ENDLESS MYTH

ENDLESS MYTH Prolog３

Prolog３

Joseph and Amon

He stood there, in his leather coat, business shirt, and leather trousers, biting his cigarette, adjusting his sunglasses with his finger and billowing smoke; displeased that he, a demonic soul, was now encased in the shell –the body– of a lowly Homo Sapiens.

Such is my luck, thought Amon the devil. He looked like a 25-year-old man as he inhaled mouthfuls of smoke, thinking: As if coming all the way from Hellverse wasn't enough, I must now put up with this shell of flesh and blood.

His real essence, a formless being not unlike smoke or paint dissolved in water, was known to gods and devils alike as an Astral Soul.

Most sentient beings including Man are living organisms composed of physical particles. On the other hand, there are also entirely spiritual beings, creatures consisting of pure, condensed spiritual energy. Such creatures exist beyond the comprehension of human thought.

All living things have an inner structure built from innumerable entities of mental energy. To put it simply, each living creature is made of paper-thin spiritual manifolds stacked on each other into a unique, individual structure. That is how Mother Nature saw fit.

A multitude of spiritual entities come together and an individual Self is created. Then that Self, with all its components, is placed into a shell. For human beings that shell is the body. Once the spiritual entity is housed in its shell, it can no longer display its true form and becomes limited by the laws of our physical dimension. It is no longer free. However, life sometimes transcends the biological mode of existence and becomes a more evolved being, an Astral Soul. Only then life can experience freedom in its full glory.

That is the world of beings standing at the apex of evolution, the "Astral World"

Physical creatures can only visualize Astral Souls as beings similar to clouds or fog. They can never be perceived by human eyes. Their realm is independent of all dimensions, including our physical plane of existence.

However, there are exceptions. There are two kinds of exceptional beings who can perceive all other advanced beings. Those beings are known to us as gods and devils.

Joseph ran his fingers through his hair. His hair was shoulder length and glittered azure and white. His tired eyes had shadows under them. Biting his lower lip, Joseph raised his gaze to the sky. At the same time, many Astral Souls vanished as if into thin air. The god realized that their destruction was intentional, that some Power had willed billions of living souls out of existence.

Joseph the god had blue eyes and his blue hair had a white, ghostly sheen. Originally, he was known as the young grandson of Abraham the Patriarch, and the son of Abraham's son Jacob. In death, he had become divine and created his own Heavenverse.

Unlike other gods, he kept his first, human form. Only his shimmering hair testified to his divine power. He wore a simple, white flaxen robe that left his strong arms bare. His trousers were of tanned, white leather. His age seemed to be 36. But now that he was divine, the apparent physical age of his body no longer meant anything. His body was not mortal but divine. His face had the features of an Arab man, but that too was only an artifact from the era when the Old Testament was written.

What had seemed to him to be a layer of mist was a community of Astral Souls so great in numbers that no human mind could ever grasp its multitude. What seemed to Joseph's divine gaze like a serene view, like a mist swept aside by winds, was, in fact, a terrible massacre of living, feeling beings.

Amon savored the taste of his terrible deed. As he beheld Joseph's blue eyes, Amon smiled to the god-like a little boy who had just played a mischievous prank.

"What is there to be so sad about? We annihilate life all the time. That is our duty as devils and also the Law of Nature. Your sadness at such spectacles is unbecoming of a god."

Amon petted his own, black hair. He tilted his head like a doll as if he could not comprehend Joseph's feelings.

His black hair, black clothes, his long black coat. And his dark glasses. Amon had assumed a white man's conception of Satan as his form. He had put himself into the body of a 25-year-old human male.

Mankind usually depicted Amon as a chimera with the head of an owl, the torso of a wolf and the lower body of a serpent. This devil was known as the greatest of Hell's champions.

"It is probably meaningless to say this to you. But I cannot understand it. Living things are born. They live, and when they reach the terminal point of their time, they meet their deaths. There are no exceptions. So why do they live at all? Why should they be born, only to die again?"

It was a question that no god would ever ask. Amon felt speechless. He never dreamt that a god could ever say something so naive.

"How foolish! It is the system that you damned Gods created: Be born and die. How should I ever know why this rule exists? And souls exist in perpetuity, even after they are released from their bodies. The cycle of life and death is temporary, it is only a process all souls go through."

Amon spoke with a condescending smile. It felt absurd to lecture a god about godhood.

Yet, as far as Joseph was concerned, Amon's words didn't hold water. He was resolved to pursue his doubts about whatever answer they might lead.

All gods had agreed to a plan when the world was first created: All souls would enter living shells, live out their lives in different dimensions, face death and become transdimensional beings. After their bodies ceased to exist, souls would be sheltered, for a time, in the spiritual realm. And then each soul would evolve into a higher form, in accordance with the deeds they performed in their previous lives.

But Joseph doubted if this system was just. The passage from life to death was brief, in divine terms, it all happened in an instant. But for living things themselves, this passage was turbulent and confusing.

Sometimes their "hearts", a metaphorical part of living beings, suffered incurable wounds. Gods watched mortals' suffering as impassively as a blacksmith hammers iron on his anvil: Suffering, gods believed, tempered souls and made them better. But was it really worth all the pain? Nobody knew what fate awaits a soul in its next life, no matter how evolved that soul might be. Souls were souls, creatures were-creatures; yet some souls would be reborn into better lives. Was that really fair?

Such doubts kept surfacing in his mind. But speaking them aloud could provoke the wrath of other gods and have him cast out of heaven. Therefore he could only speak his mind here. And, ironically, he only had a demon, his greatest natural enemy, as his audience.

"It would be premature to answer now. This is neither a question I can solve on my own, nor a matter to be debated with you. Forget I said anything." Joseph rose his right hand. Blue flames engulfed his arm like a burning log.

"So we fight now, Joseph? That's fine with me. I find violence easier to understand than all that crazy talk."

Amon accepted the duel, grinning like a gourmet before a favorite dish. And jets of a dark, sticky fluid erupted from his body. The fluid instantly became an animal. Now a creature, a minion under Amon's control, leaped before Joseph: It looked similar to jaguars or the legendary lion-dogs that protected Buddhist temples.

But even on the verge of fighting, Joseph's mind kept thinking: He might get me all the answers I need. His way of thinking might change the entire world, and help bring a better future.

Even if his mind is different from that of the gods, a better future justifies everything. Joseph whispered those words deep into his heart and rose his burning arm against his enemy.