"Haven't you ever wondered what power he possessed? What a mysterious man is all about?" El began with a low smirk.
"As you know, in the descent of the god's domain are three castles: the black, the white, and the grey. And a mysterious man rules each of those castles."
"Don't you want to become a mysterious man?"
"If you do want to become mysterious man, remove the veil that mystifies him."
The driver thought heavily upon hearing El's words. If I remove the veil that mystifies him, I can become the next mysterious man. Surely who would pass on such an opportunity? And besides, In other for me to unlock the next stage in my path, I need to undergo the ritual of ascendence which is what every mysterious man goes through in order to have the veil that mystifies them.
The driver grinned at El and said, bowing his head, "Even though I remove the veil, in order to become a complete mysterious man, I need to undergo the ritual of ascendance."
"And that requires a lot of resources to even start the first step."
"So? I am the Apostle of the God's, The Son of the Most High One, is there anything too hard for me?"
The driver hearing this became overcome by joy. "Yes Apostle, you are finally proving useful-"
El instantly shot him a sharp, cold look, startling the man. He was just about to blow up the man's leg but stopped himself.
The reason was simple. If he destroyed the man's leg, he would not be able to reverse it or regrow it using his mark. The power of Finality, Irreversibility, and Inevitability meant that once something was done, it could not be undone. If he killed someone, he could not resurrect them. Whatever he did was final, completely final.
"Don't talk to me like that," El spoke.
His voice crashed through the white-flowered room like a primordial sea tearing against itself ; waves devouring waves, each syllable colliding with the next in violent collapse. The air convulsed beneath it. The petals trembled. And beneath the roar, beneath the ruinous tide, there descended something heavier than sound; a pressure vast and absolute, as though gravity itself had found a tongue and spoken law into the world.
The man convulsed as though struck by an unseen force, his entire body shuddering before he crashed onto both knees with a resounding thud. The impact echoed through the white-flowered room, yet it was nothing compared to the silence that followed. His head lowered at once, not by decision, but by instinct, as though some invisible weight pressed upon his spine and forced him into reverence.
He did not dare look up.
For within El's eyes, there was no mere darkness. There was emptiness, vast and unending. There was judgment; cold, impersonal, absolute. There was an abyss that did not simply consume, but erased, stripping away thought, courage, and the illusion of self. To meet that gaze was not to be seen… it was to be unmade.
And so, he kept his head bowed, trembling not out of respect alone, but out of a primal terror that whispered a single truth:
If he looked into those eyes, something of him would not return.
El released the pressure slightly, satisfied with the man's terror.
"Forgive me," the man whispered, though it was hardly a voice at all.
The sound clawed its way from his throat, raw and strained under the invisible pressure. It carried the tone of suppressed sobs and the brittle creak of bones bearing too much weight, as though even his voice feared rising too loudly in El's presence.
Then, worked towards the man, using his hand to push the man slightly, though, the man fell straight to the ground, and a small mark appeared on his forehead.
"I am not your Apostle. I am not of this castle. I am the Great One. I stand before the frameworks of reality and remain when they are ash. The unknown does not veil me. It opens."
"I am no creature of faith or virtue. Those are bindings forged for smaller wills. I do not bow to gods, nor to Gods, nor to True Gods, nor to those who name themselves Most High. Their thrones rise and fall within laws I did not inherit."
"I serve GOD. GOD alone."
El raised his hands, not in display, but in recognition.
His voice did not echo. It pressed outward, vast and ancient, as though existence itself remembered something it had tried to forget. The white petals trembled, not from sound, but from proximity. The air thickened. Thought slowed. The mind recoiled from a presence too immense to contain.
"I am his and his alone, theirs and theirs alone, servant or vessel or butler, the purpose of my existence is to serve him."
The man coughed softly and steadied himself before El. He bowed low, then lowered himself further, kneeling upon the flowers in reverence and fear. In a solemn voice, he spoke.
"I have seen kings as you fall and wither away like dried sand, like weightless dust scattered by the wind. Never have I heard one speak as you do, nor stand as you stand, nor exist as you exist. It is a privilege, and the work of fate itself, that I stand in your presence. Forgive me… Great One."
El paused. A faint smile touched his lips.
He stepped forward without haste, leaving the man in heavy silence. Slowly, he reached out and removed the veil from the mysterious figure.
Greenish gold pupils rested within striking eyes that seemed both distant and half-lidded with sleep. Small pink lips. A slim, delicate nose. A smooth, beautiful face untouched by harshness. It was not the face of a monster, nor distinctly male or female, but something beyond either. A being suspended between definitions, serene and dreamlike.
With the veil gone, El's suspicion settled into certainty.
The mysterious man was not a man at all.
She was a being.
El raised his hand toward the woman, his expression cold, untouched by hesitation. His eyes held no anger, no cruelty, only a distant indifference, as though he were observing the turning of a page already written.
In a quiet, almost tender whisper, he spoke.
"All life upon this earth ends at its appointed time. Yours… has simply arrived a little sooner. Goodbye."
The words fell softly between them yet carried the weight of inevitability.
Then, with a mere flick of El's hand, shadows erupted from the bottomless pit of hell and void. They surged like a tide of blackened nightmares, wielding weapons that should not exist; blades that twisted like serpents of obsidian, spears dripping with impossible ichor, constructs that hummed with cruel intent, fluids that devoured light, and formless instruments of pure annihilation.
The shadows descended in a torrent, relentless, each strike more than flesh-deep. They tore through the mysterious man's face, splitting bone and sinew. They pierced his body, rending organs, freezing blood, igniting every nerve in a scream of despair that the world itself could hear. And then they struck at his soul. They scraped at the core of his being, tearing away warmth, memory, identity, leaving a hollow echo where consciousness once lived.
The man, seeing this, was shocked to his core and asked in confusion:
"Was there a need for this horrific show? She was already dead, why shred her to pieces?"
El, with his back faced to the man, answered coldly and sharply:
"A swift death is merciful. I was not feeling merciful."
The man fell silent at El's words, his resolve unshaken. He began his ritual of ascension, methodically preparing the materials and ingredients offered by the shadows that emerged from the bottomless pit of hell and void.
He took a black mat, faint smoke curling from its edges, and spread it across the flowery ground, transforming the delicate blossoms into dark, fertile soil. Carefully, he arranged the ritual implements at the corners and edges of the mat, forming small altars of incense at each side.
Then he seated himself in a lotus position upon the black mat. Eyes closed, he surrendered to the shadows, allowing them to baptize him in the essence of the bottomless pit. With each passing moment, he shed his former self, reshaped and reborn into a new being, forged by the infinite void.
(Bottomless pit of hell and void will be called The Chasm That Endureth Forever, Falling into Nothing, and the Silence That Is Beyond All Knowing or Silence for short!)
As that was happening, El looked back at the dead corpse before him, that sat upon the throne of silver and veins of gold and whispered into existence:
"rise."
At that decree, a trembling light engulfed the dead figure and lifted him in glory. A greyish black fog emanated from him and began to clothe him in the darkness, renewing him fully.
At once, the light dimmed and left him, returning into nothingness as the figure descended before El.
His form shimmered like mist, cloaked in a deep black fog that twisted and spread outward, streaked with iridescent colours that flowed down to the flowers below like paint spilled across a canvas. His face was absent, unformed, a void of formless smoke that radiated in all directions. There were no eyes, no mouth, no nose, no flesh; only a swirling, grey-black haze.
His body was humanoid in shape but utterly devoid of warmth, trembling as if tides of some invisible sea surged beneath his skin, flawed and unstable, a mockery of creation. From his back erupted a writhing mass of tendrils, tentacles, and glistening, slimy nodes, twisting and coiling with a life of their own. The air around him seemed to shiver in response, as though reality itself recoiled from his presence.
"Fitting," El murmured. He named it:
"Silence."
After a while, the shadows wrapped their hands around him and drew him out of the Silence, pulling him back into reality.
The man's entire being had transformed. His brown eyes shifted to a dark, icy blue, cold as wintry skies and the depths of the astral sea. His hair changed from grey to a void-black, long and smooth like a calm river flowing down his back. A grey fog began to emanate from his eyes, obscuring his entire face.
Slowly, the man rose from his lotus position and knelt before El, who moved among the shadows as if playing with them like a child with toys.
"Strange," the man said, shaking his head slightly.
El stopped in his tracks. With a flick of his wrist, the shadows dissipated, and he advanced toward the man.
"I destroyed the mysterious being," El said, his voice cold, stripped of warmth or sympathy. "I fractured his mind and soul, reduced his existence to dust. Why? Because I did not like him. His life would have ended sooner or later, so why not end it now?"
He paused, the silence around them heavy and absolute, like the stillness after a death. "I believe you are far more suited to be the mysterious man, especially now, after your ritual of ascension."
El extended his hand, his eyes fixed and unwavering. "Take my hand and walk with me. I see a future of light and warmth. If the world must fall for us to rise, then let it fall."
The man froze. This was not the cautious, calculated figure he had known. Was this sudden transformation genuine, or an elaborate test to expose weakness? Insanity whispered in the corners of his mind, and fear mingled with awe. He silenced himself, retreating inward to think, to measure the gravity of the choice before him.
After a long moment, he reached a decision. Slowly, deliberately, he extended his hand and clasped El's. A warm smile touched his lips. "I am a cunning little master, a strategist hidden in the chaos of war. I know not my name, nor the full purpose of my being. But now I understand. My existence aligns with yours. Thank you, Great One."
Good, step 2 is complete.