Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 62: Theory(II)

Ayah’s heart was strange.

Uriel hadn’t had the time to truly dive into the specifics of his spark, having soon decided to pivot toward his mage path, but he still possessed an initial understanding of it.

He could sense the hearts of those around him, and with great effort, stir the emotions of said heart, manipulating and weaving them into truths or lies.

But through Lirik, he knew that the sturdiness of a heart, and the potency of an emotion, were only ever as powerful as the memories they were rooted in.

The intensity of those memories, but also their sheer quantity.

That was why, to him, noticing regressors in a crowd wasn’t anything difficult. He’d known Persephone was one at a glance and had confirmed Enoch was one the moment he awakened his spark.

But Ayah was different.

Her heart was sturdy in a way that was hard to explain, so much so that to feel her out, he had to actively burn aether and focus on her.

Yet her emotions were... heavy, but not intense, as if she herself was young, yet had inherited the emotions of an entity far older than she was.

It was strange, and it fascinated him.

"Try and fight the emotion," he whispered into her ear as he began his work.

SHAH!

His spark resonated with his core, then his body, his mind, and everything else, becoming a single cycle. He fell victim to his own spark’s influence, his heart and emotions exploding into chaotic activity.

And through their connection, so did Ayah.

SHAH!

The world warped, and he suddenly felt it.

Rage.

That was all Uriel could feel.

He felt rage burn within her heart, so potent it corroded it like rot, tightly wrapped around a small flicker of sorrow and grief, so faint it was negligible, yet so pure it was... soul-shattering.

But there was so much more.

There were waves of endless compassion, joy, and happiness, wound around one another to seemingly trap the rage, containing and burying it away, sparing her from her own agony.

There was ambition. There was curiosity. There was jealousy, and there was pride, not much of it, but it was there nonetheless, swirling within the expanse of her heart.

And at the core, deeper than even the rage, deeper than even the sorrow, there was a figure.

A small figure of light. A little girl, tightly holding what seemed to be a teddy bear, weeping into it, trying to muffle her own cries.

Loneliness.

Ayah was lonely, impossibly so.

Uriel felt it all slam into him, as if he were inside her heart—no, he truly was within her heart. standing as a small figure of light himself, pushed and pulled by the storm of emotions surrounding him.

A world of clashing colours and darkness, of shapes and storms, revolved above them both.

He looked down.

He looked past the loneliness of Ayah’s heart, diving into a layer of her being beyond mere emotion, into what could only be called the essence of her being.

Then he dove past that, reaching the quintessence of who she was.

Then he dove deeper still.

And he saw it.

’Beautiful.’

A small burning ember of light, gold and orange, pure beyond words.

It was a single flame, tiny and so weak that a mere gust of wind could blow it out, yet it also loomed like the highest truth of existence; like a collection of clashing and collapsing universes; like a nebula of power.

Her spark.

"...."

Uriel hadn’t expected his experiment to work, so when he found himself this close to her spark, he wasn’t ready for the tidal wave of emotion that slammed into him.

In the real world, his body shuddered, hands tightening around Ayah’s waist as his lips trembled and his chest slowly began to heave, overwhelmed by rage not his own.

His closed eyes watered, her loneliness consuming him in a blink.

At the same time, Ayah was finally freed from it.

She suddenly felt free; from the world, from her past, from her future and its expectations, from her present, from everything. She suddenly felt whole.

She finally saw herself for what she was, freed from the chains of her heart.

She saw the world with no falsehood, no pretence, no complexity—only simplicity... only truth.

A wave of euphoria overwhelmed her and she began to convulse in Uriel’s grasp.

The lonely little girl of light within her heart stirred awake, Ayah’s consciousness manifesting through her, laying eyes upon her spark.

She saw her spark for the first time.

She saw the state of her heart for the first time.

And she was free from its chains for the first time.

[You have opened a path!]

...

Uriel passed out, the state of his mind unknown.

He fell back, his core absolutely empty, just as Ayah floated upward, levitating into the air and deep into the skies.

SHA!

With a towel wrapped around his waist, body soaked and hair still full of bubbles, Enoch burst into the garden, having suddenly sensed a dangerous spike of aether.

He laid eyes on Uriel, noting his empty core, but seeing that he wasn’t coughing, he relaxed and shifted his focus to Ayah.

’What?!’

The grey skies above didn’t darken. Instead, they turned a radiant blue, then collapsed into a canvas of endless colours and shapes.

Those shapes and colours twisted into one, forming a magnificent painting drawn across the heavens—roaring dragons, soaring phoenixes, striding lions, dying behemoths, slumbering titans—of life itself.

The skies became a frescoed ceiling.

And at the centre of it all, Ayah levitated.

Her eyes snapped open and a soul-sundering shriek tore from her lips, ripping through the air and plunging all ambient aether into chaos.

As if answering her call, the creatures painted across the skies came to life. Titanic amounts of aether burned as they escaped the second dimension and entered the third, manifesting in full force.

A cacophony of roars echoed alongside her shriek.

Her body shook as her natal aether exploded outward.

Unlike Enoch, her body didn’t shatter, nor did she lose consciousness.

She was fully aware.

And as Uriel fell into slumber, his spark going to rest, she felt her emotions return with shocking clarity, potent and pure.

Her natal aether twisted into chains that wrapped around the sea of creatures surrounding her, dragging them toward her, deep into her core.

A shimmering crown of gold manifested atop her head, and her natal aether turned the colour of ancient bronze, chains included.

"COME."

Her voice emerged not as a shriek, but as a command, manifested and imprinted into all aether around her.

All beasts fused into her core, the skies left dark and heavy with bronze aether and the blinding brilliance of her golden crown.

A proud grin etched itself across her beautiful face.

[You have formed a Class!]