Consuming Earths, Devouring Skies

"Where...am...I...?" A voice suffused with weakness and exhaustion questioned. It sounded ghostly, as if it was flickering in and out of reality.

Yan Zaizen felt queasy. He tried to move, but his body was frozen. "What...?" Attempting to open his eyes, he received no reaction. His senses didn’t work either. The surroundings were a state of perpetual nothingness, not even the sound of the wind was in the air.

"...Am I dead?" His thoughts seemed to function but it didn’t felt connected to his memories, as if they were independently formed and dissipated like sand. He couldn’t retain any memory of his previous thoughts. It was only a very faint, vague feeling that he had ’thought’ of this before.

"This state...it’s what I was in when I opened the gate....right?" There was a brief but faint flickering light in the distance. This light seemed to contain a calling. It was exceptional powerful like hypnosis or subliminal messaging, attempting to persuade him to move towards it.

As he kept ’looking’ at the light, he felt an exceptionally warm feeling like the womb of a mother or the embrace of a father. It felt protective, loving, and trustworthy.

"I...need to...go..." His odd state tried to walk towards the light. As he did, he moved for the first time since an indefinite amount of time. As he inched forward, he felt an increasing sense of warmth. This warmth felt addicting and true.

The light wasn’t any discernible color. If one could say what color it was, it could be considered white as it held all and every color in existence, but it felt like a rainbow of infinite variety. What it appeared to be and what it felt like was fundamentally different.

After a period of time, unsure of short or long, he arrived a short way from the light. The light radiated emissions of wispy smoke. This smoke seemed to be hands or claws. They pressed forward calmly. Before long, Yan Zaizen was surrounded by these hands and claws.

"Is...this...death?" As he thought this, he had the strangest feeling that he was both smiling happily and frowning deeply at the same time. The conflict of emotions caused him to struggle deeply.

As he was pulled closer and closer to the strange light, a sigh filled with the vicissitudes of time resounded. A single line, thin and nearly impossible to see, swept between Yan Zaizen and the light. The hands and claws were severed.

Suddenly, a dark-amber glow erupted that pushed back the light. A demonic squealing sound erupted. It sounded hurt and angry, but it disappeared.

"What...?" Calmly watching these events, Yan Zaizen was shocked. What was happening? Where was he? What is that sound? Those thoughts formulated and dissipated. Before long, he had asked himself these questions nearly a thousand times in repetition.

A shadow with a ghostly shimmer appeared before Yan Zaizen. "..." It didn’t speak, but as Yan Zaizen ’looked’ at it, he felt profound sadness and warmth.

A hand with an outstretched index finger formed from the ghostly figure. It pointed towards Yan Zaizen. It poked forward with a slow speed. Yan Zaizen didn’t feel like he had a form or body, but as the finger approached, he felt a slight tremble throughout his entirety.

Shaa!

The finger ’touched’ him. It lit up brightly, slowly increasing in brightness as time passed. Before long, it was blinding as the sun. Like a fire in frosty air, the light dimmed until it completely vanished.

Yan Zaizen felt his thoughts become clearer, his memory retention returning, and his ’form’ felt as if it was in motion. Looking around, he saw the form that had touched him.

His eyes widened in shock.

"Me?" This was his first thought. However, he didn’t know why. The ghostly shadow was faceless, featureless, and colorless, but he felt like it was him.

The shadow simply remained silent. A hand stretched from the shadow once more, but this time, it gently touched Yan Zaizen without any light. It felt soft and warm, as if it was a father’s touch onto his child.

Before Yan Zaizen could ask any questions, the shadow grew unstable. It looked up and said something in a language Yan Zaizen didn’t understand. When Yan Zaizen tried to ’look’ up, his emotions went silent.

It was a swirling black hole that seemed to be the size of a universe. Despite that, he felt that he could view it all. It swirled slightly but siphoned nothing. Shockingly, Yan Zaizen’s first thought was, "Me?!"

As he said that, the black hole seemed to cry a silent cry. It slightly trembled but stayed where it was. Yan Zaizen felt that it was there...protecting him, watching over him, and was him.

The shadow faded. It minimized into a single colorless wisp and entered Yan Zaizen’s current form of formlessness. As it did, Yan Zaizen felt a surge into his thoughts. It wasn’t actual thoughts but memories.

He found himself standing before a woman. Her kingdom and army drenched in blood. The woman kneeling on the ground in tears suffused with despair and regret.

The scene shifted.

He was gripping the body of a different woman. Tears of blood fell and a scream that seemed to penetrate the universe resounded. His eyes effused hatred to the highest limits.

These two scenes were something Yan Zaizen had seen before.

However, the second scene didn’t end. It continued. After that heaven-quaking scream of passionate hatred and profound sadness, ’he’ raised his hand and stabbed it into his chest. With a pull, his heart was ripped from his chest.

This heart contained vitality and essence that seemed impossible. With a swift motion, the heart was placed in the female’s body. Shockingly, ’he’ didn’t die. Instead, he looked upwards and flew towards the heavens with the beauty in his arms.

Yan Zaizen felt himself cry tears of blood, but it was only a feeling and not real.

A third scene appeared.

This confused him. The ’him’ from earlier was with the woman from before, but this woman was also ’him’ but very much alive. They were standing beside a lake, one laying calmly in the others embrace. Suddenly, Yan Zaizen felt at peace.

The scene ended.

Before he could think, he heard a voice from above, "You must...l-" This voice, despite being incomplete, was soft but powerful.

Shaa!

His eyes opened. Standing before him was a middle-aged man and a black-skinned man. Their gazes focused on Yan Zaizen and their eyes contained shock. Yan Zaizen had tears drenching his face and a wide smile on his face. It was as if he was happy to the extreme.

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