[Your prayers have reached the divine]
[The divine accepts your sacrifice]
[You have sacrificed truly everything]
[You do not exist anymore]
[The divine cannot bless nonexistence]
[--- casts its gaze on you]
[Your kin takes pity on you]
[The — accepts your (everything)]
[Boon unveiled: Nonexistence]
[Shorn from the supreme apostate, the primordial divinity shares his nature and being with you]
[Boon granted: Memory Absorption, Memory Devouring]
[Boon granted: Memory Manipulation]
[Boon granted: Memento Mori]
He saw an infinite wasteland resting under an infinitely undulating blue sky. At its heart, a nebulous figure struggled against illusory chains. For each one it broke, two more formed. It fought against the crushing chains, dreaming of freedom. Days passed, or at least what He believed to be days. The shining light of dawn crept over the horizon, stirring the world awake and sweeping away the quiet traces of night. As the day stretched on, its brilliance softened, shadows lengthening until the sun sank and twilight claimed the sky. Night returned in its stillness. He tried to move, but alas to no avail. The illusory chains bound him as tightly as they did the nebulous figure.
Time passed, and civilization formed around the figure. A myriad of lifeforms built unfathomably vast architectural masterpieces, working side by side. Towering spires pierced the sky, made of alloys that sang beneath the starry sky. Pathways of light webbed across the landscape, pulsing with occasional transport vehicles, connecting the cities born from the minds of a coalition of species.
He watched as life flourished. He could feel their hopes, their ambitions. He could taste civilization in the air. But the chains remained. The nebulous figure still writhed in futility, doomed to remain bound forever. But then, the world began to fray. Something changed one day… An unfamiliar sound, a scream, came from one of the massive temples. The bystanders reacted quickly, opening the temple doors, only to reel back in horror. What awaited them there was not alive, it could not have been.
Soon, structures buckled under invisible strain. Monoliths cracked and humming songs turned to static. The skies, once alive with color, began to dim. At first it was gradual, an insidiously slow change barely noticeable, then all at once. The cities, once thriving with collaboration, fractured into insular bastions. He watched as leaders rose and fell, as sacrifice was no longer a gift but a transaction. And still the chains remained.
The trees, once bearing fruits of light and memory, withered. Their leaves shattered like brittle glass, bark blackening and splitting with wounds that would not heal. The land, once a living garden, turned to an expanse of ice and silence.
The inhabitants held on as long as they could — creatures of instinct, of thought, and of sacrifice — but in time, even they were driven out. The curse offered no mercy. The ancient utopia stood abandoned. Life fled elsewhere, far out into the cosmos above, away from the encroaching terror, seeking warmth in lands untouched. Behind them, the garden was left to die. What once thrived became a mausoleum of forgotten beauty. Only the figure remained untouched as the world withered around them. Soon, even the world began to dissolve.
Darkness swallowed the world. Then — A sound. Suddenly, the dark gave way to light. The sun rose from the east, streaked across the sky and disappeared in the west. In an instant, hundreds of years flew by. The cursed stillness retreated, burying the primordial civilization in ash and environment. Cold shivers ran down his back as he noticed the traces of the civilization vanishing into the ground. A moment later, the entire city was gone, and in their place, only the highest spire of the temple remained, clinging to its last bit of life.
Slowly, the chains binding him dissipated, decaying as time flowed indifferently forward. Soon, a dull sense of confusion was spreading through him. He could faintly sense something else… A parallel world from this illusory dreamscape. He felt the biting wind burrowing deep into his skin. He still faintly felt the agony of the illusory chains in the alternate world, but they did not restrict him from moving.
His vision was blurred at the edges as the parallel world's sensations grew in intensity. Colors bled into one another and incomprehensible shapes twisted and dissolved before they could form. A dull ache hung over his head… wherever it was.
He could see everything, but not from a single vantage point. Instead his perception of the world was skewed, divided into uncountably many overlapping and disjointed fragments. Remnants of the hall from above and below all layered together like an image on a fractured mirror. Using these scattered pieces, he painstakingly constructed an image of himself. He was not human. He was… mist. Suspended in the heart of the grand hall, a nebulous cloud drifted and pulsed, held together by some unseen force. From it, extended two illusory strings, one stretched far up through the cathedral's ceiling, whilst the other extended beyond the door.
The mist stirred as he tried to chase a flicker of memory that pulled at him. The vividly heavy chains. A figure, bound for eternity. He had seen it. Felt it. No, he had been there. Somewhere beneath the surface of that dreamscape, the figure lay sealed. He focused, such as he could in this form, chasing the sensation backward through the incoherent flickering fog.
He saw the figure wreathed in chains. Who was it? Was it him? The thought came like a shard of ice to the core of his being. The mist recoiled, pulsing violently for a moment. He reached deeper, grasping at the memory with formless fingers. And then—
Only pain awaited. A sharp spike lanced through his consciousness like lightning splitting a storm. The grand hall twisted around him. The glowing symbols along the pillars flared briefly as if reacting to his agony.
The mist quivered, rippling outward in chaotic waves. His mind — or what passed for it — recoiled. The image collapsed. The figure, the chains, the civilization, all dissolved like ash in water.
He was left with nothing but the ache. A dull, burning weight where memory should have been. He drifted downward, low to the floor, the mist contracting inward as if to brace itself. He could not remember who he was. He could not remember what he had been.
He sighed, recalling the only other voice he remembered, the mysterious female who had given him the boons. Fragments of her words echoed through him now, like distant chimes caught in wind. "Your prayers have reached the divine."
Had he prayed? For what? "The divine accepts your sacrifice.""You have sacrificed everything."
His mist coiled tightly, realizing the weight of those words. The voice wasn't joking it seemed when it said 'Everything'. That's what she had said. He really did not exist… but at the same time he was still alive? Why must everything be so complicated?
Lastly, why did the voice classify 'nonexistence' as a boon? By all measurable metrics, not existing, should be as far away from a boon as possible. I mean... wouldn't everything want to exist?
For the following minute or so, he tried his best to decipher the cryptic dialogue, but to no avail. Finally, he sighed, and inhaled a breath of the stale air… or at least tried to. Could mist breathe? He wasn't sure. Observing the vast chamber surrounding him, a faint sense of recognition radiated through him. It was similar to what he had seen in the dreamscape, although there were enough differences for him to exclude the possibility of them from the same time period.
Above him, an undulating sea of unfathomable darkness churned close to the ceiling, occasionally, thick drops of that darkness broke free, falling to the ground with a soundless impact. Where the drops landed, the stone blackened and then pulsed faintly with light, seemingly evaporating the dark liquid. The walls were periodically lined with dim runes, glowing faintly in the ubiquitous light illuminating the lower regions of the hall.
He dodged instinctively to the side as a jet-black drop hit the air he had occupied only a few seconds ago. The darkness was not necessarily harmful, however he was not going to risk finding out… Especially when the floor really seemed to dislike it.
Drifting aimlessly, the mist that was him hovered near one of the cathedral walls. The surface of the wall was smoother than it appeared, almost fluid to the touch. He pressed closer, his vaporous form brushing against it. Weird, he thought. Why was it smooth when clear inscriptions of runes lined its surface?
Then just as he finished tracing the entire right side of the wall, a faint sound resonated in his ears. At first it was soft, a light sequence of metal against stone. Footsteps?
His form tensed, his instinct overriding confusion. He turned — or rather, rotated — toward the massive set of sealed doors at the far end of the cathedral. Dust fell from above as the doorframe began to quake. An agonizingly low mechanical groan followed. With a terrifying slowness, the doors began to open. Something was coming.