The kings of both sides shook in agreement of the bargain and quickly exited the location as the fire fell down, splitting the room in two. For the past few days they had been lucky, the fire only opened up for a few minutes, but not enough to be a noticeable amount of time.
But this time something in Genesis's soul told him that they wouldn't get so lucky again. Genesis was greeted by Sephina on his way to his bed.
"Hey Genesis how are you holding up, excluding the Agent experience of course."
"I'm holding up fine if you excuse the Agents, of course."
Genesis chatted.
"I was just wondering if you would want to sit next to me for the day."
Said Sephina her voice laced with a bit more bashfulness.
"Of course, but on one condition..."
Genesis trailed off.
"What is it?"
"You have to teach me how to wield a bow properly."
Genesis and Sephina conversed to each other.
"Sure."
Sephina said. She then walked off with a smile on her face.
Genesis went to bed and slept. Amidst his slumber Genesis had a dream, he had never had a dream in the White Room, but he always had dreams in the world before, so a dream was not a rare occurrence. This dream however this dream was different, he was in a dark room for a while.
There was a person there a divine being, Genesis could feel something in his soul resonating with the person. The thing put out a puzzle for him, a puzzle that stretched out to infinity. Genesis with full control of his mind made the puzzle smaller in scale, it did not help with the number of shape he had to fit, the right amount of numbers he had to calculate.
After an eternity he was finally done with the puzzle, the man seemed surprised and praised him, he even offered Genesis a gift he led Genesis into a dark room and showed him a presence... he showed Genesis his true presence. By now Genesis's soul was divine, even in dreams so he was able to make action with little to no effort.
'What is it with outer gods and showing me their true selves?'
Genesis thought with more cockiness than he should have had. It was as if the being heard his thoughts. Of course an outer god would be able to hear his thoughts. What is an outer god without having the ability to hear your thoughts? The man smiled and said.
"Bet."
His words carried weight, a lot of weight. If there was a new outer god it would be him, because outer gods don't speak informally. When the man said those words, he became better, he evolved into a new level of divinity.
Genesis backed away fearing the calamity that was to befall him. The man unleashed his presence, his true presence. Right now Genesis had just barely finished the first page of "Divinity for Dummies.", but the being was the one who created the book. Genesis was unimaginably far away from the being true power, yet he thought he could dare think a thought as degrading as that one in the presence of an outer god? Fool.
The being was basking in his own glory, the same feeling Genesis had in the White Room, only to a much higher degree. His presence came with an authority and it almost took Genesis's soul away, not piece by piece, his presence wanted to devour his soul whole.
Genesis saw a color similar to purple and he thought that he could maybe survive the antihalation of his mind, he thought so vaguely wrong. How much of an idiot could one be? It took 30 seconds, maybe in real time, in his mind, in dream time or what so ever, but all Genesis knew is that it took 30 seconds and chaos could not be controlled.
He saw colors he had never even comprehended before, colors he had never thought of before, he felt a presence he had never worshipped before. A presence of a God.
He screamed at the beauty and corruption of it. He thought he had seen true power from the Purposeless Wanderer but he knew even the Wanderer had a slight bit of mercy. Yet this deity had none, as if he had abandoned it long ago.
He kept going his worship reaching new heights. His vocal chords were being shredded by the strain he put on them, his ears were bleeding by the havoc that befell them. He was going to be the Paragon of Insanity if this continued any longer, so it all stopped.
He woke of from the dream, his throat dry, his ears hurting, his eyes were uneasy scanning the room as if excepting the man to come back and terrorize his mind. But nothing came, he felt it in his tapestry, all the parts that made the body so mesmerizing and terrifying, they were all in order. No soul had been upgraded in divinity and no mind was truly broken. He looked at his body to find scratch marks, the marks were self inflicted as his nail were dripping with blood.
'I must have been moving in my dream. I had wondered if it was even possible to dream things you could never understand, but now I know. How foolish was I to think I was the top of the world. All I had truly done was break past the thin layer of humanity and divinity, now I'm at the bottom. I saw this as a blessing, but it is truly a curse. All the divine beings will acknowledge me, all those who aren't human at least.'
Genesis feared of what his long road had for him as all the divine beings would recognize him for being a human and also reaching the level of divinity and they would pry into his life forever and all those who weren't as patient might act. Genesis would be able to do nothing to the prying eyes as he had once beheld the mysteries of a god and he almost lost his soul, now imagine a god that had no interest with him, one that saw him as an insect.
He got out of his bed, thinking about why his mind might want to see him scream out in pain, because if the Purposeless Wanderer was right, his mind should only devour for its own benefit unless... his mind wanted to digest itself. Genesis was not going to let his mind control his action as he still very much had a soul, a soul that lived for the benefit of him and not itself.
The thought was still terrifying even with the assurance of his soul. It was as if his mind was a different entity a, a usurper of the body.
'To defeat the enemy you must first defeat yourself?'
Genesis wondered of the reasons the mind tried to digest itself, maybe it wanted to save him. Which would lead Genesis down a paradoxical manhole. If his mind wanted to save him by devouring itself, then his mind wanted to hurt him by devouring itself. The Purposeless Wanderer warned him that his mind was a glutton, forever hungry, digests but never devours. Genesis knew a lot of things but none of which were connected to the mysteries surrounding the Purposeless Wanderer.
He kept trying to rack his brain around the thought of his inner conflict, but his brain just didn't seem to understand either. All the thinking made Genesis wander about into the bathroom to clear his thoughts. He rinsed his face with water, drinking some to hydrate his desert of a mouth.
He looked in the mirror, he saw himself, not a being that was superior to the world in soul. He looked into the mirror that never discriminated and he admired his old life, a life that would never come back to him. Oh how Genesis wished he had shut his eyes tight in that moment he would still be normal, if he just erased himself from the scenario, he would still be perfectly and beautifully basic, if he had just given up to the Agent.
But no he had to open his eyes to the glamour of the Purposeless Wanderer, he just had to. Genesis started to sob, a cry to regain what he had forever lost, a normal life. Blind in his anger he lashed out smashing the mirror with his fists, losing what he could have became forever.
As an attempt to calm himself down, Genesis trained. He first ran through his side of the White Room, which was a massive run, even in being in the whole of the White Room for 5 days he still did not know how huge this place was. As he jogged, his body bouncing up and down, he saw the gate of embers open, but it bothered him not as it only opened for a few minutes at a time anyway. He wiped the sweat of his face and kept running.
By the time he had finished the run he still saw the fire lifted which was strange as it took him 20 minutes to run across the White Room, which was impressive to what he once was before but that was not the problem at hand. He thought that it would close at any moment so he went back to train.
***
It had been one hour yet the fire had not yet fallen.
'Interesting.'
Genesis thought as he swung his sword in front of the fortress. Practicing the basic swings, there would come a time where he would test his skill with a sword. In his new life the time had to come eventually. He swung in each direction hundreds of time, each strike getting more precise than the last. Genesis called this form of training "The Three P's". Perseverance, Power and Precision. Each fundamental to master the sword, he would have to keep going persevering, through challenges that faced him. He would have to maintain or excel in the power of his swings each time. He would have to be precise, the movement of the sword, where he placed the sword all those things mattered and he had to think of it without a second of waste on the battlefield.
He kept swinging each time more determined than the last, what mattered to him in swordplay was not immediate and overwhelming power nor graceful, elegant and devastating skill. What mattered to him most was progress, slow and much more than steady progress.
He tried implementing new items into his practice such as movement of his own body and not just the sword, thrusting the sword through the air, using his body as a weapon as well as the sword. He learnt the art, studied the art, one could say he was obsessed with the art.
It didn't matter if you had skill, talent or whatever fancy word you wanted to call it, neither it mattered whether you had a mind of stability that could work hard no matter what trials faced them, none of them mattered except for obsession. The action of dedicating your being to the act, that was the perseverance strived to achieve and Genesis made progress to the achievement of obsession with every swing of the sword he did. He wondered if the obsession of the sword would corrupt him, he then remembered that he had a divine soul and a mind that adapts for his well-being. So Genesis figured he would be all right.
It had been two hours by the time Genesis finished all 8,000 swords swings 2 for each direction. He licked his cracked lips and spat out the salty sweat, he was to go to sleep until he noticed it the Miasma of Malice was back and because his team was more tolerant to it they didn't wake up and it was up to him to defend the "flag" with his life.
He saw a shadow in the distance yet he not feared the unknown, because he had gone through the unknown and then some, he let the intruder arrive knowing the intruder was going to have the most unpleasant arrival.