Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
The slow strangled breathes of Kiria echoed in his mind as he looked forward at the other candidates who came before. Thinking and congratulating them for at least having some meat in their bodies to help get by unlike him. And this... this infuriated him so. and he knew he had to maintain this, but he also had to constantly establish a physical image of pure focus on what lain ahead of him. And that was he predetermined destiny to become an Emolit.
Although this was case, what truly troubled him was maintaining his stance as he underwent all this. So he decided to cut something off from all the extras that were weighing him down. And what weighed him down the most amongst all the extras were his faltered mental composure.
But wouldn't that mena he'd have to calm down on his anger that he had to maintain all throughout the ritual, otherwise he'd be leaving one of the necessary components to be maintained by every candidate here which was constant emotional tensity. Yes, although this was the case another key things to learn from the world of Lowesia and its cultures and customs for the Emolits in specific is that emotion comes not from the mind but from the heart. Think of the mind as a processor that processes, refines and further sends the refined information to the body which which will take it and react accordingly. Where the input is raw information is actually received from is the heart for Emolits. As well as fir the case if emolit itself which is the source of one's definitive Emolit and as well as being their source of power. It is formed when spiritual essence and emotional input collide and fuse into emolit which has also been categorised into a fast process called emolition.
And for Kiria right now, his mind was processing too much emotion which had not yet been converted into emolit that was much easier to process. But then again, when emolit is being processed it comes into the body in another form of raw energy that is forcefully converted into internal emolit that resides within the bodies of Emolits and their defining much better. And in simple terms, this means that raw emolit is composed of many other components that might not reside within or correspond with an Emolit's body. So, after a candidate finishes their part in the ritual they gain two new organs in their soul bodies. Since most Lowesians are just lost souls that found their way into the world of Lowesia. They gain one, they gain a heart converter and a cervixal ventilator. The heart converter is a singular spark of light blue light that spawns into a candidate's soul heart after they have completed the ritual. It's what conducts emolition at the heart. And the cervixal ventilator is an extra organ that small ball-like organ that spawns at the right side of the c2 aka second cervical bone at the top of the backbone at the neck region. It's also called the substitute because it has two functions like a normal ventilator it takes in fairly small amounts of spiritual essence from the atmosphere as well as heavily exhausting what is called dead matter from an emolit's body. And this will be looked onto further as the story goes on. The cervixal ventilator is very useful to an emolit in case their living conditions roughen. Like when in an area that barely thrives in any amounts of spiritual essence. Or in situations where they do not have food or water to feed on and so emolit that is absorbed from the CV is said to bear nutritional value of the sort since is partially refined by the CV itself.
And because he hasn't yet undergone the ceremony, his body can handle the amount of pressure his mind is trying to evade and reduce by pushing that pressure on to it instead. So, he closed his and took to breathes in and out as he felt the stinging bulge in his mind fade slowly but not completely.
After he slowly opened his eyes, but... the light of the environment and the candidate that were supposed to be right in front and all around him were-
"Huh, what's... what's happening?"
Different.
In such a way that his ears couldn't hear only a slow calm buzzing sound echoed within. His eyes darted from left to right and...
"W-what the...?"
Everything was wrong. People. The ground. The air. How everything looked around him was wrong. The air he breathed felt normal to him and only him. The people that once stood around now turned into burning corpses that stood and withered away as they were and as they once stood. All things burnt around him in fact. Even the clouds and birds withered to a flame that reflected something akin to an agonizing rage that Kiria had felt before but when.
And just before he could even think of what that could possibly be, his eyelids shot open as his heart raced terrifyingly as time and everything even the air and sky that had been tinged with a hint a red had seemed to have slowed down.
His breathes were shallow and careful, as if trying to hide from an instant deathly threat, but what was it that he was trying to hide from? Hiding, no more like deluding himself that this would hopefully extend his nearly dead life.
His skin tingled and the hair on his body stood, as if trying to alert him that-
Step, step, step.
Something dangerous, no something deadly was here. Where he was. And indeed, as he looked to his back, his body turning slightly and forcefully his eyes caught the image of someone or something that not truly but horrifyingly terrible.