Chapter 36:He Saw Everything.

Chapter 36:

He Saw Everything

In the depths of his rest, Errin drifted through an ocean of light and shadow, his mind unbound, his soul untethered.

And in that vast expanse—he saw everything.

Not with his eyes, not with his senses, but with something far greater. A perception beyond time, beyond flesh, beyond the limits of mortal understanding.

He saw the first spark of creation, the moment when nothing became something.

He saw galaxies bloom like flowers in an infinite garden, stars igniting and dying in cycles as old as eternity itself.

He saw worlds forming, breaking, reforming—a dance of destruction and rebirth, endless and unyielding.

He saw life.

From the smallest whisper of energy stirring in the void to the rise of civilizations so vast they stretched beyond the concept of space itself. He saw beings of light and shadow, creatures of chaos and harmony, gods and mortals, all playing their roles in the grand tapestry of existence.

And then—he saw himself.

Not just the Errin who had lived in the valley. Not just the man who had walked between worlds.

He saw all versions of himself—every possibility, every path taken and untaken.

He saw the Errin who had never left home. The Errin who had fallen in battle. The Errin who had become a king. The Errin who had become nothing.

Infinite choices. Infinite lives.

And at the center of it all, there was one truth.

Creation was not an act of power.

It was an act of will.

And in that moment, as he drifted in the sea of all that was, all that is, and all that could be..

The sky above stretched endlessly, swirling

with the golden hues of twilight. The valley,

ever so silent, hummed with a rhythm that only those who had spent lifetimes within could truly understand.

He had walked its length, lived its years, fathered its children. He had watched generations pass as if in a dream, the flow of time within the valley neither linear nor predictable. A hundred years had passed like a fortnight, yet his heart held the weight of centuries.

As he rested his weary form against the roots of an ageless tree, the memories of his time here began to blur. Faces flickered in his mind—his beloved, his sons who had left, the ones who remained. He recalled the day he had first set foot in this place, an outsider searching for meaning, and how the valley had embraced him, whispering secrets only the patient could hear.

Now, he could feel it calling him to rest.

The valley had a way of claiming those who belonged to it. Some vanished into the mist, others simply faded into legend. Errin knew his time had come. He exhaled deeply, his breath carrying with it the echoes of his past. His eyes fluttered shut, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, he allowed himself to surrender.

As the final rays of sunlight dipped below the horizon, the valley stirred. The trees swayed in a voiceless lullaby, the rivers whispered his name, and the stars, ever faint in the daylight, began to glow brighter than before. It was as if the valley itself acknowledged his passage, embracing him in a sleep unlike any other—a sleep beyond time, beyond memory.

But this was no ordinary rest. In this sleep, after having realigned his mortal body into a body worthy of a creator, Errin's very essence transformed. His bones, once fragile and human, resonated with the primordial forces of the valley. His breath intertwined with the cosmos, his consciousness stretching into the fabric of existence itself. The valley had prepared him, shaped him, and now, it cradled him as he ascended beyond the limits of mortality.

In his sleep, he saw his mission as a creator. The vision unfolded before him like a celestial prophecy—he would give the goddess a son, a divine being who would walk among mortals and perform miracles, a beacon of hope and power. This son would be unlike any other, his fate intertwined with the heavens and the earth, destined to shape the course of existence itself.

Some say that those who enter The Forgotten Valley never truly leave. Others believe that when a soul rests within its bounds, it is reborn anew, woven into the very fabric of the land. Whether Errin would wake again, in another life, another dream, or simply fade into myth, only the valley knew.

And so, beneath the eternal sky, Errin the Outsider took the sleep of a lifetime.

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