Determined. Prompted and guided by intuition. Fringing on a nanosecond as I arrive at I-EK's stellar perimeter. My soul writhes in excruciation as I am bombarded by visions of my kin corroding in a world eager to meet its own end. Dematerialised by a transcendental power, the stern's perishing cries traverse our collective consciousness in unison. Touching all of the souls of wa-omme kind. Their haunting shrills echo into a fade beyond reach. It was their final hearing before their connection to the collective was disconnected. Severed. Lost. I can no longer feel or hear them. They are all gone. Erased. Including the astral-based dimension, Dra.
I was too late to intercept the Eckrhyne founder. I could not save them. I have failed my kin. She should have known otherwise than to have proceeded with her conviction. She shouldn't have sent them. This was not an infiltration mission, but a death sentence. They were massacred by a depraved individual who is a master of cognitive monopolization and manipulation of reality. All of the combined effort and might of the sterns was not enough. Even for an overseer such as myself, my strength and abilities are inadequately unparalleled to his. It is my duty to defend my kind, and my Esseden - even if I must perish to fulfill it.
To serve and protect is the reason why my twin sister and I were created, because without purpose, we are nothing. We were born and raised to fit that role, whereas Azokin adopted it. The stern is specialised in monitoring and gathering Intel. Guarding the civilians. They are often assigned patrols and scouting missions, tasks involving low to intermediate risks. Not critical and delicate operations. They were never made, nor equipped to contend with extreme adversity and tactical unpredictability from a soul of a high caliber, like Ira. The premature departure of my brethren has instilled a bottomless emptiness and a pressuring downcast weight inside my chest – a soul-wrenching spasm. My soul laments and grieves for them.
Even though I am still concerned for her welfare, I do not have it within me to tell her my thoughts - not anymore.
Is our beloved matriarch too far gone? Or am I in denial?
I do not know. My assuredness has gone amiss. I have forgotten my place. I am starting to understand why my siblings have kept to themselves on the subject of her health. For the sake of all, I shall make the pain bearable – for that is my new resolve.
Light whelms me and boosts my acceleration as I bore through the kaleidoscopic, stellar clusters. Hurtling meteorites bash against my chilled frame and crumble into disarray. I dive into the oncoming, clouded fore of two nebulas on the brink of coalescence. Barreling through vividness and prominent hue. Overlaying greens and magenta speckled by dust cover my lens.
There is a strong and immense soul signal coming from within the passing shrouds of colour. I concentrate on the spirit's trajectory.
One of the most telling distinctions between the souls of Trinity and the standard caliber is their size. The trinities are comprised of beings, second to the universal architect - the core of creation. They only answer to our architect, for none are above them in our celestial hierarchy. They were born without a sex and no concept of self-identity, until they began to evolve, individually. They chose their own physical and biological attributes. Developed their personalities and nurtured their introspection.
They acquired independence.
Excelled in personal prowess.
Decided their destinies.
Madonis, Sillhaine, and the Sincistic Mal, creation's mistake, were the members of the first trinity. Ira belonged to the second. The other two members are still missing. They vanished without a trace, and there is no information available in relation to their abrupt disappearance. The Eckrhyne ancestor is unpredictable and as vicious as the Mal if pushed into a corner. He is also an avid collector and a seeker of knowledge, who built his own personal universal archives, from what I have been informed of. My Esseden, aforementioned, his love of learning knows no boundaries. It is a well-known and credible fact feared by civilians and those alike, as a result of his past actions. Excessive eagerness. An experimentalist. His warped and internalised definition of passion. He is a being who challenges the outlook on morality.
Then, a break in the nebulous cloud conceives an opening. Encouraged and propelled by haste, I shoot through the clearing. Visible from afar is a golden nebula surrounding a torrid maroon planet – Marx. Numerous volcanic eruptions and oceans of fire are effortlessly perceived from the exosphere.
I have entered Hunni territory.
The relations between our species are below satisfactory and deemed almost nonexistent.
An enraged shriek shakes the stars and convulses the two nebulas, eliciting billows. An infernal-winged ophidian swoops down from above, burning through the clouds; bearing her fangs. Goriagoth. Madonis's cherished familiar, and guardian to the Hunni race. An orange light floods the inner canal of her mouth. I take aim and shoot. My ray collides with the rushing fore of her flames – exploding upon contact. The impact of our elemental collision pushes us back. Her red eyes burn within the overlay of expanding grey.
"Overseer." She hisses and flaps her wings to dispel the vapors. I cannot tune into her mental wavelength. She refuses to open her mind to me. I can't communicate with her. I cannot articulate my intention, for my conversational methods are limited. I wish to tell her that I do not intend to harm the Hunni, and my target is someone else - another soul.
An uninvestigated soul signal is transmitting from within a golden, migrating nebula, which enigmatically appeared after the complete eradication of my kin, and is coming from the direction of where I was initially headed. Dra. I must not lose track of it. I abandon the guardian and accelerate onwards, resuming my pursuit. Following my target's trajectory.
She isn't following me?
I hasten my efforts; homing in on the - miasma? I bore into its nebulous front and slammed into a wall of disorientation - scattering the accuracy of my sensors. My scope of perception has become unfocused and blurred.
The soul signal is – lost.
I do not know where I am. Then, an immediate sting gnaws on my skin. Energy particles are corroding my exterior. I cannot move. I am immobilised and detained by a force originating within themiasma. Was the signal a lure? A ploy? An unidentified voice infiltrates my soul-born connection to the collective consciousness, trespassing into the realm of communication and harmonious union. Uprooting my foundation of cognitive oneness.
"Insolent pest. You dare meddle in my affairs!" A shimmering aureate biped outline manifests in the enveloping mass. He places his delicate hand on my chest. Cracks of golden light offshoot from underneath his palm and rapidly branch across my chest. I grunt at the invasive and riving sensation of my soul being ingested in granular increments.
"Go on – let me hear you cry." He taunts.
"Ah – how I recall the evanescent sweet melody of your dying brethren. Oh, but of course, I'm certain you've already had the pleasure of hearing their delightful little song as well; however, their vocalisations of agony are a mere afterthought in comparison to the delicious anticipation of yours."
The branching fissures strike deep into the central compartment, rupturing the protective containment of my nexus.
"I will not yield."
"That's the spirit." He encourages my refusal as my chest pries itself open – tearing my soul asunder. He laughs disingenuously.
"Did you honestly believe taking what is mine would be easy, did you? That disgusting self-entitlement, you have obviously inherited from her, of all individuals, or do I address her by her new title now? What was it called again? Ah, yes, I believe it was –"Esseden". She was the first founder to successfully create and establish a civilisation in her image. And she even personalised her title to distinguish herself from Madonis. Don't get me wrong, it's true she has worked hard and everything, but I just don't care about her success. What does bother me, however, is her self-righteous nature. I just despise it. It's infuriating. Intolerable!"
A sudden painful twinge occurs within the rupturing, a snap – a snap of a cord.
"Oh, pardon my manners, but you knew that already, didn't you. To be honest, I almost forgot you were even here for a moment - so do please excuse my awful tendency to run my mouth a bit. It is an old – and terrible habit of mine – one that I do try to be mindful of."
I am overwhelmed by emptiness - a surreal nothingness. I have become an isolated vessel of disbandment. I cannot feel the souls of my siblings – or my Esseden. The sole connection I have left is to him.
"She won't come for you, overseer. You are now alone. Destined to be abandoned and forgotten – just like the first overseer who came before you."
I was told what became of him. His end. What he did to my older brother, Reven. His capture was not realised until after his sudden disconnection from the collective. She tried so desperately to find him. But Ira was too cunning. It was too late to save him. He was gone. My Esseden was devastated once she found out - as though a part of her died on that celestial day. She was incapable of speaking about it. She was almost mute.
"Disconnection is permanent and impossible to reclaim." He assures me.
I've become paralyzed by my own inexperience. The frigidness of singularity and separation sinks in. I cannot concentrate on anything other than his malicious words and the foreignness of total disconnection, for I am unable to reconnect at all. Not even to my family. Am I predestined to perish in the clutches of a deranged founder? Just like Reven?
"Let's have a little fun, shall we?" He grabs my wrists and pulls me towards him. Leading me into the heart of his nebula.
The inner nebulous clouds disperse and disclose an inner domain of buoyant reflectors. Serrated splinters mirror distant worlds, astronomical bodies, and miraculous spectacles in the cosmic-scape. Recognizable scenes from our celestial history are replayed endlessly in each fragment. Spiraling interdimensional rifts are also situated among them, coinciding within the same subspace. Ira has disappeared. I can still sense him through my new and unwanted connection. His presence is omnipresent, yet fluctuating evanescently. The small and faint outline of his stature is but a fraction of him, projected from within. His essence has discontinued its erosion, and I am no longer immobilised. The miniature chasms in my chest are still illuminated – accommodating a pressure of palpitating numbness inside.
Then the levitating splinters display my reflection all at once. It disfigures and morphs into the Esseden, before she was contaminated by taint. Her image moves and refocuses. It makes a transition to the scene of her standing in opposition to the Sincistic Mal on Aromina's corrupted ocean.
"Do you remember what happened on Dra and Vuir, overseer? Surely you must recall how you and your brother slaughtered my surveillance unit? Or perhaps when the stern eliminated my personnel, without so much as a second thought? Were you aware they had families of their own?" Then something hard hits across the back of my helm.
"Of course you didn't, because you were too busy blindly obeying the commands of your lovely matriarch."
The splinters play the scene of two entities engaging in brutal combat; however, the malevolent lunacy was not fighting back in equal measure. He was hesitating? Why? Was I expecting more, because of his infamy? Nevertheless, we all know how this battle ends - with my Esseden's blade through the Mal's heart. Once his arm had been severed, she readied her sabre and thrust it forward, aiming for his chest. He grabs the incoming blade and snaps it single-handedly. He rushes towards her and punches her optic, shattering it instantaneously.
I back away from the reflectors. This...cannot be.
This is inconceivable.
This is not how it ended.
She careens back from the collision. Then the Sincistic Mal plunges his fist into her chest and rips out her Nexus. Perforating its protective layers with his talons. Uprooting her cords. Then, shown separately in another elevated fragment, the scene ends with her decapitation. In another splinter, she is sliced in half, horizontally across, from the waist downwards, with her own sabre, which has been corrupted by the Mal's darkness. And then reimagined in another, he is feasting upon her soul, like starving fauna. The differentiating, brutal retellings repeat on and so forth in the founder's soul. Every splinter is replaying the same universal memory, are all conclude with her graphic demise. None of these are true. She prevailed over him. These are nothing more than inner manifestations of his denial. He cannot accept the Mal's actual fate.
"Why are you showing me these odious, and detestable lies?"
"Because they are my penance. And now, I shall use them to cultivate my desire for retribution."
"Enjin." A voice comes from one of the splinters. I immediately recognise it. One of the Essedens has beckoned me, with her quivering arm outstretched forward. Lying on her stomach, and drenched in the Mal's blood. Desperately trying to reach out to me from within the fragment. Her chest is torn open and bleeding. She has been decapitated.
"Enjin. Help me – please." Another one calls me by my identification model. She crawls towards the threshold, with the upper half of her body still intact, and the lower half missing.
"You must help us." Every version of her crawls out of each splinter of Ira's demented imagination and into the inner domain. Some stagger, while others drag themselves along the unperceivable floor. Pleading. Impaired. Hindered by their grave and crippling afflictions.
"Enjin." They bemoan in unison.
"Save us."
No. She would never beseech me.
"Neither of you are my Esseden." We are no longer interconnected. Our connection has been claimed by oblivion. Forever lost. These perverse imitations mock her current state of ill health. They are derogatory and crude. I will not stand for such slander.
"Your existence is unforgivable." I aim and unleash my ray upon the false matriarchs. My beam blasts a reflector to pieces – opposed to the rightful target. I reattempt to fire once more, but I am confronted by the same outcome. The imitations remain despite the destruction of the splinter. Ira's domain is the cause and reason for my incompetence. I am unable to calibrate my accuracy and coordination. He has incapacitated my target system. His soul particles resume their consumption and eat through my exterior, aspiring to consume my soul. The brutally maimed replications of my false creator creep closer – leaving me little option. I ease into a defensive poise. Preparing for their unified assault.
Then a brush of unfathomable movement shoots past me - towards the matriarchs as they approach. Impeded by imprecision and uncertainty, I cannot track the exact course of its advancement. The multicoloured spectrum of the unidentified soul's aura is smudged. Colours have overlapped and merged into a thick, singular layer. Therein seconds, all of the Essedens lay in pieces. Their frayed remains dematerialise into aureate residue and scatter, reabsorbed by the inner realm. I refocus. My receptiveness to new information is slow. Delayed. Processed in incoherent increments with missing and incomplete data. Vacant spaces I am unable to fill and shall remain incomplete until I have entered the correct information. The soul's aura divides into separate layers, each consisting of a single shade of colour – white, blue, green, and violet. Dark blemishes cover their translucent body. I have seen them before. They start as a minuscule oval, and then they enlarge. They swell into a malicious smear, before it evolves into a revulsive blotch seeping with pollutant, bedimming the light of the soul's eternal essence. Through my limited scope of perception, the soul's resolution is becoming more defined and clear. The quantity of their life force is immeasurable and transcendental. Imposing.
Gigantism.
A well-built and lean bipedal stature. Luminous translucent skin with a crystalline textured finish - Alosium. A greying - white illumined rhombus shines in the centre of its symmetrical visage. High cheek placements and a chin shaped into a point. Thin Alosium spikes protrude from the back of its head. My Esseden?
She stands before me - where the replications are defeated. Is she real – or a cruel figment devised to torment me further? Obsidian perpetually weeps from her eye. Her presence floods into my soul, domineering the isolated connection, and pushing the Eckrhyne ancestor aside.
"I felt your immediate disconnection. The soul signal you need to find is inside this transient nebula and located in the innermost undisciplined depths of his soul. Find it – while I keep him preoccupied." She commands.
"Sundering our integrated union, couldn't you have been a little more original and less predictable, Ira?"
"Sometimes the most obvious maneuver is all that is needed. There is unpredictability in predictability, you know." The outline of his small frame recurs. He stands among the reflectors and where the false all-mothers once crept.
"Do you think he would want to see you suffering like this? You and I both know denial is not the way forward."
A malevolent chuckle hails from the progenitor.
"Oh – your hypocrisy truly does warm my heart."
"I do understand what you are going through."
"I don't think you do. So I suggest you refrain from imposing your perspective on me. I know it is difficult for you to see past your pride and acknowledge your own flaws."
"Ira."
"You are in no position to lecture me, Sillhaine. So keep your empathy to yourself!"
Then my hearing of their conversation is silenced abruptly. I cannot hear or feel them anymore. I am isolated again – more so after my disunion from the collective. She holds the handle of her sabre, firmly using both hands. Pointing the tip of her curved blade at the Eckrhyne ancestor and dashes towards him. He slips past the driven momentum of the blade by performing a side step. As he slips past, she whacks him on the forehead with the end of the pommel to stun him and grabs him by the throat, holding him up before throwing him down onto the floor, slamming him down onto his back, eliciting an audible gasp from him. She crouches over him with the tip of the sabre held at a downward point, positioned between his eyes. He evaporates into a mist. She readjusts her handling and slices through the mist. It parts ways and dissipates. He appears behind her and taps her on the shoulder. She whirls around, and he evaporates before she can cut through him.
Her throat panels open, and steam ascends. Her bleeding eye continues to burn aglow. Irradiating brighter than before.
He reappears further away, balancing effortlessly on the upward point of a splinter's pinnacle. Multiple rhombuses of light are propelled from her optic in an outburst of continual firing as he leaps from one splinter to another, using them as individual platforms. With each vanishing evasion he performs – she increases her firing rate. While the founder is preoccupied, the particles swift consumption discontinues. I reattempt to calibrate my system by tuning and honing my sensors.I approach a lower situated rift, inches above the floor. I step inside, passing through the interdimensional opening. Rifts born from within his soul. They are known as the silent doors. The founder utilises them for traveling and to acquire a quick access to areas in the universe as well as a means to flee from potential pursuers. As a security precaution against interdimensional breaches instigated by those who are not born from his soul, they have to follow a specific condition to summon and open the portal. This condition was set to limit the chances of outsiders using his energy, and to restrict the usage to a rare select few. The rift
leads me into a cylindrical golden tunnel. I advance with caution along the long and straight path. Surrounded by reverberations, tremors, and blares. A concentrated ray of light melts through the reflective walls and obliterates the remainder of the tunnel. Then its residual remnants adjoin and reconstitute a new path.
I emerge from the threshold at the end of the tunnel to behold a large obsidian sphere. Stationary and afloat while enwrapped inside an enclosure of miasma, there is a substantial portion of life force within the sphere. The energy signature is similar to Ira's - although not quite identical. I do not sense the soul signal inside the encapsulation of dark interdimensional energy. I press my hand up against the sphere. I permit my energy to pass through. I can feel the life force itself stirring inside. It slumbers. Free and awake in its lucid dreams. Then a strong force blasts me out of the astral sack. Stripped away from my investigation and casted out into the openness of Ira's spirit. Deprived of opportune and unable to gather more information. The sphere rejected me. It rejected the offer of communication. Now – I am hovering over a malformed agglomeration of splinters screening fast-paced sequential imagery of Ira. The multifaceted screens show no prelude or visual context to the scenes. I can detect the soul signal inside the memory cluster. I descend to the abomination and touch a screen – establishing a contact based connection. Cords slither down from my nexus and enroot themselves deep into the agglomeration. Searching. Extending further downwards. Reaching for the life, which must be uncovered.