Adrien opened his eyes slowly, he stared into nothing, his gaze lost to the nothingness around him. It took several seconds before his thoughts managed to gather themselves again. Then, just as quickly, they slipped away.
For some reason, he could not keep his mind steady. His focus trembled, broke, and dissolved into the blankness around him. It was as if the absence of scenery itself was pressing against his consciousness, smothering every clear thought before it could fully form. Strange images flickered in and out of existence around him—fragments without shape and scenes without meaning.
They appeared for less than a breath, then vanished before he could understand them.
None of them made sense.
Not to him, at least.
A pale mist began to approach from the distance. It moved silently curling through the void like something alive. Adrien watched it with unfocused eyes as it circled around him once, then twice, then again. With every slow rotation, the vapor drew closer, tightening its spiral until it hovered only a few inches from his body.
Then it burst outward.
The white mist exploded in every direction, spreading across the endless expanse like a curtain being torn open. Adrien's dazed expression sharpened for the first time.
Space?
He looked down.
There was no proper ground beneath him, yet he was somehow standing. The mist flowed below his knees like a river drifting past him in pale currents.
Adrien lifted his eyes again, trying to understand the world around him.
He stood inside a completely white space, or was it a black space? Adrien didn't know, it was both at the same time.
Adrien frowned.
He took one step forward, then another. At the very least, his body still obeyed him. His limbs moved without resistance, and the strange realm did not seem to restrain his flesh, even if it had already begun to erode his sense of direction.
His gaze dropped to his finger, to the ring where Aurephion should have been was but he didn't sense any response.
His expression darkened.
He tried to circulate demonic energy through his body but the moment he reached inward, he found only stillness.
Not emptiness exactly. His power was there, or at least it should have been, yet he could not touch it.
Suddenly, the white mist in front of him surged upward, then coalesced into a human-shaped figure.
Adrien immediately felt immense pain in his eyes and looked toward the ground. Well, toward where the ground was supposed to be.
Who could tell if he wasn't actually standing upside down and looking at where the sky was supposed to be?
"You can look now..." a melodic voice rang from the figure in front of him. Its voice was filled with empathy and love.
It's so nauseating...
As a devil, Adrien felt something deep inside him reject that voice. His instincts screamed at him that this sound, this warmth, this impossible kindness, would be his demise.
Adrien really didn't want to look up but he felt that he didn't have a choice on the matter, after all from what he had already seen, the being before him had full control over him and the strange space around him.
Slowly, Adrien raised his head.
He saw the face of a man he had never seen before in his life. And yet, at the same time, it was the most beautiful, breathtaking face he had ever laid eyes on.
The man was the definition of perfection.
Adrien tried to speak, but his voice echoed in his mind instead.
The man seemed to notice and chuckled slightly. "I'm sorry. It's the first time anyone has come here, so I still haven't regulated everything. You can talk now."
"Right..."
The man's smile widened, but Adrien felt goosebumps run across his body. The man's countenance only revealed curiosity and a hint of amusement.
"So... where am I?"
"You're at the Gremorys' school in Japan right now."
"No, I mean this space... wait, you know what I meant!"
The man laughed, then looked around as he said, "This is the space between reality and nothingness. I would advise you not to look around too much. Your brain would slowly go mad and melt."
Adrien reflexively focused on the man in front of him. For some reason, he felt it with absolute certainty. The man could never lie. Not because he refused to, but because falsehood itself seemed incompatible with him.
"You're an interesting fellow. I've been watching you since you were born. Not to say that you're a saint. You've probably committed every sin I forbade. But you're not evil, so it's a funny mix."
Every sin he forbade?
"Indeed. Pride, deception, manipulation, adultery, murder, blasphemy, theft..."
"I get it..." Adrien said, interrupting the man.
All the evidence pointed to one answer, but how was that possible? He should be dead—
"Dead? Did you truly think God could die? Only my vessel perished. My soul could never be destroyed. Such a thing is impossible."
Adrien stared at him in silence for a moment. "So you spent the last hundred years here?"
"Indeed. At first, it was dreadfully boring. Time loses much of its meaning in a place like this. But then you were born, and you caught my attention. I know many things, Adrien, but I still do not understand why it chose you."
It?
God's smile deepened slightly, as if he had expected the question. "Yes. It. The system I created in case something happened to my vessel."
"Did you anticipate that you would die?"
"Not particularly. I merely made it as a contingency."
"You didn't? Can't you see the future?" Adrien asked as confusion formed on his face.
"Of course I can. But why would I? I gave humanity the choice to worship me so they could enter Heaven. But if I already knew every future they would walk toward, where would choice exist? If their fate was already known to me in full, then what meaning would repentance have?"
"Is it the same for Adam and Eve?"
"Yes. Have you ever wondered why God would create Adam and Eve if He already knew they would fall to the original Satans' ploy? If I had known it with certainty, then their fall would have been part of a script rather than a choice. The same question applies to Judas. Why would Jesus choose him as one of the Twelve if betrayal had already been fixed from the beginning? The Bible says Jesus chose twelve righteous individuals. So, did the Bible lie? No. I simply chose not to use my sight in that way. I do not stare into every soul's destination before they have taken the road themselves.
"I see the future only in certain moments, for certain purposes, and with certain limits. Omniscience is not the same as indulgence. Just because I can look does not mean I always should."
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Yo, I'm back, good little break I had, I finished Shadow Slave and I'm starting LOTM. Anyways I'll be dropping three to four times a week, maybe more we'll see.