Same as ever, Knight Thalor looked wholly apathetic when I caught sight of her, four days into the merging of the relief details with the expedition force.
She bore no weapons that my [Perception] could catch, only wore unassuming armor that bent to her every movement as if it were made of tissue rather than ultra-fine metal-thread fabric, and few were those who dared to get close to her.
What a shame it would be if I hadn't just run out of energy to fuel my healing |Will] and declined going to sleep now that all the critically injured had been stabilized.
"Salutations, Knight Thalor, adherent of the Two Laws Essence Doctrine." I bowed elaborately, inclining both my head and my back while keeping my hands together on my stomach.
"I come seeking enlightenment on the Two Laws, and have conveniently forgotten all about how I was rudely thrown by a certain awesome, magnificent, gorgeous Sentinel Knight worthy of being called a powerhouse that bears a very similar moniker to yours."
My power flattery went unheard for the span of a dozen seconds before Knight Thalor raised her right arm to pat her right shoulder, which I assumed meant she implicitly agreed to resume our prior discussion.
"So." I landed softly and settled comfortably, beyond prepared for discussing one of the most controversial doctrines officially recognized by the Faith Of The Aspects now that I had four days to dig up my memories on the subject.
"My initial opinion on the Two Laws Doctrine after I first read books about it was that it tried to simplify the complex relationship between Essence corruption and Essence development into an idiotic overarching set of principles that applied to both everyone and no one," I started.
"Needless to say, the core of the Doctrine for me is clearly the Essence Paradox, a theory which states that the more developed one's Essence, the more susceptible one becomes to Essence corruption."
"Abstracting the veracity of the data used to confirm or refute that theory, what the Two Laws amounts to, in my perspective, is simply a way of looking at Essence as something that can't be perfectly controlled."
"Thus, really, for me, the Two Laws Doctrine is simply a clumsy retelling of the combination of the Chaos Embodiment and Evergrowing Cycle Doctrines."
"That's where my opinion stops," I finished. "What do you say to that?"
"How scared are you of Essence corruption?"
Extraordinarily, it took Knight Thalor less than a second to answer me.
That worried me.
That worried me because either that meant she knew where she wanted to take the discussion, or she was simply going along with the conversation, and I was being completely tricked into believing she was an adherent of the Two Laws while she absolutely was not.
There was no way she would do that... was there?
As for how scared of Essence corruption I was?
"The concept of it is scary," I honestly replied after giving the question its due thoughts.
"The idea that at any moment, my very own Essence could betray me with or without anything prompting it to, simply because an insignificant speck of it mutated or was corrupted into something whose only purpose in existence is to grow, that's scary."
"In practice, however, I'm not really scared," I admitted. "My Essence isn't defenseless. I'm not defenseless. If half of my Essence were to be corrupted right now, I would simply endeavor to form the likes of the [Purity] or [Purge] Aspects."
"So how scared am I of Essence corruption? Truthfully, not much. It's just another [Tempering] I'll need to undergo as I walk my Path and develop my Essence."
This time, Knight Thalor lapsed into a short period of silence, her strides keeping to the same never-changing, perfect cadence.
"I lived through having my Essence corrupted," she eventually revealed.
"My beliefs from then were similar to yours. Essence corruption is simply another way of dying, after all. And like for all ways of dying, one must prepare themselves for the day it comes."
"My day came after an assignment that saw me come into prolonged contact with Dreadoris Essence. Know it?"
Of course I knew it.
"Dreadoris Essence is the name given to a subset of emotion-inducing corrupted Essence whose development's sole constraint is the invocation of fear-related emotions," I recited.
"Fear, dread, fright, terror, anxiety... There are many variants, and the way Dreadoris Essence manifests is different depending on one's species, Aspects, and many other conditions, but it can be easily understood as corrupted Essence that feeds on fear."
"Correct," she confirmed, then resumed what I clearly understood to be one of her personal Path-derived lessons about Essence corruption.
"Everything was fine in the months that followed my return. No anomalies. My Essence communions felt perfectly normal. My monthly Essence [Appraisal]s returned standards."
"Then one day I woke up from this very hand being in the process of beheading me." She lifted her left hand.
"Oh." I inaudibly gasped.
"I first tried to take back control, believing it to be some sort of mental or physical manipulation, but I achieved nothing, and when I felt it start to wield my own [Aura], I summarily cut it off. Then my other hand immediately started attacking me."
Oh dear.
"If fellow Sentinels hadn't barged into my room by then to help me, and bearing in mind the causes that led to this, I'm pretty certain I would have died right there and then, my own [Aura] rebelling against me and cutting my head off my body."
"Restrained, I was brought for an [Essence] Appraisal, but still nothing, and my communion gave nothing away, no matter how deeply I immersed myself in my own Essence."
"That's when I was told that I would be put into a corrupted cell, as only Essence corruption could explain my situation."
She paused.
"It took me seven months of communion for me to finally prove their conclusion correct. Can you guess the state of my Essence once I uncovered the root of the corruption?"
I didn't really need to think to know the most realistic answer, but I felt the need to emphasize how miraculous it was that she was still alive by giving an exact [Diagnosis].
"If it's seven months from the moment you lost control to the point of attempting to end your own existence, then it must be assumed that the entirety of your Essence had been corrupted, with the only possible exception being your core, as it is bound to your vessel, your physical existence."
"Everything was corrupted," she said with a scarily composed voice, "All my Aspects, all my Essence, my entire core, my entire body. Everything. How I was still alive when I reported that fact became a subject of wonder over the next month for the entire Prime Temple."
"That's when Magister Eliott approached me to personally inform me about the ways I could still potentially be saved."
"I found my answer in the Two Laws," she uttered.
"I found my answer by accepting that Essence corruption was not 'just another thing'."
"I accepted that Essence corruption was the single adversary I would never be able to overtake."
"I accepted that I would only ever remain on an equal footing with it, like mirrors of each other, both seeking to exist and thrive in our own mutually exclusive way."
"It was this mindset that led me to forming the [Purity], [Harmony], and [Purge] Aspects, which I then proceeded to make an integral part of my Path and Essence, synthesizing them over the ensuing decades, all while finally beholding the silent, indiscriminate decimation caused by Essence corruption for what it really was."
"No one is immune to it. It's all around us. It's the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink." She looked upwards with a resigned look. "It's the world we exist in."
“Every individual eventually comes to learn and study the Four Great Essence Doctrines, so how is it that so few realize the Doctrine of the Two Laws does not concern itself with the implications of the Essence Paradox itself..."
"But rather the contradictory [Harmony] one is compelled to maintain with the very reality within which we develop our Essence, lest they be consumed by it?”
"In the end, it all comes down to one interrogation I ask myself every day during my morning and evening communions."
"How scared am I of Essence corruption?"
Like that, she finally ended what I deservedly recognized as a lecture with a question that overturned my present perspective on Essence corruption and the Two Laws Essence Doctrine.
She didn't even mention the [Purity] and [Ascendance] Laws, doing away entirely with what I previously established as the "idiotic overarching set of principles" derived from the theorized Essence Paradox.
No [Ascendance] Law telling me to develop my Essence like I was doing, to the edge of causing myself to enter a state of Essence overdevelopment, all to "outrun" the Essence corruption that would unavoidably settle in.
No [Purity] Law advising me to form my entire Path around warding off Essence corruption, preserving my Essence integrity against all odds.
All that Knight Thalor derived from the whole Doctrine was... [Harmony].
And after hearing her story, I had to admit I was... sensibly inclined to vaguely, loosely, broadly speaking, somewhat align myself with her view on Essence corruption.
It would take more than a story about suddenly waking up one day to find out one's entire existence may have come to an end because one underestimated the dangers of Essence corruption to fully convince me...
But I would most certainly start asking questions to Archivists and Lorekeepers about it while browsing whatever records they had on Essence corruption-related deaths to find for myself the "indiscriminate decimation caused by Essence corruption" she said she beheld once she started looking for it.
"Well, for my part, I'm certainly more scared of it now than I was before," I eventually half-joked.
"I also have to admit I'm very interested in that [Harmony] you're describing. I know [Purity], [Harmony], and [Purge] are the fundamental Aspects suggested by the [Purity] Law, so should I form the three of them as soon as possible?"
"Do your research."
An answer [Worthy] of Knight Thalor's usual self exited her mouth.
I reckoned her imparting a life lesson had been an exception, and this actually turned out to be the way she comfortably expressed herself, not just an expression of her indifference regarding my presence and the entertainment I brought.
"I'll do that," I said solemnly, then grinned mischievously. "As in, I'll do that right now."
"From what I learned, the [Purity] Aspect isn't particularly difficult to form. It solely requires holding a specific mindset in which one pursues their own definition of [Purity].”
“For me, that would be restraining myself from eating, breathing, being very careful with my [Cycle] to not introduce anything weird into my body..."
I had my answers about the Two Laws, but as was an unchanging fact with all new knowledge and answers, it only fed my curiosity and generated more questions.
And who better to ask those questions than the one who first provided me with the relevant knowledge and answers?
Being a healer was fine and all, what's with saving other Essence Entities' existence…
But what I lacked the least at the moment were Essence development opportunities.
And inconveniently, healing others at the intensity and with the novelness it held over the last four days had the issue of being all but a non-Essence development-inducing event.
For that reason, all that remained for me to do now that all emergency cases had been stabilized beyond eating and sleeping was to either make a pass at being a sky sentry—which I intended to do later, even if it would induce some minor Essence development—or...
Chat.
Discussing how the expedition went from the very Sentinels who partook in it.
Learning what acts of heroism similar to Guardian Cemil's transpired.
Making new acquaintances.
And what had until very recently topped everything else on my chatting priority list—consulting Knight Thalor on the Two Laws.
It wasn't like there was much else to occupy my time with if I didn't want to get started on new Seeker fields like Essence-infused materials, which the sandstriders were piled to their holding limits with.
◇ ◈ ◈ ◆ ◆ ◆ ◈ ◈ ◇
Hovering multiple kilometers above the expedition force, the scorching heat and the strong wind were but a small price to endure for the absolute sense of [Freedom] that came from being surrounded by nothing but air and some rare sand grains.
Being a sky sentry was really easy.
I just needed to let myself be carried by the wind while keeping my eyes open and riveted on the horizon in every direction, on the lookout for anything abnormal.
Abnormal being a change compared to how a horizon of endless red sand dunes ought to look like.
Or that's what I thought, having not really given my role as sky sentry much consideration, until something did happen to the unchanging horizon.
And it wasn't a subtle change at all.
It was a wall of red sand that first swallowed one little corner of the horizon, then quickly grew to overtake a quarter, then a third of it as it relentlessly appeared to be advancing towards the expedition force's overall location.
If "advancing" was even a term that could be used to describe the behavior of a natural phenomenon of such size and reach.
That... was obviously a sandstorm.
One bound to swallow us in the coming hours or days depending on how the Red Sand Realm decided to play it.
I doubted I was the first one to notice it, even from my privileged observation height, but I still felt the duty to report it, so I initiated my descent, keeping my eyes on the looming monster.
From how my [Perception] shortly allowed me to confirm the expedition force had already broken the marching formation to start gathering the sandstriders together and pitching large tents, it grew abundantly clear that my report would be redundant, but I still went through with it.
I delivered my observations, was asked some pointed questions I relied on [Guided] to answer, then was right away sent back upwards with a request to evaluate the sandstorm's advancing speed, magnitude, apparent sand load, apparent wind force...
For the ensuing ten hours, my life became a series of back and forth between the sky and a newly-pitched command tent, the entire expedition force transforming into an orderly fortress of metal-thread fabric.
When I ascended for what I presumed would be my last time—in view of how close the looming natural disaster, taking the form of a rolling mass of sand-drowned air folded unto itself in bulbous waves, was—the difference compared to ten hours ago was like having and not having an Aspect.
The wind speed had picked up multiple orders of magnitude, the density of sand even kilometers-high felt like I was back on the ground, even the heat felt different, more diffuse instead of oppressive.
Nevertheless, it was only once I ascended all the way back to the altitude from where I first caught sight of the sandstorm that I truly beheld the force of nature soon to befall the expedition force I was part of in all its glory.
The endless dunes and the sky alike were swallowed by an immense wall of red-hued sand that spread in an imperfect straight line across half of the horizon, everything beyond that having become one boundless, churning expanse.
With the sand-permeated storm clouds twisted into layered spirals and sweeping arcs, it made for, arguably, the most impressive sight I ever got to witness.
The Realm Rift didn't even come close to comparing with this otherworldly spectacle that the Red Sand Realm was offering me.
If I could, I would have ascended above it to spectate its passing, which I did not doubt for a second would be similarly splendid, but the sky radiance did not allow my [Perception] to determine how high the sandstorm subsisted, so the time for my last observation eventually came to an end.
Battling chaotic winds that would see me battered in every direction, I executed a perfect dive downwards, and took refuge where I knew I would be the safest...
And also conveniently, where I made my last report.
The command tent.
I faithfully reported what I saw and let the more experienced Sentinels judge whether what I beheld was anomalous or normal.
It sounded like everything was normal.
Then, like the endless dunes before, the sandstorm swallowed us, and everything grew tense and quiet, everyone expecting the worst to occur.
A tent could be ripped off or fall apart, debris picked up from places far away could fall and crush people, the sand underneath us could subside, and it was the duty of the strongest to answer and solve those issues.
The strongest or the healers, that was.
From Knight Thalor and Knight Suad leaving the command tent a couple of times, things did happen, though none that merited sending the entire expedition force into a frenzy, nor was my help required at any point.
In the end, the sandstorm lasted the better part of forty hours.
Forty hours of uninterrupted squalls carrying, picking, and depositing tons of sand every second.
Forty hours of uninterrupted [Focus], everyone prepared for the worst-case scenario of a sandstorm elemental visiting us.
Then...
Nothing.
The storm simply passed, the wind returning to its previous unthreatening force, the unending downpour of sand ceased—though not without making sure everything was absolutely covered in sand—and everyone got to witness the all-consuming wall of sand-choked air having barrelled past us.
When I took off while others started picking the camp apart to get moving once more, the first thing that struck me was how the landscape of endless dunes had been transformed, reshaped.
It was still just dunes stretched across the horizon, but not the dunes I knew.
Those dunes had gone, replaced by new ones oriented in the overall direction the sandstorm had taken.
While contemplating the strange feelings and [Insight]s such an abrupt transformation invoked in me, the expedition force finished wrapping up the camp and, leaving no traces of their passage that wouldn't be soon buried under the sand, departed.
Eight halts later, the Nexus rift broke over the horizon, its ethereal glow as radiant as ever.
Without any need for orders, the entire expedition force quickened its pace, resulting in us reaching it a mere three hours later.
Evidently, not one of the numerous groups surrounding the Nexus rift dared to get in our way, and with some incomprehensible [Orientation], we quickly found what I assumed to be the same rift bridge we took to enter the Red Sand Realm, except this time it would be used to leave it.
Nevertheless, as any returning expedition was wont to do, passing through the Nexus rift with all the gained harvest was a logistical nightmare, and I made it my guilty pleasure to observe how everything unfolded, taking mental notes of how they did it in practice.
First, people were sent scouting ahead to ensure this was the rift bridge leading to the fifty-fourth floor of Red Sand Rift City.
Second, once this was confirmed, around a hundred people were sent ahead to be posted every couple of strides of the rift bridge, all to secure the well-proceedings of the sandtriders.
Third, an unimportant sandstrider was sent first, serving as a control test.
And finally, fourth, when the control sandstrider was confirmed to have reached the other side without issue...
It was time for the expedition force to return to the Prime Temple.
Sandstrider after sandstrider were escorted, each with accompanying personnel to double-ensure nothing would go wrong.
When it was the turn of the sandstriders who had been altered into makeshift wards holding the crippled and stabilized heavily-injured Sentinels, one healer was mandated to be inside through the whole passage.
I wasn't made an exception there.
As it turned out, being escorted inside a protected ward during the traversal was a much more comfortable experience than being out there.
However, it was only once I made it to the other side, safely back behind the wall of harvesting towers, and stepped outside my assigned ward that I was struck by how impactful my short time in the Red Sand Realm had been.
Gone was the endless sky, replaced by a cold, lifeless metal ceiling.
Gone was the permanent red radiance, replaced by but a shadow of it, [Darkness] creeping into every obscured corner.
Gone was the scorching and oppressive heat, replaced by something I couldn't really put words to, something... unnatural.
The Nexus Realm I lived my entire life in was gone, effectively replaced by something that felt more akin to a cold, dark, lifeless, and stifling prison than anything else.
How... paradoxical.
Comparison truly was the thief of [Joy].
An hour of sharing my thoughts about what I was feeling and being informed about a psychological phenomenon called "Realm dissonance" later, the entire expedition force had passed through the rift and returned to the Nexus Realm.
No lost sandstriders.
No missing Sentinels.
Only the Prime Temple awaited us next.
And on my part, I had a thousand [Insights] to put to paper before they vanished.