Desolate Mage: A Legend Reborn! 31 Memory of the Universe

At first, it began with an orange, amber light - but it differed from the earlier light in that this one shone *through* the scabbard. The light gave off a warmth like one was enveloped in the flames of the sun, yet felt no pain nor discomfort and without the smell of the burning gases melded together in the supernova of burning hell.

Accompanying the heat and warmth was a sense of being surrounded, submerged in comfort, as if one were floating without any effort down a gentle stream, buoyed by the displaced water mass alone.

However, despite such an awe-inspiring scene unfolding before them, there was but silence.

If it were any other explosion, there would be booms and crashes as if thunder had struck beside one's ear. Then followed by the whooshing of wind as the explosion left a vacuum void of any air, and finally by crumbling sounds, whether of the walls and buildings all around the observer - or of their bodies that could not bear the force and fallout of the blast.

If it were the blazing rays of the incandescent orb dominating the heavens with its light and glory, even then it would not be such a deafening silence. It was merely that the of there being no air to carry the ignition of hydrogen and helium crashing together and fusing to catalyse the great celestial body's all-consuming flames.

As it stood, there was silence. The kind of silence that caused a ringing of the ears - tinnitus to block out every other sound including one's own thoughts.

It was that kind of scene that defied one's imagination and concepts of what is real, or what is not real.

Though the trio were several dozen metres under the surface of the planet Eunos, an astral vision filled their senses of sight, touch and hearing. It was if though they were soaring through the unknown depths of the ether, between the great distances separating the myriad planets and stars!

And with this star-gazing scene as the backdrop to the ever-expanding, ever-intensifying light, the aforementioned brilliance morphing and transforming through ever-multiplying changes.

Though, the vision surprised them as it kept their consciousness captive and began from a shocking scene. It began with darkness, formlessness, the core and very nature of the void.

There was nothing.

It was indescribable, for who has ever seen "nothing" before?

Whether it is "nothing" in a box - but what we see are the walls, base and body of the box with "nothing" inside it, yet there is something to be seen in that "nothing".

Or whether when gazing up into the night sky, even suspended in space from an interplanetary spacecraft. When we look out into the darkness - there are still stars, there are still motes of light and the ever revolving, ever shining signs of existence. There is still something to be seen in that "nothing".

Regardless, they saw... Nothingness. Oblivion, whether above or below or to the sides or without.

Nothing.

Then in the midst of the nothingness, there was a voice, and then light.

Whether the light began shining from some source, or if it began to materialise out of the nothingness, the watchers knew not.

What they knew was that this great and majestic scene made one doubt the validity of one's own existence!

The light grew in intensity, spreading out from every direction and to every direction within the twinkling of the eye, before beginning to subside and stabilise as countless fiery cores scattered across the cosmos. And yet the light still pervaded, formless yet of myriad forms; shapeless yet taking many shapes.

The light began as the most basic thing: Water. A calm stretching out, a vision warping before their eyes of a great expanse of water submerging all creation and everything in it that was yet to be created.

Then a voice spoke once more from all around them - from within them, shaking their concept of the vision and projection.

The light formed all sorts of life: plants, then fishes, then birds and insects and every creeping creature of the ground. Then it went on the various mammals of every make and kind, spreading across the vast array of the known and unknown animal kingdoms of Earth, Eunos and endless other worlds.

Crowning the organisms that emerged were the many recognised auspicious signs - Phoenixes, True Flood Dragons, Unicorns, Ancient Shamblers and Prismatic Wyrms. The lights transmuted once more, before settling into another set of glorious manifestations that rose from the darkness and thin air - Asura Dragons, Twin-headed Solar Phoenixes, a pantheon of Astral Beasts.

They felt their emotions surging with awe, tears streaming down their cheeks at the sovereignty of the power and voice behind all these. Then they felt the flowing of time, passing rapidly, flying by.

The scene changed to that of the starry sky, seen from the depths of the void and space.

Though there were innumerable stars twinkling in the distance all around and burning suns nearer, there were flickering and flitting specks of light at the centre of the scene, looking just like how a star would when spied at from a distance.

And at the centre of the "stars" shooting about, a dark silhouette could barely be made out. Plump, short and oval-shaped, a black-and-white figure resembling a bird with wings at its side point downwards. One exuding an all-conquering might.

Yet despite the enchanting nature, there was a sense of malevolence in this scene, a feeling that all was not it appeared to be. A dire sensation that caused one's heart to tighten and to feel an instinctive fear of a great predator before them, with its mouth open to devour them in one fell swoop.

A split second later, those same countless stars streaked across the heavens, before returning to soar into the larger shadowy silhouette at the centre, enveloping and slamming against it again and again. Despite its greater size, the silhouette was dwarfed by the many stars, waving its wings to deter its attackers - but to no avail.

Slowly, the silhouette reduced in size as it was assaulted. Then, in a turning point of the clash of heavenly bodies, it cried out in desperation. The dark silhouette began to spiral, whirling around like a mass of wind and darkness. Then it turned into an explosion of inkiness, causing the lights around it to scatter to the seven winds.

Then the dark whirlwind itself converged into a small core - before exploding into countless fragments outwards, each a tiny black-and-white bird.

The vision ended there.

They were still in the room just below the ground.

The book-keeper was still standing behind the counter, in the pose of handing over the sword to Lars.

Lars still held the sheathed blade in his two hands, unmoving from the scene, as if though not a minute had passed while they were absorbed in the vision.

And the bald vizier was still there, arms crossed in impatience.

And they continued to stay like that for a minute, two minutes; three minutes.

Each of them was sure, certain and clear - what they had experienced would change their lives and view of the world forever...

If only they could understand what it was that they had just seen.

What they knew was that the sight they were beholding transcended their mortal lives, transcended even the history of their nation, of their world.

This was the memory of the universe.

Chapter end