He was a universe.
He was born in a wondrous explosion of light and fire, brilliantly blooming in the endless dark. Galaxies spun from just his breath, as stars ignited within him by the trillions, scattering gold and sapphire across the boundless dark.
And then, he was a planet.
A carrier of life and the birthplace of all things living. Oceans gathered across his skin, as organisms emerged in quiet, miraculous ways. Forests spread across his surface, rivers carved their winding paths, and countless creatures lived and died beneath his watch.
And then, he was a continent.
Mountains rose from his spine, valleys sank into his flesh, and civilizations flourished upon him before crumbling into dust. Seasons swept across him in endless cycles, and yet, he still remained.
And so, he became a mountain.
Silent, immovable, ancient. He stood beneath the sky while storms battered his slopes, and snow crowned his peak. Centuries passed like passing clouds. His cliffs cracked. His summit weathered away, but even then, he still remained.
And so, he became a cliff.
A boulder.
A tree.
A leaf.
A blade of grass.
He shrank and shrank, reducing the size of his existence, until he was but the size of the smallest atom. And even then, he went smaller then that.
Until he was nothing at all.
And then...
**
The next time he opened his eyes, he was somewhere truly astounding.
'Is this it? My soul sea?'
Hugo had told him what a soul sea was earlier, so he figured that if he wanted to enter it, he'd have to focus on the deepest parts of himself through meditation. More specifically, he had to disconnect himself from everything around him first, which would only serve to block him. To do that, he imagined himself as the world, before becoming nothing.
By gradually shrinking himself, it became easier to disconnect from the things around him until only he remained, and his soul sea in turn.
But still, he didn't except to get it right the first try. He was really surprised with himself.
He wanted to congratulate himself, but there were more pressing matters to take care of at the moment.
Looking around himself, his eyes widened in awe.
A clear blue ocean lay calm and immense, its vast surface stretching far into the horizon, melting into the sky and meeting with the bright yellow sun setting in the distance. The sea glowed like crystals catching the light of that sun, making it shimmer with an array of vibrant colours.
Waves rolled gently across its surface, each crest flashing blue, gold, and silver as if the water itself were alive, filled with light and brilliance.
It all seemed so endless, so pure.
'This.. I've seen this before.. but where? When?'
As he was completely mesmorized by the sight, his nose picked up on the faintest scent, sending a shiver down his spine. Whatever relief he felt just gazing at his soul sea, was completely replaced by panic.
'What, this is!'
It was blood.
Frantically, he spun around trying to identify it's source. Where there was the blood, there was sure to be a corpse laying around too.
But no matter where he looked, there wasn't a single sign of a body anywhere at all. Although the scent of blood lingered here, any bloodstains seemed to be missing. Even the clear water was free of any red blemishes.
'But I'm sure of it. This foul iron stench.. it's blood.'
Yet, his surroundings seemed to disagree.
After a short moment of thinking, Azdin had to give up.
'Who am I kidding, this is probably just what it smells like. I'm going too deep into it.'
There was no body in sight, so it was reasonable to assume there probably wasn't one. But at the same time, the soul sea was vast. Perhaps even infinite, so maybe there really was a body waiting to be discovered somewhere around here.
Chances were though, he'd never find it. So whose to say if it really existed or not.
'I'm getting distracted again.'
Getting right back on track, he took a look at the sun again. If Hugo was to be believed, it was meant to be his Soul Core.
'Why's it so far away anyway? I thought he said it should be just above..'
Staring at it clearly for a few moments, he did notice a couple peculiar things about it.
"That looks bad.."
The first thing was the three tiny sparks that seemed to orbit around it. Azdin had no clue what they were at first, and they certainly seemed to be abnormal, so he didn't move on from them right away.
After dwelling on them for a short while, an idea did come to mind.
Extending out a hand, he tried to summon the Azure Saber. And just as he expected, one of the three sparks flew from the sun, and landed gently in his palm. As it did, it exploded into a whirlpool of sparks, until eventually revealing the memory.
'So this is where they went!'
Previously, he had wondered what happened to them, but now it seemed that he had found his answer. They had been idling by in his Soul sea this entire time.
Moving on, he grimaced.
The next strange thing that he had observed on his soul core... Was a net of cracks slowly spreading across it's surface.
'So she was right after all. My soul core was damaged.'
And the damage appeared to be growing, although quite slowly. If it had been any faster, he would've died in his sleep, so both luck and time seemed to be on his side. But that only begged the question... How?
The damage seemed minimal, so it had to have been controlled. Clearly, it wasn't done with the intent to atleast kill him right away.
The only other thing with access to his soul sea, which he had just discovered earlier now was..
'Nah it couldn't be. If it was hostile it would've killed me already.'
That seemed even less realistic now. Azdin pondered it for a while, trying to understand what could've caused it, but nothing came to mind.
'Anyhow, if that's all that happened. Then fixing the soul core would be easier then I thought.'
The core was simply a crystallized mass of soul essence.. so it could simply be fixed with even more essence. Meditating again to focus on forcefully taking back control of his soul essence, and then using it to plug it in would do the trick. Although if he wasn't too careful he could cause more harm then he'd like..
"I need more of those shards!"
The excess essence gained from absorbing them would make things faster, as well as increasing his soul fragment counter.
Thinking about it now, he hadn't checked his runes in a while. Ever since he created those memories, he'd completely forgotten about it. Since there really wasn't a reason, he hadn't went through them in forever. Maybe something had changed in the time he had neglected it.
So he called it out in his mind, and the glowing runes manifested before him once more, alongside the whispers. And indeed, something had changed. Something he would never have anticipated, and wasn't quite ready for.
Name: Azdin
True Name: —
Rank: Awakened
Soul Fragments: [511/2000]
Attributes: [Descendent], [Brilliance]
Memories: [Azure Saber], [Azure Saber], [Azure Saber]
Aspect: —
Flaw: [Crown Of Thorns]
Reading over them, a mixed current of excitement and fear washed over him like a tide.
The true name was still blank, just as he expected. Hugo never explained what that was, so he didn't believe it to be too important. He had no clue how to obtain one either, so it didn't matter to him much.
His attributes too, were the exact same. The memories were the same too, displaying the three identical copies of the Azure Saber he had created way back then.
However, the thing that caused his strange mix of excitement and anxiety, was the new area of runes that had appeared near the bottom of the page.
"I have a flaw!"
He was happy, yet fearful.
Receiving a flaw was both a blessing, and curse. A literal one at that.
On one hand, it was a sign that he had taken a great step closer towards unsealing his Aspect. On the other hand, it was also a permanent weakness that he'd never be able to escape from. Depending on how severe it was, it would either make or break him in the future.
And even more annoyingly, he hadn't received an aspect right away, so there was no way to cover for whatever weakness he'd gained.
'Now that I think about it, Hugo must have a flaw too huh?'
Well it only made sense that he didn't tell him. It wasn't something that he should tell anyone at all.
And back then, they weren't exactly on good terms.
'If that's seriously it, then I guess I'm done here. I can check the flaw once I finish recovering.'
Azdin didn't have too high expectations when he first came here, but he ended making some interesting discoveries. Satisfied with what he had learned, he prepared himself to leave.
But before that, his mind wandered back to the soul fragment section of the runes. Something rubbed off on him the wrong way.
Soul Fragments: [511]
'I could've sworn..'
The last time he checked, he remembered them being way higher, but now it seemed smaller somehow.
'I swear it was almost a thousand..'
As if confirming his suspicions in horrible twist of fate, he felt a strange pain in his chest. Then, immediately after,
Soul Fragments: [510]
'No!'
Another pang of pain struck him, but it wasn't physical. It was the heartbreak one felt after making a horrible realization. One that could've been easily resolved if it wasn't for their terrible neglect..
If he had just noticed sooner..
And then, as if his own intelligence decided to mock him too, he came to another conclusion. One that came far too late when it mattered.
'No! Impossible! It couldn't be! No!'
He had discovered the cause of the damage on his soul core.
At first he reasoned that he had gotten hurt, but that seemed highly unlikely. So that meant there could only be some kind of inner, rather than outer cause. The only thing with access to his soul was the sorcery apparently, but that was too scary to think about. Which only left..
'Why do I keep doing stupid crap to myself!??'
And he knew when it happened, and why too.
Back during the battle to reclaim his, and countless others freedom, he had exhausted his supply of soul essence during his fight with Roswell. That stacked on top of his own physical fatigue and injuries, he basically couldn't fight at all. And yet, at the last moment, he forced himself to move when Hugo needed him too, and delivered the finishing blow, ending his tyranny.
The power he managed to salvage back then didn't come from nothing. Desperate gambles for strength always came at a cost, or with risks.
The issue was that he had ran out of soul essence, but as it so happened, there was another source teeming with it inside of him.
The soul core itself.
So he made a split second decision. It was just a tiny bit, but he chipped away at his core slightly. To harvest it of soul essence and force one last bit of movement.
He was successful, but his fatigue must've made him black out while doing it. He didn't even remember how it happened.
And doing so while that exhausted didn't give his soul any room to heal. As a result, it began to slowly fracture with every bit of essence it managed to recover instantly escaping, as well as causing the crack in soul to grow ever wider.
This entire time.. all those horrible aches of pain..!
'It was all my doing! I'm such a fool!'
He wanted to smash his head against something hard so badly, it was all too embarrassing.
'I need to fix this Asap!'
Feeling every second of wasted time slipping away from him now, he reached out into the back of his mind and prepared himself to leave.
But tide of surprises didn't want to stop coming, something else just had to happen.
This, however, was perhaps the strangest out of them all.