Makun sat still at a park, looking at the crisp clean water falling from the fountain.
He was deep in thought.
Reminiscing.
Four days ago, if you told him everything he knew now, he would have cursed at you.
Four days ago, if you spoke to him about the Source, ascension, spiritual energy, the Veil, he would have laughed in your face. Treated you as someone delusional who believed in conspiracy theories.
Now though. Right now, sitting here in this park at 5 AM, with the Warrior Route potion in his hand, he acknowledged the truth was far more complex than conspiracies.
They had done a good job with the Suppression, people behind the Veil cutting them from what was real.
At the end of the day, his bad luck was what led him here today.
It was what created a chance for him.
He had to thank it. He thought about his ex who told him he was cursed.
He thanked her too.
If not for her, he would have never gone online to search why he was so unlucky and if it was related to curses. He would have never thought curses were real.
But her saying that rang a bell in his head.
The search he did online at that point opened the door to everything he experienced now.
From a non-believer of conspiracies, he was forced to accept a harsher truth.
Makun sat on the bench, shifting his gaze from the fountain to the potion in his hand.
I am about to do it.
Drinking this will give me a chance at redemption. A chance at revenge.
He thought quietly while looking at the vial.
Then he thought about what Yime told him.
Once I start, there is no going back.
He was now aware of the threat of dissolution and the threat of ego. And every time you connected yourself to the Deep, you could lose yourself. Which meant after drinking this potion, there was no going back.
No matter what choice he made, he had to make it to the end.
He really believed that was the only way he could find solutions.
It did not matter if he knew the cost or not. He had already made up his mind. Drinking this was the only choice he had.
It was the only chance at changing his fate.
Makun slowly opened the vial.
FFFFFF.
The smell of the potion wafted out of the bottle. The sweet aroma filled his nose, giving him a sensation of high. Then it switched.
Switched to a pungent smell that made your stomach churn. That made you want to puke.
Makun scanned the park, making sure no one was in the vicinity.
Yime had warned him about consuming the potion where there were people. First, it exposed you to danger since connection to the Deep left your body vulnerable. Secondly, you exposed others to dangers as a crack was formed with the Deep.
He had no home, and could not do it in Hope Shelter.
So he had chosen this park because it was a bit subdued, and at 5 AM, no one was going to be here.
Makun closed his eyes, lifted his head, opened his mouth, and
Chah!
He downed the bottle in one go.
Similar to the smell that kept changing, the taste was even worse. At first it was sweet, sweet like sugar. Then it turned sour, even more than lemon. After, it hit him with a bitter taste.
So bitter he wanted to throw up. But he decided against it and
Gulp!
He swallowed.
Seated in a lotus position on the bench in the park, Makun waited. Waited for what, he did not know.
He could feel it. Feel the liquid, heavy, go down his throat, into his intestines, then stomach.
It was burning. And the burning was getting even more intense.
He could feel his body shaking, as if every atom that formed who he was were resonating with the drink.
Then
Thump!
Thump!
His heart started beating.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
It beat even faster than before. His body moved intensely. He felt like he was losing himself. Moving so fast he could not even feel his body.
But what he could feel was intense pain. Pain that hit his body like a bat after every nerve of his lit up.
He felt like the atoms of his body were screaming.
Am I dying? Is it supposed to work like this? Was I tricked?
Makun was in so much pain he thought that he was dying.
The vibration climbed higher. Faster. The hums became a roar.
Makun tried to breathe. His lungs would not obey. His chest heaved but no air came. His heart pounded so hard he thought it would crack his ribs.
And then,
Snap!
The world inverted.
His body was still sitting on the bench in the park. He could see it from above. Slack-jawed. Eyes rolled back. Hands gripping the edge of the bench like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.
But he was not in it anymore.
He floated. Suspended. Weightless.
His body, no, his spiritual body, was translucent. Pale blue light traced the outline of his limbs. He looked down at his hands. They were there. Real. But wrong.
No bones. No blood. Just energy held together by intention.
It was not the first time he experienced something like this. It was not the first time he had an out of body experience.
However, in the bathroom, after drinking the medicine to commit suicide, he felt no pain.
Today. What he felt was indescribable.
He looked around.
The park was gone.
The bench, the fountain, the noise of water, all of it dissolved like smoke.
What replaced it was infinite.
Is this the Deep, Makun asked himself.
Last time when he was dragged to the Presence, he traveled so fast that he could not manage to get a good look at his surroundings.
But now.
The Deep was not a place. It was a dimension of layers.
The first thing Makun saw was threads.
Billions of them. Gossamer-thin lines of light stretching in every direction. They connected everything. People, places, thoughts, choices. Some threads were bright. Others were frayed and dim.
He reached out. His fingers brushed one.
Pain.
A flash of memory that was not his. A woman screaming. A knife. Blood on tile.
He yanked his hand back.
Do not touch the threads. He made sure to keep this in mind.
The second thing he saw was the landscape.
It shifted constantly. Like a kaleidoscope made of memory and probability.
One moment, he stood in a forest of crystalline trees that hummed with ancient knowledge. The next, the trees dissolved into an ocean of black glass where drowned cities floated beneath the surface.
The sky, if it could be called a sky, was wrong.
No sun. No stars. Just endless spirals of color that moved like living things. Purples bled into greens. Golds folded into blacks. The colors whispered.
He could not understand the words, but he felt them in his chest. In his bones.
This is where reality is made.
The third thing he saw was himself.
Not his reflection. His echoes.
A thousand versions of Makun flickered in and out of existence around him. Some were running. Some were screaming. Some were covered in blood. Some were laughing.
Probability branches. Futures that could have been. Futures that still might be.
He tried to focus on one. It blurred. Disappeared.
What Makun did not know, and what Yime failed to mention, was that once initiated, the universe made sure to show you how grand it was. How every reality, no matter what planet or plane you were on, originated from it.
It showed you the Deep was connected to every layer of reality and how you could gain access to those layers while being here.
After initiation, once you re-entered the Deep, it would be different. You would experience what was known as settling. You would settle to a layer of reality accessible to your frequency.
Makun was busy contemplating the Deep when,
Pain.
Not in his body. This time it was in his soul.
A sharp, searing pressure in the center of his chest. Like something was being carved into him. Branded.
He looked down.
A small, glowing grain was forming inside his spiritual body. Right where his heart should be.
It pulsed. Rotated slowly. Dense. Heavy.
The Route Core.
It was not a heart. It was not an organ. It was information compressed into form.
Every truth the Warrior Route had ever encoded, from impact, struggle, survival, dominance, to blood and much more, was condensed into this single grain.
He could feel it.
The weight of every warrior who had ever walked this path. The hunger for battle. The reflex to strike first. The instinct to read threats in every shadow.
The grain pulsed again. Brighter this time.
And Makun understood.
This should be the core Yime mentioned. Every time I gain a comprehension related to this route, it should grow.
The information was being absorbed from everywhere, settling in his core.
It should have stopped there.
That was what Yime had told him in passing when making the potion.
"The grain will form. Small. Stable. The size of a rice grain. That is all. Then you come back."
But it did not stop.
The grain pulsed again.
And grew.
Makun's spiritual body convulsed. The pressure in his chest doubled. Tripled.
No. No, this is not right.
The grain expanded. From the size of a rice grain to a bean.
Then bigger.
The light around it intensified. Not gentle. Not controlled.
Hungry.
VOOOOO.
A sound ripped through the Deep.
Not a sound. A force.
The air, if it could be called air, twisted.
A vortex formed around the grain. Violent. Spinning. The threads in the Deep bent toward it. Pulled. Snapped.
The grain was absorbing.
Information flooded in. Not in a trickle. In a torrent.
Combat memories from warriors long dead. Battle strategies. Killing techniques. Rage. Fear. Triumph. Blood.
Too much.
Too fast.
Makun tried to scream.
His mouth opened but no sound came out.
In the park, in the real world, his physical body jerked violently on the bench.
His back arched. His limbs spasmed. His head snapped back.
Blood.
It leaked from his nose. His ears. The corners of his eyes.
His body was not built for this.
No one's body is built for this.
In the Deep, the vortex widened.
Entities of grotesque form were attracted by the disturbance and started circling around.
Makun could feel them. He also felt like he had to stop. He could feel cracks appear beneath his spiritual body, along his arms, his chest, his legs.
He had already formed the core. If he carried on, he was going to die.
He had to get himself out of this situation. He forced his thoughts to the park, the sound of the fountain, the bench, the vial. Slowly he could see it appearing again.
He forced his spiritual body to move closer to his physical body, wishing to stop this.
Maybe if he returned, it was all going to stop.
Makun forced his way back into his body, hoping for everything to stop. However,
CRACK.