"The First"

Aena awoke to find herself estranged from her senses. It took a while for her to shake off the slowly dissipating torpor, but even then it was disorienting. She couldn't even tell whether her eyes were open or not; only impermeable darkness filled her vision. She tried to reach out with her hands, but she couldn't determine where they were.

It was like her senses of perception switch had accidentally been flipped off by the gods.

She tried to use her kinesthetic sense to discern her surroundings but to no avail. Her mind was sluggish as if she had been drugged, and the fogginess in her mind made it hard to think clearly.

'Where… am I?'

'What… happened?'

If Aena had possessed the ability to groan, she would have then done so. Fragments of her memory came rushing back. There were still remnants of the throbbing headache remaining—a memento of the crucifying pain from before.

The heaviness in her head gradually cleared, and Aena began to slowly regain her senses. They still weren't as sharp as normal, but she could now see her body, which was reassuring.

She looked around and found herself in a sea of pure black. She squinted in an attempt to see any discrepancy, but she saw a limitless horizon of featureless shadow.

Slowly, specks of light began to flicker around her. They shimmered brightly in contrast to the dark backdrop, and the motes of lights grew in number until they surrounded her on all sides. It painted a dizzying beautiful scene.

They weren't close to her: rather they were like stars. Small, but located far away. Distinctly visible, yet unreachable.

Aena was normally a cautious person, and normally she would've stayed in place until she had developed a plan. But she did not do so. She had a strange feeling of tranquility in this astral plane.

The comforting blackness washed her in a strange peacefulness. It was not that her mind was free from worries, but rather that she could think perfectly. Her keen awareness was a consolation. No emotions accompanied her thoughts, and only unadulterated rationality remained.

She tried reaching out to one of the motes of light, but when she looked down, she realized there wasn't a physical ground for her to walk on.

She instinctively willed her body forward, and she felt her body shift. She began drifting around in the strange location, but to her disappointment, she couldn't reach one of the points of illumination no matter how hard she tried.

They sometimes grew brighter or dimmer, and slowly revolved around her, but eluded her no matter how much she chased them. They burned in different shades of fire, some burning in a fiery orange, and others simmering at a purple wavelength.

After an imperceptible amount of time spent mindlessly wandering, Aena stopped moving to contemplate for a bit.

Despite the movement, she didn't sweat, and she wasn't frustrated either. She was just vaguely disappointed and moderately curious. It was strange how her emotions seemed to be regulated and directed in this space.

She examined the lights again. Unaware of her struggles, they glowed peacefully around her like a million lone stars. People always alluded to the vast beauty of space, but this expanse rivaled such a marvel.

She closed her eyes. Interestingly enough, even though she couldn't see them anymore, she was still able to faintly perceive them. It felt similar to sensing the mana circulating in her body.

Straining her senses, she felt a myriad of strange sensations flooding her head. They were like indecipherable phrases being transmitted directly to her brain in an alluring, alien language. They were on the barest threshold of her notice, almost imperceptible unless she concentrated.

As she cocked her head, the whisperings grew louder it crescendoed into a cacophony of noise. Foreign screeches of sound pounded her brain, and she reflexively covered her ears even though the noise had an endogenous origin. Overwhelmed, Aena opened her eyes and the stars reverted to their innocent, quiet forms. The calm silence prevailed.

Intrigued, Aena closed her eyes again and carefully reached out with her senses, but this time, she tried focusing on only a single "voice."

It whispered the same beguiling nonsense into her head and immersed herself in the unfamiliar spirit of the single light.

The voices got grew until suddenly Aena thought she heard a word she recognized.

"Come."

Startled, Aena opened her eyes, dissipating the voice, and found herself in front of a large stone structure.

Her attention was immediately drawn to the golden light emanating from the upright structure. It was almost blinding; the incandescence comparable to the aura of an angel. Light didn't have personalities, but this one felt almost righteous—no, that wasn't the right word. It was more like… overwhelming power. So much, so that any use of that power would be unopposable.

The light soon dimmed, and Aena soon realized that she was staring at an ancient-looking stone tablet.

Her first thought was 'big.' The tablet was several hundred meters wide and a kilometer tall from what she guessed.

As she stood? Floated? In front of the slab, she could see that the tablet was surrounded by an ebony marble-like material near the base. On the stone slab itself, she could see various symbols and patterns meticulously etched on.

They were in an unfamiliar pattern in a language she didn't remotely recognize. They didn't look like anything in a human language either. Rather, the sweeping lines were curved with different depths, shallow in some areas, and sinking deeply in others. Aena deduced that whatever language was on the tablet, if it was one, also communicated in the third dimension.

Aena was only examining the very bottom of the tablet. She wanted to observe the unique symbols on other areas of the plaque, but they appeared bleary, and her head instinctively turned away, as if she instinctively realized that those parts weren't for casual gazing.

Aena felt a slight sense of fear when she gazed upon those areas too, so she didn't continue forcing it either.

Aena stared at the various marks on the stone before gingerly reaching out a hand to touch the stone. One second passed. Then another. Seeing no reaction, she became a little bolder.

It felt like stone. It had that familiar coldness and earthly texture. She traced her fingertips along the etchings, feeling the groves and concavities.

It thought suddenly struck her—it didn't seem to be carved. It was too perfect—too exact. Whichever carver erected the structure must've been in the realm of gods to achieve such fine detail on such a grand scale.

Aena felt there was some mysterious and profound meaning residing in the tablet, but she didn't know how to unveil its secrets. Sighing, she touched her forehead to the cold rock.

Hiiing!

Suddenly the incandescent light began to emit from the small surface her forehead had touched.

This time, not only was the tablet emanating the strange light, but looking down at her hands, she saw they were glowing as well.

Strange patterns identical to those on the tablet soon appeared on the surface of her skin as she stared blankly. They shifted and disappeared like ephemeral hieroglyphs.

The previous whispering grew louder, and the light rose to another level, pulsing in time to the otherworldly symbols on her body.

A voice emitted into her head.

"The First."

Suddenly, her body fell unconsciously again, and her world was submerged in black.