1 Imprisonment
Silence.
Emptiness.
Eternity.
Words that seemingly had no connection to each other were interwoven into this world. The seemingly peaceful scenery was empty with no life in sight, and only endless grasslands prostrated themselves under the heavy, blue sky. There existed no sun and no wind, and yet the grass was illuminated by the brightest of lights and the grass swayed under the heaviest of storms.
Yet even in this dreadfully quiet and listless world existed life. Casted away from mortal realm was a being of unique charm. From a distance he could be mistaken for a normal human, but his pale skin, venomous green eyes and black hair with streaks of green that had a life of its own guaranteed that he was far from a typical mortal.
His gaze, once vibrant and fierce, was tranquil and even dull. His green streaks of hair that danced like flames of hell were now lifeless, no different from normal hair. Laying on the grass and watching the speckless sky above- that was all he could do.
"You have a bad taste, Yahweh. Couldn't imprison me in a more boring place than this?" The man said out loud, as it was too bothersome and unnecessary to hide his thoughts in this place.
Lucius sighed for 99,856th time since the last time he had anything better to do in the Eternal Seal. New thoughts hardly circulated in his mind, as everything was already thought through, having thousands of years of time at his disposal. It was a pity that he had nothing to waste them on.
It wasn't like that at the start. The beginning was also sad and bitter, but it was still leagues above his situation now. First few hundred years or at least what felt like that, were filled with rage and thirst for revenge. Truth be told, Lucius was a little bit embarrassed to dig up those memories, but it was worth it if it could stimulate his emotions at least a little bit. Sadly, it wasn't embarrassing enough this time either.
After thrashing around, trying to escape the seal created specifically for him and destroy this world, and failing in the end, he calmed down. The years that followed were pretty decent.
Having cleared his mind, he had countless thoughts running through it. The world was bare, and there was nothing in it, but he couldn't care less. Although only his mind was in the seal, and his real body was outside in the real world, unresponsive, he still could stimulate and call upon his powers, even if they had no real strength and couldn't leave even a scratch on the ground.
After enough time passed, he even learned how to conjure different items. They also had no real power to them, and counted only as illusions at best, but it still gave him something to work with.
He made colossal advancements in magic, learning all schools of magic that he knew of and even trying to create something new, combing others school of magic into his magnum opus- Dimensional Magic.
The latter one was his pride and joy. It combined basic Teleportation Magic, Gravitational Magic, as well as his own personal Magic that he hadn't see anyone use before. Different from Teleportation Magic, Dimensional Magic manipulated space itself and as such, there was little it couldn't achieve. Of course, being in a space where he couldn't actively use it limited his knowledge of it, as well as theoretically massive amounts of energy needed to power it, somewhat dampened his mood, if only a little bit.
Besides, there was a purpose behind creating this magic- it was to escape his glorious prison. Although Lucius was sure that Yahweh initially planned for him to be able to only use his mind in the seal, some of the energy from his body still managed to leak inside, giving him confidence that maybe, someday, he would be able to leave this place. Even if it would take whole eternity.
As it stood, the energy wasn't nearly enough to try to break out, so he postponed this plan for the future.
Besides researching Magic and advancing his knowledge of Touki and Senjutsu, he also continued his practises of combat. With the ability to conjure items he already had seen in his life, he could practice his swordsmanship to the utmost perfection, limited only by the fact that he had no one to use this techniques on. Items were in his powers to conjure, but actual living beings were far beyond his current capabilities.
Still, having thousands of years at his disposal, it soon came to a point where he truly had nothing to do. He exhausted all his ideas, all his plans that he had accumulated previously and learned everything to the best of his abilities. Without outside influence, without new ideas, he truly had nowhere to go from there.
He, of course, continued his practice of his abilities, but soon after seeing that he made no progress whatsoever, he ended that as well. Which, a few hundred years later or at least the feeling of this amount of time, led him to the current situation.
"What I would do to set foot outside... Oh, Yahweh, I would even give you my soul..." Desperation was a dangerous thing. Lucius knew that, but his will was already subdued and he no longer cared about the consequences. "Truly, you know how to break the wills of people the best..."
Just as he was thinking if he should go take a small stroll, he saw a change in the sky. His eyes immediately widened and in the next instant he was already standing on his two legs, watching the strange change in the sky.
After a second, he flew up, trying to inspect it closer. Normally it wouldn't yield any changes, as the space was enchanted for it to never have an end point and he would never come closer to the end of the barrier. Today though, the situation was different.
There was a crack in the sky. It was small, barely noticeable, maybe only the size of his pinky. And yet, this small hole made a huge change. There was something inside Lucius that he never thought he would ever feel again. His heart reignited with ever-increasing fervor, a forgotten, yet also strangely familiar emotion coming back. It was hope.
"I-Is this a trick? Are you trying to fool me again, Yahweh?!" His hair flared upwards, showcasing his anger to the world, yet a sparkle of hope still managed to find its way into his voice.
Even after his words echoed through the endless grasslands, no answer followed. It was like that for thousands of years; why would the situation suddenly change now?
But this crack in the sky represented that something did change. He didn't know what it was yet, but he was determined to find it out. He felt it. Although very weak and barely noticeable, he, who starved for energy, felt magic coming through the crack. It meant that outside world wasn't beyond his reach anymore.
Even if that was another trick and he would fall right into a trap, he didn't care anymore. He would risk it all even if it was only a small possibility. Desperation overtook his mind and he was already gathering all his saved power to try his chances. It was a foolish attempt, but one he was willing to attempt nonetheless.
Two green runes lit up on the back of his hands, empowering the magic he was about to cast. It was a Dimensional Spell he modified on the spot to suit its purpose, supposed to enlarge the crack and allow his whole body to pass through it.
After a second passed, the spell was finally cast and it worked as intended. Only the toll was bigger than he expected and the crack would fall back to its regular size in barely a few seconds. For Lucius though, one second was more than enough to pass through it, finally disappearing from this place and leaving the vast and now truly empty grasslands behind him.
Finally, Silence reigned once again upon this lonesome world.
