The Ascension of the Celestial Priest

12; The Endless Expanse.

In a bright light Aria walked through only to witness an endless expanse before her. It was if the sky was the land and the land was the sky with filled with infinite clouds in the endless blue and below her was the flickering reflection almost as she was walking on sky itself that stretched to the horizon.

Dumbfounded d by the familiar and the not yet familiar visage she found an extremely unusual oddity. The endless expanse of light, clouds and the skies was directly halved into darkness and light almost as if day and night existed in tandem within this world.

On her left side a faraway light shone like the brightness of the sun setting everything alight under its golden rays. It was warm, inviting and purely majestic while on her right side laid an expanse of cloud and night with moonlight radiance that flickered with a silver glow. It was crispy cold night, with inviting stars and it held the lone ancientness that confounded even her. It felt like sitting under the cover of the night and enjoying the scenery of darkness lit up by a star.

She sighed in wonder. No wonder his brother said his soul altar was strange. He risked showing everything to her probably because he also needed answers for what is happening in his inside world.

Feeling some summons near the faraway star, she started walking right on the line of the demarcation that separated the light and the night. But since it was in the soul altar every step she took felt like she was crossing a hundred steps more and the faraway light came nearer and nearer.

In a blink of an eye she found his brother waiting for her with a large figure looming in the background. His mind imprint was just in the same shape as his body but it seemed to be different somehow. Almost as if his soul was way older making her feel like a child in front of him.

"Brother…" Aria called.

Lukas turned and then smiled "I have never done this before." He said "It feels strange …like we can read each other's emotions."

Aria helpless smiled "I had no idea that when you said different you meant this." she gestured all around her.

He shook his head in exasperation "I was just as surprised as you are the first time I arrived. I decided to call this place 'The Endless Expanse' in the end due to how endless the place seems. Though for some reason it feels even bigger than before…" He paused "in fact this is just the beginning."

He took her hand and with a whoosh they appeared in front of the sources of light that halved the Soul Altar into a contrasting difference. The huge figures loomed over them in such a grand manner that they both felt like insects.

Collecting her bearings she saw in front of her three humongous statues that seemed to loom over the endless expanse almost as if they were gods.

The left side was what pulled her attention almost instantly. She felt a resonance deep between her and the wreathed figure of light. She and her brother were both of Elemental Light and thus the left statue that seemed to be a huge figure of a male on large wings holding the sun on its hand made her feel a sense of kinship that confused her even further. Its finer features were particularly obscured but the flaming sword in its hand and the bright sun held high above its head made him as if it was a mighty figure ready to battle. The Grand Sun on its raised hand shed its brilliance on its own expanse of the sky, making it blue and white with the watery floor underneath it forming a perfect reflection.

Aria took a deep breath.

"Is that… "

"My Elemental Light…" Lukas said as he smiled. "It is and that figure seems it's what connects us through blood."

'Bloodline connection' Aria was floored.

And she found that she couldn't deny. That figure of wings seemed to be calling out to her which can only mean they might have a bloodline that they had never realized they had. But the more she thought about it the more questions she had like what kind of bloodline did they possess and why there isn't a record of it in their family's historical heritage and what did this bloodline entail in the end. It wasn't a secret that the some of the most powerful noble houses in the continent of Lush possessed powerful bloodlines that gave them strange abilities though throughout the years such bloodline thinned to an almost a negligible degree. But any later generation who gets the chance to awaken even a small percent of it, was destined to be so much stronger, talented and will be able to advance leaps and bounds way ahead his or her peers. Shaking her head she placed all of this in the back of her head, meant to researched later when she gets the chance

She looked at the other side and all she could see was nearly nothing and everything. The other figure was just as humongous with almost the same height, but this one was even more obscured. All she could make out was that although it didn't have wings it possessed a tail of some kind and on its folded hands laid a silver twinkling light that shone under its own piece of the sky. It was beautiful, it glowed and it pulled at her soul. It shed the pale light on the expanse like a star making the white clouds glimmer underneath the night.

"What …what is that?"

"I have no idea." Lukas stared before he continued. "But from what I can tell, it's a Star. Other than that I wasn't able to learn anything. Maybe it's because my strength is too weak at the moment."

Ariandel slightly nodded in understanding. If there was nothing that his brother could glean from the statue then she was even more helpless. Maybe in the future after he has grown stronger he might envisage the true figure but for now her eyes shifted into the 3rd and the most prominent statue inside the Endless Expanse.

It was at this moment that Lukas felt a certain kind of restlessness, a buzzing that seemed to carry a slowly increasing dread in his soul altar. He was puzzled and confused. Ever since he had entered his own soul altar he had never felt such a thing and he was sure it wasn't his imagination as he felt it transform into a deep feeling one has in their gut when danger is just at a corner ahead.

Finding himself panicking, he calmed his agitated feelings with an imaginary deep breath and then focused intently trying to trace back the danger he felt. Meanwhile Ariandel was slowly raising her eyesight, beholding the godly statue ever so slowly and feeling like a small ant against the dazzling authority and power the Godly Statue radiated in waves.

Lukas was just about to explain to her what the figure was before a visible vibration passed through his soul altar. It shook them to their core; their senses went haywire and their mental imprint unstable.

"What is happening?" Lukas asked before his eyes fell on Ariandel's face. She was bleeding for her orifices, if that's even possible considering they were in their imprint form. But despite the ghastly blood that came out of her eyes and her mouth and nose; her face was held high and her eyes were wide open as if she somehow couldn't pull herself away from whatever she was seeing.

The deep foreboding he was feeling exploded. He tugged at her, panicking and confused at what's happening.

"Aria, are you okay? What happening?" he asked. Pulling at her loosened her once stiff body and he was just in time to catch her. Crossing arms in their imprint form felt oddly closer and even more intimate that he ever felt but his thoughts were in a disarray to even notice. He didn't want the only familiar connection he had in this world to disappear, especially when she was in his soul altar.

Seeing that Aria won't stop looking he turned his head and then looked above at the Godly statue. At first he didn't see anything different before the statue's eyes glowed golden and then to his astonishment settled on him. Lukas felt so naked and vulnerable in front of them that he forgot to even breathe.

The golden eyes were sharp, powerful and they seemed as if they held the whole world and the entire realms. Lukas had never felt such a horror and before he could even form a coherent thought the majestic eyes let out a swift ray of light that fell on both of them and by the next second all they could see was the Golden Brilliance as they both fell unconscious in the very next second.