Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 101: Prologue: Echoes of Peace [Vol. 1]

"Silence please."

A field of green grass stretched for as far as the eye could see, radiant blue skies hanging overhead, clouds lazily drifting across it, pulled by soft and soothing winds that swept across the plains.

The terrain rose and fell in small valleys and hills, flowers blooming across peaks and nadirs alike, the fragrant scent of pollen filling the air.

It was a beautiful sight.

At the peak of one of the bigger hills, a group of children sat—little boys and girls, all wearing the same robes; blends of white and bronze fabric, cuffs embroidered with roaring dragons and collars of soaring phoenixes.

The most shocking thing, though, was that every single child present was at the very peak of the Ex-Rank, the absolute zenith of the first step of ascendancy.

Yet none bore any visible spark characteristics.

They all seemed like regular, normal little boys and girls, giggling and gossiping amongst one another, almost oblivious to the torrential power flowing within them.

Standing in front of the rowdy crowd of children was a woman, tall and rather plump, more on the aged side, faint wrinkles matting her mature and beautiful visage.

Her eyes were of a light blue, so light it almost seemed like silvery white, and her hair was a faint pink, its edges entirely white.

She wore robes of pure crimson, layered and silky, embroidered in dark markings that contrasted perfectly against her milky white skin.

Glasses sat on her face, and her eyes, despite her soft and warm aura, were sharper than any blade. Her presence was deep and ancient, almost unfathomable.

She was miles and worlds beyond the first step, let alone the second, third, or even fourth. Her aura was so ancient and refined it almost felt as though she were a mirror of the world, incomprehensible yet endlessly simple.

She was powerful, truly.

"I said silence." She repeated, her smooth voice echoing across the plains.

Her voice resonated with the ambient fabric of aether, and as if compelled by a force greater than them all, the children seated before her began to quiet down.

They each forgot what they were talking about and focused on her, their attention entirely honed in.

She smiled.

"Good."

She clasped her hands behind her back.

"Today, we’ll be talking about the Myth of Paimon, the Five Heralds, and the Circular Choice, or for short, the Circular Myth of Paimon."

Her gaze panned across the group. "Can anyone name the key figures of the myth?"

Instantly, dozens raised their hands, pleading to be picked, but the instructor’s gaze focused only on one: a little girl sitting near the back.

Her hair was long and blonde, and her eyes a deep, dark amethyst.

"Go ahead, Sasha," the instructor said, looking at the little girl with a warm smile.

Sasha beamed in delight and immediately answered.

"Thank you!" She cleared her throat. "There are seven primary figures of the myth, and three relatively important yet secondary characters in the tale."

"The seven primary figures are: Paimon, Ateya, and the Five Heralds."

"Paimon is the Godless King, the Mortal King who killed the God of Storms, Mekearilis, and reclaimed the lands of Marimaus, thus opening the paths of Ascendance to all living beings."

"Ateya is the daughter of the God of Storms and wife of the Godless King. She is the Divine Queen, and the bridge between the Earth and Heavens."

"After rebelling against the will of her father, she was stripped of her divinity and pushed out of Heaven, only to fall into the arms of a young mortal boy, the future king."

"The Five Heralds are said to be the children of the Queen and King, born from their passion and love, but also from shards of the God of Storms. They represent the aspects of the fallen divinity."

"They are just as divine as they are mortal, so most refer to them as Angels."

"The three secondary characters are: the God of Storms, his wife, the Goddess of Severance, and a mysterious third figure known as Eucalypse, presumed to be a sort of demigod."

Sasha spoke without stuttering once or pausing, her words succinct and her cadence perfect. Instructor Beth couldn’t help but have her smile widen hearing her speak.

"Good, good." She nodded at the little girl in approval, who in turn couldn’t help but puff out her chest in pride and satisfaction.

Seeing the envious gazes of the other children only made Sasha all the happier.

"Now, can anyone tell me what the main conflict of the myth is and what its main essence is?" she asked. "Try to think outside the box. No answer is wrong; all that matters is perspective and depth of understanding."

Once again, nearly all hands shot up, rising as the pleading class of dozens of children echoed. All raised their hands except one.

A little boy sat the furthest back, head propped up by a fist and half asleep, light snores echoing from him. He had short white hair and from his half-open eyes, golden radiance slipped through.

"Ymir."

Hearing his name being called, the little boy woke up, startled, his head shooting up and his innocent golden eyes meeting Instructor Beth’s sharp gaze.

A shiver ran down his back.

"Yes, miss!"

Children around him suppressed laughs as he tried to wipe the saliva trailing from his lips and act as if he hadn’t been asleep.

Instructor Beth shook her head and sighed. "Would you care to answer my question? Since my classes seem to bore you, I assume you perfectly understand the tale."

"Of course!" Ymir swallowed hard as he hurriedly answered.

A younger boy close to him came to his help and leaned in not-so-discreetly, whispering the question to him. Beth saw it happen but didn’t stop it.

"On the surface, the clash seems almost superficial. The King, upon becoming a Godkiller, is blessed and cursed: he receives the gift of immortality, the gift of life, but in turn is cursed with the sight of time, with knowledge itself."

"The King is immortal and eternally mighty, but his cursed eyes show him a future of ruins, of chaos and horror where nothing but mayhem reigns."

"He sees a future where all Gods die by the hands of his children, as Heaven is torn apart by them and the earth fractures under their rage."

"He sees his kingdom fall, his wife perish, and his children succumb to the ebbs of madness blooming from their cores."

"But he refuses to believe it. Fate once ordained the death of a God impossible and the rise of a Mortal foolish, yet he rose nonetheless. He broke fate."

"That is the premise of the tale: the King trying to break it once more and save those he loves, lest he be left alone in an empty and godless world, where time has no meaning in the face of his immortality, where he becomes a Timeless."

The children around seemed genuinely captivated by Ymir’s words, almost forgetting the competitive spirit amongst themselves as they submerged into the myth’s weeds and details.

Instructor Beth, though, didn’t seem very impressed—not because Ymir’s words were wrong, but because she expected as much.

He was her best student, after all.

"Mm." She nodded. "And you say this is the surface level and superficial layer of the myth? What is its true core, then?"

Seeing Instructor Beth didn’t lash out, inwardly Ymir sighed in relief, but he didn’t relent and immediately followed, answering her question.

"I think the myth asks a lot of questions about what defines the self and what defines the other. It almost obsesses over distinctions and barriers, or their absence, in some way."

"The conflict itself, from a certain vantage point, is a clash of nurture and nature, of truth and desire, and the line that separates them."

"The Heralds are the best examples of this: from their birth as echoes of the divine, were they doomed to go mad?"

"There’s also a certain aspect of perversion to it. Their mother is also, in a sense, their daughter, and their father is also, in a sense, their son, but also their murderer and the one who stole their throne."

"But at the same time, they are their own grandfathers. It creates a spiral of insanity that almost paints their madness as inevitable."

He paused for a moment.

"There is also nuance in the King’s life, and I think the most important subject is the essence of Choice. It is said that the Queen fell from the Heavens and into his arms, but is that truly so?"

"How could the Queen so magically fall into the embrace of the one mortal child able to break fate? Of the only mortal that would ever kill a God? And how much of a coincidence is it that this same child, now a man, waged war against her father, the very source of her fall?"

"Why did the Queen even rebel? Why did she even fall? How did she even survive her fall?"

"As the King tries to break Fate yet again, he realises that perhaps he never broke it. Perhaps he was stripped of choice from the very beginning and used as nothing more than a pawn for the—"

The more Ymir spoke, the more Instructor Beth smiled, and the more the toddlers around quieted down, utterly captivated by his interpretation of the myth.

As the seconds trickled into minutes, Ymir’s voice only grew more passionate, and as he reached his conclusion, he mellowed out.

He exhaled a long and deep breath. "...that is what I personally make of it, at least."

Instructor Beth let silence settle for a moment.

The children couldn’t hear it, but her heart thundered in her chest and her breaths were short and uneven, her pupils narrowed to a pin and her smile almost inhuman.

But in seconds, she regained her composure. She looked at Ymir with as much pride as satisfaction.

"Very good, Ymir. Excellent. Now, before we move on to the literary and historical inspirations of the myth, would you care to give us a quote that stuck with you from it? I’m curious."

Ymir slicked his short white hair back and hummed. "A quote... it’d probably be from the Queen, before her clash with her third son, near the end of the sixth act, but..."

He took a few moments, thinking deeply about it, and none dared rush him, for some reason. After a few moments, though, he found his answer.

"The Circle is an illusion, and my Will proves it true; the chain, though, as crystal-clear as it may be, is real. The Crystal Chain and Golden Circle are quite alike."

"Die, face the Gates of Onyx and be enlightened. Only then will you truly see the essence of a Timeless."

[End of Vol.1: Echoes of Peace]