My hearing was assaulted by the high-pitched, weak-sounding whistles and chirps of an eagle flying high above in the sky, as if it were singing an anthem promising freedom.
Beneath was the sound of crunching snow, muffling the sound of my hurried footsteps as I ran through the black trees of the forest, decorated with a myriad of uncanny screaming faces.
"Stop, damned wretch!" A strong commanding voice rang out through the forest from behind me.
I didn't have to look back to know whose voice it was. It was one of the two guards accompanying Amanda in an attempt to catch me, putting me back in shackles.
As if.
I quickened my pace, moving past the black trees, the uncanny screaming faces becoming like a blur at the edge of my vision with each passing second. My breathing came out in hoarse and heavy pants, sweat dripped down my face despite the cold of the forest, and my legs were getting heavier by the second.
But I didn't stop.
I'd rather dehydrate to death while being eaten alive by poisonous dragons.
The snow beneath my feet moved treacherously, and I fell face-first on the cold, soft snow. I tried to get back on my feet and escape, only to trip on the snow. I tried again, but to no avail; it was too late. A deep shadow cast upon me, blocking the blazing sun.
Looking up, I was met with the hateful gaze of the guard. As if losing hope for freedom, the eagles' calls stopped for a moment…Only for a moment.
"Idiot!" the other guard barked, unsheathing his sword and moving to protect his acquaintance
But it was far too late.
The area between the screaming faces decorating the black leafless tree rippled as if turning liquid. Black arms shot out of the ripples, holding and pulling the armored guard by whatever could be held from all directions. The guard tried to resist, but how could a mere awakened human resist the might of a tainted beast, let alone tens of them?
I feel bad for your newborn. I thought, getting up and running away.
Not really. It was his fault that he would die. He was the one who stopped surprising his taqa
to intimidate me.
As if he wasn't intimidating enough.
The creepy trees of the Uncanny forest did not possess any sense except one, the taqa sense. And they had on hell of a sensitive one. So when the dumbass guard decided to intimidate, he set his fate in stone.
After a while of dashing between the shades cast by the tree. I saw something. Like a flame of hope in a vast darkness. Like a moon in a starless night. The white tree stood tall, dwarfing its black kin. Decorating the white giant was a single calm face above a crack that led to its hollow inside.
"Mordred," Amanda's calm voice resounded dangerously close from behind me.
I increased my pace, passing the uncanny trees and racing the white one. Entering through the crack below the calm face, I was met with the sight of a rift tearing through the fabric of reality. An error. Something that shouldn't exist. The recording pulled me, and I didn't resist. My vision was drowned by darkness as I embraced the first recording.
I embraced freedom.
***AN UNKNOWN PERIOD TIME LATER***
Darkness. I was drifting, floating in a sea of absolute, utter, and complete black. There was nothing else. Even my senses ceased to work, giving me a strange sense of peace and tranquility. I felt as if I was both infinite and irrelevant at the same time. I was paramount yet insignificant at the same time.
Time passed. I didn't know how much. It could've been a mere fleeting moment, or a vast, endless millennium. But the once-great, impenetrable darkness began to fracture, light creeping through the cracks.
Eventually, the layer of black was completely consumed by the colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
A ground of liquid silver materialized beneath me, and I was suddenly standing on liquid instead of drifting high above it. The liquid rippled, and five great, golden-framed mirrors ascended from beneath the layer of silver surrounding me in a wide circle. The space between each of the great mirrors was small yet at the same time seemed to be infinite, as if defining the very laws of space.
The colorful light fell on the mirrors and bounced off, converging at a single point and creating a blazing white sun above my head. Light descended from the sun, swallowing me whole. I felt an uncomfortable sensation around my neck , as if someone had taken a pen and started drawing on it, treating it like his personal canvas. But in a way, it felt…right and complete.
When the light ascended to the white sun once more and the sensation subsided, a gentle voice resounded in the mirror hall.
「Brave one! Welcome to the Akashic Records.」
「You have chosen to challenge the first recording, Dreadful Day.」
「You have formed your taqa core, therefore you have ascended a rank: Dormant.」
Falling to my knees on the liquid silver floor, making it ripple, I couldn't help the tears from welling up behind my eyes, as I started to recall more of what I was
I was a slave.
Was
Because now, after entering the first recording, I was…
"I'm…free." The words came out through my flowing tears.
After a while, I started to recompense myself. The joy of finally attaining my freedom was overwhelming, but it wouldn't be worth it if I didn't survive. Quickly thinking of words like System, Runes, Statues, and Information, just like I read in old novels I stole after being thrown in the trash. A set of golden runes appeared in front of me, and I began to read.
===
Name: Mordred.
Rank: Dormant.
Mirror Shards: 「0 I 1000」
Art: -
Flaw of the Art: -
Innate Ability: 「Mirror Control」
Attributes: 「Mirrorspawn」「Truth Seeker」「Watched」
Flaw of the Artist: 「Restless Times」
Relics: -
===
Focusing on 「Mirror Control」read the description.
===
「Mirror Control」Description: You can manipulate and control reflective surfaces.
===
Focusing on each attribute, I began reading the descriptions.
===
「Mirrorspawn」Description: A creature that does not belong to any of the words, a singularity causing the birth of a whole new one.
「Truth Seeker」Description: To see all is to lose peace. To know all is to lose self.
「Watched」Description: Your every action is being preserved by -Maghol-, increasing the chance of unusual events occurring in your presence, good or bad.
===
The description for 「Watched」while creepy, was straightforward. So was the one for 「Mirrorspawn」.「Truth Seeker」was the only one that wasn't as straightforward, but even it was easy to understand from the name. In short, I'm a living lie detector.
My attention shifted to the flaw of the brave.
===
「Restless Times」Description: You can not sleep.
===
At least my flaw is not deadly.
It was more like a boon, not sleeping means that I wouldn't stop moving at night, which would mean that I would reach a gateway and return to a sanctuary faster. If push comes to shove and I don't find a gateway, I would reach a sanctuary on foot faster.
Dismissing the runes, I began taking a look around. I began looking at the near yet infinitely far great mirrors. Something was of about them. The first one my eyes fell upon was normal, reflecting the area around me and myself. The only thing that might have come as unnatural was that instead of brown eyes, I had eyes that flowed like two pools of liquid silver, acting like a mirror, creating the illusion of an infinite reflection with the great mirror.
Getting up and taking a step towards the mirror, my reflection moved with me, and I suddenly crossed the space between me and the great mirror.
I looked away from it, to the second of the great mirrors. It was shrouded in a veil of grey mist, and inside the grey mist was a silhouette of a young man, me. Trying to step towards it like I did the first time, I took a step and then another, and another, but nothing happened, even the reflection didn't move.
「Your trial begins.」