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**Shards of glass in space.** That's what it felt like. Beautiful, in a way—sharp fragments, floating aimlessly, reflecting distant stars. Suspended, scattered… broken. There's something mesmerizing about it, the way the light glints off the edges, almost making you forget that those edges can cut. This is where I found myself. I've been here too long, though. Long enough to wonder if I'm just another piece of shattered glass drifting in the void.
It all started so normally. One day, I was just minding my own business, doing what regular people do—following basic traffic rules. I saw a truck pass by, barely a blip in my day. Missed me completely. No big deal, right?
But then… things got weird. Really weird. There I was, crossing the road, nothing unusual, when out of nowhere—a crack. A tiny one, barely the size of someone's middle finger, appeared in front of my face. Before I could even process what was happening, that crack **pulled** me in. Like reality itself had just split open and swallowed me whole.
The sensation? **Agony.** Pure, crushing pain. My entire body was twisted, mangled, and thrown into the void. Like being ripped out of existence, every fiber of my being screaming as I was flung into… this place.
You might wonder, how am I even talking if my body was mangled beyond recovery? Well, the answer is simple: **I died**. Yeah, you heard me right. I'm dead. My soul? It just... slipped free. No dramatic escape, no fanfare. One minute I'm a twisted heap of flesh, the next I'm floating, watching it all from the outside.
Let me tell you, seeing your own mangled corpse is something else. It's fascinating, in a morbid way. You never really imagine what an eyeball looks like when it's dangling out of its socket, held on by just a thread of flesh. Spoiler: it's **disturbingly** fragile. I couldn't help but stare, weirdly captivated by the sheer mess my body had become. Twisted, broken—**unrecognizable**. And yet, there was this strange curiosity. Like part of me was detached enough to find it all... interesting..
Well, that's the story of how I ended up here. But honestly, the most fascinating part isn't **how** I got here. No, what really captivates me is what's **around** me—the fragments of glass, floating all around, shimmering in the void.
Well, that's the story of how I ended up here. But honestly, the most fascinating part isn't how I got here. No, the truly captivating thing is **what's around me**—fragments of glass, suspended in the emptiness, drifting like shards of a shattered reality.
As I floated toward one, curiosity took over. What were these fragments, really? Were they, like me, pulled into this strange place from somewhere else? Perhaps they once belonged to a skyscraper, ripped apart and tossed into this void. Each shard seemed to tell its own story, glinting faintly in the dark like pieces of forgotten worlds.
And how right I was to think that. Because that shard of glass **did** reflect a world—whether forgotten or not, I couldn't tell.
But it was mesmerizing. The fragment before me shimmered, showing glimpses of a medieval world, full of castles and cobblestone streets. I watched in fascination, unable to look away. The thought crept into my mind: what if I touched it? Maybe this shard could take me there—back to a world, any world, away from this empty void. Maybe I could find my way back to where I came from.
As I floated closer, I reached out, my soul brushing against the surface of the shard. The moment I made contact, everything **changed**. Suddenly, I could see the world within it, as if I was watching a movie unfold right before my eyes. I could see people going about their daily lives—hunting, building, laughing, surviving. It was like I was there, standing right beside them.
But it was more than just seeing. I could perceive **everything** at once. Every movement, every thought, every hidden corner of that world—nothing escaped me. It was like opening my eyes after being blind for my entire life. I felt it all. I **knew** everything.
I was omniscient.
I panicked as I pulled back, letting the shard of reality slip away from my soul. I didn't fully understand what had just happened, yet somehow, I knew everything. The world within the shard was called **Zehala**, a realm strikingly similar to mine, yet firmly rooted in the Middle Ages.
The people spoke in a myriad of languages, their voices intertwining like a tapestry of sound, but beneath it all, a base dialect remained—much like the various accents of British English. I realized with a strange sense of familiarity that I could speak their language, as if it were lodged in the recesses of my mind, waiting to be unleashed. I even knew I could recreate their native dishes, a culinary map embedded in my memory.
Heck, I even knew the average size of a man's… well, let's just say it was a detail I didn't expect to encounter.
After that experience, I went on a frenzy. I plunged into shard after shard, lost in a whirlwind of knowledge. I had no idea how long I'd been at it, but when I finally paused, I realized I had absorbed so much. I could speak many languages, cook a variety of dishes, and master combat techniques. I knew how to cast magic—**yes**, magic was real. I learned how to hunt, torture, and even how to please the opposite gender.
Every single thing—I knew it all.
I stopped only when I noticed that my soul had changed. It was no longer the way it had been before. Once a delicate glow of something transparent, it now held a tint of the darkness of the void. I didn't fully understand what was happening, but I could tell that my soul had transformed into something entirely different.
It was something I could do nothing about, so I just kept watching, drifting through different realities. It was like flipping through channels on a TV, so I continued, lost in the spectacle.
Years passed—maybe a few hundred, even thousands, or perhaps billions. I witnessed civilizations grow from tribes to kingdoms, kingdoms to countries, and countries to a united civilization of humans, or whatever beings I was observing.
I watched them rise and fall. It was amusing to see these mortals living their lives, making the same mistakes over and over again. Yet, at times, even that became monotonous. So, I decided to do something else: I cast magic. Although I didn't have any mana here, my soul—now a deep, pitch-black entity—was more than enough. If someone were to look at my soul, they wouldn't be able to distinguish it from the void itself.
I shaped my soul into the form of a human. Though I lacked any distinguishing features, I could still cast magic using the energy of my soul.
I created a home—a cabin that looked as though it was floating in the void. It had a certain loneliness to it, but what bothered me most was that I had to remake the whole cabin repeatedly because it kept disappearing. So, I connected myself to the cabin, ensuring that as long as I was present, it would exist.
I made my soul sport long hair that flowed down to my feet, shimmering with the different shards of reality trapped within it. I had also discovered how to engage in parallel thinking and many other abilities, which allowed me to explore multiple shards at the same time.
At the same time, I lived a normal life in my lonely yet calm and quiet cabin. I engaged in many activities; sometimes I sang, while other times I practiced with a sword, spear, daggers, and more, simply for fun. As I absorbed the information from different shards, it became quite an enjoyable pastime. I developed a fighting style based on billions of techniques I had observed.
I cast magic, practiced with it, and explored various aspects of the craft, such as alchemy, astronomy, and other disciplines. Although I couldn't create my own ingredients or gaze at the stars, I could always calculate these things while traversing a shard different of realities.
I spent my time like this until I stopped counting the days. At some point, I even discarded my old name—there was simply no need for it. I lived my life this way, and I found a peculiar joy in it. It was oddly peaceful. Eventually, I even learned soul magic and came to understand what had happened to my soul and why it hadn't vanished like the other things in this void.
I had been tainted by the aura of the void; I had become part of it. Though I was the first of my kind, I realized I was an Eldritch in the truest sense.
I changed over time. I watched as new shards were created and some were destroyed—it was fascinating. At one point, I had traversed enough shards to create a new language, which I called All Speech. This language could only be spoken by an Eldritch, yet everyone could understand it. I also found that I could comprehend all languages; I no longer needed to enter a shard to understand its tongue.
I had managed to separate my mind into millions of parts, each exploring a different shard one after another.
At some point, however, I decided to sleep. I let my cabin dissolve into the void as I curled up and drifted off. At the same time, the extensions of my soul, which resembled hair, spread out into the void, connecting through the shards scattered throughout. I was like a tree, each shard resembling a leaf—one massive tree.
I slept for an indefinite amount of time—not that I was keeping track—but something caught my attention, or at least it would have, if I had eyes to see.
I awoke from my slumber when I sensed something different, something I had never encountered before. There were shards, sewn together with golden threads, forming a circle. The shards were joined with a circular gap of emptiness between them. I was mesmerized by how a mortal being had somehow managed to stitch together these different shards into one cohesive whole.
Though the creation was covered in some kind of black substance, only one part of the shards had yet to be overtaken by the darkness. What fascinated me most was the realization that it was the strings of fate that bound these worlds together.
Although there was a crack in the strings, a gap of nothingness, it wasn't my primary concern. I took the mess of shards sewn together into my hands and examined it closely. As I did, a string of Fate—almost as if it were alive—began floating towards me.
I let it approach, realizing it was more like a parasite, seeking to stitch together more worlds into that tangled mess. To prevent it from infecting other shards around it, I used my soul to form a protective barrier over the nearby worlds. However, I allowed one string of Fate to drift closer.
To be cautious, I wrapped my soul around the string like a straw, creating a protective layer in case things went wrong. The string stretched and stretched until it reached my forehead. I wondered what its intent was as it attached itself to my head, trying to pull my main consciousness elsewhere.
I handed control of my body to my secondary consciousness while allowing my main consciousness to follow wherever the string of Fate led. As a precaution, my second consciousness sealed off the string, ensuring it wouldn't pull more of my mind along with it.
Despite the uncertainty, I felt exhilarated by the prospect of an adventure after what seemed like an eternity.
Here's a revised version of your text:
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your first trial...]
I heard the voice, and something inside me clicked. I realized where I was—or rather, where my consciousness was heading. The Nightmare Spell... it sounded familiar. Of course! It reminded me of the novel _Shadow Slave_, a story I had once enjoyed.
'How fascinating,' I thought, 'to think that this world truly exists. Could it be that the shards of different realities reflected the story of this world into so many others?'
As I pondered this, I dreamed of a jungle, which had once housed a tribe; however, that part of the jungle had been overgrown with various weeds and plants, home to different animals and insects. It was as though time had started flowing backward. I saw the dead rise and their wounds heal, as the jungle reseeded, revealing a small tribe. They lived simple lives, hunting, gathering, and following some kind of code. I watched as they went about their daily routines, happy and fulfilled with whatever nature provided. They seemed deeply connected to the world around them, in tune with nature like the Elves I had seen in other shards, living in perfect harmony.
As time stopped flowing backward, my consciousness faded as I looked down at my body. My feet were smothered in the dirt I stood upon, and my skin was darker and tanned from the years spent in the jungle. I wore only a loincloth made of leaves sewn together.
It felt exhilarating to have a new body for the duration of this spell. As I surveyed my surroundings, I saw men and women engaged in their work—some were crafting a type of paste. The air was filled with the fragrance of burning herbs that kept the insects away from the tribe, while also giving everyone a calming scent that lingered among them.
iI walked around the place, taking in everything around me in wonder. It had been a really long time since I had truly experienced something in person, and it felt good. I strolled through the tribe, touching and smelling various interesting items.
As I explored, a woman approached me. She wore a loincloth similar to mine, but hers also covered her chest. "Come on, boy, it's time to gather herbs," she said, and I nodded in response. She started walking outside the tribe, and I followed. I looked to be in the body of a teenager, maybe 15 or 16; I wasn't sure.
As we walked, she tried to make small talk. "So, do you plan on joining the hunters?" Her tone was hopeful as she asked. "You've always been watching them when they come back from the hunt."
"Maybe, I don't know," I answered, trailing behind her. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying; to be honest, I was more invested in my surroundings.
It felt exhilarating to walk through the jungle. Everything felt both new and nostalgic, like the smell of soil in the air mingled with the fragrance of dew.
the different noises that the insects made, as well as the distant roars that followed behind it.
form the context of the woman's words it was clear that spell wanted me what i had to do.
i had to join the hunters, i didn't really know what i had to achieve in the spell though i am sure it might be something to do with the tribe that attacked them, and did some sacrifice of some kind.
As I walked, the woman in front of me kept talking. She told me about the herbs that could be used by the shaman of the tribe to cure diseases or perform rituals. From what I gathered, she was the daughter of the shaman and the soon-to-be wife of the tribe leader.
After our little walk around the tribe, I noticed some men strategically positioned throughout the area. They were called watchers—retired hunters who had been injured while hunting. In return for their service, they were given the duty of guarding the village. It was fascinating to me; they used spears and daggers for hunting but didn't have the concept of a bow yet.
If my purpose was to help the tribe survive what was coming, that would be easier—and more fun—than I had anticipated. I wondered what would happen if I equipped them with bows and arrows.
As I pondered this, we returned to the tribe, and I found myself carrying a few plants that had been handed to me. I followed the woman to the tent of the shaman. To my surprise, the shaman was a woman; after all this time, I hadn't expected the concept of equality to exist yet.
"How fascinating," I thought as I looked around the tent. Odd items were scattered about, with many plants hanging alongside the dried carcasses of animals. The old woman was engaged in some kind of voodoo practice, murmuring something in front of the fire.
After finishing her chant, she threw a powder into the flames, changing its color to green for a moment. As she did, she moved her hands in a pattern and then touched a small dagger in front of her, which glowed for a second.
"Enchantment," I murmured unconsciously. However, the old woman seemed to have heard me somehow.
"You know it, boy?" the old shaman said as she lunged toward me on all fours, scaring the shit out of me. It looked as though a rabid dog was running at me.
I stepped back, not wanting to be touched by the old hag. She looked like she had been rolling in who knows what. However, it was all for naught as she lunged and grabbed me by my shoulder, dragging me to the dagger. She picked it up and pointed it toward me.
"What does it say? Tell me!" she demanded in a hoarse and frenzied voice. If I had been a normal human, I bet I would have shit myself by now.
I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation I found myself in.
I glanced at the dagger and noticed faint glowing runes etched along its blade. They pulsed subtly with energy, and I recognized the enchantment almost immediately.
"Durability, if I'm not mistaken," I said, glancing at the old shaman in front of me. She was standing far too close for comfort, her smell—a mix of aged skin and ritualistic herbs—was overwhelming.
Her eyes lit up with a manic glee. "Haha, yes, yes! You're right. It's for the blade's durability!" Her face contorted into a hysterical grin. "Tell me, boy, where did you learn to read them?" she asked, her voice carrying an unsettling eagerness.
I took a small step back, just in case, before replying, "I've always been able to read them."
"Ahahahaha! Nice, very nice," she cackled, clearly pleased with herself. "Tomorrow onwards, you'll come here every day," she added with a final grin before shoving us out of her tent, her laughter still echoing as the flap closed behind us.