6 Astral-Dream Projection?

When a soul was in the threshold of true awareness, what followed was the profound silence. And the projection of the profound silenceg, was the beginning of the soul's becoming.

Deep in the world of dreams, Ethera felt herself floating in the dark energy light of the underworld. She was observing the landscape underneath her while her spirit soared. The landscape scenery was of utter wonder. The way it was naturally formed and carved, was truly magnificient to behold. As she watched, the landscape continued to enlarge, as the three dark realms of the Underworld came to fore.

She noticed three massive energy flares at the center of the realms which brought her to a realization. She must be seeing all these due to her spiritual sight. For, there was no way such flares could be seen with the naked immortal eyes.

Floating sensation? Spiritual sight?

Astral projection!

But for certainty, this wasn't of her doing. She would have kept her conscious knowledge of being in an atral projection from the very beginning , if she was the one that actually initiated it. Nevertheless, anything that initiated the astral projection of her soul without her knowledge of it from the start, must be exceedingly powerful.

Extreme caution was needed. Since she was still a young deity, she had to thread cautiously here. Deity or no deity, she could easily die in here. The thought gave her a degree of fear since she would soon be taking her first steps into the immortal life of a true deity.

The expansion of the landscape continued in a blur that made the floating soul of Ethera, ache badly. As her spirit was at the point of combustion, the image slowed down and showed the scene of total darkness. Complete darkness. Ethera quickly went from blanking what she was seeing, to, trying to open her spiritual sight to make sense of the darkness she was looking at.

As she strained her spiritual sight, to no avail, she heard a gentle and soft voice that seemed distant.

\"The void. The true beginning.\"

\"Uh?\"

Ethera turned to the source of the voice, only for her to continue seeing complete darkness. She looked sideways, to the same results. She tried to reach for her spatial sac in order to take her defensive talisman but realized that she was in spirit projection.

\"Not meant to startle you, young immortal.\"

The already rattled Ethera, stared at the direction of the voice in bewilderment. Not meant o startle? 'But, you already did!' She wanted to scream and maybe whoever brought her here would just throw her out of this place. But, slowly calmed her jostled mind. Who knew maybe the entity that brought her here would simply chain her spirit up if she would annoy it. After a moment, she asked.

\"Who... who are you?\"

\"Who I am, is not yet for you to know. As a matter of fact, it was not in your power to know. But, the time will come and won't be long. That, I can assure you, young immortal. Do you even know the great length I went through to be here, to bring you here?\"

\"Astral projection.\"

\"Close enough but huge difference. This is Astral Dream Projection. Much more difficult to initiate.\"

\"Ok, but why am I here?\"

\"You are here for us to meet. And, Is there a better way to meet you than to show you the tiniest glimpse of what was? What was of the universe, of myself and ofnyourself? How we all came to be? This way, you will fully understand me when the time comes.\"

\"I can't even see you now, and my head hurts from trying in the darkness.\"

\"Don't stress it, young one. You can't. Not with the stage you are now. However, don't worry. Though you can't see me now, but you will, young immortal. You will. And as I said, the time will come. But for now, I want you to see and know about the power of the essence of the dark matter. The very essence that gave birth to the universe, to me and to you, but all in a different way.\"

There was a short pause before the entity gave a short sigh.

\"Are you not going to ask me how? What I meant by all these?\"

The questions caught already confused Ethera off-guard as she scrambled to recollect her thoughts. With a raised brow, she slowly asked.

\"How?\"

\"It's good of you to ask and I will tell you. You see, young immortal. In a long forgotten time, there was only the timeless void. Before the void, there was no time and no existence, apart from the pure essence of matter of the void. This, you already knew, right? Good. Then, something happened with the essence of matter in the void. It started to change. And out of the void, an essence core was formed. This, you knew too. Right? Yes. The first creation. The Alphega.

\"But this next one, you never knew. As the essence core began to form the universe, two crystals were formed. The dark energy crystal and the light energy crystal. The condensed ultimate pure essence of matter. Where am I going with all these, you ask? The dark energy crystal, was the heart and the core of the Crucible. The Chains of Tartarus.

\"Are you with me? Good. While the light energy crystal, was the heart and core of the Fangs of Aether. This was where it truly began with you. When you were born, your scream caused a reaction that stirred the core of the light orb of Aether, the divine treasure of the realm of Aether in the Overworld, known as the Crown of a Timeless Star. And probably, caused a stir in the core of the Chains of Tartarus. Why all these, you asked? You see, your father was from the Tartarus realm, this you know. But, what of your mother? Aha!

\"A pity my essence is running low, young immortal. I used most of my fading essence, to bring you here. From now on, I can no longer bring you here, but you can come here whenever you are strong enough. What remains of my memories, I will tell you. Only this, I can provide. At this point, I have to bid you farewell. If not, my life-essence essence would just fade away before I can tell you what remains. And you know what that means. Alright, farewell, young immortal.\"

Ethera woke up with a startle. It was an astral dream, yet, it felt so real. What kind of astral dream could that be? Ethera couldn't bring herself to believe the idea of the essence of an entity, summoning her and appearing to her in a dream.

Dreams!

Though, she was only ten deity years of age, she knew this could only be a mere astral dream of the subconscious self. No astral dream could truly transport the living spirit through projection into an unknown place.

At the same time, even if it was only a dream, could those crystal cores, somehow, exist? And, what about her mother? No, she wouldn't let this affect her mind in any way. Tonight, was the night of the Rite of Path. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her mind while concentrating on the night. The night she had been preparing for, for so long which had finally arrived.

Since she had woken up quite early on this evening, she decided to put on the new robe that her parents had bought for her for this glorious night. After preparing herself, she went looking for her parents and found them in the living chamber. They pretended as if they hadn't been watching her since and that they hadn't been anxious of the night and hadn't been expecting her. With their back to the entrance, they appeared to be fixing different things in the living chamber.

Whereas, on the large marble table at the corner of the chamber, were the items she would be taking to the rite. Carefully packed and arranged in order. When she saw this, she smiled while shaking her head. She might be young, but she knew her parent were even more concerned about the rite more than her. She knew they had been discussing about and their acts were pretenses. She decided to act along too, she would add to the fun of a beautiful evening.

\"Good evening, father, mother.\"

\"Good evening, Twin essence.\"

Her parents replied as they stopped what they were doing in pretense and turned their attention to her.

\"Here you are. Up and running so early.\"

Continued her mother with a broad smile.

\"And, all dressed up. Is there any ocassion today we are not aware of?\"

Quipped in her father with a stifled grin as he gestured towards Ethera's new robe in a pretense of solitude.

\"I know you are all playing with me. You already knew today is the rite of path. And, I can see the preparationn you've made on the table there.\"

\"Alright, you caught us.\"

They all laughed and proceeded to check the prepared items.

It was time to leave for the Conjecture for the trials. Lord Hargoven checked the arrays protecting the massive dome-building of the house of Tartarus. With everything ready and follwed by few servants, they headed for their flying carriage.

Feeling a little anxious, she looked at her parents and they nodded to her in assured confirmation.

\"It's all good.\"