Soren’s eyes were open, staring into a grand, lightless expanse that looked similar to the sky of Atheo.
Startled, he stumbled backwards.
Well, he tried to before he found that he couldn’t exactly take a step backwards—or any steps at all.
He looked down at his body and saw a translucent, blue figure in place of what should’ve been his physical body.
“What the hell?” he whispered, examining his body.
“Am I dead?”
Although he knew—or probably thought—that he passed out when the man and woman came and saved him, he didn’t think that he was going to die.
He thought he’d be knocked out into a coma or something along the lines of that.
He clenched his fist, rage filling his body, before he realized something.
His entire body didn’t hurt nor did it burn from the energy that ran through his veins.
It was like he was cleansed from the harrowing pain that plagued him.
‘Small mercies I guess,’ he thought, giving up on feeling bad about himself.
He focused on the vast emptiness ahead and noticed it wasn’t completely empty.
Suspended in the dark was a large, grayish-blue orb.
Soren stared at it, scratching his ghost-like head in confusion.
To his knowledge, the world was flat—proven by scholars.
Atheo was a sprawling continent that led to the ocean—the waters leading to a black, starry border that led to, what scholars believe, the outer universe itself.
But the thing in front of him was a closed loop—a massive, floating marble that was made of swirling clouds, gray landmasses, and stretches of water.
He stared at the bottom of the sphere, genuinely baffled as to how the waters didn’t just spill off into the empty space blow.
Whatever this place was, it wasn’t Atheo.
Atheo was an astronomically large continent that dwarfed this strange floating ball in front of him.
If he had to guess, the first city of Vulcanis, Genesity, could probably cover a massive chunk of this orb’s entire surface if the orb was flat.
Soren tried to lean in to get a better look at the strange orb, but his ghostly form remained locked in place.
All he could do was cross his arms and watch.
He waited with arms crossed over his translucent body, stuck in the limbo of staring at the small planet in front of him.
He didn’t know how long he floated there—time seemingly relative as either a moment or an eternity could’ve passed.
Then, the fabric of the dark expanse tore open.
A chilling tear appeared nearby him and within the depths of the primordial dark, three celestial lights emerged.
They traveled from the open wound straight toward the floating sphere.
As the lights grew closer, their distinguishing traits became clear.
The first was a chunk of pure white stone, leaving a brilliant white trail.
The second was a pitch-black obsidian, bleeding a trail of absolute darkness.
The third was a gray stone, churning with a golden core and a gray trail behind it.
Soren watched in silence as they struck.
The black stone hit first, plunging into the shadowed side of the orb.
The night.
It struck with a violent shockwave that seemed to devour the surrounding land.
The white stone followed, descending upon the sunlit side of the orb with eerie grace.
Not a single scratch was left on the land it struck.
Then came the third asteroid.
It slammed directly into the southern axis of the globe with a violent fury that was exponentially more devastating than the other two.
It sent a ripple of absolute devastation across the orb’s surface that left Soren stunned.
As the impact settled, an ancient resonance hummed through the surface of the sphere.
The three impact points pulsed in unison before a wave of cosmic energy surged across the ruined globe.
Soren flinched.
He recognized that feeling—it was nearly identical to the same cosmic energy that tore through his body when he activated the Anchor in the basement.
The tear in the empty void suddenly stitched itself before it disappeared, almost as if there was never a hole in the first place.
The vision began to fracture before the broken globe in front of him dissolved into a swirl of white mist, rushing towards Soren.
It flooded him, dragging him back towards consciousness.
Soren’s eyes snapped open, gasping for breath as he shot up from his lying position.
He slammed the forehead into something incredibly hard, wincing at the pain.
“Ow!”
Soren, who was rubbing his hand on his forehead, whipped his head at the voice.
“You’re awake!” the healer exclaimed, placing a glowing green hand on his nose.
“I thought you’d be asleep for much longer.”
Soren looked around in shock, touching his body all over for proof that he was actually alive.
He thought he was dead for sure, given the fact that he was a ghost moments before.
He heaved a sigh of relief before looking at the poor soul whose nose he probably broke from sitting up too fast.
He was glad that the healer didn’t seem offended because he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to handle offending an Ascender like that.
“How long was I asleep?” Soren asked, looking around for any measurement of time.
He didn’t find any.
“You’ve been asleep for around half an hour.
Nothing we did woke you up so we just let you be to heal,” the healer said, smiling gently.
“Oh, you’re up,” another voice said from behind him.
“Good.”
Soren turned around to see a guy leaning lazily against the doorway to the room with his arms crossed over his chest.
He had a bored expression on his face, though his eyes held an attentive gleam that betrayed his vigilance.
“Rivor,” the healer greeted.
“You’re back.”
“Mhm,” Rivor responded, uncrossing his arms and moving to them, looking at the healer’s nose.
“The bastard got your nose, huh Meric,” Rivor said, ignoring Meric’s greeting as he watched the healing process from a distance.
Soren opened his mouth to retort before he thought better of it.
These guys did save his life and he did just break the healer’s—Meric’s—nose.
Come to think about it, he couldn’t feel the cosmic pain that came with the Anchor’s energy that was forced into him.
He’d have to thank Meric for healing him later.
“Where are we?” he decided to ask the more pressing question.
He looked around and saw that the room was completely different from the restaurant they were in—likely a different building entirely.
“We’re in an inn near the Anchor you activated,” Rivor easily replied.
“It’s the inn near the restaurant you were just in.”
A series of unique knocks interrupted Rivor, coming below them and causing Soren to freeze.
His heart rate started to quicken as he didn’t forget the perilous experiences he recently went through.
Seeing this, Meric quickly pressed a glowing green hand on his shoulder, calming him down.
“Calm down.
It’s just the captain.”
Soren let out a deep breath before nodding, having calmed himself.
Although he normally wouldn’t have been scared like this, the harrowing trials he underwent from just one day in the Abyss scarred him—possibly for life.
After confirming that he calmed down, Meric followed Rivor out the room and down the stairs to greet the captain who knocked the door.
Soren quickly got up and followed them, looking around at where he was.
He saw every entrance heavily barricaded by thick, thorny vines that seemed impenetrable compared to the hastily erected barricades back in the restaurant.
He got to the door just in time to see the two men open the door, revealing the figure that knocked.
He stopped breathing.
In front of him, a woman with short black hair stood, radiating a cold and authoritative presence.
Her face was sharp yet filled Soren with a sense of safety.
However, what stopped his breath was not those but what she wore.
It was the same midnight-blue armor and glowing longsword that the person who saved him used.
“Captain!” the two shouted, saluting in union.
“At ease, men,” she replied, walking into the room.
Behind her, two other men—one short, one tall—followed, stained with blood while the captain was spotless.
Meric went over to see if the two following the captain were hurt while Rivor relaxed, talking to the captain.
Soren, not one for manners, brazenly eavesdropped on the conversation they were having.
“—managed to kill the rest of the stragglers around the Anchor,” the Captain said, polishing her longsword.
Captain Valen glanced at him before he felt a chilling cold travel down his spine.
An oppressive presence erupted from her, pushing down on Soren as he struggled to breathe.
However he was done with being pathetic.
Soren met her gaze and refused to look away.
The corner of Captain Valen’s mouth twitched before the crushing pressure vanished and she sheathed her sword.
“I like him,” she said to the others.
“He’s useful.
Much more than Standhaf.”
“Hey!”
“You have to admit, you’re a bit clumsy at times,” Rivor said, poking Standhaf’s head instead of his ribs due to how short he was.
“I’m stalwart as a mountain.
I provide utility through my stalwartness!”
Soren stared in belief at the group before him.
He thought all the Abyssal expedition or rescue teams were hardened by the horrors thrown at them.
“Well, you have to find a way to stay sane, no matter how much you don’t mean it,” Rivor said, noticing Soren’s dumbfounded expression.
“That’s the only way you can survive the horrors that threaten to consume our minds.”
“What Rivor said,” Captain Valen continued, her tone somber.
“These expeditions of ours.
Its mortality rate is astronomically high.
We explore Order Breaks so that we can save as many people as possible and reclaim the land taken from us but we have to stake our lives as the price.”
She gestured towards the squad behind her.
“We are all Ascenders, braving the arduous trials of the Orders.
It’s our duty to brave said trials and climb so normal humans don’t have to experience the horrors we do.”
Ascenders were those who climbed the Orders of Ascension.
Awakened were mortals who shed their weak shell, ascending to a greater form of themselves.
If someone was an Awakened, that means that they killed many Abyssal Creatures or they were rich enough to buy enough Nonexistence Essences.
If someone was a Transcendent, that meant that they were the elites of elites.
They killed astronomical amounts of Abyssal Creatures and were hardened by the dangers of the Abyss.
One couldn’t reach the rank of Transcendent by simply buying Nonexistence Essences—no, they had to kill the Abyssals themselves and consume the orbs immediately.
And he had no idea the criteria to ascending to a Divine.
He assumed it would be the same like the lower ranks but the knowledge was highly classified, disclosed to only those the royal family acknowledged.
Soren saw them shift, whispering to each other before Rivor sighed, standing up.
“I’m a Transcendent of the Creator pathway,” he said, sending a spark of blue lightning dancing on his palm.
“You know me,” Meric said after Rivor, a faint green glow lighting up in his hands.
“A Divine Life Awakened.”
“And I’m Standhaf,” the short man proudly said, banging his chest.
“A Transcendent of the Force pathway.”
“I’m an Awakened of the Spectre pathway,” a voice said behind Soren, scaring him.
It was the tall man that entered with Captain Valen.
“Name’s Caligo.”
“And I,” Captain Valen said, a subtle presence oozing out of her.
“Am a Transcendent of the Space Pathway.”
Soren stood up in response, feeling the overwhelming presence that came with being surrounded by Ascenders.
“And I’m, uh…” Soren said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.
“I’m just a normal scavenger.”
A roaring burst of laughter erupted from Standhaf who stood to the right of him.
“You think we don’t know that, boy?
We could tell from your scrappy frame,” he said, clapping Soren’s shoulders before he turned serious.
“You being a normal and braving the Abyss is news, though.”
Captain Valen stepped closer, her sharp eyes scanning every inch of him.
“You managed to kill an Echoed Awakened creature guarding the Anchor as a normal?” she questioned, leaning in.
“Your potential is… staggering.”
Soren laughed nervously, nodding to her questions.
He heard that some normals get killed by arrogant Ascenders if they boasted too much and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake.
He definitely wasn’t going to mention the other Abyssal Creatures he managed to kill before that.
“Hey, Captain!” Standhaf teased, chuckling.
“Leave the poor boy alone!
He’s obviously flustered that you’re so close to him!”
Valen hummed thoughtfully, ignoring Meric’s banter.
“How would you like to join our team?”
“…What?”