Ersia: Raven Dawn

The world spun, and the wind howled.

Every one of Randia’s senses failed at once, as if some unseen hand had reached inside him and switched them off. He could no longer comprehend what was happening. His ears filled with a ringing tone—thin at first, almost ignorable—until it swelled into a deafening shriek that drowned out thought itself. Before his eyes, the world seemed to recede, collapsing inward, flattening into a single imaginary line… and then vanishing altogether.

Darkness followed.

Silence.

Randia felt his body drifting, weightless, slowly turning as if suspended in an unseen current.

After what felt like a long, indeterminate stretch of nothingness, points of light began to appear. One by one, they revealed themselves, until they surrounded him completely. Some were small and distant; others were vast, spherical forms, glowing in colors deeper and stranger than the rest. Stars. Planets. A silent ocean of celestial bodies.

Amid this cosmic expanse, an unbearable cold seeped into Randia’s bones. He trembled violently, his entire being seized by a chill so profound it felt primordial, older than flesh.

Then—suddenly—

Randia felt someone—or something—drape itself over him from behind, covering him with what felt like a blanket. The cold did not disappear, but it softened, dulled into something survivable.

Instinctively, he turned.

And in the same motion, he recoiled—dragging himself backward, creating distance without even realizing it.

“It’s been a while, Great Hero Randia.”

“Mistus,” Randia said, short and sharp, every muscle in his body coiled tight with alertness.

The being before him was Mistus, god of the Mistari.

He bore a humanoid form, yet was unmistakably other. From his head rose a pair of massive stag-like antlers, branching and elegant, casting long, crooked silhouettes against the star-filled void. Set in the center of his forehead was an octagonal black crystal, perfectly faceted, embedded as though it had always belonged there. Its darkness harmonized unnervingly with his long, pitch-black hair—hair that flowed like a woven tapestry of the night sky itself.

And then there were his eyes.

The irises burned red, identical to those of the Mistari—but the sclera were entirely black, swallowing all reflected light. They gave him the unmistakable countenance of the ancient demons recorded in forgotten tomes, the kind scholars dismissed as allegory and priests warned children about in whispers.

Mistus was enormous.

Though his anatomy mirrored that of a man, his scale did not. He stood like a giant—broad, towering, and oppressive—his mere presence subtly warping the space around him, as though the void itself hesitated to exist unaltered in his shadow. And yet, strangely, the lower half of his body appeared indistinct, blurred—like summer cotton voile woven impossibly thin, translucent and drifting, as though his form had not fully committed to reality.

“There is no need for caution,” Mistus said calmly. “I am not your enemy.

I never was.”

“What do you want from me?” Randia asked, forcing steadiness into his voice.

“My desire has not changed since the day I met you and your brother,” Mistus replied. “I want you to know what you must know.”

Then, almost gently, he gestured outward.

“Come. Walk with me.”

That invitation—casual, almost intimate—made Randia suddenly aware of himself.

Or rather, of what he no longer was.

Only now did he realize the truth: he had no hands, no legs, no body at all. There was no chest to rise, no lungs to draw breath. Randia existed as nothing more than a luminous sphere—pure radiance bound to awareness, a self without shape. Panic flickered through him as he tried, and failed, to understand how one was meant to move without form.

The leap he had taken moments earlier—away from Mistus—had not been deliberate. It had been a reflex without muscles, an involuntary recoil of will rather than flesh.

Seeing this, Mistus smiled.

It was not a mocking smile, nor a cruel one. It was the expression of a being who had witnessed this realization countless times before.

Without haste, Mistus manifested a lantern in his hand. It appeared as if it had always existed there—metal dark and ancient, its glass panes faintly aglow with a soft, otherworldly light. He reached forward, cupped Randia’s radiance with care, and placed him gently inside.

The lantern did not confine him. It held him.

And with that, Mistus lifted the lantern and began to walk—carrying Randia with him—as the stars slowly shifted, and the silent cosmos unfolded around them like a road that had been waiting all along.

---

“This place is known by many names in the tongues of men,” Mistus said as they moved through the drifting firmament.

“The Interstice. Farzakh. Atala. Yomi. Youdu. Pitraloka.

This is where souls gather after death. They are not erased—not truly. They take shelter here. They drift. They wait.”

“…What are they waiting for?” Randia asked.

“The Promised Day. I do not know its full shape,” Mistus replied evenly. “But I know this much—when that day arrives, I too will become as you are now. As will everything that came before me.”

They continued on in silence.

Randia let his awareness expand outward. Stars crowded the darkness by the millions, planets and satellites turning in slow, solemn procession. Many of them were utterly alien to him—worlds his native knowledge could not even begin to name, let alone explain.

One celestial body drew his attention in particular: a massive, fire-wreathed planet, swollen and violent, encircled by countless orbs of light that revolved around it like moths around a furnace. At intervals, the planet convulsed and spewed torrents of flame. Each eruption scorched the orbiting lights, dimming them, fracturing them, sometimes nearly tearing them apart. Yet after a full revolution, the lights would mend themselves—only to be burned again.

Mistus spoke without turning his head, as if Randia’s thoughts had brushed against his own.

“That was a corrupt leader,” he said, “and those are his followers. They now share in their suffering, just as in life they shared in protecting one another’s wickedness—hiding it, justifying it, sustaining it.”

The words settled heavily within Randia.

A slow, gnawing dread took root in him.

Asmar.

What had become of his brother?

His companions—those who had bled and fought beside him—where were they now?

“Do you know where Asmar is?” Randia asked quietly. “And the others?”

Mistus laughed.

It was not cruel, nor amused—but vast, like thunder echoing through a canyon that had no end.

“O hero,” he said, “tell me—since the first spark of life ignited in the world until this very moment, how many sentient beings do you think have existed? How many intelligent creatures have lived, thought, suffered, hoped?”

Randia did not answer. He listened.

“It is impossible to search for something specific in such a vast and immense realm without adequate means,” Mistus continued. “Though there are times when the living brush against the dead. Paths cross. Boundaries thin. But that is a long explanation, and I am afraid we do not possess the luxury of time.”

Randia’s resolve hardened.

“Then it is time you speak your purpose.”

They walked a while longer before coming to rest upon a drifting asteroid. Mistus seated himself upon its cold, ancient surface, and the lantern’s glow softened as Randia hovered within it.

“Pardon us, my friend,” Mistus said suddenly.

Randia seemingly frowned. “Why are you apologizing?”

“They were animals, Randia,” Mistus replied. “This one was a cow.”

Only then did Randia realize what they were sitting on—what remnants of life the asteroid once carried, long stripped of meaning, now settled into cosmic detritus.

Mistus raised his arm and pointed.

In the distance floated a celestial object utterly unlike the others.

A perfect cube—pure white, immaculate, its interior impossible to perceive. It rested serenely amid the glittering systems around it, untouched by decay or motion, as though the universe itself had agreed not to disturb it.

“Behold, Randia. The sanctuary of your gods and goddesses.”

The words struck deeper than Randia expected.

He stared at the cube in silence—too long for it to be mere surprise. His attention settled on it with an almost reverent precision, as though his mind were cataloguing every detail in preparation for the coming truth he could no longer avoid. Its geometry was flawless. Its color was not simply white, but an absolute absence—white that did not reflect light, but erased it. Even the surrounding space felt disciplined, restrained, as if reality itself had been instructed not to intrude.

“How do you manage to find this place?” Randia asked at last. His voice was steady, but only because he forced it to be. “Didn’t you claim it was impossible to navigate this realm and find anything specific ... Is this a deception of yours, Mistus?”

Mistus smiled—not with mockery, but with something closer to patience.

“I said it was impossible only if one lacks the means to search,” he replied. “As for this—” he gestured lazily toward the cube, “—this was rather easy.”

Randia felt the space tighten.

“Because the gods and goddesses you worshipped,” Mistus continued, his tone calm, almost casual,

“they are all a part of me.”

Something in Randia recoiled.

If he had still possessed a body, he would have shivered. Instead, the sensation manifested as a violent contraction of awareness, as though his very essences had bristled. The words aligned too cleanly with what Vito had said during their battle—remarks Randia had subconsciously dismissed as taunts. A desperate blasphemy from a man drowned in vengeance.

This time, stripped of context and violence, those same words returned with terrifying clarity.

Even by then, Randia is still lingered with doubt. A thin residue of resistance, born not of logic but of survival—of the human instinct to cling to meaning and past even as it fractures. But he himself knew that doubt was already on the verge of dying.

“Now, I will tell you a story. I advise you to listen carefully,” Mistus said.

“Because what I am about to recount will activate my curse, and it will consume what little strength I have left to maintain this long-awaited encounter of us.”

As he spoke, Mistus raised the lantern containing Randia and placed it upon the open palm of his left hand. With his right, he began to move—slowly, deliberately—his fingers weaving through the void as though they were threads of fabric. Space itself responded.

The stars stretched. The planets and the cubical sanctuary dimmed. The vast expanse before them flattened and bent, drawn together into a colossal mirror suspended in the emptiness.

Its surface shimmered once—then images began to move.

They are not illusions nor constructs. They are memories—Mistus’s memories. Raw, unfiltered, and untouched by any interpretation.

Mistus’s voice echoed over the unfolding visions, steady but faintly strained.

“This is the beginning,” he said.

“The beginning of a schism that made everything inevitable.”

On the other hand, Randia is prepared.

He will receive his answers—regardless of what they bring.

This is what he has been desperately searching for. A shard of explanation long lost to time, buried beneath wars, gods, and lies—now unearthed, restored, and revealed before him once more.