Winston exhaled. In his hands was the potion that led to Sequence 3.
"Are we sure we want to do this?" Endorsi asked with a worried expression, her arms crossed under her ample chest. "Aren't we supposed to be heading to the hidden floor?"
The Hidden Floor. It was something that could only be accessed from the Hell Train, and where, presumably, Jahad had hid something that was deeply related to him and could spell an important part in bringing down the ten great families.
Although Winston himself thought it unnecessary, given that he would be moving to Sequence 3 soon, there was no harm in being thorough. And so, taking Gustang's words at face value, Winston devised a plan for them to head into the floor and retrieve the object. Of course, it was closet to a small adventure. With how strong he was, he wasn't sure if anything could surprise him at this point.
It was like a camping in the woods that you take every other holiday.
The train had begun to move, and had already moved out of the floor of death. As such, Winston deemed it the right time.
"We'll go to the hidden floor after this." Winston said, swirling the contents of the potion inside the flask.
His gaze scanned the people present in the room, his spirit vision active.
Khun, Bam, Wangnan, Endorsi, Zarhan, Amon, Yuri, Evan, Boro, Sachi, Yihwa, Miseng and finally, Prince.
He had told them of his desire to undergo the ascension on the train itself. In comparison to the previous stages, this one would be comparatively troublesome.
Any of the previous iterations had never elevated him to such a degree. He would be able to stand toe to toe with any of the family heads after this. And that would be one of his avatars.
Given the leap in power, he was not sure if he could somehow pits off the administrator. Now, provided, no one present on the train would be able to do anything if such a situation were to occur, but at least he could let them know to hold on and not freak out.
Oftentimes, it is the panic that gets a person killed than the situation itself.
"Then, ladies and gentlemen, please step outside the room."
The others didn't object. One by one, they simply moved outside.
And so, Winston was prepared.
His spirituality spread outwards, covering the room in a veil and his powers as a Secrets' sorcerer began to work their charm.
The space was hence sealed below a cascading series of overlapped layers, each imbibed with concealment. Layers of deception overlapped them; anyone that could look beyond would find nothing. They would he led into the spirit world where they would roam around and arrive on the floor of death from where they wouldn't be able to escape.
And finally, he concentrated his spirituality and braced himself.
Opening up the cap with a satisfying pop, he stared at the potion for a moment before he pressed it to his mouth and chugged it down in one fell swoop.
...
Silence rang loud in the room. Nothing happened for a while and Winston remained riveted to the ground, his heartbeat even and willpower ready for what was to come.
And then, he felt himself becoming weightless.
He was thrown around, higher and higher into the air and deep into the spirit world.
Wonders, the kind he had never seen before emerged before his eyes, abstract concepts taking a tangible form, symbolism in it's pure unbridled glory out into the open and all around him, creatures of such varying sizes and shapes that he had never dreamt of them in his wildest imaginations and finally, the image of the administrators, every single one of them simultaneously turning their gazes and scanning his figure.
None moved, but the tension in the air was unmistakable.
The astral world opened up before him, leaking into the spirit world in which he ascended further and arrived amid the grey fog. Infinitely higher up, he could see a set of doors, glowing and humming in tandem with his spirituality.
His spirit reeled back,pulled into the fog of history.
Visions of history and records of the past opened before him like a book. The fogs of the past, untouched and free offered no resistance and opened up the unknown secrets of history, insofar as he had treaded before. Wars, heroes, bloodshed and games of ascension, and at the end of it all, Headon- the administrator, the selector of the climbers.
Jahad, the ten familiy heads and the two others, the chaos of the free tower before them and the image of the Primordial shinsu waves filled his vision. But he could see no further.
His body was reeled back again. Whispers rang into his ears, the laws of reality began to crumble and deceive themselves as his mythical creature form, changing constantly, was revealed.
The spirit world raced behind him and disappeared and there he was, drifting through the astral world.
Winston felt his mind melting, his thoughts turning into random gibberish; his spirit escaping from it's confines and merging into the surrounding symbolism. The symbolism of shinsu, reigning supreme in the environment dashed around him, filling into his body and spirit, feeding it.
It was at this time that he realized why each of his Sequences was so much stronger, aside from the obvious synergy of the three pathways.
The astral world was chaotic.
And so, it made his own spirit chaotic.
Winston, with all the strength he could muster, pulled himself back and urged himself forward. He could not stop now. If he did, he would die. Worse, he would lose control mid ascension.
His mythical creature form changed. Some of the worms began to amalgamate, coming together to form tentacles of an ethereal white colour. The worms split off and came together again, increasing in number and the spirituality churned like never before.
He felt himself ascend, not only in Sequence, but it spirituality. It felt as if he had infinite spirituality.
He knew it was not because he had access to the symbolism behind shinsu; even though it was a big part of it, but because the mythical creature form had partially been completed.
It felt like an eternity had passed.
Everything about him dissolved and was rebuilt anew a million different times. And amid it all, being lost in the astral world, finding himself stranded amid an ocean of lies and trickery and drifting through eons of history; a specific feeling began to arise.
As per the ritual of Scholar of Yore, one had to be disconnected from the world for three hundred years. The essence was not to be in solitary confinement for the time, but to no longer belong to the current era and realize one's own place as something from history. And in practice, alien to the current trend of times.
Even something simple as interacting with the outside world would result in the annulment of the ritual.
The two facets of his psyche, the part lost in history - Slayer White and the part remaining in present - Winston Heath conflicted, creating a knot in time.
It pulled him back from his reverie, gave him coordinates, two points by which he could locate himself in the void and find his way back.
And so, lucidity began to form in his mind.
His mind reeled back from the spirit world and the astral world and found itself utterly stranded amid the churning waves of concepts breaking along the shores of the fogs of history. Innumerable colours and dead stillness.
How such a large, expansive world could be so utterly dead was hardly an alien concept to Winston, but it left him reeling at the absurdity of it all.
Here he stood, right in the centre of an infinitely expansive and endless world of concepts where power, energy, cosmic forces and will flows unbidden and it was so, so painfully dead. So still that it was uncanny. There was no sound, there was only a soft lingering light that was built upon the remnants of concepts interacting with each other for eons untold.
In all honesty, it was a bit humbling.
Winston shook his head and focused his mind. He reeled back his spirituality, flowing infinitely more powerful and more rampant than before and practised the very same technique he had grown so accustomed to. Cogitation.
Once he had calmed down, he found his intuition and began to move. The ascension was complete. He had reached Sequence 3, the next stage on the path to godhood, the second step in the ladder of demigods and the penultimate step to becoming an angel.
He was now a Scholar of Yore, the Caretaker of History; a Mentor of Deceit, the Whisperer of Sweet Nothings; and a Wanderer, the Sightseer of New lands. The only thing to do now was to make his way back to his physical body.
And so, with a smile, Winston plummeted.
...
...
The theater rang loud with sounds of dialogue and music. A movie was on the screen, a man was no his knees, a sword impaled in his chest as he sat calmly, talking to his arch nemesis. Despite his wounds, the man did not seem like he would die anytime soon.
The two watchers, both having their faces hidden from view did not speak anything.
Eventually, one of them spoke up.
"He's grown stronger again, hasn't he?" Said the man with the red hair.
"Indeed." Replied his friend.
"What now? You want chaos. It's about to descend."
"Now, we do some damage control."
"I don't think damage control is going to cut it this time." The red haired man chided, his voice clear, if a bit loud, cutting cleanly through the sound of the movie. "You underestimated his threat."
"There may have been something that made me misjudge him. But worry not." The man turned, his glowing eyes peering at his friend. "We have a lot of cards to play. You'll also head out this time, right?"
"Heh. Yeah right." The red haired man scoffed.
"Pretty please~"
"Don't ever do that again please."
"Only if you promise to help me this one time."
"..." The man sighed. "Fine."
His friend raised his hands high into the air and cheered. "YEAH!"
The red haired man sighed again, already beginning to doubt his choice.
On the screen, the wounded man slit his own throat and smiled at his enemy as he took his last breath.
...
A/N: Due to the growing tensions between the two nations, and there being a drone strike on a place 20 km away from my home, there had been frequent power outages in the area at night(The time when I have the laptop available to me) and so, I was unable to use the laptop for long. And I write very slowly on my phone, hence, the chapter delay.
Anyways, the situation has improved drastically. I hope I'll be able to make more chapters, but I doubt it. I have a lot on my plate and at the end of the day; right now, I'm writing this for fun.
Cheers!