'A dream.'
Stars flickered visibly across the sky. Meteors came and passed through the vast darkness above, their strikes blooming in differing colors as they fell. It was a spectacle for the man whose time had long since settled into this sight.
A sight he knew belonged to his dream.
He wondered how long he needed to remain there to endure the waiting, accompanied only by the red spider lilies that surrounded him on his solitary island.
"Are you still waiting for your Star, Blodeuwedd Morningstar?" his shadow asked. The dark figure leaned against his back as he gazed past the falling lights. "Are you hoping for your wake?"
A directionless draft stirred Blodeuwedd's short and wavy hair. Through his eyes tinted with roseate gold, he watched the sky, filled with stars both still and falling. With his white garments that fit his Slumber, Blodeuwedd could only wish something above would visit his little land.
Blodeuwedd brushed his fingers along a red flower. "How long have I been waiting, shadow?"
"As I count the stars, I count the days of your Slumbering." The shadow turned its gaze beyond the small island where they stood, an island no more than a hundred meters in radius. "This is your thousandth year and seventh day."
"Slowly, shadow, I feel as though I am losing hope." The flower resting in his palm shed pollen shaped like droplets of water. Within them, images moved, scenes of what was, what is, and what would be. "I feel destined to Slumber for eternity."
He sighed.
"You know how many times I have watched these Phantasms already." Blodeuwedd studied a droplet that showed a serpent devouring its own endless tail. "All I need is a Star for my wake, shadow."
The shadow chuckled softly. "It shall pass, Blodeuwedd."
It was a dream, but not an ordinary one. Not for a soul placed into slumber when the Cosmos he knew was destroyed. He did not remember how he came to dream, only that his soul had once fled the Devourers of the Cosmos in pursuit of survival, they that swallowed the past, the present, and the future timelines that every civilization deemed as the final apocalypse and the final judgement. Along with others, those souls reached what was called the Obelisk and passed within it. Then came his dreaming. Then his Slumbering. And soon after, the hope for waking, as one called a Slumberer, who was forced to watch Phantasms as pollens of the red flowers, the means of understanding a few about the world that he would inhabit upon his awakeness.
Blodeuwedd lifted his gaze to the sky of falling and unmoving stars, wondering where his Star would descend.
For in this dream, a Star was required. It had to fall toward him, to be grasped, to become his wake. That was its purpose, to free him from a dream left motionless, so that he would not remain stranded on an island surrounded by black waters.
"I want my Star, shadow." Blodeuwedd noticed one light flickering above, drawing closer with each moment. "I want to see the Towers that made me Slumber."
The Star breached the atmosphere, and he heard it singing a hymn that was somehow unburdening his heavy heart.
He spread his arms to prepare and welcome it, as the Star descended, now reduced to sparks of color no larger than his fist, emitting tiny embers that appeared as phantom fireworks.
"I want to understand what lies beyond the final Door."
When the Star settled into his palm, it spoke.
"Blodeuwedd Morningstar." It paused. "I have been searching for you for a long, long time."
Blodeuwedd hushed it gently. "I am here now." He pressed it against his chest. "You did well."
Then he brought it toward his mouth.
"It is time to wake up."
Before he devoured it.
"I will see you in your dreams, Blodeuwedd," his shadow said as its means of farewell. "Remember not to open doors."
Somehow, the flowers gasped as the gale twisted in every direction, their petals shuddering while the meteors above shifted course, turning toward the man's narrow stretch of land.
Blodeuwedd floated in the air as his beating heart nestled with the sparks visible on his chest.
The waters stirred next, and from their surface rose pale mists, spreading outward as though drawn by a quiet summons. They crept across the ground, swallowing stone, soil, and flowers alike, until the space around him thinned into silence.
Before he had time to react, a golden platform formed beneath his feet. Blodeuwedd noticed the center, as it was marked by a single black pip turning in slow, measured circles.
To the north, a wall rose before him, bearing two pips shaped from the same flowing substance. To the west, another wall appeared, marked with three pips set along a diagonal. To the east, a wall displayed four pips arranged in a square. When he turned to the south, a fourth wall stood behind him, carrying five pips arranged in a cross-like pattern.
Finally, when he lifted his gaze, the ceiling revealed six pips, aligned in two vertical rows of three.
'What is this place?' Blodeuwedd asked in his mind, because he was unaware whether a Phantasm held such information about it or not, but the more he wondered, the more he was lost. He noticed the dots and the sequences they presented. 'A die . . . Is it a confine? Perhaps the boundary between my dream and the world to come?'
Then there came a faint voice.
「"The Die will soon roll."」
Before he could ask another question, his confine vanished and he somehow ended up falling in darkness.
After, his fall led his back to lay on a soft and squishy surface.
From there on, he knew exactly where he was and what he was: a fully awakened transmigrator.
He sat on the hay before rubbing his temples.
He was inside a room in a Tower of Slumber, like how the red spider lilies told him through its phantasm pollen.
A Tower that only he could occupy, along with the other Towers that the other Slumberers like him had stilled.
It was the very Towers that stood as One, the world that had to come.
And one for a thousandth year Slumberer that was him.
The entire room was structured as mirrors, at least, what he deemed from the ceiling and to all four corners. While the hay was surrounded by lanterns, the latter seemed to be floating on what could be assumed as a thick boiling liquid emitting black fog, as he could also smell the acid that seemed to be originating from it.
'Visions, those Attendants would soon come.' Since he knew the next procedure, Blodeuwedd lunged his feet off the hay to the cold ink flood swelled on the floor, and proceeded to walk toward the door.
A faint black light had appeared in front of him, forming into a tube. What supposed to be a tube then rolled itself a few inches like a scroll, displaying a golden text that glowed in the dark.
「The Handscroll」
Blodeuwedd knew of the Handscroll, since it was a phantom-like scroll that wasn't created with parchment, though it functioned the same as what a normal scroll would be. The Handscroll, taught by the Phantasms in his Slumbering, was a window that was connected to his soul as an intermediary of his present. To make it easier to understand, it was a system window filled with panels for displaying messages.
「System Initialization… Complete.」
「Welcome, Blodeuwedd Morningstar!」
「You have finally awakened.」
The Handscroll expanded.
「Your [Slumberer] existence has revealed itself.」
「Your [Slumberer] existence is fading.」
「You have acquired a new existence [Child].」
Then it displayed a new notification.
「The [Tradition of Knocking] will commence.」
「Four [Attendants] would like to visit you.」
「Would you accept their visitation?」
He fixed his poise before he uttered in a calm tone, "I would like to spurn the Tradition."
It was a bit blunt, but he didn't want to waste his time.
Because he could recall the only memory he had.
"Blodeuwedd, never open doors."
「You rejected the offer of the four [Attendants].」
「The [TraditionofKnocking] has stopped.」
From here onwards, he would be something that was not an Heir that would need to prove himself as an Adopted. Instead —
Fwip! The Handscroll showed him what he was waiting for.
「Your existence [Child] is acknowledging your [Descension] [Path].」
「You are an [Unclaimed] [Descent] from the path of [Orphanhood].」
「You can now open the [Ascentdoor].」
Blodeuwedd can now safely open the door .