On this fateful day, fog enveloped Scathgrain Castle.
The time was just moments before dawn, and night still persisted in its darkness. What came into vision was a vague shadow of the castle's design, discernible only due to its enormous size. The dense fog could not stretch to the cyclopean heights of the structures that reflected moonlight from the white stones and the vague glow of inhumanity they inhabited.
The castle was a world unto itself, a vast and unknowable expanse that held entire cities, towns, and hidden domains within its sprawling embrace. Lakes slumbered in its shadow, rivers twisted, and mountains dwarfed in its immensity.
Yet in middle of this insanity was something of much greater proportion, The Caergwyn Palace.
A structure so vast that it defied reason, so monstrous in scale that even the spiraling towers piercing the sky, endless in their ascent, seemed minuscule in comparison. Light clung to its surface unnaturally, as though the stone itself was rejecting the very concept of shadow.
Deep within the labyrinthine structure of the palace was a hall. The ground and walls were adorned with an astonishing number of dazzling, strange designs and art pieces, accentuating an atmosphere similar to a forest.
Within this forest of creative ideas were two men conversing. Both men were of similar age. They lay in the middle of the room, staring at the sky that was openly visible through the glass roof.
Silen spoke in a rather intriguing tone that seemed unsuitable for the feminine face he had or the black and dark purple layered royal robes that he wore. His voice came out quite commanding and sure of itself.
"You are wrong in the very conception of the question you gave to me. You ask of me, 'Does a void or nothing exist?' Yet did you think that if it is nothing, then how could it exist?"
In response, Sersa replied to him. He had a similar beauty as the man before him but with a hint of roughness and strength. He wore a loose robe that was white in color. His voice was calm and slow.
"Don't play a linguistic game with me. Just give me your answer."
Silen laughed slightly at the response and began talking.
"If true nothingness does 'exist,' then it cannot be realized. Which is why, Sersa, I criticized your wording. It cannot exist or be thought of. Else it would take a space or be realized and such would not be a true nothing."
For a second, Sersa was lost in his thoughts and spoke with further enthusiasm.
"Yet I can think of the idea of nothing, even if it is false and unrealizable."
He paused for a bit, and Silen knew him enough to know that he would continue further.
Silen and Sersa never looked at each other throughout the conversation. Their eyes were focused on the sky. A serene sky devoid of any stars or streaks. Today was a lightless night. But not inside the palace. The hall was always glowing due to the strange composition of its walls. They glowed forever and ever. Unless they were asked not to.
Eventually, Sersa continued his sentence.
"The idea of nothingness that I have in my mind is actually the absence of something. That must be the origin of the idea of nothing. Anyway, I have a new proposition in mind."
The reply came instantly in a simple, dull tone.
"Continue."
Sersa continued his thoughts with serious complexion.
"I was thinking that since the mind itself is existing, and the mind is the space in which I was thinking, inside it I am required to conjure up an idea of nothing. Which is strictly incoherent with what nothingness is. So what if nothingness actually is a space? A place for everything to exist. Meaning a total meaninglessness. A nothing!"
"What absurdity!"
Sersa's excitement was visible from both his face and his voice.
Silen, still staring at the sky, replied in a formal manner.
"Interesting."
Seeing Silen's lack of interest in the topic Sersa decided to stop speaking.
Silence continued within them for hours.
During this time, Sersa had moved from his spot and was no longer staring at the sky but was sitting on a chair and fidgeting with a watch.
Eventually he broke the silence.
"By the way, you didn't tell me why we came here today."
Silen, still observing the sky, spoke without much focus.
"Nothing. Just felt like observing the first light."
Sersa was visibly bored. He wanted to speak more but, thinking about the mood of his lord, decided not to.
'We have been here since midnight, and he has yet to move a muscle. Unusual.'
As subtle as it was, he noticed it and still decided to ignore it. His lord had been an eccentric man to begin with, especially since he was unofficially discarded from the 'game.'
Silen, on the other hand, was lost in his mind, stuck in an unfamiliar location and body.
Just a few hours ago, he had been lost in the state of minimal phenomenon, a stage of death reserved only for those who had a direct transgression into the heavenly hierarchy.
Silen, who had been born of the heavenly spirit as an earthly serpent, had spent his entire life in incompetency, unable to attain gnosia or pleroma. A life as merely an ornament existing simply to justify the existence of the spirit incarnate. When finally the spirit incarnate ascended, Silen, who had expectantly awaited his freedom, died.
In his last moments, Silen had a sense of hope that maybe he could finally live a normal life, but faced with death, he still thought maybe this was for the better. Yet fate was simply not in his favor.
Even after death, Silen never died. He was stuck in a state of minimal phenomenon, a psyche without perception. The only perception left of him was himself.
Soon, an eternity of timelessness passed, and Silen felt a moment of calmness at his sense of dissolution. He was slowly fading and being corroded by the nothing.
It was a slow death.
Yet before he could die, a voice called out to him. It spoke something he could not comprehend, but he knew it was his fate once again.
All that happened afterward was a blur, a slow descent into the body of Silen Ver Estel. While the real owner of the body was still having a conversation with his first sword, Sersa, Silen's immense psyche was rapidly corroding this body's unconscious will. Eventually, nothing of it remained. Just imprinted memories and a shell, all of which were now inherited by the earthly serpent.
As he was still getting used to the physical sensation, a flash of blinding light enveloped the world.
Silen, who had been expectantly waiting for this moment, felt a bliss and warmth cover his body and mind.
In an instant, the light assimilated into the earth, and a bright sky was revealed. A sky of pure white majesty holding in its embrace the sign of purity, a fissure of light that began from a blinding point and stretched into the four corners of the world.
Silen held his hand up in the air, feeling a sense of heat.
'I saw to the creation of the world, and now I must devour her making.'