107th of Vhalar, Arc 716
Focus... he told himself. Imagine the void. The emptiness of space. The world's green grass and blue seas, but then - forward, beyond Idalos. The green becomes indigo. The blue becomes a solid black, darker than anything. The universe is a sea of darkness, within which there are only glimmers of light. Idalos is one of them; a beacon within the darkness. A condensed form of reality, where the splendors of the universe bear fruit. But even within Idalos, the darkness still exists. The empty space. Feel it. Control it.
In his meditation, he could truly picture it in his mind; the darkness that surrounded him. Pockets of ether encircled around everything, all of them echoes of the Great Shattering, as was the galaxy an echo of the Original Ones. Magic was spawned from the loss of the Originals from this world, their remaining power manifesting in the sparks that would dwell within.
Acknowledging this reality could teach a mage two things: one, that power can be harvested from fragments of power - such as claiming pockets of ether still left by the Shattering for one's own purposes. Two, that the world everyone lived in had multiple layers. Air was not just air; it wasn't only air that occupied that space. It was air, energy, and matter; by extension, space itself. Everything in Idalos was drawn on the canvas that was space. To be a Rupturer was to acknowledge this fact.
And to be a legendary Rupturer - a thing Alistair had soon approached - was to master the art of pulling the veil from over the canvas. To erase what was there and reanimate what had been there before. To eliminate, in sometimes permanent fashion, the scrawled image of Idalos that many considered to be objective reality. It was objective reality to most, indeed, that Ne'haer and Andaris were seven thousand kilometers away. Yet with Transcending, the final ability of Rupturing, a permanent door could be opened between the two. Just a step, and thousands of kilometers were traversed; it could go on forever, infinitely. A portal that sustained itself so easily that it was almost as if it weren't any more complex than a door one could commission from a woodworker.
How did one break objective reality, permanently? By acknowledging the false narrative; acknowledging that, in fact, it was subjective. There was no such thing as objective reality. Not in a galaxy where magic could dwell.
He held these beliefs to heart, and as he did so, he channeled his energy. He focused. Twenty meters ahead of him. Twenty-five. The Rend . . . it grew. A massive tear in space, the largest portal of all. From a tiny black spec, Alistair had created a black hole, one that consumed dozens of meters around it. Focus. Focus. Focus. This was the farthest he'd ever gotten. He could feel it expanding more and more.
. . . And then it stopped. It retracted, and as the Rend closed entirely, the energy that went into creating it blasted outwards. Alistair was flung backwards, his body traveling a distance of several meters before his back hit the grass and dug into it, his simple clothes ruined by the dirt. The man rubbed his head.
"Fuck," he cursed. "I was so close, too."
It was a technique that no one else in history had been able to do, save for Reyard, its inventor. Alistair was close to the Rending. Close to becoming a legendary mage . . . he only needed to take that final step. To fill in the air with the void.
"Patrick," he looked to his apprentice. His lower lip was bleeding, as he'd bit into it quite hard as he was flung back. The mage rubbed the blood off of his lip, spitting dirt onto the floor. "I came damn close," he bragged. "How's your... spellcasting going?"
Focus... he told himself. Imagine the void. The emptiness of space. The world's green grass and blue seas, but then - forward, beyond Idalos. The green becomes indigo. The blue becomes a solid black, darker than anything. The universe is a sea of darkness, within which there are only glimmers of light. Idalos is one of them; a beacon within the darkness. A condensed form of reality, where the splendors of the universe bear fruit. But even within Idalos, the darkness still exists. The empty space. Feel it. Control it.
In his meditation, he could truly picture it in his mind; the darkness that surrounded him. Pockets of ether encircled around everything, all of them echoes of the Great Shattering, as was the galaxy an echo of the Original Ones. Magic was spawned from the loss of the Originals from this world, their remaining power manifesting in the sparks that would dwell within.
Acknowledging this reality could teach a mage two things: one, that power can be harvested from fragments of power - such as claiming pockets of ether still left by the Shattering for one's own purposes. Two, that the world everyone lived in had multiple layers. Air was not just air; it wasn't only air that occupied that space. It was air, energy, and matter; by extension, space itself. Everything in Idalos was drawn on the canvas that was space. To be a Rupturer was to acknowledge this fact.
And to be a legendary Rupturer - a thing Alistair had soon approached - was to master the art of pulling the veil from over the canvas. To erase what was there and reanimate what had been there before. To eliminate, in sometimes permanent fashion, the scrawled image of Idalos that many considered to be objective reality. It was objective reality to most, indeed, that Ne'haer and Andaris were seven thousand kilometers away. Yet with Transcending, the final ability of Rupturing, a permanent door could be opened between the two. Just a step, and thousands of kilometers were traversed; it could go on forever, infinitely. A portal that sustained itself so easily that it was almost as if it weren't any more complex than a door one could commission from a woodworker.
How did one break objective reality, permanently? By acknowledging the false narrative; acknowledging that, in fact, it was subjective. There was no such thing as objective reality. Not in a galaxy where magic could dwell.
He held these beliefs to heart, and as he did so, he channeled his energy. He focused. Twenty meters ahead of him. Twenty-five. The Rend . . . it grew. A massive tear in space, the largest portal of all. From a tiny black spec, Alistair had created a black hole, one that consumed dozens of meters around it. Focus. Focus. Focus. This was the farthest he'd ever gotten. He could feel it expanding more and more.
. . . And then it stopped. It retracted, and as the Rend closed entirely, the energy that went into creating it blasted outwards. Alistair was flung backwards, his body traveling a distance of several meters before his back hit the grass and dug into it, his simple clothes ruined by the dirt. The man rubbed his head.
"Fuck," he cursed. "I was so close, too."
It was a technique that no one else in history had been able to do, save for Reyard, its inventor. Alistair was close to the Rending. Close to becoming a legendary mage . . . he only needed to take that final step. To fill in the air with the void.
"Patrick," he looked to his apprentice. His lower lip was bleeding, as he'd bit into it quite hard as he was flung back. The mage rubbed the blood off of his lip, spitting dirt onto the floor. "I came damn close," he bragged. "How's your... spellcasting going?"
