and hunted through the Darkness failed to perceive Adam as anything more than the background scenario, on par with trees and other greenery.
Or the occasional stone when he burrowed himself.
Overall, time passed.
Ani’s Darkness receded, and Ina’s Light embraced the world once more to share its Light-giving protection and Life-giving properties.
Yet, Adam’s journey was not over.
He just kept on going and going. Only the occasional break to nab a few fruits and nuts on the way provided nourishment interrupted his undeniable trek. At least if one ignored the brief sleeping cycle after burrowing himself into the ground to hide from something.
Even after a few more cycles of Light and Darkness came and went by, Adam did not stop. No. In truth, seventeen Days and Nights passed before Adam finally ceased his journey into the unknown.
When he did, Adam’s whole body stood there like a humanoid stone with his head angled towards the sky in search of something. However, even as time continued, nothing appeared out of place.
White clouds passed as the wind drove them east, while Ina’s Light traveled west across the horizon in her endless chase of the Ani’s Darkness.
Just as Ina’s Light was the brightest at noon, Ani’s Darkness reigned supreme at midnight.
Scholars attributed it to the great distance between the source of Ina’s Light and the source of Ani’s Darkness during their eternal chase of each other.
Whatever the case was, one truth remained beyond a doubt.
The peak period of Darkness was also the most dangerous period of the daily cycle.
Thankfully, said dangers ignored the Spiritless. Nevertheless, with Adam’s gaze as the focal point, somewhere deep within the endless Darkness, a change occurred. Or maybe it was Adam’s gaze that summoned it forth.
Whichever of the two options held more truth would only be known to anybody but two individuals. Nevertheless, the aftereffects would be known by many because deep within Ani’s Darkness arose a Light.
A Light, unlike Ina’s Light.
It was white at its core. However, few would notice that fact because said white light was only observable if one observed the phenomena from the front, and even then, only if one could disregard the red, orange, and yellow manifestations cloaking the white color.
At the same time, that was not enough to signify its majestic presence. The phenomena illuminated half the night sky. Additionally, a plume of grayness remained behind its passing streak over the horizon. On top of that, that plume of grayness made one feel as if some divine being pressed its finger on the sky and violently pushed said finger in one direction.
As a result, if one saw everything all at once, it would not be wrong to describe the event as a glowing metal stake being stabbed into the earth since the illumination first appeared very high up in the sky, only to descend ever closer to the ground.
Sadly, few actually witnessed this event deep into the night.
Luckily, those that did were Essence users.
Thus, the event got branded into their minds.
Thus, never to be forgotten.
Thus, many tales will spin into creation.
Although. Some may describe it as a good omen, while some will define it as a bad omen.
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In the end, whatever the truth was, none could imagine that the path of said flaring ball of Light actually whisked right above Adam’s head, consequently making him the first to witness its full glory and the first to glimpse its destination.
Well… the first, if one discounted the numerous howls, cries, and pitched screams of pain echoing from the numerous Nightmare Creatures as the sudden appearance of Light branded the strong ones and outright killed the weak ones from sheer exposure to so much bright Light.
Because of the brief yet impactful Light, which appeared at the darkest of moments, alongside the impact crater later explorers discovered, the event would be dubbed Ina’s Spitting Ire.
During the passage of Ina’s Spitting Ire right above him, Adam’s eyelids involuntarily closed from the brightness for a few moments.
A few moments after opening them up again, they had changed. Not physically, that is. No, Adam’s almost white irises remained the same. Nevertheless, there was a certain spirituality behind them. Few would have noticed the difference, but Essence users would have almost certainly recognized the truth that there was more to this Spiritless.
Still, while Adam remained Spiritless, the echo that had driven him all the way out here into this wilderness had mutated slightly the very first moment the Ball of Light, which was not Ina’s Light, appeared in the Darkness. As if a connection formed between that Ball of Light and Adam.
Additionally, as Adam’s almost white eyes traced the trajectory of the said Ball of Light, the connection grew firmer. Therefore, it was no surprise Adam’s body moved on even without the echo’s prompt command.
Moments after Adam pursued his target, there was a sudden and bright flare of light a few mountains ahead of him, alongside a giant fireball shooting into the sky in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Additionally, there was the trembling of the earth and the thundering of the air. The trembling earth was ignored effortlessly. However, the thundering air was much more difficult to push aside as it felt like something solid slammed into Adam’s body, causing his ears to ring for quite a while.
Either way, after a brief dosage of disorientation, Adam continued towards his target straight on.
Despite not bothering to hide himself this time while pursuing the descended target, it was after the dawning Day chased away the frightful Night that he reached his destination. When he did, Adam witnessed the destruction in the form of a ring-shaped wave-like fractured earth with plenty of flattened trees concealing the true extent of the damage.
Traversing over the flattened trees wasn't easy. However, when accomplished, Adam finally reached his goal, and what a gigantic and magnificent goal it was.
Nestled right in the center of the smoldering yet glossed-over earth, transformed from the heated entrance and landing maneuver, a giant of a man lay on his back. The crater around him almost looked like a cocoon encapsulating the giant of a man.
The giant of a man sported at least two meters across its shoulders, and if one had a long enough measurement instrument, at least five meters in height.
The ‘at least’ affixation was added because the naked, yet shapely muscular, being was missing quite a few body parts that would usually identify one as alive. In this case, the left leg was missing almost completely, while the right leg had nothing below the knee.
Above the waist, the right half of the stomach and lower chest cavity were missing, with both arms missing, as well. On top of that, the giant man was missing the upper left side of his head, including the left eye and ear, alongside a good portion of the skull.
All in all, as weird as it was to witness a giant of a man fall from the sky inside a giant flaming ball, the most peculiar fact was that no blood escaped from the giant version of a man.
In truth, the giant’s state looked strangely sterile, with the wounds not looking like actual wounds, and instead, right where the missing bodily parts should have shown the giant man’s insides, only white mist could be seen flowing away, as if the giant was not made of flesh but of water vapor.
However, ignoring the giant's physical body, there was no doubt that he was alive.
As expected of a Spiritless, Adam remained expressionless at the sight.
Nonetheless, being this close to the giant of a man, the connection he shared with the giant of a man reached new heights, and with those new heights, a miracle occurred within Adam’s mind.
A miracle that bridged Time and Space and Fate at the same time.
“It is said.” Adam, the Spiritless, voiced out with an emotionless tone as he strode closer to the right side of the giant of a man’s face. “That in the Beginning of the Beginning, God divided the Waters Above from the Waters Below, thus came to be Heaven Above and Abyss Below.” Reaching the right side of the giant’s face, Adam’s almost white eyes stared directly at a golden eye the size of one of his hands. “And in between Heaven and The Abyss, God created Earth, and upon The Earth, God spoke; Let us make Men in our image, after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish over the Sea, over the birds over the Skies and over the livestock, and all over the Earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the Earth.”
As Adam, the Spiritless, continued voicing his tale, a brilliant shine emerged within the depths of the golden eye of the giant of a man. “Nevertheless… Who could have thought that the day would come when The Man, who defined the Essence of what it meant to be a Man, eventually came to Rebel against his maker.”
Each word coming out of Adam’s mouth fueled the brilliant shine with more power, and the stronger the shine, the more spirituality returned to the golden eye.
“Thus emerged The First Rebel.”
“Thus came to be The First Betrayer.”
“Thus was born The First Godslayer.”
***
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Title - The First Rebel;
Rank - Divine;
Class - Enchantment - Insight;
Type - Passive;
Effect - Title elevates User Spirit Integrity Value to be equal to the Title’s Rank;
Cause - While Mortal, discover a Divinities designs for yourself or those you care about.
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Title - The First Betrayer;
Rank - Divine;
Class - Dominion - Insight;
Type - Passive;
Effect - Title elevates User Spirit Impression Value to be equal to the Title’s Rank;
Cause - While Mortal, deceive and utterly deny a Divinities designs for yourself or those you care about through one monumental Act of Betrayal.
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Title - The First Godslayer;
Rank - Divine;
Class - Evocation - Insight;
Type - Passive;
Effect - Title elevates User Spirit Expression Value to be equal to the Title’s Rank;
Cause - While Mortal, discover, deceive, and slay a Divinity;
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