Journey Towards Dao

After an indeterminable amount of time had passed, Oliver’s scattered consciousness began to slowly converge.

…

Am I… dead? Is… is this …death?

Oliver’s mind was a hazy mess. He felt as if he were struggling to shove his thoughts through a pile of cement bricks.

He vaguely remembered that he had just fallen asleep in his hospital room. But now, all he knew was the pitch black, satisfying warmth that covered every crevice of his being, causing him to inwardly moan in comfort.

I guess… I should’ve… died sooner… haha…

He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, or if he even had eyes at all. Regardless, he couldn't seem to register any source of light around him.

But he could feel something akin to appendages, but even the thought of moving to test out this theory made him want to cry. In any case, it’s not as if he particularly wanted to move.

If he was dead, then so be it.

Something he probably should have remembered tickled his awareness intermittently, but at this point, he could no longer bring himself to care.

He stopped thinking unnecessary thoughts and decisively stilled himself completely in the darkness, giving way to the warm embrace of the afterlife.

Com…fortable…

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before his peaceful rest was disrupted by a constant and annoying rhythmic thumping sound, which seemed to be steadily increasing in tempo.

What is… that damned… noi—

Before Oliver could finish his molasses-like thought, he felt himself involuntarily move upwards, the space above him suddenly collapsing in on itself.

Pressure immediately began to suffocate him from everywhere, overwhelming his thoughts and senses with all-encompassing pain.

Sto—p… it… pl—se… help… me!

In between the pain and fragmented thoughts, something about this torturous darkness flickered an obscure sense of familiarity. But before he could grasp it, white-hot pain captured his mind again.

Seconds felt like minutes and minutes felt like hours.

Ah…this must… be… Hell…

Just when he felt that his hazy existence would be crushed into smithereens within the darkness, blinding light filled his entire being, washing away the panic and nausea that had built up within him over that abysmally long period of suffering.

Cool air glided over his tender body that now seemed to be covered in something wet and sticky.

Oliver couldn’t wrap his head around the sudden changes fast enough before he felt himself being grabbed up by a pair of what seemed to be freakishly large hands.

Surprise barely overwhelmed the lingering vestiges of pain that remained.

Is… this… God?

In the time it took for Oliver to think through these three short words, he had been wiped down, wrapped in what seemed like soft fabrics before being placed into another’s arms.

The speed of which things were progressing filled him with incredible amounts of exhaustion.

While his eyes were adjusting to the sudden onslaught of light, he could hear several other frighteningly tall beings conversing above him in a language that sounded completely unfamiliar.

“$#% #[email protected]% @...”

“@#$!”

After listening to their exclamations for a short while in sheer confusion, Oliver felt himself being lifted up carefully by the giant nearest to him.

When he blinkingly looked up to gaze upon the divine being that was currently manhandling him, his barely adjusted eyesight was filled with quite certainly the most beautiful woman he had ever set his eyes upon.

Oh…

If there ever was a Goddess, he couldn’t imagine Her looking any more beautiful than the woman currently in front of him. The brilliant smile on her face could allow even the coldest of hearts experience the warmth of love. Even the sweat on her brow and red spots on her cheeks weren’t enough to mask this holy scene.

The woman had long, unnaturally blonde hair, like thin strings of pure gold cascading around her. Eyes so startling blue that he felt he was gazing into two small pools containing the world’s purest water. So pure that he could see himse—

Wait… who is... this child?

Through this woman’s eyes, he could see a beautiful golden-eyed baby boy with sparse, curly blonde hair staring confusedly back at him.

The beautiful woman holding him began speaking gibberish to him, but he couldn’t even register it.

All of a sudden, that obscure sense of familiarity that he had felt in the darkness was back tenfold. Fragments of events started rearranging themselves in Oliver’s sluggish brain—no, his immature brain!

All this time, he had thought he was a dead man, staring in the face of a Goddess.

However, he was in fact a living, freshly-born baby, and this frighteningly beautiful woman in front of him… should be his new mother!

And it was at this moment that he finally remembered the final events of his previous life.

Holy… shit… That lamp!

His little brain couldn’t keep up with this surprising revelation.

He couldn’t even bring himself to scan the room around him before he felt his vision growing blurry due to the exhaustion of his mental energy. The final scene he saw was the look of surprisingly deep concern upon his not-so-cheap mother’s face.

Then, his minutes-old body fell into the clutches of deep sleep.

…

The previous noisy exclamations within the lavish bedroom gradually died down as the child fell asleep. Soon the room was dead silent.

Servants and midwives stood quietly on the carpet covered floor as they observed the newborn with slight frowns.

Everyone present was very familiar with the process of childbirth, so they all couldn’t help but glance at each other worriedly as they thought: ‘Where is the child’s first cry?’

A middle-aged woman dressed in somewhat plain, yet unmistakably luxurious gray robes hesitantly stepped towards the satin covered mattress, but her footsteps paused immediately after taking in the expression of the blonde woman on the soiled bedding.

The middle-aged woman bowed her head quickly in anxiety but made no further movements.

Deep frown lines marred the blonde woman’s face. She stared at her child’s sleeping expression in silent consternation.

After several painfully long moments, she didn’t even bother to look up at the midwives and servants before she opened her mouth to slowly speak.

“Diana… why didn’t my child cry just now?”

The blonde woman’s tone of voice was frigidly emotionless, as though this one sentence dispersed all heat from within the room, sending shivers through the spines of everyone who listened.

In fact, the temperature did indeed fall drastically just then, and was continuing to fall rapidly as the blonde woman waited for an answer to her question.

In the nervous silence that followed, the blonde woman's body gradually began to glow with a soft, warm golden hue.

The temperature continued to fall.

The middle-aged woman, Diana, wrung her white gloved hands in distress as she lifted her head to quickly try and calm her master down.

“Your Majesty, there could be many reasons as to why his first cry was delayed. If you let me—ahh!!”

Once Diana reached for the newborn boy with her right hand to assess his condition, a scalding heat generated by the golden hue around the blonde woman viciously passed through her fingertip, instantly charring her index finger into a sizzling, blackened stub.

Diana immediately yanked her hand away from the boy. Her frighteningly pale face began to sweat profusely as her body registered the severity of her injury.

Although the burning pain was enough to make her pass out, she didn’t dare to. Even her pained cry was cut short as abruptly as it was released. All she could do was brutally bite her cheek to keep herself conscious while she backed up in line with the other servants in fear.

The blonde woman was completely oblivious, glistening tears streaming down her face as she cried to herself, “Isn’t he supposed to cry? Why isn’t he crying? Is something wrong with my child?”

The glow around the upset blonde woman grew increasingly bright as the surrounding temperature plunged well below freezing, turning the servants’ breaths visibly white as frost began to form on their robes. Some of the weaker servants couldn’t even stand up straight due to the frostbite relentlessly attacking their extremities.

It seemed that the blonde woman was draining all of the heat directly from the surrounding environment into herself, manifesting itself into golden light. Even the anger and sadness on her face was no longer visible under the blinding rays.

The blonde woman’s long hair began dancing wildly in the air, despite the absence of wind, as she gradually turned into a being of pure golden photons. Even the sunlight shining through the gaps of the closed drapes began to dim, as if the very sun was in awe of her.

Just when it felt that all of that anger, sadness, and brilliant heat was ready to be released on the helpless servants, the heavy, ornate doors behind them opened up, causing them to turn around in hopes of reprieve from this frigid hell.

Once they recognized the identity of the new arrival, they all hurried to deeply bow, regardless of the chilling pain they felt.

They greeted in concert, “Your Majesty!”

Walking peacefully through the door was a sharply sculpted young man that looked to be somewhere in his 20’s. He was wearing a beautifully engraved golden crown that sat atop his head. Long, dark green strands of hair fell carelessly around his shoulders that were covered by magnificently embroidered black robes.

Under his straight brows, golden eyes, which reflected the light given off by his wife like two small stars, carried an imperceptible trace of worry.

His handsome and well defined face looked at Diana as he calmly ordered, “Go and check on my son’s condition.”

Even though Diana just had one of her fingers burnt to ashes by the Queen’s light, she unhesitantly obeyed, stepping forward next to the large bed. She reached out shiveringly with her left index finger until it hovered above the sleeping newborn who was bathing unharmed within the golden light.

When she was confident that the Queen would not burn her once again, weak, yet stable, white light began to leak out of the tip of her finger, rapidly converging into a formation of complex glyphs that hovered around the young prince.

After a few tense moments of observation, Diana almost collapsed in relief.

Diana sighed happily. She then looked up to the light-covered woman and spoke, “Your newborn is perfectly fine, Queen Amabella. He's just somewhat exhausted and will wake up naturally within a few hours.”

As soon as the last word left her mouth, warmth immediately returned to the frost covered room and the blinding light safely dimmed, revealing the beautiful Amabella underneath.

She was calmly smiling at the crowd, as if she was not about to kill every single one of them out of depression just a moment earlier.

She looked lovingly towards the black robed man standing near the entrance of the bedroom and said, “Come here Cedrick, so that you may witness our beautiful baby boy.”

Cedrick’s black boots carried his tall figure forward steadily, passing the shivering servants along the way.

However, as he walked by, a small quantity of sparkling white, green, and golden light leaked outwards from his body and onto the servants around him, clearing away their frightened emotions and healing their frostbite burns. The light even managed to quickly regrow Diana’s charred index finger.

The servants’ eyes all grew bright as they gratefully bowed once again in concert.

Ignoring them, Cedrick sat down gently next to Amabella to gaze at the sleeping child’s face. Even his indifferent mask couldn’t hide the softness and joy that flickered in his golden eyes.

“Have you decided on a name for the second prince?” Cedrick asked Amabella, eyes still locked on the small child in her arms.

Amabella looked down into her arms once again, stroking the sleeping child’s golden locks with utmost care.

She spoke softly, “Auslen. Auslen Hendrix Rinaldi Lawrence.”*