Regaleon: The Forgotten Knight

The "Heart" ceased it’s frenzied oscillations the moment Regaleon’s consciousness vanished. It’s radiance dimmed, the violent pulsation slowed and just like that, the strange disturbance within his chest disappeared as though it had never existed.

Outwardly, Regaleon remained exactly as he had been.

The silver-haired Knight still floated within the Essence Pool, his eyes closed and his body perfectly still. To anyone watching, Regaleon was simply another cultivator immersed in meditation as there was no indication that anything had gone wrong.

Beneath the unmoving exterior, however, lay a far more disturbing truth; the physical vessel remained, but the consciousness that had commanded it was gone.

For the moment, Regaleon’s body was nothing more than an empty husk; a perfectly functioning vessel deprived of the awareness that gave it purpose.

Yet deep within his chest, the metaphysical "Heart" continued to pulse with the same glow. Its rhythm had returned to something resembling a natural heartbeat, but something about it was different now.

There was a faint resonance buried within each pulse, subtle enough that no ordinary perception could detect it; it was as though something within the heart had awakened in response to the surge of Aether it had consumed...

Meanwhile, Regaleon had been thrown somewhere entirely beyond it...

It felt as though an invisible hand had seized his soul, folded space itself around him, and hurled him violently through a bottomless void.

There was neither a sense of direction nor a sense of distance. There was only movement; violent, incomprehensible movement.

His consciousness was dragged forward with such force that for several terrifying moments, Regaleon could not even tell whether he was moving or whether the entire universe was moving around him.

He had never experienced anything remotely comparable to this in his seventeen years of existence; a feeling in which his very being seem to have been seized and twisted.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

Regaleon’s consciousness lurched to a halt and for several seconds, he could do nothing except reel from the aftermath.

A terrible dizziness washed over him.

His awareness seemed to tilt and sway despite there being no physical body for him to lose balance with. His thoughts spun in circles, and a nauseating sensation crawled through whatever passed for his stomach.

Had he possessed a physical body, he had little doubt that he would have doubled over and emptied his guts.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—he did not. To make matters worse, the nausea was followed by an excruciating headache.

It felt as though someone had placed his skull beneath a blacksmith’s hammer and was striking it repeatedly with each imaginary blow sending another pulse of pain through his consciousness.

Regaleon nearly lost himself to it but sheer stubbornness kept him anchored as he gritted his teeth and endured.

Eventually, the pain receded enough for him to think and that was when Regaleon finally opened his eyes...

The first thing he did was to check himself and what he saw made him quite speechless. Looking down, he saw what appear to be his image and yet, something was profoundly wrong.

For starters, he was translucent with light passing through him. His entire form seemed to have been carved from some strange combination of luminous gold and silver, with faint traces of crimson woven through those colours like threads beneath glass.

Also, he was unbelievably tiny. And based on the bodily dimensions he was perceiving, Regaleon had no doubt that his entire body could have comfortably fit within the palm of an adult man’s hand.

For several seconds, the silver-haired Knight simply stared with incredulity. Then his expression gradually hardened as he spoke. "..What?"

However, his voice did not emerge through any physical mouth. Instead, the word simply appeared within his consciousness and that realization made the situation even more unsettling.

Regaleon slowly raised one hand before his face, examining it. The translucent fingers shimmered beneath the strange light surrounding him.

It took several more moments before he finally accepted that this was not his physical body but a spiritual manifestation of his soul.

And as the understanding dawned, it sent an unfamiliar chill through him.

Just what is going on?

For perhaps the first time since the beginning of this bizarre cultivation, Regaleon genuinely had no idea what was happening. What had begun as a simple attempt to awaken his Secondary Aether Veins had somehow transformed into an inexplicable metaphysical ordeal.

He had discovered a second "Heart" within his heart and in a twist of some odd events, he ended up inside a place he had never knowingly visited. He didn’t even know it existed.

Regaleon inhaled out of habit. The gesture was meaningless, but surprisingly, it helped.

Even without lungs, the familiar rhythm helped settle his thoughts.

He considered several possibilities but none of it made sense.

He considered the possibility that he had died; that thought lingered for several seconds, then Regaleon dismissed it.

If he were dead, he doubted he would be capable of thinking this clearly. Besides, he could still feel a faint and distant connection, as though his consciousness was tethered to something outside.

That sensation alone convinced him that he wasn’t dead; not yet, at least.

Eventually, Regaleon abandoned the attempt to solve the mystery. Whatever happened to him, he would figure it out eventually. For now, there was only one sensible thing to do and that was to understand his surroundings...

Finally, he raised he head and what he saw made him forget his confusion.

He was standing, or perhaps floating, within an enormous expanse. There was no visible physical confines.

Instead, the space simply stretched outward in every direction, disappearing into a distant horizon that seemed to exist only because his mind needed somewhere to place it.

Regaleon estimated that the entire expanse was at least a dozen miles across.

The sheer scale was difficult to comprehend, epecially considering that he had somehow entered it while existing in a body no larger than a man’s palm.

Yet the size wasn’t what unsettled him most; instead, it was the familiarity he felt.

Regaleon sensed a faint feeling of recognition. However, recognition was simply to direct and it was more appropriate to say that the sensation was closer to déjà vu.

Regaleon turned slowly, allowing his gaze to travel across the immense expanse. There was no noticeable landmark or structure that could help in reconciling his memories with that feeling.

He tried to connect the strange place to every memory he possessed but there was nothing. As a matter of fact, the harder he searched, the more elusive the feeling became.

Eventually, he gave up and just curiously explored the vast site with his gaze.

The place itself was unlike anything he had ever seen.

Gold and silver dominated the space; not solid colours, but luminous hues that seemed to exist within the very fabric of the environment.

They drifted through the vast expanse like currents beneath still water. Every now and then, crimson appeared among them. It was subtle; a faint undertone here, a streak there and a glimmer elsewhere. Yet those traces of red gave the otherwise serene space an almost imperceptible sense of depth, like veins running beneath pale metal.

The colours did not merely illuminate the place. They seemed to belong to it, as though the space itself had been formed from them.

Moreover, the colors weren’t the only thing dominating the expanse. Regaleon saw orbs, dozens, or perhaps hundred of them.

They floated throughout the vast expanse at different heights and distances. Some were little more than glowing spheres while others were large enough to resemble enormous translucent moons.

Their surfaces also varied. Some were smooth, others carried strange markings that bear an uncanny similarity to his Essence Runes and a few even possessed surfaces that looked almost like glass screens.

Through those screens, Regaleon could see images moving across them. But those images were distorted and fragmented, like pieces of broken glasses intermingling with one another.

Regaleon narrowed his eyes, trying to determine what he was seeing but it was all in vain. The images were too fragmented and their contents remained beyond his comprehension...

And then there were the objects at the center which drew his attention like moths to a flame...

Regaleon slowly turned toward them. Several silhouettes stood at the center with their form difficult to describe. This was not because they were unclear; rather, it was because his mind seemed incapable of fully processing their forms.

They existed within the distance, partially obscured by the gold and silver radiance. Yet something about them tugged at his memory.

Regaleon stared. And then... He remembered. His eyes widened as a memory struck his mind at that instant like a lightning bolt.

He had seen these silhouettes before, days ago when he had first awakened his Essence Runes. Back then, he had briefly glimpsed this very place but he hadn’t understood what he was seeing.

He had only been focused on awakening his Essence Runes, and whatever strange phenomenon had appeared before him had been little more than an insignificant distraction.

But now he understood. Two of those silhouettes were unmistakably connected to his Soul Essences while the other two remained just as mysterious as they had been then.

Regaleon stared at them for a long time. Even now, he could not properly perceive their forms and somehow, that bothered him more than it should have.

The last time he had glimpsed these manifestations, he had already been awestruck. Now, standing before them in his tiny spiritual form, he felt something else... Insignificance.

The four manifestations seemed impossibly vast; not necessarily in physical size, but in presence and existence. They seem to possess a weight that Regaleon could feel despite the distance separating them.

For several moments, he simply floated there, staring. Then he shook himself out of it. After all, there was no point standing around feeling inferiority toward something he didn’t even understand.

Regaleon turned away from the silhouettes and his attention returned to the floating orbs...

What are these? The question occupied his mind as he slowly drifted toward the nearest one.

When he had first arrived, instinct had warned him to remain cautious.

Yet the longer he stayed, the less threatening the place felt. So far, he hadn’t felt hostility or killing intent. If anything, the place felt strangely peaceful and almost comforting; like a sanctuary he had forgotten he once possessed.

That feeling was irrational, perhaps even reckless, considering how little he understood about the place.

But Regaleon couldn’t deny it. Somewhere deep within him, he felt that he belonged here.

That thought should have frightened him; instead, it comforted him in a way nothing had ever. Well, besides someone special actually...

He continued forward toward one of the glowing orbs. From a distance, it had appeared small; but up close, Regaleon realized just how misleading perspective was.

The orb was enormous, towering above his tiny spiritual form and easily twice his height. Its surface shimmered like darkened glass with images flickering beneath it.

Regaleon moved closer and before he could even decipher what he was seeing, a strange resonance suddenly stirred within his mind. It was as though something fundamental within him was responding to the orb.

The sensation was difficult to describe.

To put it in perspective, it was like remembering a name without knowing the person who carried it. Or hearing a familiar voice from a distant room without remembering exactly where you had heard it before.

Regaleon stared intently at the orb, his curiosity growing with each passing second. His gaze in particular remained fixed upon the shifting images that played within it.

He hesitated briefly, every instinct within him advising caution. But curiosity had always been a dangerous weakness and eventually, it won...

Slowly, Regaleon raised his hand. His translucent fingers inched closer toward the orb. He was almost about touching it when suddenly, the entire space trembled...

Regaleon jerked his hand backward, his head whipping to the side in confusion as he looked around him.

The violent vibration came from everywhere with a tremendous force as though trying to uproot the foundation of the expanse itself...

Regaleon’s expression hardened. "What is happening?"

The question had barely formed within his mind when the sensation returned; that same impossible force and violent pressure that had dragged him here.

His soul lurched as the force seized him. Almost instinctively, the silver-haired Knight curled inward, but there was nothing he could grab to stop the pull.

The pulsing surface of the orb was the last thing he saw before he was yanked out of the place. And the moment he vanished, the strange space descended into an eerie, profound stillness...

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