The entry into a new world was like nothing I had ever imagined, sure, some depictions of going "out" in a white light tunnel are hardly anything reliable to compare to, but I have no shame in admitting it was breathtakingly beautiful, the ever-changing colors of the veil that divides the void and the world was hypnotic, the flow of energy dancing to an enchanted rhythm, the auroras coming and departing to the world, then the crossing of what should have been the endless sparce of nothingness in the dimensional gap, was a short trip, compared to the everlasting it took to just pass through the veil, for in the middle, time was such a fickle thing.
The sensation was weird enough, like being suspended in jello, but at the same time a rapid fall without breaks, like re-entering the atmosphere at a high speed should have been, and to give some credit to the analogy, I was burning in flames already, not normal flames though, but violet flames that were forming my body; and from the flames came the bone, muscle, skin, and the spectacle was like burning to death but backward.
It would have been the greatest experience to begin a new life, the beauty, the excitement of discovery, the joy of being back to the living once again, the magical moment of regaining a body and the wonders of the scenery, were it not for the soul-searing pain, PAIN like never before I have felt, the reforming of tissue was too much to bear, the muscle shredding and growing, the coming of every nerve in the limbs, stung to the point I could have passed and lost what remained of my sanity if not because of my time in the void, compartmentalizing and giving some order to my mind changed something inside, it was a feeling of wrongness, as I was not supposed to be that way, I was not supposed to be able to send it into another part of my mind, but that last thought was something I came to, on the latter days after I came to the world, but at the moment I could but barely push back the ludicrous amount of pain, but the scenery was breathtaking nonetheless.
As a soul gaining a body in the crossing, I got a glimpse of it all, of the complexity of all of the forces that made my new reality in that world, and I could for the briefest of moments understand a part of them, there was an intrinsic connection to the strings that bounded the moving complexity of it all, the unchanging mechanics of the layers of the world, the film like phase that separates them, to "see" as a soul without the limitations of a living body was an enlightening but short experience.
And it came to an end when my body was complete, the ground was approaching fast, right before getting squashed like a plushie against a moving train, the last membrane of the veil phased out and I got dropped from something like 20cm in into the dust, reddish dry dust on the hard ground, and so I came to a conclusion, there is a reason why truck-sama send the soul to be reborn when isekaid instead of holding a living body, or at least why the entry is always forgotten.
It FUCKING HURTS, I barely made it, after hundreds of thousands of years in the void if the stain was to be believed, luckily, I was the last one remaining of the unfortunates lost, because otherwise, a whiny teenager without mental fortitude would get the sanity taken by the pain, damn hippies wouldn´t have made it through.
As I took my first deep breath of air, I screamed with the full strength of my soul, all of my dreams, all of my pain, and got the deepest emotion that I ever got, into the most cohesive thought that I could muster.
"FUCK YOU ISHTAR, GIL-CHAN BEST WAIFU EVER YA HEAR"
and thus, I collapsed from the exhaustion of being "birthed" into the world.
the sun was rising on the horizon, bathing the world in its embrace when I came to, after who knows for how long I was unconscious.
It might have been a cliché, but the meeting with a higher-level entity was no joke, my body was catching up with my mind, and there were too many things that came all at once, for the first thing was fear, bearing the full hate of a goddess from the outer realms was frightening, as if my very being was conditioned to be afraid of them, of her, and I could not stop the shaking of my body.
the other thing that came to me, was anger, anger at the utter contempt she had for us, even after our death and the erasure of maybe millions 'if the download campaigns were any accurate indication', of all ages, all places, yet she was not satisfied, and had to make a "special case" with me.
The final thing that hit, was arousal, as a soul, I could endure it, and in the bravado of the confrontation it was suppressed, I had more important things to worry about other that my un-existing parts, or it was a purely bodily reaction, but even in her flat glory, Ishtar was a beauty that called all my primal reactions, and the arousal was like an imprint she left in my consciousness, were she less of a bitch and had I been less scared out of my mind, I might had been converted to worship her like a simp then and there, and the realization scared me even more, to be made into a simp without will of my own, without a decision on my doings, to… be a toy for a uncanny pretty girl, just because of her being a goddess of beauty, it was no better than being a slave, no matter how gorgeous she was, and her long ...
'Shitt, mental corruption is a thing'
Taking in as much of the morning air as the little lungs I had allowed, breathing in the clean dry air, the sensations of a new skin covered in parts with specs of sand and dust, the irritation of cracked lips making sure it was not all an illusion, to be back into a world, among the living once more, to see with eyes my own the glimmer of morning dew over a spiderweb in a corner of my vision, turned the cracked corner of a small smile upside.
Among the things I found out about my surroundings afterward was, that I was inside of some ruins, in a basement of sorts with a few holes in the walls and the floor above me, the old brick walls of the place were wasted by time and eroded from the elements, with some sand covering the floor and in every imaginable corner.
'The makings of some sort of dessert'
With that in mind, I set to find something to cover my naked self because, to the second greedy goddess of poverty and debt, there could not be a better idea, than to send me terminator style, completely naked to crash in the middle of nowhere.
"Well, that could have come worst, at least my balls are still, ... physically… there"
It took some time looking around the place, having buildings, or their remains at least all over the place, some eroded, some partially buried in sand and their own debris, this was once a living, but now a corpse of a city, tall walls of black stone yet to erode away serving as a coffin for the ruined place; exploration was harsh while under the sun and getting used to a bunch of shortsatck limbs along the way, it was arid and the air dry, but there was a little water deposit near some house nearby, unlikely from rain given the weather.
There were also the lines of streets and roads, some humble brick put together to make a one store house, for the looking of them, and further to the center there were still some proud remaining stone and brick buildings up to five stores height, the distribution had the familiarity of a place once visited in the past but the unfamiliar air of the unknown, as if I was here in better times.
There were things scattered around the place, from the little things of pottery to still remaining pieces of wood preserved by the dryness, and ragged pieces of cloth partially buried beneath some sandy corner, sand, and more sand that flooded the entirety of the streets added to the age of the place, this place was abandoned long, long ago, but it could be seen still, the massive walls from the perimeter, the scale of the buildings, this place used to be of some major importance, just from the effort put to make something like this, a dead city that hung to the edge of the world, thanks to the everlasting effort of the walls, the preservation state, the loneliness, was un-natural, as if a mirage had taken a dream an made a solid grasp in the world.
"Just where did she dropped me?"
A place so long abandoned does not remain so well supplied, not for long, tomb raiders are quick to visit, and so does the other poachers, archeologist should be everywhere or this be completely buried beneath the sand.
Despite it all, the city emanated a certain feeling of warmth, of a welcome, as if this place knew I was there... as if it was waiting, and yeah, it feels as if it resonated to that fuck you, to Ishtar, as insane as it seems for a group of buildings agreeing to something, but the feeling was just right.
"I better get something to eat, think about the crazy and the damned latter"
The day was expended finding everything I could in the ruins, getting a couple of lizards running along, some coopery or bronze old tools here and there, and clay tablets everywhere; this was the first clue, for you see~~, clay tablets written in Sumerian were a very indicative sign of the place origin.
'Damn the mind corruption Ishtar, I refuse to think of that manner of speech as cute'
I cursed under my breath for the great injustice of having her popping up in my mind whenever I got distracted, is worse than a clinging to an ex.
But it was a sign that I was in the middle of nothingness, if dxd's geography was like the one on earth, being lost and alone in Mesopotamia was not a joke I wanted to make.
"at least we don´t have to install some damn antennas this time around"
Talking to myself to keep the mind busy and the spirit focused, remembering the old days of WW3, when were dispatched to Israel to help with technical issues in their offensive efforts, the Jews were a practical pain in the ass to deal with; too many secrets among secrets, and tight among themselves as a knot, stubborn people, but strong people, they endured what the rest of the region could not.
ww3 was brutal, short, and devastating, after Germany occupied Poland (again) in retaliation to Russia's reclamation of Ukraine, all hell was loose, China took on the Arabs, and then Israel with turkey took on the Chinese, the place was such a mess, that after all settle down, only a no-man land remained in most of the formerly populated areas, and whatever communication the region had before, was lost then, alongside any type of government or law.
I was not the rugged middle-aged man that came to the region in the midst of war last time around, I was a skinny boy with light brown, copperish skin, instead of my milk pale white, and had black hair from what I could glimpse instead of my shiny bald head, where I was reddish blonde in my beard before my death.
The last time I was in the region, we were annoyed with HQ for sending us far from home in a suicidal mission, given the state of the conflict, but now, I was alone, and with a lot of things to unpack, and as soon as a tarantula was found for diner, I broke down like a dam and cried till sunset, damn this childish body.
So many were lost in the void, just so the ego of a pretty monster could be satiated, their soul dissolved, no afterlife for them, no second chances, and there was the fact of my death also, I died in the line, without regret for that, but my family was left behind, old friends that I can never see again, and would miss my children, that´s a given, then to come to this place were demons, angels, gods, and everything between existed and preyed on us was frightening, we are fragile things compared to them, I was specially fragile.
Having back a body made things harder to understand, with my memory fading in some details, at least fading in comparison to have it all in the tips of thought, my memory was incomplete now, and emotions were normalizing or coming as close to normal as they could get.
There was the nagging feeling that some things have changed forever inside of me, that I was not right, besides the mind pollution from the poverty goddess.