On another planet, a mass assembly was taking place in an ancient ruin long ago re-purposed. It was now being used as a large conference room for important meetings that involved figures from around the world.
Because of the size of the room, it often wasn’t used unless such a large number of people were involved. The current assembly was because of one important reason, that the upper echelons of the religion were all present.
The room itself was originally a giant circle with walls surrounding it that rose almost as high as it was wide. The circle itself was wide enough that, when they went to make adjustments to it, they added several seats starting several paces away from the center and still fit fifty rows to the wall.
Each seating area in a row had a large chair, a desk, and several other small things for each person. The room between each person was rather spacious, and was built like that in order to keep people from interacting with each other during assemblies.
The center itself was left open, and equidistant from the center as the first row of seating was the presentation stage opposite it. The stage itself wasn’t too large, but mostly acted as a base for the enormous wall behind it that images would be shown on during some meetings in the past. Today, all seating spaces had their own screens and it wasn’t necessary to use the giant wall anymore, but whoever would speak or orchestrate the assembly would always be positioned on the stage, speaking to the others.
A man began speaking as he stood on the stage, “One year ago, rumors had begun to spread that there was a person with power from myth. I know many, if not all of you have at least heard something about these rumors. While it may seem hard to believe, this person, no, this being has not hidden himself away. We have been keeping tabs on them, and waited to see if they had some divine mission they needed to accomplish. Since the first sightings, we have found that they have visited most of the heritage sites around the world and last week, they stopped here, requesting access to look for something.”
Though every person present was spaced out in such a large space, enough people were surprised that a gasp could still be heard.
“I know that some of you think they are a messenger and that they need something before acting out divine will. Others think the opposite. Yet, more of us seem to just be sitting on the fence, waiting to see what will happen. If you all recall one of the oldest stories known.”
The man speaking knew everybody present had heard it before, but he continued anyway.
“Two beings, deities who grew together, loved together, and in the end betrayed each other. In that story, each created their own world and bound them to each other. It wasn’t until eons later that one of the deities no longer wanted their worlds intertwined. The other deity, feeling betrayed, came to our world and stole the very heart of it. The one who created this world knew they were coming, but did nothing to stop them, only to leave words that those in our religion still hold dear. Yet, even those words may be lost to time if not for being passed from leader to leader.”
The room itself was quiet as several had never heard of anything else of the story, only that it was a story of creation for their world. The common ending was that the deity fought back to protect our world, sacrificing themselves to keep it from being destroyed.
“One day, a boy will come bearing a seed. That seed is the heart of this world and will need all your support to bring energy back to you. Before that shall come a herald, unfamiliar and unknown to you. They will not kill in malice but in protection. If these two don’t meet, then the world shall forever be dull. Soon after the boy will come a girl. They will have suffered a fate of weakness among the strong. She will be the guide for the boy. Do not fault the three as they are your hope for return.”
The man said nothing after that and just waited for a moment to let everyone digest that. Looking around the great room, he began speaking again.
“Some of us believe he may be the herald. Yet there is no boy with a seed, nor girl. However, I ask all of you, has this being attacked in malice? Have those here that know of the true final word searched for the boy or girl? Have we been keeping with our faith?”
Another pause came before he finished in a quieter tone.
“Or have we fallen so that we cannot even know when our time has come?”
The man looked around the room once more before stepping away from the stage and returning to one of the front seats. He just sat there with his arms crossed and eyes closed, seemingly waiting for something.
In the ensuing chatter amongst everybody, there was a low hum. Nobody noticed at first until it began to grow louder than the chatting people. Soon after, a rumble accompanied it, and speakers around the room began to blare a whirling tone before stating the situation.
“Please evacuate the premises and find the nearest shelter.”
It just repeated over and over and all those present got up and quickly left as the hum grew louder while the rumble of the ground became like thunder.
As all those in the surrounding area entered a nearby shelter built for earthquakes, on several cameras in the assembly room showed a sphere with a dull glow in the exact center of the room.
The glow grew, and soon swirling lines appeared out of nowhere, expanding, contracting, and shifting around. After a time, another set of lines joined it, following a different rhythm as it seemed to sometimes connect to the first for a brief moment before undulating with its own light and movement. A third joined it, as they spun and twisted around, growing, shrinking, slowing, and quickening.
Shifting around as the center of the hall was too bright for the cameras to see anything. As the cameras were now blind, they could see that over the next couple of hours, while the hum grew louder and the ground shook harder, the first three patterns were joined by six more.
Altogether, there were nine shifting patterns, crazily moving around and winding through each other, as the very center of the room formed a pitch-black orb. The arrival of the orb changed the hum to a screech that even those inside the shelter felt a shiver from. Just as their ears began to bleed, everything stopped at once with a final booming jolt of the ground underneath them.
In the middle of the assembly room lay Hugh, barely breathing and once again without any energy at all. The process had taken all he had worked for so far.
-
Yet again, Hugh found himself in unfamiliar surroundings. Not seeing anything but a large room filled with unfamiliar objects, Hugh ignored everything and just closed his eyes for a moment.
Taking a deep breath, Hugh relaxed some as he waited for his body to stop tingling all over. Once again, he felt weak and unsurprisingly, found that he could not feel any energy in his body anymore.
If it wasn’t for Hugh having to restart several times already, he would’ve felt despair. He had focused so much on cultivating the energy within himself over the past few months that he still couldn’t escape the feeling of regret.
He briefly wondered if he should have paid any attention to the seed at all. In his musings, as the tingles and aches all over began to leave his body one by one, his mind was pulled into his inner space.
Having lost control, he only sat there in the middle of the large room, unaware of anything else around him. Luckily, the cameras had broken, and nobody was around as they all still hid in the shelters.
In Hugh’s mind space, he was once again facing the seed that had brought him into his current situation. As he stared at the object, he noticed that the lines that he had created were all gone, and now a new, unfamiliar set of lines were shining on the surface.
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Hesitant to do anything with it, he didn’t have time to reflect on whether or not he wanted to try again before it began to shine.
Hugh could only watch as the glow intensified and seemed to coalesce into the shape of a person. As time drew on, the light began to fade, leaving behind a woman dressed in a simple white robe that flowed as she slightly turned to look at Hugh in his inner mind.
Hugh was stunned, at first by the person’s looks, then by the fact that there was another person inside his inner mind.
How could somebody be here, he thought.
Before Hugh could make heads or tails of the situation, the lady spoke into Hugh’s mind.
“Child, thank you for completing the diagram and bringing the seed back to my world.”
While the statement itself answered a couple of questions Hugh had, he was still at a loss. That was especially true since he had finally begun to grow in strength before quickly having everything taken away once again.
The woman smiled at Hugh and spoke again, “For completing this great task, I can offer you a boon.”
Several thoughts flashed through Hugh’s mind.
How powerful was this person?
Could they teach me a proper method since he had brought the seed back?
Could they restore everything he had worked on?
Could they send me back to Dierra, where there is abundant energy?
Before Hugh could even voice a single question in his mind, the woman gestured with an arm as a mote of light appeared from her hand and floated over to Hugh before stopping right in front of him.
“This boon shall do the one thing you need most, even if you do not realize what that is in the moment. I will not force it upon you, but to accept it, all you need to do is reach out and grasp it.”
Hugh was mesmerized by the brilliant floating mote of light in front of him. It seemed soothing, yet powerful, warm, yet mild. He reached out with his hand, and as soon as he touched it, it shot into him.
Hugh felt like he was dying of thirst before this moment and simply didn’t know it. The energy seemed to wrap his body in the most comfortable feeling he ever knew was possible. Then, just as soon as the feeling appeared, it vanished as all the energy seemed to instantly gather and form into some pattern before completely disappearing.
Hugh was perplexed as he didn’t feel any different, but as he opened his eyes, he was greeted with a surprised look on the woman’s face.
“Child, it seems that the boon has finished its task. Your negative karmic ties have been severed.”
Hugh didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he did feel a lot lighter, like there was no longer somebody always watching him from the shadows. He had had that feeling in every life and had long gotten used to it, so it wasn’t until this moment that he realized a person could feel different.
Before he could ask about it, the woman spoke again, changing her expression to a more serious one.
“Do not ask about those ties. All I can tell you is that the ties were so numerous and heavy, that there was no way for you to accumulate them in your current life. I wouldn’t have chosen somebody with so many negative ties if there was a choice, but it has been a very long time.”
The woman took a deep breath before letting out a long sigh and looking off in a direction. The movement confused Hugh a little since there was nothing else to see in his inner mind except the seed, himself, and herself.
Looking back at Hugh, the woman seemed to have made a decision.
“Although you have a clean slate now, due to your past ties, even though they are now severed, I will not be awarding any further merit.”
Hugh felt that the conversation was too one-sided and was about to take a bad turn for him. Before she could finish, Hugh blurted out, “I remember my past lives! I died young over and over!”
The woman paused and studied Hugh for a moment before shaking her head.
“Even if what you say is as true as you seem to believe, then the accumulation was from before that. They were there, and that is proof enough. To even have the luck to appear on this world is a miracle in itself.”
The woman posed in thought, and Hugh didn’t want to interrupt again, letting her mull over her own thoughts and what he had said. She obviously knew a lot more than him, despite having only just met him.
The woman considered many things before she asked, “How many lives do you remember?”
Hugh felt like this was somehow his chance and answered, “Four, well, this is my fifth. My first I became the village elder, then in the next three, I died as a child or younger.”
“Alright, that’s enough.”
The woman considered. With how numerous the ties were, I’d think the boy destroyed several hundred worlds, if not more. Yet, he was still able to somehow reincarnate and live long enough to have memories. Once, apparently long enough to become an elder to others. He remembers the past too, despite the impossibility of obtaining any treasures in his current life.
Like a light bulb went off in her mind, the woman looked deeply at Hugh once again. Hugh, not used to receiving such a look like the woman was peering into his very soul, shot his eyes toward the distance, avoiding eye contact.
The woman disregarded Hugh’s reaction as she squinted for a bit before sighing in defeat. She realized that the spirit she had left for when the seed was returned to her world was not strong enough to peer into the boy’s soul to verify what she thought might be the case.
Thinking over the whole situation again, she asked a few more questions.
“Child. When you were an elder, what stage did you reach?”
Hugh looked back at the woman as she asked him a new question. With her look more friendly again, he spoke, “I didn’t know about that. I hadn’t practiced anything until my current life.”
The woman raised an eyebrow before continuing.
“How many lives have you taken from your past remembered lives until now?
Hugh was shocked by the question but knew that he had to answer. Sinking back into his memories, he relived the moment in his first life when he took another’s life. It was his first and last time since then as he executed somebody from the tribe that had killed several others.
“I executed a murderer in my first life.”
The woman seemed to stare at Hugh as if she was waiting for more, but then another question escaped her lips.
“If your death saved countless lives in the universe, would you take it yourself?”
Once again, this was a question Hugh was not expecting and could only give it some serious thought. Despite that, he quickly arrived at an answer within the first second, especially since he could remember his past lives.
“Yes. I can remember my past lives, but nobody I’ve met can do the same.”
The woman nodded before raising her arms to her sides.
“My world has lost all its energy from having the seed taken away. As you have returned it, then so shall it once again begin to flourish with the natural energies. I had previously given you a boon that removed negative karmic ties. But in truth, those are only severed as long as you stay in my world, as it is what protects you from them.”
Hugh gulped, did that mean he was stuck here forever?
The woman continued, “As the energy returns, so shall the ability for you and others to cultivate anew. Be warned that no matter where you go apart from here, only your death will repay those ties, one by one.”
Hugh felt the words were more of a sentence to the very same execution he carried out in his first life.
“Unless… You remove them another way.”
Hugh couldn’t help but feel hopeful at those words and hurriedly asked, “How do I do that?”
The woman held out her hand with two fingers up.
“There are two ways. One is to kill those with more negative ties than positive. Each time you do that, you will offset your ties depending on their negative ties over their positive ones.”
Hugh didn’t know how many he had, so he felt that sounded easy enough.
Seeing Hugh’s face, she knew he didn’t fully understand how bad his situation was.
“You have several trillion negative ties, no, maybe more than that. It’s surprising that you ever made it beyond a month old. Dying over and over until those ties were slowly removed, one by one, with each death.”
Hugh gulped, still only vaguely realizing just how massive that number truly was.
Lowering a finger, the woman continued, “The second option is to save a world. Like mine, you saved it from certain death. It had maybe a few thousand more years before it would die out completely. Without the world seed, it was slowly starving itself out, feeding on the life force of those that inhabited it. Without energy, the mortal quickly dies off, even if they have children, everybody is feeble. When all life dies off, the planet begins to cannibalize itself until nothing is left, eventually disappearing from reality.”
The words spoken now felt like Hugh was in a classroom listening to a lecture on a topic way beyond his current level.
“Thus, returning the seed gives my world its life back and saves the lives that still exist here. While to many, that would seem to be countless, in comparison to your negative karmic ties, it is but a drop in the bucket.”
Hugh couldn’t help but ask, “How many worlds do I need to save before I remove all the negative ties?”
The woman shook her head. “If they are like mine, then over ten thousand.”
Hugh was speechless. How would he even go about doing that? Wasn’t that just like asking him to become a god and change the fate of countless worlds with the wave of a hand.
The woman smiled, “It’s not as difficult as you may think. Especially if you are able to reach the world formation stage. Since you have saved my world, even though I am but a remnant spirit or will, I will bestow upon you a connection to the seed.”
Hugh was confused by the statement. Wasn’t the seed inside of him?
The woman began to make gestures as several lines appeared in the space before shifting and fusing into several symbols. As time went on, more symbols were added, and interconnecting lines wove them together into something so complex that Hugh felt dizzy looking at it.
After a time, the woman’s form became more ethereal, and the pattern seemed to finalize as it flashed before splitting in two. One flew toward the seed and the other toward Hugh.
Just like that, Hugh found himself back in the large room with a few last words echoing in his head from the mysterious woman.
“Despite your negative ties, your soul is clean. I, Hathana, grant you a direct link to my world’s seed and its knowledge, though access will be limited. May we meet in the Beyond.”
