The Awakening

After a quick drop back at the hospital, we headed home in a metal device that drove quite fast, though there were no surprises there. For a civilisation that stole the stars and stuck people in time for entertainment, you would at least expect them to travel by flight or teleportation.

I did not say a word and they did not seem inclined to either, so things were made simpler. In a brutal stop, the woman opened her door then mine to finally break the silence.

"Can you help your sister opal get out of the car? She's still dizzy from the anaesthesia"

Suckers.

I dashed under her arm and ran to the nearest exit. Fumbling was heard behind me and soon I turned around to see the slender silhouette of the man chasing after me. He was miserably slow.

I looked around. light shone everywhere but the sky, and on the front porch of a building, luminous beams of a multitude of colours stuck out, portraying a heavenly message: 'hotdogs', with its iridescent appearance.

I thought I was alone, but then appeared the sorry bandaged bruises of this utopia. Yes, tucked away under their piles of cloth, hiding more from the sights of strangers than the cold itself, beings, sleeping. As I rushed loudly between them, they stirred, annoyed, not even curious of what event might be happening, as if that was of little importance to them now. They had seen too much. Like me.

I took a left. A right. This was strange. Usually, whenever I would reincarnate, mythological beings would immediately approach as they sensed a magical soul, but there was none this time. Were all the gods dead? Anyways, it was time to get to work.

"Eve, as you are forever bound to me, could you please look around? I need a moment of silence, make sure it is undisturbed."

A yawn was heard inside my head.

"God! you could have some respect! That's not how you wake up a spirit!" she hissed

"Why do you need sleep anyways?"

"You've never been dead long enough, you wouldn't understand."

I sat down. I put my hands on the hard, rocky ground. I felt the gentle night breeze whistling through my short hair. I heard my muscles slowly relax. I reached deep within my brain, in a wrinkle always sensed but never identified, and with a voice from my soul itself, I called upon the universal, never-changing incantations.

"incantamentum libri"

From the ground, a small plant-like object sprouted. It was transparent and ethereal, as if it did not truly exist, but was rather an ida connected forever to the summoner.

"Only two petals?"

I quickly snatched the almost rectangular white petals and paired them together. Tangling vines pierced though and bound them into a minuscule book. Light shone, but not from above, the book radiated as words wrote themselves down. Incantations. Four different spells.

"Let's see what we have here..."

I only recognized one:

[Knowledge: Omnituens Lexicon, the all-seeing dictionary. Identifies all object before you using modern-day definitions. 5 mana / second]

Perfect.

The other spells were cruelly empty. That was because I had not discovered them yet, they changed over time. I only knew one thing: their incantation and cost.

[Power: Aqua gladius, 40 mana / second. Water source necessary.

Aspect: Simulatum, 20 mana / second. Must have a target

Control: Sine sensu, 5 mana / second / cm^2. Target must be sentient]

I flipped the page, but the book came to an abrupt end. I checked my stats on the back.

"Arte metri"

More words inscribed themselves.

[Mana capacity: 100. Mana regeneration: 7 / second. Affinity: Knowledge]

Great. Just great. Why did I have to be in the body of a child?

"Adam," I recognized Eve's voice. "in the air, there's something."

From the night sky, like a bug following a source of light, a dark winged being descended towards me. In a shockwave, it reached the ground. It was an angel. An angel with twelve wings spread across his back which all showed the colour of dried blood. His body was covered in bandages, but on his four heads i could make out dozens of circles of eyes. It looked at the brink of collapse. It shrieked.

"Adam... It's you!" A smile was heard in his deep doubled voice. A malevolent smile. "You're the one who murdered our god! You're the one who made us this mess." He chuckled. "Just a child. Even though you ate the fruit even we overpower you!"

He raised his hand. His mouth opened. "Fulgur ferum". Instantly, thunder resonated. From the sky, a pure bolt fell and landed in his hand. He surged forwards, swinging wildly. I started running, but he could fly. Eve was acting as my eyes.

"Duck!"

I threw myself to the ground as the electrical blade swept right above my head, carbonising some of my hair. The fluttering black streaks reminded me that if i died here, it was the end. No reincarnation in sight.

I rolled under his flying body, gasping his foot on my way there. in my rotation, I pulled him to the ground. We struggled back onto our feet and he lunged at me. I tried to duck, and it dodged the blade, but his knee plunged into my chest. I spat blood to the ground.

It's voice resounded. "Pallium"

he slowly lost his opacity, becoming simply a shadow. the only thing I could see was his weapon, which surged towards me.

I couldn't beat him. I had to use a spell. The power spell seemed great, but I would only be able to sustain it for three seconds. Aspect spells alone are not very viable in combat, i had to gamble on the control spell. as his weapon was rising towards my jaw, I mumbled, staring right at it.

"Sine sensu"

As the fallen angel lost all feeling in his hand, his weapon fell to the ground, and his forearm became visible. I snatched it and plunged it into the space which should have contained his chest. As its life fleeted away, so did the sword he had summoned, and his colours slowly reappeared. A huge puddle of blood surged from nowhere. I breathed. though the handle of the sword was much less deadly than the blade, my hand still stung. I fell to the ground. My chest was pounding. I didn't seem to have any broken ribs, at least, but I needed to rest. Fast.

As i opened my spell book to chop down a few notes, I noticed my mana was almost fully depleted after only a small spell. I really needed to train, but first, notes. Thankfully, it happened telepathically.

[Sine sensu, seems to cause numbness or loss of control of targeted body parts. Might work on animals.]

I looked back at the bloodied body on the ground. There wasn't a single bauble i could steal. I guess thats why he was so weak, even the christian relics were rendered useless so long after god's death, otherwise I would be the dead one.

The next logical step was to slowly enhance my mana powers passively to train mana regeneration.

"Omnituens Lexicon"

My hands forcefully closed together. Through the cracks of my fingers, dreamy red smoke emerged.

"This always surprises me." A slight smirk was drawing itself on my lips.

As I opened my hands, I now saw my new permanent tool. a pair of glasses, but they were strange. instead of two glass parts on a mount that we directly hold the mount reached to the ears to hold by itself. Strange. At least I now could be constantly analysing things around me without looking weird. The glasses had a slight blue tint and the mount was black. It was a perfect fit with my face.

I stumbled back to the street in a place where there weren't many homeless. I approached one, limping, raising my weapon over my head. In a single ding, he was out. I placed the crowbar down and pushed him aside, further into the alleyway.

"Look, Eve! a perfect cozy bed just for us!"

She did not respond. I knew she was absolutely disgusted by my actions.

"I guess it's true spirits don't change. You haven't changed a but since that afternoon under the tree. If one day you go back into a human incarnation, try killing someone, maybe that will toughen you up."

"The day I become like you is the day I will die. And I'm already dead.

Over the years, I had gotten used to the feeling. Cold. Weak. Empty... no, siphoned. Every single night, using my magic in my sleep to then wake up with a fraction of progress towards my goal. But that only fuelled me to push forwards. Every time I lost someone I loved. Every time I saw my hopes utterly destroyed. Every time I killed someone I loved. Every time I crushed their hopes, only to leave a void. I went to sleep, greeted by the excruciating feeling of consuming every ounce of my power while attempting to rest, reminding me that nothing, not a single thing had changed on this barren earth. No matter the amount of blood I spilled, not a single soul on this land, not even the gods, knew the answer to the question: 'Why keep going?'. I knew that as long as I suffered today was no different to yesterday, no different to 6000 years ago. And nothing changed. Gods died too. So that's why I keep going: to find a reason to keep going. Every person I murder would have never found an answer anyways, isn't it only right to take everything from them? No, it's not. Who cares? God?

Eve woke me up, but I wasn't listening to her. It was time to go. The book had a new page.

[Knowledge: Modulus amplificare 10 mana / second. requires Omnituens Lexicon to be active.

Mana capacity: 110. Mana regeneration: 9 / second.]