In the Trial of Longing, there was no sound, no light, no life. Even feeling itself was obscure, indistinct within the dark abyss.
Seven days… seven days, that was all Oren had. All he had left. Yet, somehow, the sense of time no longer held meaning.
Direction offered nothing, and even the slight movement felt impossible, as if the very idea of a body had lost its anchor.
But Oren did not need eyes to know there was nothing else… no one else.
Only a reflectionless void that held no hope, desire, or feeling.
A place where a single thought was as though a sputtering flame, battling the currents of a boundless ocean.
His vision blurred, as though he were not seeing with his eyes, but with a sense he had never used before. He did not know how, or why. He did not even need to know.
Because Oren could not comprehend it.
He was formless, relentless, and disturbing. Yet he remained chained by his own wants.
'What is happening? …Where am I? Who am—'
The void did not answer. It did not even acknowledge the question.
But Oren could not ignore it, like it had him.
He was enamoured by it, entranced by it.
The place, whatever it was, was like the end, peaceful and yet horrifying…
In front of such a thing, his consciousness was scarce, like an ant about to be trampled beneath the feet of towering humans.
A strange warmth flickered within him at the thought.
'Am I really that dull… for my own trial to be nothing but a void?'
He laughed quietly in his mind.
Yet the fear Oren felt was as peculiar as the void itself.
It felt unnatural… fascinating.
'This is wrong!'
He thought this, but if he had a face, a whimsical smile would be plastered to it. He felt different, almost transformed, like he had undergone some change.
Even his senses no longer made sense here, no smell, taste, sound or touch, only his thoughts remained.
With sight alone intact, he felt compelled to look around, because why would he be given sight and nothing else?
He could not take such a sacred thing for granted.
He needed it to leave the trial, but he also needed a body. A figure to contain what he was, like a balloon holding in air. He felt an innate feeling that he would drift apart without a mental anchor.
He suddenly moved, startled thoughts blooming around his entranced mind. Again and again, refusing to fall apart…
And slowly, before they could scatter and fray, his thoughts began to gather. Not as limbs, not truly, but as something shaped.
A form imposed that should have only worked in imagination, but in this place he was no different from a flowing pond of thoughts and ideas strung together.
This was Oren's purest imagination, enough to force his mind into shape.
An outline to hold his vast consciousness together… a vessel. His feet and legs came first, then his torso and arms, finally his face.
Then a sudden ease cleansed his mind. Thinking of a body felt delusional, but the relief was certainly real.
'Heh… how wonderful,' Oren pondered.
So that's what they meant by "pull yourself together."
Oren frowned. Moving through this place felt strange, as if caught in the currents of a vast ocean, unable to swim despite knowing how.
He finally broke free from the sluggish currents and stepped forward, intrigue lingering in his mind, only to find nothing waiting for him.
'Will my trial be peace… is that what I longed for? Or will it be something else?'
It could be anything. Anything he had ever desired across his lifetime as an Antherion. Centuries of experience, far beyond that of a mortal who died within a hundred years.
Yet as the thought expanded, something else followed. A pull that was faint at first, but slowly became irresistible as Oren walked the path of enlightenment, as he walked for what should have been his only desire.
But that assumption felt incomplete.
His mind brushed against the idea, and for a moment everything else seemed distant, dull, and insignificant in comparison.
Oren wanted many things before. Countless things. He had once longed, mourned, he had yearned, but even then they were controlled within the mind of an Antherion.
The only one that escaped such barriers was his desire for peace. For rest… an eternal bliss.
The pull Oren felt was just like that urge, dominant and restless like the waves of an indomitable storm.
But also different, abstract in a way which carried his steps, yet also deeply troubled him, because Oren did not know what it was.
Despite the circumstances of his current situation, Oren was undoubtedly more mature, yet he could not deny his feelings.
'This desire…!?' His thoughts stirred.
'I really can be anything, can't it.'
But even as Oren thought that, his attention had already narrowed. A single word almost formed in his thoughts. It slipped away for a moment, then returned, quietly intriguing him.
'Nirvana.'
What would have been his nebulous golden eyes gleamed faintly.
'Does it exist? A place said to be as welcoming and holy as the heavens themselves?'
Oren stepped forward again.
…Nirvana.
The word lingered in his mind.
'It does. It has to… it exists here.'
'I will find it!'
The thought struck deeper, taking hold as everything else began to fade.
'I want it—'
'No…! I need it!'
The desire surged, overwhelming, leaving no room for fascination.
'I want it so badly.'
The thoughts echoed in Oren's mind as he moved through the black expanse like a ghost.
Again and again, he moved relentlessly.
But it was not the surge of curiosity that carried Oren forward.
No, what pulled Oren forward was his desire.
His nirvana.
But with that deep, astounding desire, doubt was birthed. And a sudden wistfulness consumed his curiosity.
He was alone here, would he always be so small. So tiny in comparison to the world?
'I am alone now… I am insignificant. My efforts would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Will I really be capable of reaching nirvana alone?
Will I actually be able to become enlightened?'
Oren froze, then twisted his formless body to where Oren had been standing a moment before. Oren had sworn Oren had felt something there.
Maybe it was the feeling of absence, swallowing whatever trace of Oren there was. The uncomfortable feeling of something watching lingered.
To distract himself, he began counting his steps. It was the best way to keep clarity. That way, if a hallucination were to bombard Oren's mind, he would not be lost in them.
One step. Four steps. Eight steps. Twelve steps.Twenty-two steps.
'Ahh, such a place worthy to behold nirvana…'
Oren stopped. Trying to bury the ominous feeling, Oren asked as though someone were there to answer.
'But am I worthy?'
Though nothing had changed, Oren felt something Oren had never felt before. Indescribably alone.
So alone, Oren was no one.
Oren might as well have been a speck of light in an endless field of nothingness, unworthy of blazing past the darkness that consumed him.
Yet Oren had felt alone many times… even before the Revos Verum.
Oren sighed.
'I am a human. How can I possibly do anything significant? How can I reach nirvana? How can I do something as grand as to pass the trial and flourish in the world?'
The void did not answer, so instead, Oren asked himself. But even Oren could not answer in that darkness.
Oren shook his head. Something was wrong. These thoughts were simply incorrect. Why were they so different? They were attached.
They were too attached.
'What happened to becoming… unattached?'
Oren had said to Sable that Oren had overcome his desires, but the doubt was slowly creeping in, corrupting every thought, making Oren's movements slowly turn sluggish and shallow.
A strange clarity returned to Oren, though the desire to keep moving still tugged at his mind, but it did not linger.
Instead, it was like guidance, an omen of destiny. Oren knew what Oren wanted… was his desire truly worthy of becoming his trial?
Oren had always wanted pea—
Nirvana.
Oren shook his head and continued forward. Oren needed to reach the end of the Trial of Longing. If every step carried Oren deeper into a place designed for Oren, then all Oren had to do was endure.
'But haven't we endured too much already?'
After several minutes of silence, Oren continued walking, waiting for the world to adapt to Oren. To reveal what Oren was connected to.
That was only an assumption, though. At the moment, Oren felt somber, but at any moment it could change.
Before Oren realised it, Oren had reached forty-two. Then seventy-two steps.
'Or is it seventy-five?'
…'Seventy,' maybe.
With a sudden sorrow filling Oren's thoughts, a question brewed in the core of Oren's mind. As a formless entity, Oren continued walking forward.
'—'
Before the thought could form, Oren dismissed it, as Oren always did, but this time the unspoken thought clung to Oren like something alive, something that had already decided it would never let go.
Oren looked up, then to the right. After that moment, Oren walked with awareness.
But when Oren did that, Oren noticed something Oren had failed to see before. Oren could see nothing, so this was a matter of understanding. There was no light, no distance. Oren had no sense of direction.
Oren held no feeling.
For all Oren knew, Oren could have been dead already and this was the afterlife. Oren could have failed the trial.
The thought sank into Oren. No matter how hard Oren tried… the veil of discomfort would not loosen. It was as though Oren had forgotten how to feel anything else.
'I am going to fail. I cannot win this. This is so…'
Oren went to take a breath, but failed, making Oren's emotions plummet further.
'...Unfair…' The concept resisted being thought. But it was all to true, it was pitiful, he was pitiful... pathetic.
His gaze remained still.
'I will die here. I will die without knowing how long I endured this serene hell, how close I got to seeing the beautiful sun rise.'
It could have only just been an hour, or it could have been his last hour, but for some reason no matter how Oren thought of it, Oren did not think of how Oren could prolong his life. Such a thought was unwarranted, imposing and impossible.
Oren was hopeless. Oren's thoughts began to blur, shedding like tears, tears significant enough to dismantle Oren's form.
'I am so sad… so pitiful. If I do not change quickly, the trial will condemn me. Nirvana will slip further away. Everyone will turn from me. And I will not make it back before the end of the Sunwane… no, I must. If I do not… I will die here.'
With the gloomy thoughts, Oren moved again. But what moved him was not sadness. It was desire, a longing that chained him with regret, a yearning that felt like his own, and yet Oren wondered whether it truly belonged to him.
As he descended into the depths of despair, the thing that brought flame that gnawed on Oren's desire remained indifferent. The void was empty.
But something… in the passing of an instant had changed.
Oren turned, again and again, until the flame was blown out, and hope filled his mind with a sudden, piercing vitality.
For in the distance something was growing, just like Oren's own desire, a boundless light, not as fire but as something far more unsettling.
He did not know what it was, but it was not a flame that burned. It was bending the void whilst illuminating it, as if even nothingness hesitated to exist in its presence.
And within that impossible radiance, Oren felt it.
As though his own desire had been answered by something that should not have been there at all.