The first thing Vastarael felt was silence.
When he opened his eyes, there was no sky above or walls around him, no scent, no wind, no horizon, just a colorless void. He was in a foggy world.
The ground beneath his bare feet was not stone or dirt, but something translucent and rippling like condensed fog turned solid. He was glowing faintly not with his normal divinity, but in a way that revealed he wasn't alive.
Vastarael Richinaria was in soul form.
"So this is what comes after?"
He looked at his hands. They flickered.
His breath came shallowly not because he needed to breathe but out of habit. He was used to breathing through pain. He took a step forward and felt no resistance. He stopped and called out.
"I know you're there. I'm not stupid enough to believe this is just the afterlife."
Nothing moved. Then, everything did.
The fog coiled backward like an ocean being pulled into a single tide. In the distance, eight massive totems rose.
Eight towering black stone monoliths pierced through the mist like divine skyscrapers. They stood so far they should have been hazy but he could see every carved detail as if they were inches from his face. They each had a blinding white light at their apex, pulsing softly like a heartbeat.
They were not just massive.
Vastarael felt eight presences, pushing against him like gravity from eight separate suns. His knees buckled and the soul-form of his body threatened to scatter into fragments.
He clenched his fists. He bit his lip hard enough to draw spiritual blood. Through the searing, suffocating weight, he stood up. Soul Energy shimmered around him like it wanted to scream but he smirked instead.
"You'll have to try harder than that," he muttered. "I'm an Aeterium. I was forged from the will of the universe."
A long silence followed.
A masculine voice spoke. It was so impossibly powerful that it echoed across dimensions and through the soul. Every syllable shook his bones though he had none.
"You do not kneel?"
Vastarael exhaled and looked up at the blinding white lights atop the pillars.
"No, I already did that once twenty-five years ago."
Another voice spoke still male but this one was wrong. Every word glitched, dragging across time as if playing backward and forward at once.
"You stand before the Eight Primordials. Do you know why you were brought here?"
Vastarael's smirk faltered.
"I don't know. Maybe for defiling what the Primordials stand for?"
That silenced the second voice. Then a woman spoke. Her tone was colder.
"You don't fear us."
He sighed and scratched the back of his head.
"Lady, my life's already been hell. Mortal on Earth. Came here, became immortal saw cosmic horrors from the Amorphous Souls and died again."
He spread his arms out.
"What the hell could you possibly do to me that I haven't already survived?"
Another female voice joined in. This one was silkier, yet regal.
"Your arrogance is impressive. But dangerous. You stand at the edge of doom."
Vastarael shrugged. "I think I'm being very respectful. Because believe me, after all the suffering? I could be flipping off your pillars and telling you to shove it into the black hole you came out of."
A dry laugh escaped from one of the males.
"YOU DARE MOCK THE JUDGEMENT OF THE ANCIENT!?"
The fog turned violent. The pressure slammed down on him like meteors. His soul cracked. He collapsed to one knee, choking on the very existence around him. But he forced his head up. Blood spilled from his mouth, but his eyes flared with something feral.
Defiance.
Soul Energy exploded behind his gaze. And for the first time in eons, the Primordials hesitated.
"That's enough."
The other voices froze. The pressure lifted.
And from atop the fourth totem, a soft pulse of golden and emerald light echoed. A shape stood there. Vastarael smiled faintly, spitting the blood from his lip.
"Hello again, Thyrexxa."
"It's been a while, Vastarael. I see death didn't tame your mouth."
He chuckled softly.
"Nope. You don't sound different."
Thyrexxa, the Primordial of Time, stepped forward on her pedestal, her outline more defined now. She gazed down on the man she had once touched across worlds.
"I brought you here for a reason, Split of Time."
Vastarael tilted his head, slowly rising to his feet again.
"Oh?"
"You died. But you weren't supposed to. You intervened. You changed Fate. You twisted Space. You fractured Time. You defied the rules of Death and Life. Your Destiny was never fulfilled on purpose. Your Creation and Destruction were not accepted."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Oops."
Thyrexxa's light dimmed just slightly as she turned back to the others.
"He deserves to know."
Her voice resonated not as a statement but as a decree. And then it happened. Vastarael felt it. A blinding ripped through his soul, tearing veils he didn't know existed. The moment it hit him, he knew the pillars and the voices.
He didn't need to ask.
Their names engraved themselves into his core.
The Eight Primordials.
Creation. Destruction. Death. Life. Space. Time. Fate. Destiny.
And they knew everything about him.
A tremor ran through the void as a male voice deeper than mountains rumbled forward. It came from the totem farthest to the left.
Creation.
"You tampered with the origin of another. The Split of Space, Narisva Starisnova, was meant to perish and live on only within her weapon. You reached and rewrote the root of her soul."
Vastarael gritted his teeth.
"I saved her life. I made her whole."
"You undermined me."
Then a feminine voice raged like a sun about to implode.
Destruction.
"You broke one of the moons of Spheraphase. You unmade a monument revered across history. That was not yours to decide."
The image flashed in his mind. He didn't deny it.
"I had to."
"You broke my law."
Then came silence.
Death. His voice was ancient.
"Eight hundred thousand. You caused the deaths of 800,000 in the Erna Isles. That is genocide. You broke my balance."
Vastarael felt that one. That number wasn't a statistic. He had carried those screams. His hands trembled.
"I know."
Then something... unexpected happened. He felt a comforting feeling.
Life.
"You killed many innocents, ones you deemed acceptable casualties..Was it ignorance? Was it instinct? You do not yet understand what life is, Vastarael."
Her tone wasn't judgment. It was sadness.
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
Space spoke. It we a a serene male voice.
"And yet you saved my Split.You risked destruction, oblivion, death and damnation for her. I offer no judgment. Only gratitude."
Vastarael blinked.
"You're welcome?"
Still, Thyrexxa said nothing. But the next two voices did. Fate came first. She sounded like silk woven with inevitability.
"You walked the thread I laid. Your encounter with the future, your descent, your rebirth, they were part of your story. You did not break my laws."
Destiny followed, his male voice echoing.
"You did not betray my plan either. You fulfilled your role as you always would."
Vastarael took a deep breath.
"So… what, then?" he asked, cautiously. "Four of you condemn me. Two praise me. Two abstain."
And then, Thyrexxa finally spoke.
"And I… you broke mine."
Vastarael's eyes narrowed.
"How?"
The totem of Time glowed.
"In the Submerged Islands, you encountered a version of yourself that should not have existed. Your soul touched futures that were veiled, hidden even from me. You saw truths that should not have yet reached you."
He looked down.
That vision. He remembered that moment in the deep where time distorted and he had spoken to himself and Greshina.
"You broke my timeline, even if not by your will."