Creation.
A word too small for what it truly is.
The ancients claimed it was the first spark, the trembling breath that parted nothingness from something. The philosophers insisted it was the origin of meaning, the womb of all stories. Without it, there would be no progress, no thought, no dream... no us.
But tell me-
why do you think I speak of Creation now?
...Ah, you've already returned.
How unexpected. I had intended to compose a ballad today, yet here I am, caught in the gentle snare of my own monologue, drawing your attention as if by gravity.
Well then.
Sit with me a while.
If you lend me your presence, I shall give you the truth of my past.
---
I was born as an ordinary boy to a humble middle-class family-raised in gentleness, sheltered in their warmth. My parents taught me the world as lovingly as they could, giving me a happy idea of what the world could have been. But childhood was but a brief and distant memory, and adolescence is the age when one's own eyes finally open.
And when mine opened, I saw nothing but suffering.
I saw cruelty.
I saw tragedies repeating with mechanical precision.
Those calamities carved themselves into me, and in their wake they left purpose. They made me lift a sword. They made me pursue strength. They whispered that one life, even mine, could resist the ugliness of the world.
So I fought.
Odopholis the despicable tyrant.
CHESS, the terrorists who broke my nation like a toy.
Victor Alchemus, the alchemist whose ambition devoured his own sanity.
Disruptor, my antithesis, the opposite of what I am.
Resurrector, the man who could not be overgrown by his own grief.
Maredo the villain of older times.
Even Ozymandias-my own ancestor.
I fought them all, and at the journey's end, something within me... awakened.
My body strained against its own mana until pain became my second heartbeat. For a week, I lay incapacitated, drowning beneath power no human frame was meant to hold.
Any reasonable man would have sought healing and further medication
But unlike those other men- I was no longer reasonable.
I chose the solitary road.
If my body was changing, if my fate was shifting, then the path forward belonged only to me. Not to those I loved. Not to those I wished to protect.
And so-alone-I tore open dimensions with the Kontroligan Eyes and the ability to Create.
I wandered the unseen.
I chased truths that had never known language.
Danger, of course, followed.
The Wraiths of the Unknown World -shadows that fed on the souls of the lost-chased me across realms. Their claws shredded my limbs, their whispers cracked my organs. With each step, I felt the weight of death settling onto my spine.
I thought I would die.
I nearly welcomed it.
But fate... or something greater... interrupted.
A light engulfed me.
Blinding. Beautiful. Terrifying in its purity.
Within that brilliance, a voice spoke:
"Thou traveler from a distant land... why hast thou ventured into the realm beyond thy knowing?"
I could barely breathe. My body was broken. My vision flickered. Yet I felt-instinctively-that this was the crossroads. A chance to be remade. A sacrifice of everything I knew.
"Thou mayest rest, young one. Opportunity demands a price, but this cost... shall serve the greater good. Wilt thou accept?"
I did not trust my own voice, so I lifted my arm.
The figure of light extended theirs.
"Then the contract is forged."
A flash. A void. A silence deeper than any ocean.
And then-
I awoke.
My body no longer buckled under its own power. The pain that had clawed at my nerves was simply... gone. The mana settled like calm waters after a storm.
All around me stretched a void-yet one that bent itself to my will. A cosmos that allowed me to walk its emptiness as though it were earth.
Then the voice returned.
"You have surpassed humanity, young one. You stand beyond the gods, bearing the authority to shape reality itself."
And for the first time, I felt... relief.
Not triumph.
Not arrogance.
Relief.
But the voice was not yet finished.
"Tell me, Creo... hast thou noticed the eyes upon thee?"
I turned.
And I saw them.
Countless silhouettes, countless faces, countless watchers peering from every direction of the void.
I recoiled, my voice echoing.
"Why are they watching me?! What... what is happening?!"
The voice chuckled-gently, almost pityingly.
"Because, young architect, you are not real."
"The world is not real."
"The people around you- their entire existence is but a story woven for wandering minds."
The revelation shattered something in me.
To be told you have climbed beyond gods...
only to learn you were never real to begin with-
It is a special kind of cruelty only the cosmos itself can perform.
The light softened.
"I am Existence itself-the First Concept.
Long ago, the cosmos was but the White Expanse, empty and silent.
From me, all concepts were born."
I swallowed the truth.
Somehow, the emptiness felt heavier.
"Now you too stand as a metaphysical being," Existence said, "a character who has awakened to his own authorship."
I asked the only question that mattered:
"Do I have my own personal freedom?"
"Aye. Self-authority is thy gift.
Thou may return to Earth, mold reality, or reshape the story.
Only maintain order-and the realm is thine."
Thus I became the Architect of Concepts, the one who builds even meaning itself.
Yet even then, five powers eluded me-
Love. Hope. Guilt. Freedom. Purpose.
How fitting, isn't it?
That the most fragile concepts are the ones I cannot touch.
Especially love.
Athena...my beloved firespark, my equal, my comrade, my wife.
Together we fought, together we ruled, together we dreamed.
We were king and queen of our own story-
But even the brightest stories must close their pages eventually.
---
Now I live alone in a castle of my own design, suspended within the cosmos like a lantern in endless night.
To pass off those lonely times, I distracted myself by creating servants for me, I remade my castle to my own fit, I voerwatched and looked out into the unknown to swallow myself in the unknown and rant out my thoughts.
But even then
Days passed like years.
Years passed like moments.
Time has not a single ounce of flavor here.
"Every day was the same..." I whisper as I drift through the halls.
"I walk the fields of the cosmos, mend its fabric, maintain its order.
I do not eat. I do not sleep. I do not decay.
And yet-
still-
something is missing."
I tilt my head back toward the hollow sky.
"I miss my wife."
Exhausted, I fell asleep in my chair.
A rare, fragile sleep.
When I awaken-
I am no longer seated.
I am lying upon my bed.
And something warm rests beneath my head.
A lap.
Gentle. Familiar.
A voice brushes against my ears like moonlight against water:
"You sleep so peacefully...
You must have carried a heavy burden for far too long."
My heart trembles.
That voice. That warmth.
I open my eyes-
That familiar hair- those sparkling and dazzling eyes, she dressed perfectly for the occasion, with ornaments decorated around her simple but beautiful dress.
I knew I wasn't seeing things because I know that the woman right in front of me is her- she is there.
Athena.
My firespark.
Smiling as though no eternity had passed at all, looking as beautiful as the bright light of the sun.
"Did you miss me, my beloved moonlight?"
I do not answer.
I simply embrace her.
Her arms fold around me, soft and steady.
"Years may have separated us...
but my love for you has never dimmed."
My questions can wait.
My loneliness can fade.
My duties can sleep.
For in this vast, hollow cosmos-
in this realm where concepts bow to my will-
I finally have her in my arms again.
And that is enough to satisfy me.