Carter Omni hadn’t had a dream since he was a young man. So the experience of visions that plagued him during his rest felt traumatic and foreign.
He slept within a spacial pocket filled with black holes used to strip his Ancient body of impurities. The powerful spacial tools as negligible for the man to stay surrounded by as carcasses eaten by insects. As to the Ancient man, the black holes affected him no more than lying within the weight of a bed toppling with excessive pillows.
He woke with a lurch, jerking upright in an instant. Unfathomable gravitational forces drifted by his body, completely ignored by the Ancient as he pulled the vision he’d dreamt to the forefront of his mind.
The dream had been vivid, not a sporadic flickering of random scenes as many experienced when dreaming, but instead a cinematography’s level of depiction.
A young man could be seen atop a palace’s balcony, wearing a hooded cloak. The design and style of the clothing was reminiscent of Carter’s own hood, yet entirely of its own majesty. The red cloak he wore was seen as iconic across the realms, whereas the hood the young man Carter approached from behind was black, demanding recognition by simply existing.
Darker than the void between all spaces, drinking in light and mana as the material it was made of seemed to breathe in the laws of reality all around itself. Carter's single glance told him that the cloak was able to learn and distort the confines all living beings were controlled by. Even Carter couldn’t help but marvel at the magnificent creation of living mana.
Hmmm…
The power of the vision Carter watched emanated with power of its own. Carter felt as if merely looking at the young man in his presence required whomever did so to use their own internal energies to bare witness to his might. Strength and determination made physical as it rippled through the air around the young man. Then everything changed when the young man glanced in his direction an spoke.
“It is time…”
The simple phrase made Carter gasp in reality. As he froze, he took in the eyes of the young man that looked toward him. Carter’s eyes held literal galaxies, conquered with his own abilities. Existences ingested to serve him eternally. While the young man’s slight glance stripped Carter of the will to live and continue on.
Within those eyes, Carter saw the systems that held up both creation and destruction. The power of all reality held entirely underneath the will of the young man, not sampled, or tasted as many immortals, ancients or gods could claim, but controlled entirely.
This made the words spoken move fate aside, change destinies, and even touch all realms above and below the heavens themselves. Carter didn’t know what it was time for, but he knew that he had no choice to accept and believe it to be true.
The young man looked away and Carter’s dream shifted to a new scene. Carter could intuit that he was still witnessing the same young man, only now he was a child, waving a giant elaborate flag with a sun stitched intricately within the fabric. The image of the sun so realistic that he felt he watched Origin moving across the sky.
The first sun captured as if cameras had recorded the creation of all existence, starting with the original sun’s gleaming brilliance as it shifted through the realms spreading life and light to all; Carter’s attention was snatched away as the boy glanced back at him again, repeating himself.
“It is time…”
Carter’s vision shifted again, as he struggled to see what the young man looked like, while his eyes demanded Carter’s entire attention.
In the next instance, Carter was being pulled behind the young man as he soared through space. Planets collided all around them as they flew past dead and forgotten worlds that were left to roam aimlessly through space. The homes of trillions of civilizations left behind to clutter distant gaps of space unreachable by living beings, all living beings, except this young man.
He broke through the cemetery of planets forming a literal astroid belt and flew toward the largest planet to ever exist, or that would ever exist. Endless came into view, and Carter watched as the young man summoned a bolt of creation, aiming it at the home to the first gods and mortals. The place where light and darkness were born. Carter’s own birthplace, and glanced back toward Carter as he threw the bolt and spoke once more.
“It is time…”
Carter’s eyes opened and he felt he had just witnessed something of great significance. He couldn’t understand the meaning behind it all, but knew that his dream wasn’t something to be ignored or forgotten.
Is this a warning, or a sign of greatness to come I wonder…?
The spacial pocket he’d slept in peeled open slowly and Carter emerged, stepping back into the realm of Maelstrom and sighed. His exhalation created storms that reached the corners of the realm and beyond, spreading turbulence through the limited air held in the vacuum of space, making the realm layer as a whole tremble. Unnoticeable to the lives within the entire layer without extraordinary sensory abilities and power.
His feet settled down on the physical plane. A palatial room around him holding treasures unseen by mortal eyes and even gods filling the space. Relics unused and forgotten by the Ancients who lived both outside of time and the limitations of even Cultivation and the System that was Uni-Vare, lay scattered throughout the area like a god had created a domain for their hoarding habits, only to have an interior decorator attempt to make the room look distinguished and refined.
Carter ignored the thousands of ignored projects and stepped through his bedroom. Only one thing on his mind as he made his way toward the exit.
Hmmm, I must consult with you once more, Almarine. Hopefully, you are ready for what I must share.
…
Promethia floated above a landscape without limit, taking in the sight that was her domain. The lands beneath her unrivaled in the fusion of vegetation, mana, and technology. She took in marvels within an environment that was both impossible in its allure and artistic development, in addition to being unrivaled in literally every aspect from the grass that tended to itself below, to the sky that was made from an eternal sunset, clashing with a sunrise to paint pictures across the skies above.
Buildings were constructed from living stone. Bridges made from vines that ran with electrical current, which allowed the structures to move and develop themselves. Even oceans were seen as simple ponds here, the water itself alive, forming structures like fountains that were larger than entire galaxies, housed countless aquatic species of primordial life, and even bursted with enough essential energy to birth titans and living forces of nature.
Promethia turned her head toward an emanation of building power that she hadn’t felt in countless eons. Many who’d lived in Endless knew that for power to be felt through the endless void of space and time, it had to be a child of Endless being born, awakening their bloodlines, or dying.
Yet for the first time Promethia felt a distinction of power and life that was not able to fit within the confines of any of the normal sequences normally felt by life on the home of creation. She felt that her home had just been looked at by a power with the might to end all. A power so tremendous that the gods had run from the mere glance of this entity looking in her direction, revoking the protections their supreme leader was owed, and allowing her to be seen.
The secrets held in Endless were so valuable to the balance of all of existence that the barrier of the heavens itself had to be penetrated for any to even glimpse the space around her home, let alone the vastness that was Endless itself. The growing planet created from the death of existences throughout all time and space was the first secret of Origin, and was no simple matter to be shared casually.
So for something like what she’d just experienced to occur, the embodiments of creation and destruction would have had to allow whatever entity had peeked through the veil to have done so in fact, would have had to work for the instance to happen, forcibly twisting reality by willing the being to set their gaze upon the first world that was the home to all of time and space.
The woman looked above the plane around her. Above and beyond the fusion of magic, science and even the ethereal, and looked back at where the emanation had come from and spoke a single command to reality itself. Her eyes filling with the power of the void as she spoke simply, demanding that existence hear her call.
“Cease.”
…
Arson thought that he saw a place where all could be learned. A place where anything was possible and more. A place beyond the limits of the heavens. Only for his eyes to be forced closed and the vision lost. It didn’t matter how hard he tried to reimagine the place of grand existence, the sight refused to fill the darkness that was the space below his core. His soul realm oddly empty without the unrivaled sight that he now felt must have been a figment of his imagination.
“What were you just doing, child?”
Arson turned his head and saw Almarine. The Ancient's return to his soul space brought along with her the memories of all their previous interactions. Arson smiled at the woman before he answered.
“I was trying to imagine a place where all could live in peace, and for a moment I thought I saw a real place, but when I blinked it seemed to disappear,” responded Arson. Almarine slowly nodding at what she felt to be an impossibility. She’d sensed a connection to a place she hadn’t been since she was a child, and dared not return to since being cast out. A banishment that she’d wished she could overcome even eons later.
“I see,” said the Ancient, wishing that Arson could do whatever he’d just done again, hoping with the entirety of her soul that what she’d just felt would return for even a fraction of an instance.
“I think it may be time for you to leave this place, my boy. You seem to be losing yourself within the immeasurable potential that is held within your soul realm,” said Almarine. Arson looked toward his core and then back toward the woman he’d wanted to be his mother, yet knew she struggled with the fear of raising him, even if she’d never admit it to anyone. Anyone beside Arson, who’d never remember the truths told to him within the realm they currently floated adrift within.
“Is that such a bad thing?” he asked honestly wanting to know Almarine’s answer.
“Yes, my boy. I… I mean to say your friends need you. They are doing well without you, but I can tell that they are saddened by not having you to enjoy their successes alongside them, nor will they be able to reach the heights they would if you remain a permanent pillar in their lives, child,” responded Arson. The young man nodded, looking back at his core.
“Maybe you're right, but you could be wrong. We may never know, but it doesn’t matter anyway, I’ve tried to leave, I don’t think I can. Something seems to be keeping me here, not that I mind, it is warm here, and I’m not plagued by my fears, or thoughts I can’t control.”
“Living without fear isn’t as beautiful a thing as it may seem, child. Fear keeps us alive and in the moments we are meant to survive and grow through, trials and tribulations alike.”
“I suppose I can understand that,” said Arson with a sigh. The boy didn’t know that it was he who stopped his awakening, but was about to experience the forceful withdrawal of his conscious mind from his soul realm, whether he liked it or not.
“Are you sure I can’t stay longer?”
“I’m sure, child, so please don’t fight what is to come. It will make things easier on you and your development if you don’t.”
“My development, what is that supposed to mean?”
Almarine looked toward Arson’s core. The brilliant sun surrounded by numerous electrified frozen spheres of power, all surging with various manas, and even a new unknown energy surging into his center as a ritual was performed outside his soul realm.
“Don’t worry about it child, just know that I love you, and no matter what happens in the future, I will remain by your side. Even if we are forced to battle for us to come to terms, you will always have my support,” said Almarine. A flicker of power rippling through his soul realm as the woman spoke to him. A tribulation core of untold power devouring the energy being sent into his soul realm, remained unseen as it beat like a second heart in his chest.
Arson squinted momentarily as he felt the odd sensation. The Tribulation core beating out of rhythm with his heart for the briefest moment, before the core synced once more with an explosive pulse of energy. His entire soul realm growing immensely, Almarine’s Ancient power and uncanny sensory abilities not even able to pick up on the sudden expansion that took place as the Tribulation core neared completion; the ritual impacting Arson’s internal systems with a perfection that resulted in a silent impact on his Cultivation.
“So what's next, momma Almarine?”
“What would you like to be next, my boy?”
“I don’t know... I’d really like to get to build a powerful skill or develop a new ability, but I don’t really know where to start or what the best move for myself is,” admitted Arson to both himself and Almarine. The orphan mother smiled and gave a solitary nod before she responded.
“What is wrong with doing both? You are young and have time,” said Almarine. Arson then looked toward the void beneath his core and shook his head. An instinct from within his core telling him that though Almarine may know many things, and be correct in her assumptions normally, this time she was not.
“No, I don’t,” responded Arson.
“What do you mean? What would make you say such a thing?” asked Almarine. Arson shrugged, looking back toward the woman with a massive smile.
“I don’t know, I just feel it,” Arson said with a chuckle. Almarine wanted to ask Arson another question, feeling something was amiss with the confidence the young man displayed in that moment. Then his star filled eyes began to shift and fill with a sight she hadn’t seen in eons. A sight that froze her completely, making her entire soul shutter in astonishment and fear.
A world of incalculable power was held within the gateways to his soul. A place that gods dare not dishonor. A place that could bring the end to all as it started existence anew.
Arson spoke once more, and Almarine was forcibly ejected from his soul in an instant even as the words echoed through her entire being. Words, she would never forget.
“It is time…”