Re: Timeless Apocalypse

The idea behind his Mage Project, which he truly called the Magia Project, was to simply break the limits of rings.

Originally, all Uriel had wanted to do was somehow stack rings of all circles into one, allowing the limitations of tiers to no longer matter.

With a single circle, he’d wield first to thirteenth circle magic. With a single circle, he’d be as powerful as the strongest of mages to exist, with still twelve more slots to go.

It’d be a path of glory.

But what he now wanted to do was greater.

Not only would he unite the martial and arcane paths as one, he’d infuse the paths of resonance, dissonance, and harmony into it, forming one singular behemoth.

A behemoth that’d stand on the miraculous foundation of the spell sentry.

It would be a path none had ever seen, and none may ever wield except him.

It would be beyond glory. It would be divine.

’Let’s begin.’

Despite how confident Uriel was, he still paused for long moments, allowing his mind to settle from the avalanche of enlightenments it had undergone, and allowing his body to do the same.

It had just undergone a plethora of changes, and soon would undergo many more.

’...’

Uriel took a deep breath in, then exhaled through his nose, steam rising around him as he did so.

With a thought, he stored his tunic and robes away, sitting naked in his room, bare against the biting wind, which didn’t bother him in the least.

PAH!

Uriel brought his palms together. Then, he blinked.

Falsitude vanished, and he laid eyes upon the runic and energetic fabrics of the world.

For some reason, he felt much more in tune with it now that he understood part of its secrets. It almost felt like he was finally allowed to witness the glory of creation around him.

Runes filled every inch of space, forming complex spirals and mandalas that intertwined and overlapped to create intricate formations stretching from the first to the third dimension.

As a backdrop to it all, seas and oceans of multicoloured energy danced and swayed with the flow of the world and life—a reflection of its source, but also its result, of existence itself.

The world sang to Uriel, almost as if to spur him on and allow him to serenely bring his path into being.

The world cheered him on.

’Thank you,’ he thought with a smile.

His focus swiftly shifted.

There were many ways Uriel could go about this.

At the end of the day, the rings and stars martial artists and mages wielded were tools—tools born from their comprehension made manifest.

In the same way, his crown, halo, and wheel were also tools, meant to control the three expressions of control—tools born from his comprehension made manifest.

In the same way, the spell sentry, in a sense, was a tool meant to bridge his will to the world, manifesting it as magic.

What dictated the quality of those tools was comprehension.

Did you forge your comprehension using a bronze-grade runic language? Or a diamond one? And was that language born from the comprehension of a branch, or a fruit?

How thorough was that understanding? Was it specialised in fields of summoning, or in large-scale formation deployment? Or was it versatile?

The laws etched across the runic fabric of the world had an infinite depth of complexity, and the number of paths one could take to reach what some called the peak of magic were too many to count.

Still, at the root of it all, it was simply a matter of comprehension.

The more complete one’s understanding, the greater the result.

But Uriel... had a different view of it.

If he had already seen the primordial dance of creation that occurred in the void, at the cosmic scale, who was to say that he couldn’t... replicate it?

Who was to say he couldn’t replicate it on the mortal scale?

It was as he had comprehended—unity and multiplicity worked hand in hand. Who said he needed to form his runic languages by merely understanding a single law, a single element?

Who said his circles couldn’t be independent runic fabrics of their own? Independent primordial energetic fabrics of their own?

Who said they couldn’t be more than that?

To be a Pioneer was to set standards, not follow them.

WHOOOSH!

Uriel’s Simple Domain bloomed around him, a small dome of darkness rising and enclosing him. All primordial energy and aether bent away from his figure, leaving him in a void of his own creation.

Within that void, there was nothing but him.

Him and his burning Will.

’And then I...’

It had to be remembered that originally, at its very root, resonant dominance wasn’t a technique he had created to manifest his will as he used it today.

Originally, resonant dominance was a way for him to invade heart realms and... subtly take control of people.

But if he could do it on people, why not the world? Or at least, a small patch of it?

SHAH!

Uriel’s Will bloomed around him as his resonant dominance took root and tendrils of rose radiance surged from his frame, like that of a deep abyssal horror.

They sped past the void of his Simple Domain, then surged toward the runic fabric of the world around him—and its primordial energetic fabric.

Then, the tendrils infused into the very fabric of the world, Uriel’s mind becoming one with the ambient fabric of space and... and then...

KAH!

A loud, whip-like echo tore across the surroundings as something seemed to snap, then entirely shatter and collapse.

’...’

Uriel froze.

His mind froze in place, as did his heart and very soul.

But contrary to expectation, he didn’t die, nor was he injured in any way. No—he simply lost all... spark. As if he had become hollow, empty, and void.

He suddenly became a statue.

Yet his gaze, a swirling field of ivory and pink, pulsed with such vivid life and chaos that it seemed entirely contradictory—as if his body was a convergence of both life and death.

As if his soul reflected the world... and his body, the void.