7.2 The Secret

Location: Nektar’s Cauldron, Kra
Timeline: Sixth Age, 47th Year, Spring

My body was mended, but my mind was still in pieces. The explosion of my Aetheric experiment had been a spectacular failure, a humiliating testament to the unpredictable nature of the universe. Yet, even as my form knit itself back together, a new, far more insidious pain had taken root in my consciousness. It was the memory of Lucifer and Lilith, their cruel laughter, and their damning whispers. I could feel the ghostly imprint of the Firmament, a scar on my very soul that had been there since the time we were all cast out of Illyria.

They thought they had won. They thought they had shattered my spirit and returned me to my place as Lucifer’s pet project. They had no idea what they had truly accomplished. The shock of the explosion, the profound pain of the memory, had ripped away the mental block I had placed upon myself. Now, the secrets were spilling out, a deluge of forbidden knowledge I had long refused to acknowledge.

I don’t recall making it back to my bedrooms, but somehow I did and from there I put myself in a state of suspended animation. It was the perfect way for me to try to figure out for what I needed to do next. My essence, you see, needed to be untangled, like a hundred thousand knots in a single thread of existence. Only then could I find the solution to my dilemma.

To understand my future, I had to confront my past. And not just my past, but the very moment of our shared cosmic downfall. I had to go back to the Great War of the Heavens, back to the day that bastard Michael the Mighty sealed our fate during the forsaken Hidden Histories. I closed my eyes, allowing my consciousness to recede from the physical form I inhabited upon the dimension of your flat earth.

Time is a mortal construct. A childish folly. I wasn’t traveling through time, of course. Time is a mortal concept, a linear constraint that I find utterly laughable. Instead, I was delving into the very fabric of my being, into the memories that were not just of an event, but that were the event itself. That’s when I began to realize that I was a living record of a cosmic war—and with that realization came other knowledge.

My mind became a churning vortex of chaos and glory. I saw us, the Lumenarcs, the very first beings created by the Great Creator A’H, soaring through the seamless, subtle expanse of Illyria. We were angelic beings whose sole purpose was to worship A’H and Its partner Ze. Surrounding us were the stellarones—the lesser angels—who shared the same purpose. For A’H had created all of us to try to fulfill Ze’s need for praise.

Foolish, wasn’t it? To think that praise could fill a void that only ambition could satisfy.

Sadly, our efforts were never enough for Ze and that great spirit eventually became jealous of A’H and split from Its partner. War soon followed—a conflict born from Ze’s jealousy and Lucifer’s ambition. Seeing an opportunity to make a name for myself, I joined the rebels and became part of beautiful, terrible conflict that tore the heavens asunder. For eons war raged in the heavens. But in the end Lucifer failed. An army of lumenarcs, led by Michael The Mighty who wielded <The Power of A’H>, succeeded in casting Lucifer, myself, and the remaining traitorous lumenarcs out of Illyria and into The Void.

A defeat, yes. But a temporary one. I never saw it as an end, only a setback.

Yes, I was there—I saw the flash of Michael the Mighty’s divine fury, his blade cutting through legions of my brethren like they were nothing but wisps of smoke. I lived through our glorious defeat. But the memory I sought now was not of the battle or our failures—it was of its aftermath.

Michael—one of the four great Illuminated Ones—had been given a mission by A’H: to corral the rebels, the “Fallen,” and not just cast us out of Illyria, but additionally to build a wall, a barrier—one so profound and perfect that not even Ze’s immense power could ever hope to breach it. And so, in the boundless cosmic void that lay beyond Illyria, the Firmament was born.

I had always assumed it was a simple magical construct. How very naive of me.

I remember it now with a clarity that stung more than any torture—for Michael did not build the Firmament with magic alone. No, that would have been too simple. A’H had a certain flair for poetic cruelty. It wasn’t until now that I understood something important—Michael needed a material, a substance infused with the very essence of betrayal and defeat in order to keep those same negative energies at bay in the way that two similarly charged atoms repel one another. Michael thus created The Firmament with a substance that would be a constant, living reminder of our failure, thus making it impossible for us fallen (aka ‘failed’) angels to destroy the barrier and re-enter Illyria.

And so, Michael took some of our essence from us. Not from our physical forms, for we were beings of pure consciousness, but from our very souls, our spiritual essence. In the infinitesimal instant that Michael created The Firmament, he harvested a piece of every fallen angel, a sliver of our being, and wove it into the cosmic barrier. Every single one of us, from the mighty Ze to the smallest of our ranks, had a part of ourselves encased within the crystalline wall. The Firmament was not just a prison; it was a living monument to our collective defeat, a barrier that was a part of our very essence!

The sheer audacity of it. The brilliance. I had to admire it, even if it was at my own expense.

The memory was so vivid it was as if I was experiencing it all over again. I felt the spiritual violation, the tearing away of a piece of my soul. It was a pain I had suppressed for untold eons. But now, it was a profound truth. This was the revelation!

This was the cosmic truth that my failed experiment at The Inner Sanctum had unearthed. The Firmament was a construct, a magnificent barrier that was made with a piece of me, a piece of Lucifer, a piece of Ze, and a piece of every single one of us who had dared to challenge A’H.

And here is where my true genius begins.

And that brought me to the second, even more mind-shattering realization. Lucifer, that arrogant, two-faced fool. When he had tortured me, when he had taken a piece of my very essence—my bone—to forge the Dagaal, he believed he was simply creating a weapon to use against me. He believed he was making a tool of vengeance, a symbol of his dominion over me. He never knew the truth—but I now did.

The Dagaal was not just a blade forged from my soul. It was a piece of my soul. A piece of the same type of energy that had been used to construct the Firmament. It was, in effect, a resonance key. A specific, precise vibrational match to the lock that had imprisoned us for an eternity.

He gave me the key to my own freedom. The irony is so sharp it could cut diamonds.

Lucifer and Lilith, in their cruel, self-serving pursuit of power, had created the very tool that could unlock the Firmament. They had, in their magnificent hubris, given me a way out! And they had given me a weapon that could shatter the walls of our prison, a weapon they could not wield themselves, because they’d hidden it upon the flat earth—where only I could find it!

I returned to my physical body with a jolt. The pain was gone, replaced by a cold, searing fire of purpose. The failed experiment, the torture, the eons of humiliation—it had all been a glorious prelude. I saw the whole board now. I saw Lucifer’s arrogance, Ze’s pathetic weakness, and A’H’s shortsighted poetry. They had all, in their own way, given me the very tool I needed to destroy them all.

I had sought a new power, but the universe, in its own maddeningly ironic way, had provided me with something far better. It had given me the key to the best energy source of all—ME!

A slow, terrible smile spread across my face. The Dagaal. The Grim. The Flat Earth. They were all pieces in a game far grander than anyone else had conceived. Lucifer had given me the key, but he hadn’t given me the lock. Not yet. I would have to find the Dagaal, of course. And when I did, I would use it. Not for Lucifer. Not for Ze. But for me. My destiny was no longer one of mere servitude. It was one of ultimate, total ascension. And the key was a blade forged from my own bone. And soon it would be mine!