Ren's vision blurred.
A wave of dizziness struck him. He swayed on unsteady feet as the stone chalice slipped from his grasp and struck the floor with a dull, echoing thud, rolling unevenly across the stone.
He staggered forward, catching himself against the stone basin of the altar.
'Shit.'
For a moment, he regretted drinking from it. But he had been too thirsty to think, too desperate to care. The moment the thirst came over him, thought itself had vanished—replaced by instinct, by need.
Then it hit.
A sharp pain struck his chest—deep, centered, precise. He gasped and collapsed to one knee, clutching at his ribs as if he could stop whatever force was burrowing into him. The pain worsened, tearing through him until he couldn't even kneel.
He collapsed onto the sanctuary floor—crumpling, groaning, writhing, folding in on himself.
It felt like his entire body was coming undone—like something was trying to tear his very essence out from within him.
And then something changed.
His Vira stirred inside him. No—not stirred—transformed. It was still his… but heavier. Older. More potent. It surged through his vessel like a tidal pulse, then spilled outward, flooding his body—reshaping him from within.
Bone, muscle, even his vessel—remade, piece by piece.
Ren felt every shift. Every vein rekindled. Every sense sharpened.
It was like his body remembered how to be something more—something primal. His awareness expanded. He could feel his Vira more clearly now, not just within him, but as if it reached beyond him.
And then came the euphoria.
Like warmth flooding through cracked stone, a surge of peace and power overwhelmed him. A pulse of Vira rippled outward from his chest—visible in the air, like heat distortion over still water.
He lay sprawled on the cold floor, breathing deep. When he opened his eyes, a pale blue light shimmered in them—bright, otherworldly—then faded back to their usual ocean hue.
He exhaled, slow and steady.
He felt good. He felt… fine.
No cold. No weight in his chest.
His heart no longer raced, and his breathing had settled into a calm, steady rhythm.
And the fear he had felt earlier? Gone—like it had never been there at all.
Ren blinked.
"Huh?"
He pressed a palm against his chest, fingers trailing slowly across his sternum as if searching for something that had slipped away.
"Has my affliction returned…?"
There was no panic. Only calm. Too calm. His voice was quieter now. Not anxious. Just… distant. Like the fear had been swallowed by something deeper—something colder.
He sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck, then looked down at his feet. The cuts were gone—healed completely. No blood. Not even a scar.
Ren exhaled again. Slowly.
"…What just happened?"
He stood, more stable now, and took a long look around—finally able to think properly.
"Where exactly is this place?"
He looked around for a moment, then glanced down.
The sanctuary floor was littered with markings—scratched into the stone in jagged, frantic strokes. They weren't arranged in any clear order, just scattered across the floor like fragments of a broken mind. Some shallow, others so deep they bit into the stone.
He knelt, eyes narrowing with curiosity as he studied them. And then he frowned.
He could understand them now.
The language was old. Wounded. But legible. And as he read, unease crept in.
The lines weren't ceremonial. They were desperate. Etched by trembling hands—by something afraid.
On the sanctuary floor, scrawled in shaky repetition:
"Too deep, too deep, too deep—"
Ren raised an eyebrow and gestured around, looking at the large expanse of black water and the darkness above the dome.
"Well. Isn't that painfully obvious."
He looked at another writing. This one made him frown.
"There is no end. No hope. No light. It doesn't end after you drown. It doesn't end after you die."
'Who had carved this?'
He swallowed, then rose from the floor. His gaze drifted toward the altar, where the surface and sides were etched with the same wild, uneven markings.
He stepped closer to the base of the altar and leaned in, eyes scanning the etched markings.
"No end no end no end. Just falling, folding, sinking, screaming—I walked until I was no longer me. The abyss kept going. She said the ocean was deep. But this is deeper. This is where the ocean goes to die."
The writing was messy, unfiltered. No structure. And some words were even written incorrectly—which struck Ren as strange when he realized it, since this was his first time seeing the language.
Ren frowned again.
"…Who wrote this stuff? A child?"
His gaze drifted to the fallen chalice, now lying near the edge of the altar.
There was writing on it too—but it felt different in tone. Almost… reverent.
He leaned in slightly, then read it aloud:
"I have lost my master. I couldn't live without her, and so I wander. You take her essence. And so now I wait for you, counting the days until you, my new master, call me to your side."
Ren swallowed.
'Her?'
"…What did I drink?"
He smacked his tongue once, puzzled.
"I'm sure it was water. Right? I mean it tasted like one."
He nodded, trying to convince himself. That it was water.
He turned. The vast silence of the sanctuary loomed around him.
"Well… I'm alive, at least."
He paused.
"And I'm not thirsty, so…"
Toward the far end of the chamber, something caught his eye. A small throne, half-hidden in the shadows. He approached it cautiously. It wasn't broken like the rest. It stood intact—polished, even—though the carvings along it were cracked in places.
He ran his fingers along the inscription.
"Throne of the…"
Ren squinted. The last letters had been cracked—fractured in a way that didn't seem natural. It looked like someone had deliberately struck that part of the stone, erasing the rest.
"Throne of the what?"
He let out a slow, frustrated sigh, his gaze drifting from the obsidian throne to the empty space around him.
"Gods… this is insane. What am I even supposed to do here?"
Last he remembered, he'd been drawing Vira in his room—only to be swallowed by an abyss, drowned, and torn apart by some abominable creature. And now… now he was here. Wherever here was. With no answers. No sense. Nothing.
Then a thought struck him. His eyes widened as the realization began to take shape.
"Wait. Hold on a second… Am I in my Resonant State? Is this… my realm?"
He looked around—at the broken stone slabs, the ink-dark walls, the silence that felt more like pressure than absence.
Then he laughed, low and bitter.
"Aika said it's supposed to feel like home."
He shook his head.
"This feels like the opposite of that. If not for my affliction, I wouldn't feel safe here at all."
He turned and sat on the throne.
His gaze drifted upward.
"…By the way, what was that creature I saw before this? That… thing?"
His jaw clenched as the memory clawed back into focus.
"Aika said the Resonant State reveals your path. But that didn't feel like a revelation."
He exhaled slowly, voice low.
"That felt like death. No—I'm sure I died."
He went quiet for a moment.
"What the hell kind of path is that? Is that how my soul wishes to fight?"
A pause.
"…How twisted is my soul?"
He leaned his head back against the throne and let out a long, weary sigh.
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the silence stretch.
"So… does this mean I've reached resonance?"
A small, disbelieving smile tugged at his lips.
"Well, I sure hope I did. After everything I just went through…"
He was still mumbling to himself when it happened.
The air in front of him shimmered.
Bubbles—inky, black, and slow—rose from the stone floor and began to orbit one another. They drifted together, then merged. One by one, they collapsed inward, folding and swirling until they took shape:
A floating tablet of water.
Perfectly rectangular. Its surface shimmered like a liquid mirror, trembling with subtle, endless ripples. From within, a faint blue light pulsed—steady, alive—like the breath of something waiting.
Ren blinked.
"…Huh?"
Then—
Words began to form across the surface in glowing blue script.
They didn't appear all at once, but emerged slowly—letter by letter—as if being written by an invisible hand just beneath the water. The glow traced each stroke with precision, rippling outward with each completed word, until the entire message hovered in shifting, liquid light.
The letters pulsed faintly, as though waiting for him to read:
[Initiation… complete.]
Ren tilted his head.
'What is this?'
He reached out, fingertips just grazing the surface—
But then—
The tablet burst into a flurry of bubbles.
They scattered in all directions, rising and spinning through the airless dark…
Then slowly drifted back, as if drawn by gravity or purpose.
The bubbles merged once more, reforming the same perfect shape, the same glowing script.
[Initiation… complete.]
"Hmmm. Well… that confirms things."
Little by little, things began to click in Ren's mind. The entire process—from drawing Vira, to attunement, and finally resonance—wasn't just progression.
It was initiation.
An initiation into the path of apotheosis?
He was still studying the glowing bubble of water in front of him when a soft pulse shimmered across its surface.
Then, slowly, the tablet began to grow—lengthening at the edges, stretching like a liquid pane of glass drawn wider by unseen hands. The ripples smoothed, settling into stillness.
More words bloomed across its surface, glowing gently as they surfaced one by one:
[Whisper Script: updated.]
Then—lines and lines of flowing script began to write themselves, each word trailing light as they formed.
Ren leaned forward, eyes wide. With each word he read, his heart beat faster. His smile grew—slowly, involuntarily—spreading with the thrill of recognition.
Then he froze.
"Wait. What… is that?"