Chapter 153: Mana and Power of the Great Mythical Beings.

The sun was slowly setting over the crystalline lake. It had already been several days that Sakolomé had been training relentlessly, every morning shirtless, his breath slow, muscles tense, eyes lost in the silent immensity of the world of myths.

The first days were… disconcerting.

Day 1….

— "I don't understand anything…"

His body was covered with a green halo, the mana of Rivhiamë. But instead of elevating him, he felt like he was sinking, losing grip on reality. The ground gave way, the air vibrated silently, and his own thoughts took shape around him — floating like unstable bubbles.

— "I think of strength, and nothing happens… I think of flying, and I sink."

Rivhiamë, in a calm voice:

— "You no longer operate in a structured world. It is no longer strength you must summon, but the very intention of the effect. You no longer manipulate, you harmonize."

Sakolomé collapsed that evening, gasping, sweat running down his forehead. He had tried to send a wave, but received a backlash in the form of a mental burst, as if the world had rejected him.

Day 3….

He sat at the edge of the lake, trying to meditate. His breathing slowly synchronized with the silent pulse of this place beyond the giant dimensions. He then attempted an act without concept: extending his hand with a desire of openness, undefined.

The lake vibrated.

— "I did nothing! I just… thought of a welcome."

Rivhiamë:

— "Exactly. You evoked an echo. The absence of law creates a space for pure tensions. Continue."

Day 5….

That day, Sakolomé tried to imagine a flame. But he visualized neither heat nor fire. He thought of an absence that illuminates, a tension between a beginning and an end that never come. A form of empty but vibrant breath.

The flame appeared.

But it burned him from within. His breath was torn away, his cells trembled, his consciousness crumbled.

Rivhiamë, urging:

— "Stabilize your being! Use your name, your identity, your purpose!"

He closed his eyes.

— "I am Sakolomé. I am the one who brings back the smile. The one who walks with his loved ones. I am real because I carry hope."

The flame calmed.

It became gentle.

It warmed him, instead of consuming him.

Day 7…

Standing on the water of the lake, arms outstretched, Sakolomé made no movement.

He simply thought of the inverted gravity of a world at peace.

Not as a physical concept, but as a silent melody.

He thought of "the natural elevation of beings without chains."

His body rose.

Without sound. Without light.

He floated. A pure serenity invaded him.

Rivhiamë:

— "There. You did not invoke a power. You embraced a dissonance in Being."

Sakolomé landed slowly.

He said nothing.

But a victorious smile was born on his lips.

Day 10…

That day, he tried something broader: weaving a barrier around himself, not against an enemy… but against the loss of identity in this blurred world.

He thought of his sister, Bakuran, Shushu, Ysolongue.

He thought of Sally, their old home.

Of his mother.

And of himself.

— "I am the sum of these bonds. I am real because I choose to love."

Around him, a soft, stable, vibrant aura wrapped like an invisible cocoon. The mana of Rivhiamë resonated with it.

Rivhiamë:

— "You have just created your first zone of fundamental stability. A zone of pure being. Sakolomé… you succeeded."

Day 12….

Sakolomé rose slowly, still radiating with this rare peace. He looked at his hands. No more uncontrolled vibrations.

His breath was clear.

Rivhiamë, with an almost proud voice:

— "You managed to operate where even some creatures of this level fail. You did not seek to dominate… You learned to vibrate rightly."

Sakolomé raised his arms to the sky.

— "I hope I never have to train like this again!" he exclaimed laughing.

— "It was worse than the worst nightmare… but I feel alive."

He leaned over the lake. His reflection smiled.

—

Sakolomé then lay down on a flat stone. The sky of the world of myths was calm, crossed by filaments of silent energies.

He thought of Velda, Ysolongue, the hidden egg. And the coming fight.

— "Rivhiamë."

— "Yes?"

— "Thank you for your help."

— "That's why I'm here."

Sakolomé watched the lake in silence. The ripples stretched in an almost absolute peace, barely disturbed by the light wind. His body still shone with a deep green, residue of Rivhiamë's mana enveloping him. Every cell seemed to resonate in the absence of structure.

He raised his hands, opened them slowly… and before him, the particles of the world moved without his willing it. Gravity contorted. The air seemed to hesitate between becoming light or matter. The tensions bent to him, without resistance.

Sakolomé smiled, proud, almost intoxicated:

— I feel like nothing is impossible to me anymore… How could one want a level beyond this?

The calm voice of Rivhiamë rose in his mind, like a wave from an abyss too ancient:

— Sakolomé… you are still very far from true power, you know?

Sakolomé raised his eyebrows, a little surprised:

— Yeah, I know… Just that it surprises me that more than this is possible. What kind of concepts, or else, could be superior to all this?

Rivhiamë paused. Then her voice vibrated with seriousness:

— When you become a Deviant, only then will you begin to touch the limits of what even gods fear.

— You might be able to manipulate what are called… Meta-Concepts.

Sakolomé frowned. The name alone resonated like an ancient relic.

— Meta-Concepts?

— Yes. They are ideas… that are not.

They are not like the concepts of the world.

They are not like the laws of Delzluhud.

They are not even like the absences of silence.

They are… their before-all.

Sakolomé froze, as if the very density of what he heard paralyzed him.

— But… where do these Meta-Concepts come from?

Rivhiamë answered in an almost faded voice:

— From a place that precedes all lower states. A void older than all voids.

A void without end, without thought, without story.

This place bears a name given, according to Velda… a name that only the oldest still dare pronounce.

Madhurya.

— Madhurya is not a place like the others; originally it was created so that gods and demons could conclude a vast war, but before the other layers of the void were possible, there was already one that was before all that, that is the true Madhurya, the most fundamental void and also the primordial void where all that can be entities take their sources either consciously or unconsciously.

This famous primordial void itself is not a plane, nor a layer of reality or a state like the others.

It is what even precedes the possibility of having a layer beyond Delzluhud, before the Giant Dimensions, before the Beyond and even the layers where many secondary to quaternary gods reign… Madhurya.

There come the Meta-Concepts.

Before the first law, before the first tension, even before the possibility of a concept, there was the Primordial Void. And in this Void… dwelled the Meta-Concepts.

Rivhiamë:

— These things are not "ideas" as you conceive them, Sakolomé.

They are not "created," nor "produced" by forces of states.

They are what makes it possible for the very idea of law, concept, or duality to be born.

We have for example those like:

Orthinésie – The very negation of identification.

It is what makes any attempt to say: "this is this" impossible.

Then we can have

Dravellion – The refusal of the pattern.

Without it, no law can exist, not even to be circumvented.

Zeerât is the cause of causes. What makes it possible for an event to be the consequence of another.

Myâtrhe is presence without being. It allows entities to manifest even if they do not exist.

Arenhâl – What makes an absolute… cancelable. Without it, there would be no ultimates to overturn, no end to rewrite.

And finally, we have Thozéïn, pure meaning without object.

What allows logic in reality, silence, or even paradox… to have weight.

Rivhiamë continued, grave:

— To manipulate a Meta-Concept… it is not enough to transcend a structure or a world, you know…

You must transcend even the idea that there is something to surpass, it is like a total shedding of your former possible self, that is why becoming a Deviant is very difficult alone, for someone of the lower states. You must necessarily have help from a divine-level entity for that.

These entities are called:

The Gods, the great mythical beings, the Deviants.

The Anonymous of the Void, the Chōshinku.

The Unborn Spheres.

Or sometimes, simply: "Those Before Thought."

They do not manipulate. They condition.

Where a being like you can impose a law, a great mythical being imposes the condition of existence of the law.

Where you undo a causality, a great mythical being denies even the possibility that it took place.

Sakolomé, standing, stared at the horizon.

The lake had become a mirror. The wind had fallen silent.

— And… me? he asked. One day, could I understand them?

Rivhiamë:

— If you continue to rise… if you become a true Deviant, capable of refusing even the reflections of the real… then maybe, Sakolomé.

Maybe you too will one day touch… the silent heart of Madhurya.

Sakolomé sat slowly on the flat rock, his hair still damp falling on his forehead. He sighed deeply, his breath heavy with thoughts weighing heavily on his mind.

— I didn't even know Meta-Concepts existed… he murmured, staring at the ground, hands resting on his knees.

The wind passed silently.

Rivhiamë spoke in his mind, with the softness of an ancient voice.

— That's normal. Such things are… beyond all mortal understanding. Even those who dominate worlds know only the name. But don't worry, Sakolomé. I believe you can make it.

Sakolomé did not answer immediately. He stayed there, motionless, thoughts shaken.

He thought of Ysolongue, Velda, those ancient gods spoken of cautiously, like tales whispered by the fireside. And now that he began to glimpse the echoes of the true world, he understood…

The gap.

The void between him and them.

— So… their mere presence… their aura… their energy… are as immense as their concepts, right? he breathed, not really expecting an answer.

Rivhiamë remained silent for a moment, then resumed, this time more measured, almost grave.

— What you call aura, Sakolomé… is no longer mana as it should be said. It is no longer an energy born of a spirit, a vital breath, a magical essence or even a state or concept. What divine entities emit… is the active echo of the meta-concepts.

Sakolomé looked up, intrigued.

— The echo…?

— Yes. Their pure mere existence makes the real vibrate at a pre-structural level. Where you draw your energy from a current, they are the source of what allows this current to exist. They do not manipulate mana, Sakolomé.

They emanate something else.

— When a true god or a Deviant manifests purely in its true form in a lower layer, like Delzluhud or even the Giant Dimensions… its presence causes the implosion of local laws, the collapse of surrounding concepts.

The reversibility of duality itself.

Sometimes even, the cancellation of time or logic.

Their "energies" are meta-conceptual vibrations. And these vibrations are neither containable nor filterable. They even refuse to be perceived — for perception itself is too low for them.

Rivhiamë hesitated.

— If today you stood a few meters from a being who fully masters a single meta-concept only, while you have no link with them yet… what could happen to you would be tragic…

Sakolomé:

— How so?

— Your memory would collapse on itself, because it rests on a temporality still defined in a place.

Your being would be penetrated by impossible signals, which even your body or soul could not interpret.

You would feel a total silence, not by absence of sounds, but by absence of structure.

And in the end, your existence would cancel itself without violence. Like a forgotten idea, or a name never spoken.

Sakolomé frowned. His back straightened slightly. He did not tremble, but he better understood the magnitude of the abyss.

— And yet… you think I can make it one day?

Rivhiamë answered, more softly:

— Yes. Because even if you are only an idea born of a still structured world… you refuse to remain locked inside it. And that… no God can ignore. You are someone promising, Sakolomé.

Sakolomé remained silent for a long time. He raised his eyes to the pale gray sky, whose light barely seemed to reach him.

— So… if one day I make it, I won't really be Sakolomé anymore, right?

Rivhiamë, this time, did not answer.

Silence was an answer in itself.