The Red Sand Realm rift.
There was no other way to describe it but as a gargantuan otherworldly structure, one stretching from the ceiling of the Strata above to the floor of the Strata we were located on, measuring in the order of sixteen kilometers.
Its warped, [Perception]-defying depths glowed with a blinding crimson radiance that never proved to be definable by less than a million different hues of impossible colors whenever I tried to depict it.
Whenever the space that defined it—at least as far as my limited [Perception] could grasp—shifted or fractured or even broke, the surrounding air erupted with enough force to become visible to all, exploding outwards towards an unremitting wall of harvesting towers.
Red Sand Rift City, once a collapsing frame of crumbling metal, had transformed into a vast encircling frame whose core purpose was to subjugate this force of nature I was beholding, and somehow, against what any sane mind would have predicted...
Red Sand Rift City succeeded.
The moment we left the bulwark of harvesting towers, the wind grew so strong and sand grains whipped against me so hard that I, and everyone else for that matter, stopped talking entirely.
Our destination was still ten or so minutes away at this point.
Not that with the density of sand in the air, my [Perception] was anywhere reliable enough to judge how close or even where the rift bridge we were targeting was.
"...march!" A muffled voice impossibly reached my ears despite the deafening squalls, and I apparently wasn't the only one, as everyone quickened their strides.
Lowering my altitude to prevent any disproportionately strong gust from blowing me away, I got ready to [Will] my weight to be increased.
As luck would have it, nothing unexpected transpired, and soon enough, the relief detail stepped onto a strange floor that was built out of more holes than metal, thus ingeniously preventing any amount of sand from accumulating over it.
We had reached a rift bridge, a structure that extended straight from the Nexus Realm into the Red Sand Realm and was designed to guide us through the roughest part of entering the Red Sand Realm.
From there, each flap of my wings became indistinguishable from the last, the multihued red glow omnipresently dazzling, space fractured and warped to such a degree that if I ever wanted to grasp but a single [Insight] of what was taking place around me, it would take me decades of dedicated [Exertion]s.
Realm rifts were a Seeker field of study, after all, though none in Red Sand Rift City dared to claim to be a master in it.
Over the course of what was probably half an hour, I followed along with the rest of the relief detail until finally, the radiance started diminishing, and with it the strength and loudness of the wind.
Another ten minutes later, we were out and hadn't suffered one of those funny-sad cases of going through this entire grueling rift bridge-travelling process, only to end up on the other side of the rift in the same Realm.
Thinking further about something like that happening, however, I realized it would be a difficult event to happen to an entire group of people, as one needed to get completely lost in the red haze to lose the straightforward guidance of the rift bridge.
Throwing my thoughts on the matter aside, I took in the sight of the Red Sand Realm for the first time.
No ceiling.
A sky.
A ceiling-less ceiling.
One steeped in a restless, shifting red radiance that the books said imitated roiling clouds.
As for the ground...
An endless expanse of red sand.
One that the immensity of the Realm and the winds had shaped into titanic dunes stretching in every direction, supposedly resembling an unending series of mountains and valleys that shifted over time, as if alive.
And the heat.
It was so oppressive that it felt like it had actual weight, as it visibly caused the air to ripple and the horizon to waver, everything further than a hundred meters away never quite settling into a fixed state.
It wasn't a picture.
It was real.
And it truly deserved its name.
The Red Sand Realm.
Once a pristine Realm filled with essence-infused sand, but that fell prey to some manner of corruption that infested the Realm to its Essence, forever altering it...
Or so the Nexus Order historians established as the truth, stating the colossal remains of essence-infused sand refining complexes scattered everywhere around the Red Sand Realm rift, along with vestiges of sand-harvesting structures in the Red Sand Realm itself.
There were other versions, though.
Like a version putting the over-extraction of Essence-infused sand as the main culprit behind a permanent runaway effect that caused the Essence of the Red Sand Realm to develop in an unnatural way that ultimately led to its current state.
It certainly didn't contradict all the findings about what the Red Sand Realm was once like, but it was much less flattering for the legacy of the Nexus Realm.
In any event, irrelevant of what it once looked like, the Red Sand Realm was called the Red Sand Realm for a reason, and I wasn't here for sightseeing.
After slowing down for a bit, most definitely to find our direction, who I supposed to be members of the initial escort details steered the group completely leftward, circling the otherwise unchanged rift that now bore the name of Nexus Realm rift.
Detail.
Then, at last, the relief detail was on.
And the first thing I did once we got some distance away from the gale-scoured rift and its annoyingly prickly flying sand grains was to take off.
Literally.
"I'm off!" was all I said, my body, and more specifically my wings, giddy from the mere idea of exploring an endless sky.
Then I was off.
Straight up, off.
One beat of my wings after another, I cut straight through the air, the endless dunes at the edge of my vision falling away, as if the world had simply given up on holding me.
There was no ceiling anymore.
No final boundary.
No reason to hold back.
Every stroke lifted me further into an incomprehensible vastness I had never allowed myself to imagine.
Until I decided to stop.
Not because I couldn't ascend higher.
Not because the air gradually thinned, rendering my every flap less efficient and my breathing more labored.
Not because it kept on getting hotter and hotter as I approached the sky radiance...
I stopped because I wanted to.
Because I decided to.
Because I felt it in my heart, in my mind, in my Essence, as I took in the immensity of the Red Sand Realm.
[Freedom].
It wasn't a feeling, nor was it some abstract enlightenment about reality.
It was simply [Freedom].
No ceiling.
No enclosed sky.
Just my existence, endless ascent, and open distance in every direction, as though the world itself had been a room I had only now stepped out of.
It was almost amusing how I so readily dismissed the very idea of an open sky before I beheld it, before I experienced it.
Looking back on my dismissal, in some estranged manner, it reminded me of how I once chose to dwell in the [Darkness] of one of Volow's paste refining towers, intentionally refusing to hear the workers' many talks pointing to a wider world beyond.
It was what it was, I justified to myself then.
But I just did it again, and my justification this time...
An [Exertion] routine to complete.
An Essence overdevelopment disorder to resolve.
A better and safer opportunity later.
As it turned out, my world had changed, my wings blessed me with the ability to fly, I washed my powerlessness away, and I read thousands of books, but I really hadn't changed.
I still preferred to cling to my little, comfortable corner of the world.
It all came to me with such [Clarity] while I was standing amidst an endless sky, gazing down at what had always been but an hour away, but that I never bothered with because it didn't fit with my "perfect" [Guided] way of life.
The [Truth] had really been staring me in the face the whole time.
How insignificant I was.
How little I had seen.
How much still waited beyond every horizon I had ever known.
I simply remained habitually indifferent to it until my horizons were forcibly broadened by a “convenient” opportunity that fell into my lap.
Nevertheless, contemplating what this extraordinary bout of self-[Awareness] was really telling me about myself...
Had I been that wrong?
I was definitely in the wrong for ignorantly refusing to expand my worldview, simply because it didn't fit.
It was, however, the absolute [Truth] that my Essence was perpetually on the edge of entering a state of overdevelopment.
Not that it forbade me from going on Sentinel assignments that always took more than just a couple of hours to complete...
"Huh!" I snickered at this ridiculously incriminating contradiction.
So I had time to work on Sentinel assignments, which forced me to develop my Essence from the moment I considered myself at risk—pretty much anywhere outside the premises of the Faith's Temples—but I didn't have enough time to explore another Realm located a mere hour away?
I shortly considered vindicating it all with how different I was from others...
Only for me to realize I was still, somehow, trying to find excuses.
Justifications.
Reasons.
No more.
I did what I did.
I would also continue doing what I did.
And there was nothing wrong with it.
I liked my way of life being one continuous [Exertion] routine.
I would simply have to be more conscious of the fact that, as I had always known since the first time [Guided] amended its guidance after I learned of a better way to scrape rust from the inside of pipes, I was ultimately the one who stirred the grand directions of my existence.
[Guided] simply transformed this grand direction I gave it, either consciously or unconsciously, into an [Exertion] routine that fitted.
That was it.
Happy with the conclusion I arrived at and being of a mind to jot it all down to meditate on it again in the future, I looked down.
I was so high that my [Perception] failed to make out anything beyond indistinguishable figures forging onwards across the flank of just one amongst an infinity of dunes.
If I hadn’t known beforehand that this was the Faith’s relief detail, I would have taken them for just one group amongst the three or four I believed I was making out from where I stood.
It was about time I acquainted myself with the commander of this group of grounded beings soon to be run ragged by an unforgiving marching pace.
Essence overdevelopment be damned if I missed the opportunity to refine my assassination [Secrecy] art on a Sentinel Knight.
The only question that remained, really, was whether I should ask for permission first or just straight up do it, relying on my perks as a widely-recognized one-year-old prodigy.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Knight Thalor's gait was absurdly steadfast, no bumps, no sudden accelerations or decelerations.
Most frightful, however, was her apparent absolute disregard for anything, as if the world couldn't possibly pose a threat to her.
It was as if she, too, was [Guided].
Except she wasn't.
She became like that by herself.
"Is it [Equilibrium]?" I threw a random guess, having long exhausted my Aspect knowledge when it came to analyzing her Aspects.
"Higher order. Or maybe equivalent. Hardly related," she succinctly answered, her voice causing her entire unassuming armor made out of an even finer metal-thread fabric than my glove to vibrate softly.
"Should I head in the direction of [Poise] and [Dance]?"
"Inappropriate."
"Is it an application of [Aura]?"
"Could be."
Stunned by the unexpected success of this random guess, I perked up instantly and pursued, "As in, you currently have the [Aura] Aspect? Or did you synthesize it?"
"Everyone with [Ambition] [Dream]s of becoming an [Aura] Knight, so why not me?"
"[Aura] Knight?" I frowned, having difficulty following her.
"Faction on par with the Faith Of The Aspects," she placidly delivered, and that did shake some memories in my head.
I read about them.
Somewhere.
Couldn't remember where for the life of me, though.
Probably meant the Faith Of The Aspects branch in Red Sand Rift City lacked books on the faction known for its "[Aura] Knights".
"[Aura] is only offensive, right?" I recollected my memories on the subject.
"That's a nice way of putting it." The shadow of a smirk flashed through her facial features
"Should I try to form the [Aura] Aspect? I really want an Aspect dedicated entirely to defending myself by destroying everything that tries to harm me."
"Bad idea. [Will] for versatility. [Vitality] for survivability. [Mana] for control and power. Perfect trinity synergy."
"[Vitality] is already a foregone conclusion for my Essence development Path, [Mana] though... I think I would prefer [Void] or [Soul] to it. They can both help me with my future Aspect synthesis."
I felt it.
The slightest of fluctuation in her strides, stepping atop the red sand she was walking on, as my words forced her to contemplate something.
Neither I nor [Guided] would let go of such an occasion.
My [Will] manifested in a novel way that I had to think up explicitly for this unique occurrence of being at a standstill within a sword's draw distance from my target, yet having to not alert her until my strike was about to be achieved.
It first extended over my skin, forming a veil of [Secrecy] intended to hide the subsequent implosion of might as I went all-out in suddenly unsheathing my chosen needle sword, in turn encompassing it with my [Will].
In a fraction of a second, the tip of my sword reached where I knew was the most vascularized area of a female Elynd's neck.
And there, it met what I could finally theorize with some degree of confidence was [Aura], instantly stopping my thrust in its momentum, the tip of my sword not even causing the slightest depression in her skin, my entire manifested [Will] instantly dissipated, as if I had never manifested it to begin with.
Except it couldn't be [Aura].
Because [Aura] couldn't be used to defend oneself.
That was the foundational tenet of [Aura] I read about.
[Aura] was an energy that would harm anything it interacted with, including its user if precautions weren't taken.
So it must be some synthesized form of [Aura].
Or maybe Knight Thalor underwent such a degree of [Tempering] in regards to her [Aura] that she could manifest it in such a way with total impunity.
Or perhaps, she could do that because she relied on one of thousands of solutions that existed, but that I didn't know about this notorious issue of [Aura].
Could be anything really.
"Reconsider [Mana]. [Soul] is simply introducing weaknesses to your Essence, and [Void] is too easily corrupted," she answered without betraying anything in her voice, gait, or overall demeanor.
My strike had been judged unfit to be acknowledged.
"Are you saying that because you're a believer of the [Purity] Law?" I sheathed my needle sword back where it belonged and continued with another inane question, already on the lookout for my next opportunity.
"I do abhor the [Ascendance] Law, so I can be considered as such, yes."
I blinked.
Wait, did she just... give herself away?
"Are you... an adherent to the Two Laws?" I stammered, unable to believe I finally found a crack in her full-body armor of aloofness.
She ever so slightly nodded with a strange measure of solemnity.
No way.
"No way," my mouth voiced my thoughts. "Really? Like, an actual adherent? Not one of those who simply read the Two Laws Doctrine and agreed to it enough to claim themselves adherents?"
"Do you wish to discuss the Two Laws?" She asked in the same way I did when I preached the Faith during my Sentinel assignments.
Like that, for the first time since I made her my prime chatting buddy over the last two days of endless desert trekking, Knight Thalor opened her mouth to ask me a question instead of passively answering whatever I questioned her about.
"Yes, sure!" I enthusiastically gave my ascent, having never refused to partake in a discussion touching upon the Essence Doctrines, the theoretical framework the Faith relied upon to order its comprehension and knowledge concerning the "essence" of Essence.
Of course, the discussions I participated in—mostly as a listener, but more often as a talker as of late—were mainly about the four main Essence Doctrines, which I got to read and study from the first weeks I got admitted into the Seeker sanctuary and had long become capable of reciting by heart.
The Primordial Foundation Doctrine, which defined Essence as the substrate of all of existence, whether one spoke about the reality I was born in, the laws that governed it, the matter and energy that filled it, along with all phenomena that arose from its structure.
The Chaos Embodiment Doctrine, which admitted the infinite states and configurations Essence could take; the totality of existence emerging from this inexhaustible chaos's perpetual interaction and recombination.
The Evergrowing Cycle Doctrine, which stated that Essence inevitably grew over time and was never annihilated, its growth only ever misinterpreted as disappearance as it shifted into forms beyond observation, or into manifestations such as matter or energy states.
And the Boundless Entity Doctrine, which expressed how, at every scale, Essence coalesced into self-organizing Essence entities capable of independent development; any aggregate of inert dust, given sufficient time, is capable of developing into self-contained Realms.
However, at the end of the day, Essence was Essence, and the four main Essence Doctrines were constrained to merely absolute truths about Essence that couldn't possibly be refuted.
Refuted being the exact word the whole Seeker field of Essence Doctrines was founded on, as from the four main Essence Doctrines stemmed hundreds of "secondary" Essence Doctrines intended to elucidate further truths about Essence that failed to be accepted as absolute truths, as they could be refuted.
Thus was the Two Laws Essence Doctrine, one of the most controversial doctrines officially recognized by the Faith Of The Aspects, written.
"I don't know where to start, though. The Essence Paradox? What's its Seeker name... Unavoidable Corruption? Or maybe we can start with the whole [Ascendance] Law thing? Was it Endless Ascendance?"
My mouth ran on shallow remembrance while I dug deep into my memories to recall what the Two Laws were about.
I wondered what-
"Would you look at that," she suddenly said, interrupting my recollection by forcing me to stare at the endless ocean of red sand dunes ahead of us from high up the flank of one.
Were those...
Was that...
I could barely make it out, but at the extreme edge of my [Perception], cresting over a dune like we were, a mass of indistinct shadows whose figures were warped by the heated air entered my eyes.
The second I fathomed the possibility of the relief detail having reached the Faith's expedition force, my first thought wasn't to fly there to check whether that was it.
Rather, my first thought instantly went to the possibility of me having just been tricked, with Knight Thalor having long perceived them and having thrown me a bait.
A very tantalizing bait I didn't want to let go of, even if she only said it to tease me.
"You're still up for talking about the Two Laws once I run my [Will] into the ground healing our brave returning expedition members, right?"
"Sure," she said in a way that left me with the tiniest doubt as to whether I was still being messed with.
"In the meantime." A rough and firm hand grabbed me without my [Perception] having informed me of anything. "Go do your job as a healer."
The world as if flickered, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at the Red Sand Realm from high up in the sky, tumbling uncontrollably through the air, yet without having felt any sudden acceleration from having obviously been thrown by a Sentinel Knight.
Awesome.