5 — Distorted World

Something was really wrong with this forest.

Something was really wrong with himself.

Seraph's eyes were hurting. Since he had moved from that initial spot in the forest, his vision kept shifting.

He had noticed the forest slowly withering before, but now it was faster, constant.

He blinked. The forest was completely normal, without a sign on death.

However, when he blinked again, the leaves were quickly disappearing. And when he blinked for the third time, it was all back to normal.

'What the heck is going on?'

Seraph quickened his steps. Even without using mana or his Color, he was moving at an incredible speed.

Unnacostumed to his body after sleeping for so long, he hit a tree or two. Three. Four...

'That's not important!'

Back in the Holy Kingdom, the boy named Atherios was known for his sharpness — but that smart, naïve boy had long disappeared from this world.

He was reborn, in almost all senses of the word.

Seraph himself did not realize that, however, as this new nature of his came off as completely natural.

'Fuck!'

He was surprised his eyes weren't bleeding yet. Though his mind came off as natural, some parts of his body definitely did not.

Especially the eyes.

If Seraph could look himself in the mirror, he would quickly realize why, and immediately find it extremely weird.

His previously blond hair had turned pitch black, and his golden eyes now shone orange like flames, leaving a far deeper impression than the average blond noble.

However, for millennia, it was considered granted that the eyes were the windows of the soul, as they supposedly were colored by the gods alongside it.

Basically, that meant his rare golden eyes indicated the Gold Spectrum. He would understand if it was somehow Red, but...

There is no orange in the Spectrum. The boy named Atherios often joked about it, saying that the gods were uncreative.

Besides, the deeper one's connectium with the Spectrum went, the brighter their eyes would shine, indicating the use of mana.

Seraph's eyes were shining so brightly and moving so constantly that it seemed like they were going to explode... And he wasn't using any mana at all.

No matter how one looked at it, it was weird. He should be reborn, yes, but not like this. Not now.

But that's a problem for another time, another Seraph.

Now...

'Goddamn, I'm thirsty!'

He needed to find water.

In truth, he had been looking for a source of water for a while now. And finally, it looked like that search had bore results.

Seraph heard a certain sound, and a wide grin instantly found its way into his face.

"Water!"

He ran towards the sound, and aftee hours of search, he finally found it.

A river!

It extended beyond his sight, flowing almost unnaturally. Too perfect.

Seraph kneeled at the river's border, taking some water into his hands. Once again, it felt unnatural, as the water was a hundred times better than the holy water he was forced to drink back then.

'Maybe I'm exaggerating...'

Just as he was about to drink more of that water, Seraph's eyes pulsated, and his vision shifted again. The once-perfect pristine water of the river turned dark red, flowing violently as it hit and almost shattered the rocks containing it.

Seraph felt an urge to puke.

It was blood.

A massive, wild flow of deep blood.

The boy retreated a few steps, staring at the river of crimson blood in front of him. Then after a few minutes, he finally blinked.

The pristine river was back.

"What the hell is happening with this place?"

Once again, he felt an urge to run. This time, to find the source of that all-too-suspicious river.

"What the fuck is happening with me!?"

Seraph stood up shakily, and stared at the river for a few minutes. Then, he started running, following the damn current.

And, as he ran, his vision shifted multiple times.

Each time it did, the river of blood seemed to turn even deeper, and he could almost distinguish corpses inside it.

All this time, his eyes felt like they were about to leave their sockets, or kill him right then and there.

Seraph ran for what felt like days. As time passed, his visions became more frequent and detailed. He became sure that there were corpses in that river.

He became certain that these corpses were somehow following him.

Seraph was breathing heavily, his chest going up and down wildly. Just as he was about to give up, he found a strange place.

A gigantic tree, with a white trunk and blood-red leaves.

"Just like the Forest of Profanity..."

However, the thing that shocked him was mot the tree, but what was lying below it.

A corpse easily three meters tall, wearing a shattered white armor with azure blood flowing from its gashes. In its back, a strange pair of mechanical wings were falling apart, with feathers made of metal.

The single opening in its helmet was dark, but Seraph was able to see a faint shine of the same azure blood.

"Now what, a Pinocchio? Is it going to pull up a sword on me?"

Though Seraph instinctively made a bad joke few would understand, as usual, his behavior was strange. He slowly approached the creature, as if pulled in by its presence.

He made a joke, yes. But what he truly thought of the being was...

"Magnificent."

Yes, it was magnificent, beautiful. The creature reminded him of the angels of Akhavella he had seen in paintings, but far more... Majestic.

As Seraph approved the corpse, his breath became faster. He was intoxicated by it.

A single thought took over his mind.

"I want to kill it."

Yet, it was already dead. Someone had beaten him to it.

Fuck!

He stopped within a single step of the creature, then extended his hand to touch it.

What followed suit would leave a deep mark within Seraph's mind, and an even deeper mark in history.

Suddenly, Seraph's sight went crazy. It spinned, distorted, disassembled and reconstructed; it was like he had been dragged into an entirely different world, with completely different rules.

And then, unsurprisingly, Seraph found himself in that different world.

Now, it was his head's turn to hurt.

This was all too much.

First, he didn't find any life other than that stupid, perverted over-grown dog, and now he was abducted!?

"Yeah, fuck that."

Seraph looked up, staring at the void beyond.

"Hey, get me out of this! I wanna dip, now!"

However, to his utter disgust, a voice interrupted his resignation to this idiotic situation.