436 Torrent

Cold, emotionless, devoid of empathy, undying and indestructible.

I had not always been this way.

Ever since I could remember, this Star Abyss had been like a witch's cauldron of potion.

Boiling, chaotic, rolling through the vacuum with an unreal stench.

Back then, there was neither heaven nor earth, nor any living beings.

The shadow of dragon wings had yet to arrive, the Titans' blades had not yet been sharpened, and the schemes of the demon eyes still stirred within the womb.

It was a world without sorrow or joy, without the warmth and chill of mortal life—neither void nor whole.

My arrival had no reason. I came into this world without any choice.

No common sense, no understanding, no loss, no gain.

I could not remember what I had been like then, nor did I care what the witch's cauldron surrounding me meant.

I knew neither beauty nor ugliness, distinguished neither light nor darkness.

We could not even tell whether the things existing alongside us were our kin.

I had no name. I had nothing. I had no self.

Later generations merely called me Qualia-Direction, so let that be my name.

Many years later, people would regard us as lofty, mysterious, eternal as heaven itself, believing us to be beings greater and more distant than gods.

Yet I knew well that behind false eternity lay absolute nothingness.

Over the course of my long years, the time that could truly be called "meaningful" accounted for less than one ten-thousandth of one hundred-millionth of one billionth.

As vast as dust, solitary existence raised without distinction between muddy and clear.

Until that day arrived.

The gods' sharp blades swept across the stars, and six beings with porcelain skin and jade bones were born from chaos.

From that moment onward, the witch's cauldron