CHAPTER 478

THE FIRST EMPYREAN (III)

The world above and the world below were nothing alike – that was Lino's first thought as the scene flashed once more, the binds of the mountaintops piercing the clouds blending with the surrounding blue and the Silver City in the distance, warping under the pressure of an invisible brush, painting an entirely new canvas immediately after.

He was stunned to silence as his eyes took in the sight. It was dark – terribly dark at that – as though the sun had never pierced the clouds. No, the sun hadn’t ever pierced the clouds, he was certain. Rugged hilltops and mountains were infrequent and sharp, more sword-shaped than the mountains of today. Half, however, lay crumpled in one way or another, their remnants and debris filling up the floorbed beneath.

Ashtar was standing on the tip of a plateau overlooking a caved-in valley perched between high-rising tides and waves of an ocean. Dark, frigid waters beat against the rock repeatedly, carving it piece by piece in dull repetition. High above, skies thundered without a stop, lighting often breaking away from the clouds and striking at the ground. Each bolt was massive, the size of a grown man's thighs and each explosion would cause quaking that would last for minutes, also leaving behind a vaunted crater that would soon after be filled up with the debris of a shattered 'mountain'.

“This… this was Noterra before everything,” Ashtar’s voice spoke into the cold winds, seemingly unperturbed by the sights that had left Lino stunned. “Almost a billion years of this. Of repeated destruction and reconstruction. Skies would break their backs in an attempt to destroy the world below, while the latter would defiantly rise back up time and again. When it would rain, the earth would soak the few precious droplets of water. Deep beneath these dry and scorched crevices, battered away by flaming rocks and volcanic eruptions and erosions and high-sky thunderbolts, in a womb of the world so to say, life was concocted.”

“…”

“It surprised us, beyond words,” Ashtar continued after a short moment of silence, as though he was remembering a memory too murky to recall immediately. “When we encountered life. Though it was toward the tail end of the Era, it hardly diminished the resolute stubbornness of life to die out. When he found it, it was timid, small, but clever. The very first humans, you could say, came to be beneath the earth, during the dull longing of the latter half of the Origin Era. High Lords, as you know them, came earlier – but… they were not a natural produce.”

“…!” Lino exclaimed inwardly once more, his mind battered yet again.

“Tinkered into the existence artificially… aah, Lyonel, Lyonel…” Ashtar sighed somberly, his voice growing heavy and worn. “We played Creators too much. Every last one of us. We wanted vaunted armies to pierce the heavens, aye, we did. Every last one of us. Truth is, Primes and Fiends are the only ones who managed to survive. Little your people know of the Origin Wars, the true Origin Wars – not the humans’ appropriated version. It was a war for survival. Hundreds of millions of disfigured creatures took to arms in a bid of survival. Who would die… and who would live to see tomorrow? Those were empty gestures, at best. They were not made of this world but made of us, made before we understood this world well enough. Some died years into existence, the air itself corroding their minds. Some had their skeletons melt under the gravity's pressure. Some could not even see because, to us, the sight was intricate; we did not realize it was just light being playful."

“…”

“Most couldn’t reproduce,” Ashtar continued. "Most never had even their strongest reach adulthood. It was utter hogwash, a failure we are too ashamed to speak of. This planet… shamed us with its creations. Life… life seemed so easy to it. Left and right, species sprang out. Most dull-tongued, but few who could be taught. And so we taught them; we taught them words, we taught them phrases, we taught them things in a bid to see how much we can teach them – they learned everything with reverent passion. They called us Gods, and they bowed to us and prayed. And so we bid them to arms as first Empires began arising, and the rest… well, the rest really is history.”

“…” Lino remained focused on Ashtar’s words, images playing out inside his mind. It was too difficult to process everything, yet he had to store it at the very least. He was, for perhaps the first time in his life, being taught so much directly – no riddles, no vague statements… just truth after truth.

“—remembering these words will nary do good for you,” Ashtar said all of a sudden as though having read Lino’s mind; am I that predictable? The latter thought, smirking inwardly. “Your quest, if we can call it that, has nothing to do with the history, be it of Noterra or of us. Don’t look to the past, but brave for the future. I am telling you all of this merely to share the bitter agony, for my lips had remained sewn shut all my lengthy life. In a way, you are a wall that can breathe and understand.”

The scene flashed once more before Lino had a chance to process the insult. The dark sky remained, the fiery rivers grew wider and more rapid – it didn’t seem as though they ventured much further into the future. If anything, things appeared much worse than the last time, as though the world was truly at the brink of a complete collapse.

“Today,” Ashtar said, glancing up toward the high-skies. “Was the day Ataxia, with all his Primes, took to heavens and invaded the Silver City. Today was the day Gaia was born. Today is the day the Silver City was purged, yet its sealed chamber persisted nonetheless. Today is the day the eternal War of Writs, as poignant as it may be, begun. As I told you prior, I was not there to witness it, nor was I there to fight.” the scene flashed once more, rapidly, as Ashtar found himself looking over the black-clad army of Primes. Nearly all had lost their pristine, angelic figures, growing into what Lino could only describe as abominations. In the far distance, he recognized one of them – Umbra. As she was in the present, she was in the past; a young, tender-looking girl with tendrils breaking out of her limbs.

“What do You mean I can’t go?!” Ashtar asked angrily in a low tone, his expression distorted.

“This is not your war to fight, Child,” Ataxia’s robotic voice replied. “Let them win it. You… I’ve a different task for you.”

“What task could possibly hold a higher importance than winning back the Silver City for You, father? Of standing by the side of my Brethren as we make the final charge?!”

“… this is but a single battle, Child,” Ataxia replied. “War shall persist, as it always has, and as it always will. Today… today we shall achieve a grand victory, but however grand it may be, it is but a single one. Not even 300 souls is not an army that can withstand the tides of time and changes. We need to look toward the future, Child. Toward tomorrow, and toward the beyond. For that, I shall put you in charge – as the brightest, smartest, and strongest, I will give you reigns to create My army. One that will cause even the heavens to shake and quake and tremble in their boots.”

“—Father…” Ashtar mumbled emotionally, choking on his own words. “I—I would be honored! But…” his voice trailed off, full of uncertainty.

“But how? It is simple,” Ataxia said. “This world, surprisingly, is endowed with strange forms of energy. These energies will give birth to life, sooner or later. It will spring up free, from these cracks of the world. I will teach you to understand this energy, Child, to witness it, behold it, and to upturn it. I will teach you to use it as a means to all ends. It will be your own to command."

The energy that Ataxia spoke of came alight in front of Ashtar’s eyes. Lino immediately recognized the familiar scene, tendrils of Qi dancing freely. It was truly abundant – more so than it was at any other place of the present that Lino had visited. Just a grain-sized bubble of space held so much Qi it could restore his own reserves twice over. He was shaken inwardly; if Qi was as abundant in the present as it was back then, would there ever be limits to reach? Or would men and women alike bound all known ceilings of strength?

He dismayed the thought; no, there was a limit to strength. Omnipotence is a lie, he was certain. Yet, beholding the colorful strands that radiated amidst the otherwise dark world, he wavered. Just a single grain-sized bubble held so much Qi… not only in abundance but also in sheer quality.

It took him a moment to recognize another reality – the Qi before him was not beholden to an Element. No… i-impossible… he stuttered inwardly, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. How could Qi be without an Element? What was it then?

“It is not without an Element,” Ashtar voice echoed out inside of his mind, settling his turmoil temporarily. "Ataxia spoke of it once. The Qi during the Origin Era came as a remnant of the planet's distant past when it was still being formed amidst the stars. All Elements at that point conjoined into one, the one you are seeing right now. We never learned its nature; it was neither Chaotic nor Orderly… merely… natural. As though it always belonged, never out of place. Ataxia never seemed to dwell on it, and neither did the other Writs. They knew something, I was certain, that the rest were not privy to. But they wouldn’t speak of it. Why? I cannot say.”

Ashtar reached out with his arm and grasped the manifold layers of Qi into his hand, the sleek flashes of light bending and folding over his fair fingers. Lino couldn’t even imagine the strength Ashtar felt in that moment – how did it feel to hold so much Qi in the palm of his hands? Lino wouldn’t even reach a thousandth of it if he went all out, even giving away his life in the process. This small bundle of light that Ashtar was holding, Lino was certain, was more than enough to carve out the Three Continents and blast them to ashes.

“Qi is as natural in this world as the oxygen we breathe, Lyonel,” Ashtar continued, playing with the handful of light. “We may have taught Nativeborn to use it, but they would have learned eventually without us. In a way, you lot are lucky, be you ordinary Mortals or the ‘gifted’ infused with special bodies. You were born of this Qi, however diluted it may be in the present. It offsets the natural weaknesses your frail bodies possess. Though we learned to manipulate it in our own right, we can never be as proficient, as we are not of its origin. Now, I will show it to you – Lyonel. How I broke down the Nature of Qi and how I turned it upside down. How I took something pure and corrupted it beyond reason. How I became the evil the world saw me as…”