"From this moment. Your body belongs to me!"
"The one most favored by Axiom!"
"Anon Amos!"
Besides the ritual circle in the ground and the five corpses. There wasn't many other things. Anon could hardly see his current surroundings. His eyes were still red and partially obstructed from the blood.
The body used as the sacrifice and target for the avatar. It had been a devout believer of 'that' god! In other words... Anon was a member of an extinct sect.
Well. His body was at least.
His soul on the other hand...
Anon had been through the ropes countless times in the past. He was proficient at manipulating his consciousness. His existence was so broken from the countless years he had experienced.
The human brain simply couldn't store all his memories.
Everything felt unreal. It felt like a long dream.
Despite not having a body and rejecting such an opportunity deep within. He started to feel a glimmer of excitement. He had a feeling. It was almost something innate.
It was as if he was blessed by the world.
Anon remembered when he designed his seals in the past. Trying to construct a soul and slowly bleed the supernatural into reality.
But in the past. The world was too brittle. It broke too easily. But this 'opportunity' that had been forced on him. He could feel it in the very rules of reality itself.
"This world seems stable..."
Anon smirked. If someone was observing him right now. They would be horrified as his facial muscles twitched. He had gotten used to having an independent consciousness. His precise control over his body now was only possible due to experience.
As his emotions started to seemingly revive themselves. He lost control over his body. One second. Perfect control. The next. He had the finesse of a toddler.
"The world is stable. But I lack consistency."
"The first thing I must learn is balance!"
Anon performed a mental burst, allowing his emotions to run wild. He felt an increasingly large distance of familiarity form between his mind and body.
"Oh? What treats have you left me?"
Anon tried to touch upon his seal. He looked into his sea of consciousness and was surprised at what he found.
There was a red bead floating in the center of it. A red ocean surrounding it.
"A curse?"
"I see..."
Anon realized that there was an imprint hidden in his sea of consciousness. The evil thing about this imprint was that he put it there himself! Well... the original owner of the body.
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It was a visualization technique that all those of his sect practiced.
Anon had once tracked the origin of his consciousness across millions of years. It was simply too easy to manipulate this rudimentary technique that these waste practiced.
The red bead started to spin and unravel as Anon observed.
"They are tracking me? I see. It is because I was a part of 'that' sect."
"They won't stop until it is completely wiped out."
Anon had to make a choice. Destroy this tracker or leave it be?
Anon first decided to experiment. He needed to understand the mechanics of his revival clearly. Knowing ones self is essential for planning the future.
"What exactly is going back in time upon my death?"
"Is it the soul? If so. What happens if that is destroyed?"
Anon started to laugh.
"Only someone suicidal would test this..."
Anon used his experience of counting for centillions of years to conjure a mental object in his sea of consciousness. This was just a visualization. But the amount of information hidden in it was so large and unfathomable. That his brain exploded.
His soul shattered.
His consciousness froze.
But then he found himself in the center of the ritual. He was still surrounded by five corpses.
"Interesting..."
Anon wasn't simply interested in soul immortality. He found that his sea of consciousness had been reset!
"Not only does my body return to a fixed point in time."
"But my consciousness does as well..."
"Where are my memories stored? If the brain is fixed and even the soul is reset. How am I able to remember?"
Anon left the bead in his sea of consciousness alone. He was rather interested in meeting the 'enemy' of his sect.
"Since you have given me your body. I shall avenge your grievances..."
Anon looked around at the corpses and felt it a bit funny.
"Haven't we done this enough times?"
"Making my soul the processor for the system."
"A whole new world to explore!"
Anon then looked for the exit. He was in a cave and it didn't take long to find it. But it opened up into a massive underground chamber. The walls were covered in glowing stones.
Anon ignored this and continued to explore.
The chamber was a few kilometers wide. There were tunnels extending in every direction. There were so many paths to take that any normal person without a map would get lost and die a slow death.
Anon walked until his already worn shoes fell apart. He continued as his feet became bloody. Over time. He became dizzy and felt thirsty. There was no way to figure out the passage of time in this cavern.
He started to feel a bit fatigued.
"100 hours..."
"Dead end."
A trail of bloody footprints led to his current position.
Despite there not being a day or night cycle underground. Anon just counted the entire time. A normal human might struggle to multi-task.
But Anon was capable of insane feats of calculation. He created a seperate thread of consciousness that ran in the background. He didn't stop there.
He had created a mini-map in his mind. He would never forget a path he had already taken. This was just simple visualization. His consciousness was exceedingly powerful.
But the human body he was in limited him.
If he went too far. He would burn the potential of it and find himself dead. But he liked this aspect of things. He hated seals more then anything else. If those gods hadn't sealed him, he would have become a living legend and changed that world.
The feeling of controlling his life and death was something he enjoyed. What was there to fear? If someone trapped him. He could just return back to the rituals completion.
But he also felt the frustration of being trapped.
He could feel his heart palpitating...
"115 hours..."
"Dead end."
These tunnels weren't simply a maze. It was too massive in scale and he was trapped. Anon spent hundreds of attempts memorizing everything.
If those mortals could get so deep. Then he could find the way out.
He had infinite time after all.
But unfortunately. Despite searching endlessly.
He never found a way out.
"Thousands of paths... each leading nowhere."
Anon looked at his mental map and noticed something a little weird.
"I've seen this before..."
Anon's head exploded.
He then found himself in the ritual cave.
"Perhaps the key has been in plain sight this entire time."
The mental map of the paths he created looked quite similar to a rune. One of the runes he had seen as part of the ritual circle. It was as if they weren't tunnels at all. But...
Carvings...
A layered three dimensional design.
"This ritual is more complicated then I imagined..."