Through clenched teeth, Shen pronounced the name of the one God who banned him from using [One With The Universe] and also someone who kicked him when he was down and tried to suppress him for no clear reason.
Hearing him, the Arch Bishop turned around sharply and rebuked Shen,
“Is Great God of Justice Kaveh, for you.”
“Heh, yeah sure.”
Already sickened by Sario’s gods’ hypocrisy, Shen couldn’t help but answer back in a laughing manner. The Bishop shouted already annoyed with Shen’s misbehavior.
“You fool! You dare mock the name of the God who will give you the blessing to teach?”
“Give me what?”
Shen asked with a frown then the patriarch answered in their stead with a calm demeanor.
“Lord Founder. To be able to be a teacher in this world, someone first needs the blessing of a God to teach. Without the respective blessing, the teacher won’t be able to get his student’s attention while the information they’ll impart won’t be fully received. By having a teaching blessing, the teacher will be able to completely impart their knowledge without any missing pieces of information.”
Well that does sounds useful though…
Conflicted feelings swirled inside Shen but he couldn’t help hating the idea of getting a blessing from a God from Sario. From Kaveh no less.
“…Alright. Whatever, let me get that thing now.”
“You must first complete the ceremony.”
Sarmin sat right in front of the altar and said with a deep tone to Shen. At his words, Shen couldn’t help but feel like huge troubles were next to follow.
“And what should I do?”
“First of all, come here and kneel before me…”
“What?”
Shen’s voice turned ferocious as his eyes turned bright red. Seeing his reaction, Sarmin smiled and asked,
“You wish to teach, right? This is the last test. If the gods will offer you their blessings, then you will have the rights to teach from now on. But for that to happen, you need to show your sincerity by kneeling.”
“So in this world, I have the rights to teach only if I get some blessing? Are you guys for real?”
“Will you take the test, or not?”
Sarmin asked severely and Shen understood that he couldn’t talk reason with him. In the end, he smiled mockingly and said.
“You know? In my culture, kneeling is a form of asking a loved one in marriage. I can’t help but take a step back at your insistence for having me kneel before you, Great Clerk.”
“Pffft!”
“Are you mocking us?!”
At his words Sabin couldn’t help letting out a laugh while one of the Clerks shouted furiously. Even so, Sarmin was unfazed by Shen’s words and simply answered,
“Very well. If founder Johan does not wish to take the last test, then I am unable to bestow upon him the title of Priest. Even if he were to not receive any blessing, the fact that he faced the test might have won him the title, but now… I will have to ask the Patriarch to forgive me for I’m unable to accept the young Founder in our school-.”
“Alright. I’ll do it.”
Damn. I expected for this old fart to ignite and show some openings. For him to actually keep his cool… No wonder he’s the Great Clerk…
Shen gnashed his teeth as he stepped before Sarmin, not expecting for Sarmin to actually stay calm in front of his taunts.
Now if I wish to keep my promise with Yuri, I have no choice but to comply… God damn me and my loyalty!
“Now, kneel-“
“Listen up.”
Shen stared sharply at Sarmin, making him freeze for a moment, then continued with a severe tone,
“To the ones I kneel now are not you, nor your God, but the ones I will be teaching from now on and to my own kingdom, for I am desecrating myself and stepping on my pride for them, and not for you lot.”
“You dare be so-”
“I do dare until the very end.”
The two gazed in the eyes of one another as the pressure made the air heavy like lead, then Shen finally kneeled but in just one knee, lowering his head. According to the ceremony, Sarmin placed his hand atop Shen’s head and started chanting a prayer for Kaveh. A few minutes passed when suddenly the priest stopped and his head lowered as if entering into a trance. The next moment, Shen felt a familiar aura and quickly tried to retreat from the priest, however his whole body was completely petrified, unable to move even one finger. Sarmin slowly raised his head and, in place of the brown irises, his eyes were now shining blue while a golden aura surrounded him in a holy manner. Even so, the only one who was aware of these changes was Shen and Shen alone, in everyone else’s eyes, the ceremony was taking place accordingly with Sarmin continuing to chant the prayer.
Unable to understand why nobody else found it weird, Shen tried to gaze around, but to no avail as his body was just as frozen as a statue. While completely confused, a domineering and cold voice of a young man resounded inside his mind:
[The prideful half-devil bows before a God. How unexpected.]
A Fallen God, you mean. And I just said it, I’m bowing to the ones I’ll be teaching and to my people, not to you, to your priests, or to anyone else.
[Words are meaningless before actions.]
And actions are empty without heart.
As Kaveh tried to subdue him, Shen tried to resist with reason, such as giving him no way possible to stir his heart or perturb his senses. Seeing how Shen was unwilling to fall under his power, Kaveh smiled amused and continued,
[I am trying to give you my blessing, while you are rejecting it time and time again. How are you going to teach under my symbol?]
Give me your blessing? How? By trying to dominate me with your aura? By subduing me with words? How ’bout no. I refuse, now go on your way and leave me alone if you’re not gonna give me that blessing already.
Kaveh was more and more displeased with his answers, but what displeased him the most was Shen’s unperturbed heart, as if he was unaware of himself, of his surroundings, and of his own destiny. With a distaining gaze, Kaveh frowned in contempt,
[Before, I gave you no clear glance, only finding you as a pest in our plans; hard to control, unyielding and arrogant, but with a shrewd yet wise mind, while your kind heart showed you as an unpredictable individual every time there appeared to be a crossing road on your path. But now I started to watch you more, from a different point of view and with clear eyes void of emotions or feelings. And then, I saw your miserable self.]
… Have you appeared before me only to mock me?
[No. I’m here to make you aware of the crucial factors in your life that you’re ignoring. Like this maybe you’ll become aware of the mistakes you’re making.]
W-what the?!
Suddenly, the space around Shen disappeared and only darkness surrounded the two of them. Sabin, Yuri, the queen and everyone else around also disappeared like smoke, remaining not even ground or a sky inside the darkness while Shen was able to see both himself and Sarmin possessed by Kaveh. Right after, Sarmin’s body burned whole with white flames, from through the flames a young handsome man with long blonde hair, shining blue eyes and in royal clothing stepped forward in front of Shen, looking from above at the kneeling youngster with superiority.
Enough.
Feeling Kaveh trying to subdue him with his presence once again, Shen’s aura exploded and started moving slowly, as if he finally got out from petrification. After a few moments, Shen was standing tall, face to face with Kaveh, staring sharply into his eyes while Kaveh’s shining blue eyes stared the same way right back. Now, although he was freed, Shen continued to talk telepathically as the respective world didn’t seem to be the one he knew, but more of a mental illusion.
You said something about making me aware of my own life. What more do I need to understand other than the ridiculous amount of responsibilities on my back and the devil in my heart?
Kaveh smirked as if amused by his ignorance but this only made Shen stare more defiantly.
[You’re asking what more you need to know… For asking such, I will make you aware of it for sure. And like this, maybe you’ll also overcome what you failed before.]
Inside the infinite darkness, Kaveh disappeared like smoke just like the others and Shen remained alone inside the dark void.
What is this? Kaveh.
Shen asked suspiciously, looking around confused, but right after, a ground filled with green grass appeared under his feet, a warm sun with a blue sky above, while everywhere around, valleys and plains to be seen. The next moment, Kaveh’s voice resounded as if from everywhere around, just like an omnipotent being.
[Every living being goes at first through a beginning. You went through this as well: A warm environment, with a view large enough to see all you needed, no obstacle in front, no danger in sight, no worries around. Able to see the world as it is.]
Shen listened carefully and felt more and more confused by the second.
What are you talking about, Kaveh? You’re some storyteller now? And what does this have anything to do with me?
Kaveh seemed to ignore his questions and everywhere around, trees slowly started growing here and there, the valleys and plains started to undulate and grow at some points while in front of Shen, a paved and clean path made of well-cut stones formed, showing him toward the sunshine.
You think I’d walk through there?
Shen asked baffled at what seemed to be an obvious trap, but Kaveh then answered his question with another question.
[If I meant you harm, what were the chances for you to still be alive now?]
… It’s annoying and true at the same time. Whatever then.
Knowing that he had no possible way to leave this world on his own, Shen went onto that path and Kaveh also started talking. Or rather, narrating,
[At this moment, you are given another common path while your view is narrowed in some senses and also widened in others. However, unlike a normal path, you choose to shorten yours because of your curiosity.]
The more Shen walked forward, the more weirder and fantasy-like his surroundings changed while at the same time, his paved road turned more cracked, with some stones missing, while at some points with deep holes from which eerie whispers resounded. He understood that once he fell, only darkness would welcome him. Some trees turned with a beautiful purple while their branches at the ends would form spirals, continuing to grow here and there, either tall like skyscrapers with humongous leaves, or small like little saplings but with beautiful small different kinds of fruits growing in them with white leaves as if made of snow, or black ones as if made of coal, or so on other more lively colors. The diversity showed for a colorful magical forest, giving off a fantasy but also a mysterious feeling of magic and wanders.
Some valleys slowly turned into mountains, some into volcanoes, and making a few of them even levitate in the sky while the sky itself also became more filled with clouds as the sun wasn’t as warm as before.
T-this feels quite familiar…
As he continued forward, here and there Shen was able to see opened familiar books, some finished, some having only a few pages open, while a few were open right in the middle or even nearer to the end.
Kaveh’s voice then continued and Shen’s face turned more serious.
[Knowledge unbefitting your era stirred your curiosity. Although this helped your view to evade being more clouded by the continuous external conflicts, this also caused you to take blow after blow as nothing was fitting with what you knew.]
-BOOM! CRASH! BOOM! CRACK!-
The levitating mountains and volcanoes crashed to the ground with deafening tremors or erupted until they died out, while the great trees also fell to the ground, the little beautiful saplings rotted away and fell like a sculpture made of fine sand.
[Your era shook you as that entire materialistic world bored you, already being used with what they call as “new technology”.]
The ground then shook in heavy earthquakes and tall but old buildings rose from the ground everywhere around. The forests died all-together, the green valleys were nowhere to be seen while the mountains were no longer made of stone and forests, but of metal and glass, in full view being only tall buildings out of concrete and roads covering the grass everywhere around. One more important element that made Shen frown disgusted was how everything seemed to be cracked and dirty as if the buildings have been deserted long ago. The sky turned gray, the sun was barely visible through the clouds, while his medieval-like paved road changed into a modern road made out of cheap and cracked concrete, in a few places lightened up by the road-lights. Trees were still present but only close to his path, while grass and flowers bloomed around just as before but only around his road and in small amounts.
… What a disgusting moment…
Shen looked around and observed around his uninteresting road, many headphones, earphones, a few MP3’s, disks with old games while the amount of books continued to appear around his road.
Is true! Why can’t you believe me?!
Shen stopped on his tracks as he observed in front of him one shadow of a child, trying to desperately explain himself to other children who seemed to evade him. Three of the children then stepped forward and showed three different reactions Shen was all too used to see:
Johan, come on! The joke with the shadows is already burned out by my father! He also said that if I won’t sleep at 10 PM, the monster of the shadows will eat me. But once I left to sleep at 10:10 PM and nothing happened!
Yeah man, so stop lying already or we won’t be friends anymore! Mom said not to be friends with liars!
M-maybe he’s crazy, y-you know? M-mother told me that those who can’t differentiate between dreams and reality are bound to go into a hospital for crazy people!
B-but I’m not-…
The child felt like crying and shook his head helplessly. The shadows then disappeared like smoke and Shen continued to step forward with an indifferent expression on his face.
[Frustration, indignation, disappointment. So many feelings stirred your heart at such a young age, making for your health to deteriorate and slowly reach a life-threatening event.]
I am all too aware of this, Kaveh. But I don’t really care about it anymore.
With the same neutral voice, Kaveh continued to narrate while Shen answered back, unable to even sigh at the dark memories from when he was barely a 12 years old child.
[You thought that children won’t understand you because of their immature minds, and such you reached out for a helping hand from adults. But this only worsened everything. Exaggeration, discrimination, negation. Victim of all as no one ever wished to at least listen.]
The next moment, Shen saw another shadow of a child, while in front of him three adults stood tall in front of him, one with annoyance, one with a mocking smile, and one with indifference.
Shadows and demons?! You are possessed then! You should be exorcized and stop searching for such foul things! Argh, you stupid brat! How can you even start reading such things when you’re just a brat?! Be sure to give me those cursed books, yes? All of them!
Oh God, another retarded kid. Why is my school accepting such special snowflakes? Hey kids! Be sure to treat this one with more, uh… care, I guess. Having some special problems, you better also take care, yeah?
Spirits? What, is your mother into occultism or something? Such things don’t exist so stop spewing nonsense. No “buts”! I don’t care if you have insomnia or something like that! Have you made your homework?!
Shaking his head, Shen did not even wait for the shadows to disperse as he simply walked through them, even waving his arm once at the angry shadow of an aged woman.
Give you my books? Go die in a ditch, you crazy sack of bones. What crap are you saying to a naive child? Good thing I simply dropped out from that school and quickly changed the next semester.
As Shen continued forward, light tremors shook the buildings around, making for some dust to raise, for windows to crack, for walls to collapse, and for the sun to be even more hidden through the clouds of dust and pollution. The image only seemed more miserable and depressing as a shade of gray covered the entire world and even Shen himself felt like a feeling of disgust overwhelmed him over the world around him.
[The reality of your era struck you. Your world crumbled to the ground as everything you wished to make known was immediately struck back to the ground as lies, jokes, or signs of madness, while the reality you couldn’t adapt to, continued to envelop and consume your soul. Using even more forms of seclusion to separate yourself from your era, you were able to form a small barrier between you and everything else. Even so-]
-CRACK!-
…
Shen looked with a tired frown at a crack that appeared bellow his feet, observing how the road in front seemed to be more and more cracked and destroyed, as if someone just used a huge hammer to bash the road in front over and over again. Suddenly, the wind started to swirl and the sky turned completely dark.
Haah, haah~…
In front of him, another shadow of a young child appeared which was trembling from overwhelming emotions of hate, sorrow and frustration.
——-!!!
His empty white eyes gazed at the sky then roared without a sound, forming a great shockwave everywhere around, shaking the world itself, making for buildings to collapse, for the storm to bombard the heavens and earth with thunderous lightning and for humongous tornadoes to raise what was on the ground to the sky.
… So the saying “your silence can shake the world” was referring to this…?
Trying to keep his balance in front of the monstrous shockwave, Shen stared with a dark expression on his face when Kaveh’s voice resounded again, telling Shen what he already knew.
[Your will started to diminish while your spirit broke, just like this, bringing your world and health into ruins. You just started walking this path, but your will was already at its lowest. The world you were used to as a soul was there no more, and the new era you began to live into slowly engulfed you like the deep oceans. Nothing seemed to be able to fuel your hope, while your road became more and more unusable as the world around you was slowly but surely crumbling, collapsing.]
-RUMBLE RUMBLE-
The next moment, a building of only two stores tall appeared before him through his path, exploding the concrete that was already cracked everywhere and turning the shadow of the child into dark smoke. What appeared before him was the main building from his middle school, the place where he started to believe that everyone was against him. With a huge secret on his back, Shen was afraid back then to tell it to anyone, and this also made him keep a distance instinctively so to not let his past leak to the others. Even so, many found out and this only made him even more pressured, his health collapsing faster than never before.
[Right after, your very first challenge appeared and you, just like any other being, had to choose to go beyond it or stand to be engulfed by it.]
Looking behind, Shen observed how the world itself slowly collapsed by the second, the dark abyss threatening to engulf him into unending darkness.
… What is this game of yours, Kaveh?
Feeling ridiculous at this point, Shen tried to jump but to his surprise, he suddenly felt powerless and weak, while the strong wind was now strong enough to almost lift him up, having him instinctively get down on his four to maintain his balance.
Wha-?!
He looked at his own hands, at his short legs, then at his modern clothes and his whole changed body.
I-I’m… a child again?
Dumbfounded, Shen observed himself to be with a head and neck shorter than before, being now only 15 or so of age.
And by how small I am, I must be before that sudden growth that almost killed me… Or rather, did it save me?
At pre-puberty and puberty, some children start growing ridiculously fast and in an unbalanced form, while for some it happens that their organs grow first, then their skeletal structure. When Shen was 15, it happened that his brain was growing at a higher rate than his cranial structure. Because of this, Shen suffered great blood pressure when young, and this also caused his outbursts of anger which at the same time continuously endangered him of having a cerebral attack. He was administrated medicines for growth acceleration, but the chances of him surviving were minimal, while at best it was thought for him to only end up in a wheelchair.
What helped me were the continuous meditations of self-control without holding in my feelings and martial arts for discipline and for keeping the dark thoughts away… Even now I’m amazed at how I survived…
Shen thought to himself with mixed feelings while slowly climbing the walls of the building which suddenly erected through his road. His small, feeble and weak body gave him a hard time with climbing, together with the strong winds, the violent rain, and the strong tremors, but at this time Shen knew better than give up and fall into God knows what Kaveh left for him inside that Abyss. His fingers started to bleed from the cracked nails, his arms and legs started to tremble while his whole body was sweating bullets, but also soaked from the cold-as-ice rain.
I can do it since I already went through many excruciating experiences, so my mind and spirit are already strengthened to a ridiculous level. But what about back then? Wasn’t I just a child as well? God… just what drove me so hard as to actually fight for this crappy life? This era is not fit for me, my dreams have been broken since childhood, while my hopes were only hanging by a thin string made out of mysterious books and songs listened through earphones… Now what in the world…?
After he reached the middle of what was supposed to be only a two stored building, a silhouette appeared through the wall like a small humanoid golem while trying to push him back down.
[Wow, so I guess you’ll die then? It was nice meeting you!]
A familiar voice resounded as the golem strongly pushed Shen back down.
