Mana Star System: Soul Rebirth

The inhabitants of the temple didn"t seem to know what was going on. There was fear, screaming and running. Yet no matter where they ran, the black pus seemed to be able to sense their intents and would cover any and every exit. They were trapped.

They tried hacking at it, stomping it, they tried picking it up with their handmade baskets. Nothing worked.

The pus then would crumple up into b.a.l.l.s and the all familiar eye would open up. Then another. The room was slowly beginning to fill up with the blackness, like an ocean swelling up right before their eyes. Though this ocean would occasionally break off into walking and flying messes of eyeb.a.l.l.s and grotesque human parts.

They were maddening to look at. They were too wet, too bubbly, too disgusting.

The thousands of voices created a chorus of their own in hundreds of different tones that shook the minds of all of those present, even that of Donis, who was experiencing this from the eyes of a dead man. It was odd. Donis felt at peace inside of the deceased Tekkuns body.

Every tear in the room conjoined and formed a large super imposed gash in s.p.a.ce right before them.

First there were eyes, hundreds, thousands of them, all popping in and out of existence. Then there were mouths. Laughing, crying, shouting, whispering, babbling, smiling, frowning, biting, chewing. They began twisting inwards, rotating and breaking. The blackness forming a body inside the rip.

It was twisting in on itself, ripping and tearing itself apart, creating and destroying the infinite faces it made within moments. It was Variis once more.

The thousand person chorus all stopped at the same time. The eyes within the void shot open and a voice as powerful as a mountain came from within.

"I. Wake." it spoke in broken tones, the harsh voices hissed.

"Hahaha! I did it, the power within Tekkun is mine!" laughed the Father manically.

"You." it spoke once more.

Tekkuns soul that was hovering in front of all of them suddenly turned to the void. Its previously closed eyes were now glowing. The ethereal presence the soul gave off now was no more.

A black dot flew from the void that housed Variis, boring itself deeply within the soul of Tekkun. A black cape exploded from within Tekkuns soul, shrouding it in an eternal black, flickering the natural lighting of the room, as if it were trying to absorb even the light surrounding it.

"A gift. Receive it. Fight." were the words the hissed out from the void.

The Father couldn"t believe what it was seeing. The powerful being that resided within the soul of Tekkun didn"t obey the Words of Power that he had found decades ago.

"How is this possible? These words are meant to entrap G.o.ds!" screamed the Father.

A hush befell the temple.

Fathers eyes shot open as a freezing chill corrupted the heat inside of his body.

"Entrap G.o.ds? Those are but words of a child. You..." the thousand voice chorus began speaking more clearly.

"You humans are trying to imitate our language. It is akin to an animal mocking you, pitiful."

The Father couldn"t believe what he was hearing. Weren"t these words supposed to rip Caerebar from the 4th circle of heaven? Wasn"t he supposed to be able to kill Caerebar? What is this being before him?

"Fall." a single voice spoke from within the void.

The Father crumbled into ashes, not even able to retort, there was no plea for mercy.

"Rebirth." a single voice spoke towards the body of Tekkun and his soul, which now had a black dot in the middle.

The two immediately fused, flying towards each other like high powered magnets. A bright light emanated from the fusion, and a new power was born. Tekkun had come back, and Donis had front row seats for the entire ride.

As Tekkun opened his eyes, he was back to the original position where he was standing. This time though, the people around him had also all disintegrated. The Father was no more.

With clear eyes, Tekkun looked around and saw the void before him. An eternal expanse that played with his eyes. Yet it hurt to look at, he knew that the saviour was before him in a place further than comprehension.

"This is a G.o.d," he thought to himself warmly.

"Hahaha, where is that rage from earlier?" spoke the void.

"The Father is dead, and so is my hatred," softly spoke Tekkun.

"No, humans are still alive, and so is their "G.o.d". With my mark, you are my champion. You shall rip the false G.o.d Caerebar from whence he stand."

"How does one kill a G.o.d?" asked Tekkun.

"With my mark, you shall gain the power to kill your false G.o.ds. These beings aren"t real G.o.ds, they"re just like you, champions of other G.o.ds like me, Variis. You will unlock more of the mark I have give you, with the power to eventually come and meet me. Do not disappoint me, champion."

"There are other G.o.ds?" simply asked Tekkun.

"We are the 11. You will be the 12th. Do not make me wait."

"It feeds beyond my reach, and you do not have time." the void spoke before closing with the sound of deep metal grinding.

Tekkun was left there standing, among a pile of ashes and a silent room. The black pus was gone, but the memories of his death and his rebirth remained. Donis was still within, in shock.

He was forcefully ripped out of Tekkuns mind and brought back once again into the drowning void.

He knew the feeling of being watched. He knew the feeling of the suffocating blackness that threatened to break his mind. He was back in the Void.

"h.e.l.lo again, vermin." Variis spoke.

"Hey, I don"t suppose you are feeling any more friendly with me," nervously laughed Donis.

"It seems you"ve come back here again. Hmm."

"I didn"t think I"d come back here so soon either!" spoke Donis to the void.

"I see you"ve been snooping around the Temple where Tekkun began his journey. Leave immediately."

"Huh, why?" he asked.

"Your filthy system is infectuous. If it somehow breaks through the seal I left, it may learn how to get here."

"Aaand why is that bad? I don"t know if you"re actually the good guy, or is my system actually the good one. You"re a f.u.c.king eternal void that somehow disintegrates humans on a whim," spat out Donis.

"You pitiful mortal, it seems you"ve yet to learn anything since our last meeting. I"ll show you a fraction of what the system has done."

A memory forced itself into Donis"s mind.

A point in s.p.a.ce, with a sun and some planets came into view. Donis was watching a solar system from some unknown viewing point. There were 14 planets that were smaller than grains of sand in front of the t.i.tanic orange sun that seemed to warm and dwarf absolutely everything in sight.

Donis couldn"t particularly see, but he could feel that there was plenty of life on some of these planets. Primitive, but it was still life. A sense of wonder filled his heart, and he soon forgot where he really was.

A white crack in s.p.a.ce slowly tore itself open in front of the sun. Almost imperceptible, but thankfully due to the nature of the memory, Donis could see it clearly. It was like watching a fungus slowly take over a portion of s.p.a.ce.

There were tendrils seeping out of the crack, feeling their way towards the sun. It felt disgusting, and unnatural. Something of this size shouldn"t exist, nor should it be moving. It defied any and all logic that Donis held dear, yet there it was, doing everything that defied sense.

Slowly the tendrils wrapped around the sun, snuffing out the light and heat it provided. It didn"t stop there, the tendrils then pushed out further and touched upon the planets. Each tendril enveloping the entire planet in mere moments, or maybe it was years. It was hard to tell at this scale, and especially for Donis, who was but a mere spectator in this memory.

As the planets crumbled, the colour of the tendrils changed. They were once a bright white, and now they were a light blue, slowly changing the hue of the sun itself.

As more time pa.s.sed, the tendrils bore deep within the sun itself, engulfing the entire thing and making it its own. There were no more planets around it, there was no more life, it was just that, the skewered sun.

After what felt like seconds, or thousands of years, Donis could see the sun changing colour rapidly, until it became a bright blue ball. After the tendrils disappeared, the radiance was replaced with a blinding blue sheen and the warmth with that familiar sense of mana.

He was witnessing the birth of the Mana Star that the entire universe revered.

With that, he was ripped back out of the memory and placed back into the void.

"Now you have seen the systems birth, and it"s ability to devour worlds."

"I don"t understand the problem here, they were planets sure, but the system then has provided so much to the universe!" tried to argue Donis.

"Pitiful. You"ve yet to prove yourself worthy of my knowledge."

Donis was about to retort once again about how no one is giving him anything, the void spoke.

"Begone, Donis."

"I"ll be waiting."