Vol.1.C8 - Ephemerality's Heights

V1C8 - Ephemerality's Height

☆The Gleamlord of The Present☆

Even before he could make an informed decision whether to choose flight or fight in this tough test of reality, the glass shard hit him. 

It went right through his left arm which he used for defense hastily with no prior decision, and pierced it halfway.

As the glass shard pierced him, his very own weapon had made a fine, disordered cut on his hands which looked very much like zigzag lines, with blood oozing in the form of gentle droplets, from those cuts.

He grunted silently, gently rubbing his injured arm.

“What the hell-!”

Ryker growled, still clutching his arm that was cut.

The Gleamlord laughed sinisterly.

“Testing your wits.”

He said bluntly, smiling chillingly.

Ryker wiped the blood on his arms, sticking to his palms like glue.

“Tsk, tsk. You're annoying and irritating. Perhaps the only one in your kind.”

Ryker said, a displeased look on his rather maddened face.

The Gleamlord just plainly stared at him like a stalker or a robber ready to steal a piece of art made by Leonardo Da Vinci at the Louvre Museum.

He chuckled coldly.

“Why do you care? You just have to survive the present, only then your future will sail smoothly like ships in a calm ocean.”

The Gleamlord said cryptically, making Ryker's eyes squint at him suspiciously. 

“Yeah right, like you know every single thing about me.”

He smirked, totally not believing the Gleamlord. 

The Gleamlord simply shook his head in fleeting disappointment. 

“You're a disaster, quite literally, in that case.”

The Gleamlord said, a godlike aura emitting from his already divine sense of existence.

As he spoke, suddenly a blinding light radiated from the Altar Of The Pure Light, and it was a magnificent circle, with a smaller inner circle embracing the outer circle.

In the outer circle, mystifying and intricate designs were encarved, a large sun with uneven rays was engraved in the centre, and that was where the light was coming from.

An otherworldly crescent moon with a design resembling the ancient Sanskrit architecture mural was beside the grey crescent moon, and it emitted a low, dark light, quite different from the sun's light.

Mythical designs looked like uneven sun rays were sculptured across.

It was ochre yellow, and the inner circle being of burnt sienna color. 

It looked awfully terrific.

Hs was mesmerized by the design, he couldn’t tear himself away from it, as if hypnotized. The blinding light slowly started getting to normal, and Ryker now could clearly see the mystifying design.

He had no idea what the symbol really meant, was it a cult's representation, or something else entirely?

Be was sure this was a trick by the Gleamlord to distract him from his goals.

“You punk, this was your little trick to distract me from my mission, wasn't it?”

He said, his eyes narrowing, eyebrows furrowed, and frowning. He knew where to push the Gleamlord's buttons to the core that it gets him so much, he wouldn't be able to recover and would still have him reeling.

“C'mon now, spill it out, otherwise I'll bind you in your own light forever.”

He snapped at the Gleamlord,who was just calmly observing him from head to toe.

“You've got it wrong. That wasn't me.”

The Gleamlord said, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. 

Ryker blinked his eyes twice, but refused to believe him nevertheless. 

“You think I'll buy that crap of yours?”

He said incredulously, a flash of disdain did not go unnoticed on him. Ryker had the faintest misconception that the Gleamlord was indirectly mocking him; but the thing is, he was not, or maybe was.

But it was up to Ryker how to perceive it. 

Ryker squinted his eyes, glaring suspiciously at the Gleamlord.

“That's old. I know it's you.”

He persisted, he refused to believe a word of the Gleamlord. 

The Gleamlord laughed. It was a high pitched, ghostly laugh that sounded straight from Hell.

But the thing here in Elysvereth was that there is no concept of Heaven or Hell here. 

“That was hellish. But who do you think you are, blabbering lies around?”

Ryker spat, The Gleam once again nonchalantly, ignoring Ryker’s words with an uninterested smug smile. It was so unnatural that sparks of electricity flew around him every time the Gleamlord grinned.

This was putting Ryker on the brink of breaking his patience. 

The Gleamlord, still grinning uncannily like an idiot, all of a sudden started glitching. A TV static appeared out of nowhere on his body, and a white noise accompanied it, piercing Ryker's ears.

Ryker clutches his ears, the noise getting louder every minute as it gets louder, its frequency of sound got lower, as the Gleamlord stared at the Altar behind Ryker where he stood.

The Gleamlord's body had begun to distort, sending strange signals that were beyond Ryker's perception and understanding of this world so far. The Gleamlord uttered these words, “Kid, be careful. There's more coming after you.”

☆Mindeloria☆

And he vanished without another word, leaving Ryker baffled with his final words before his disappearance. 

The TV static sound however, in an instant, became louder than loudspeakers in aparties he forcefully attends with his friends, but enjoys nevertheless. 

The sound was so loud, it could surpass even the sound intensity of an airplane taking off.

Ryker groaned as he clutched his ears tightly so the sound wouldn't get in.

But alas, it was pointless. 

The high sound frequency got in, and it almost ruptured his eardrums. Blood had started flowing like waves in the ocean from his ears. Ryker’s breathing was heavy, and his senses were heightening to the maximum, sweat was dripping from his forehead and bloodied palms, which he wiped on his hair in panic, but facepalmed after realizing it was his hair.

This was definitely abnormal. Not only the sound, but the intense effect it was having on Ryker.

That looked really nasty.

The air was dancing along to the bizarre tune of the static white noise, and the murals on the walls looked like they were hypnotized. 

Whatever this was, this wasn't a good sign.

He had to find a way out of this and to find his aunt’s soul fragment. He had to before his place devoured his sorry ass mercilessly. 

When Ryker opened his eyes, the sound had stopped. A

So had his breathing. He was alive though, no doubt about that.

It was just that he was in an entirely different dimension; or realm now, far much different from what he had experienced and had knowledge of so far.

He gulped, he knew he was in grave danger. Whatever the hell was this place now? 

It certainly screamed danger to him.

Below him, he could hear the wet, sticky grass squelching.

But it wasn't normal. The grass didn't feel - natural to him. The grass he knew back in his real world, that wasn't this grass.

Above, the sky was gorgeous- a plasma storm of vibrant colors and distorted stars and planets were scattered across the sky.

He awed at the sight; he had never seen something like this before.

Without warning, a familiar blinding light was casted upon him once again from behind his back.

He turned around, only to see it was the same Altar from before; The Altar of The Pure Light.

The air felt numb; like it was almost weeping from the prolonged period of loneliness and unnerving silence that seemed to engulf this place, with dreamlike nature that gave him a sense of familiarity and hope - or maybe it was not what it seems at all. 

Even the trees looked warped and wrecked badly; like they were affected by this endless silence.

The misty air wasn't trusty, he had lost faith in the mist long back when he first landed in Elysvereth and he sort of got a hang of it that the mist and those two special eyes - The Nanocosmic Eyes, were extremely nasty news.

It might look dumb, idiotic and stupid; but to him, those eyes and the mist have become a symbol of enigma.

He never thought that in his entire life he'd be afraid of something as harmless - or what it seems like - mist and the human (or not?) eyes. 

It unsettled him deliciously deep to the core that he can never get out of this surreal world and his weirdo phase.

The silence was deafening, he never heard one like this in his life.

It was like, the only sound here was his footsteps, not even his own breathing.

He glanced around, scratching his head like a confused cat, and began stepping ahead.

“Maybe the challenge is waiting for me.”

He mused aloud, the only sound echoing in the vast silence. Ryker had no idea his voice was so freaking loud.

In the corner of his eye, there was something. 

A camera-like object was attached to the earthen wall, it was watching them.

The object had some strange, dark glow that mixed with the light of the Altar of the Pure Light front of them.

The only difference between this camera, and the other normal camera was that this was a broken, retro, and had the Nanocosmic Eye adorned on it.

Ryker shivered seeing the Eye, he never liked those

nasty, pesky eyes. 

They were definitely NOT good news.

These little eyes of the abyss always seemed to bring a hurricane of disaster wherever they went.

In this case, Ryker might be their next target or plaything indeed.

His body was going haywire, his eyes were out of control.

He muttered aloud, enough for himself to hear:

“Am I screwed for good? Oh well, I always was, the moment I rather forcefully was dragged into this bizzare world.”