Caergwyn Palace was older than almost any living thing in the present. Of course, considering the timeline, Silen could proudly say he outclassed every ancient thing in terms of being ancient. Yet the existence of Caergwyn Palace left a deep mark on him.
Since his birth, he had spent most of his time following the spirit incarnate for her convenience, or else locked up and ignored in safer times. But he had seen rather impossible things—things of gods and those greater than gods. The heavenly spirit was one of them. Yet Caergwyn Palace and Scathgrain Castle were both significant, even to his sense of scale. Both housed extreme powers of this era, with only a very few households and kingdoms comparing to their majesty.
Even the aforementioned transcendentals sprawled across the castle, coming from all corners of the world—some seeking more power and support, while others had been part of the castle from the beginning. But that alone wasn't the source of power behind the castle. The royal family and the king were among the strongest beings in the present world. If Silen's memory served him right, the king could be compared to Himus Rilon, an alchemist from his past—the man who had crafted the creative egg containing the divine word. The memory of him brought a sour expression to Silen's face.
'I had almost forgotten that terrible vision of the word. I should be careful not to remember it in the future.'
Comparable to Himus's achievement was the king, who stood at the pinnacle of power. His achievement was this kingdom and palace, which he had created more than a thousand years ago. It is said that, for the materials, he traveled the entire world and brought back all sorts of beings, even entire forests, mountains, and valleys, to place within the castle.The Garden of Ambiguity was one of them. Once, it had been a menacing, unconquered forest. Yet now it was being used as a tool to travel within the palace. It had connections to all the compartments. But it had been conquered for a reason—the reason being that it was impossible to traverse. Thus, it required tremendous competency to even use it.
For Silen, it was about putting the palace and its people into context. The competency everyone here possessed was undeniable—not a single person or being living here would have survived a day if they weren't competent enough.The importance of this competency became glaringly obvious to someone like him, who had lived the life of a weak and useless slave until this day.
Yet today, he stood there staring at the door. It was the first time he would make a decision and then act upon it. He didn't feel nervous. The time within the minimal phenomenon seemed to have dulled his humanity to a large extent.
He touched the door, and without any effort, it gave way for them both to move forward. The opening revealed a colorless fog. It stood still and uninviting, but Silen still took a step in. Then the fog enveloped him. He did not reject its tendrils. His vision was overtaken by its whiteness, and in the next moment, the whiteness faded slowly into a view that seemed impossible to comprehend.
In front of Silen was an amalgamation of all sides and corners, unturned into a single view. It surrounded him from all angles, and he stood within them all at once. It moved with each minor fluctuation of his eyes, always shifting procedurally to the observer. He felt nothing below his feet. He stood there, perhaps sinking deeper and deeper, he wouldn't know, for there was no direction or sense of space here. Everything existed all at once.
This was the Garden of Ambiguity.
Silen stood confused. Even though the memories provided him with an idea of what being here was like, he had never actually experienced anything like this.Watching the world shift so impossibly and with such sensitivity was not something he could easily get used to. With each movement came sounds that resembled screams from an abyss. Feeling nausea from the sensations, Silen knew he had to do something.
*'Sersa would be suspicious if I took too long to find a communication.*'
Focusing on the inner state of his mind, he closed his eyes.
'Church of Collective Depth.'
With that thought, every major memory associated with the temple came to him, a general inquiry formed from all the data the previous Silen had observed. Yet the shrieks of wind from outside confused him endlessly. They broke his connection to the unconscious of the previous Silen.
He tried again, yet his attention broke from the constant disruption.
He kept trying and trying.
Feeling more anxious as time passed, his thoughts traveled from one idea to another, unable to form any connection with the Garden at all.
At some point, out of frustration, he opened his eyes, only to find his body half-faded in the slight mist around the world.
"Oh fuck." Or at least he wanted to say it, but his body couldn't communicate with the Garden. No voice came out.
Faced with such danger, Silen began to find a strange clarity. Eventually, the issue became evident to him.
"I need to devour his memories in earnest, completely. Even if it molds my entire personality… or I might be lost here forever."
The only dilemma was that he simply didn't know how to do it.
"What's the point of being an ancient being when one is so incompetent?"
He could feel an inevitable dissolution taking over him. At this point, he knew he'd better do something.
It was this exact moment, the exact thought of death, that he immediately felt a breakthrough in the issue.
"No, no, I do have a way out of this. If I can just recreate the minimal phenomenon by detaching from all physical and external sensations, then only my mind will remain!"
It came rather easily, as the body had never truly belonged to him. His intent focused solely on his existence itself, which was exceedingly simple for him, given his countless millennia of experience observing himself.
Soon, his focus stretched to such an extent that the physical nausea ceased to exist. Then a brilliant sensation overcame him.
In his mental observation, he detached from the body and found himself in utter darkness, similar to what he had experienced in death.
"This is it," he thought.
No thought came out—he simply was. This was a core difference he noticed from his past experience in this void.Knowing the importance of time, he began observing himself.Immediately, everything gained colors and shapes.
Silen found himself floating above a depthless ocean. The next thing he noticed was a blob of something. It had a watery texture, yet it didn't appear to be made of water. It contained every color imaginable in its depths, moving continuously, layered over itself.
As Silen observed it, he instinctively knew he could touch it without touching it. Everything above the sea was under his immediate control.
Silen felt an intuitive comprehension of what it was. It was the existence of the previous Silen or at least a husk of him.
Beyond this existence, there was something else here, something he couldn't see but only knew was present—a vague silhouette over his own being. It was what gave him a silhouette, what gave form to his formless existence. It covered him and everything around him. Everything was visible only through it.
A rational comprehension came to him:
"If it's part of me, then why can I differentiate it and know it apart from myself? That can only mean it's from a different being than me. Then why is it residing within my being?"
He couldn't comprehend its depth, length, meaning, or cause. The silhouette remained as it was, unresponsive to his will, but the things under the veil did respond to him. It was a strange feeling like using someone else's hand to pick something up for yourself. The experience felt deeply uncomfortable to him.
Silen willed the existence of the previous Silen to come closer to him, and it responded perfectly. Thinking of how the veil covered everything, he had an idea of how he could devour this thing.
The idea was simple. Silen opened his mouth and gnawed at the existence.His instinct was accurate.With a single bite, it immediately flowed into his being.
"Why should I accommodate change for a dead man?"
The result was fabulous, he assimilated all the memories without molding or shifting his own true personality.
Time was still running out, so he immediately willed himself to leave the state of minimal phenomenon.
As soon as he did, he instantly noticed the change and clarity that came with it. Among all those elements was one of grave importance to him:
a continuation of his previous mental venture into what the Church of Collective Depth was. It overlapped with a general idea of the Church that formed in his mind from an external source, as if something were conversing with his thoughts. It was difficult to pinpoint the subliminal thought line that had been handed to him, but Silen had considerable mental power at his disposal.
He rushed to acknowledge the idea of the Church. The information was still subtly being forced into his mind. From all the information he received, the concept of the god in question confused him. The more he observed this god, the more his expression shifted. Soon, he found himself facing a terror of knowledge. A gravely terrified expression took over his face.
"How the fuck is he here?"
He didn't realize that the world around him had already shifted, and he was now standing on stable land, facing an entirely new location.