Chapter 160: Chapter ??? : Endless Midnight

The darkness parted to reveal a second darkness. Still, Dimitri knew the difference between the two at once. He had returned from the land of dreams. Complicated emotions swirled in him at the realisation.

‘Same old same old,’ he thought bitterly as segments of the ‘dream’ continued to play through his mind.

Dreaming: a frequent activity for most. Dimitri didn’t make up this ‘most’ statistic. To him, it was a rare event. He hardly ever did it, and for good reason. No matter how pleasant they started off, his dreams always took a nightmarish turn.

The exact imagery and words used varied but his dreams more or less ended the same way. It was because of these experiences that he seldom let himself truly rest.

In his dreams, he was helpless, unable to avoid or combat his consciousness’ onslaught. It was an unpleasant experience, for sure, and yet he couldn’t help but return every now and then, just to experience those pleasant bits at the start of every dream.

‘Hopeless, really.’

He shook his head, causing the waters he was submerged in to slosh about. To avoid further introspection, Dimitri looked ‘outward’. He opened his eyes and met with a starry night sky.

Clouds were sparse and drifting slowly across the skyline as they were carried by sluggish winds. Amidst sparkling stars, a giant full moon beamed brightly, illuminating the world below to the best of its ability. The World’s Shadow took in all these sights from his face-up floating position. Yes, floating. Instead of the red sea from his dream/nightmare, Dimitri found himself in a black sea…an endless black sea.

What sea stretches out endless?

That’s right, an imagery one. Though, saying that, what Dimitri was currently experiencing wasn’t a product of purposeful or accidental mental high jinx but a by-product of his Unique power.

This endless landscape was his inner world, Endless Midnight.

When bringing up the topic of inner worlds, the Mental Space might come to mind. So, how did Endless Midnight stack up to the duo’s inner world? Terribly…if one judged the two on utility and features.

This was because Endless Midnight was more a representation/reflection of ‘Dimitri’s’ inner working than anything else. There wasn’t much he could do in this domain. He could fly about speedily and fall asleep, but that was pretty much it.

Despite it being mental in nature, things like creating mental projections were impossible. He couldn’t consciously alter the environment and the avatar he assumed was fixed, being that of his original vessel.

One area where it dwarfed the Mental Space was in its apparent size. Where the Mental Space had a diameter of fifty-three kilometres, Endless Midnight was…well, endless. Be it up, down or to the cardinal points, flying would get you nowhere. At some point through the journey, space would just stretch on forever. One would never reach the clouds let alone the moon, and the same could be said of the seabed. Dimitri had explored this place for three centuries and never got anywhere.

He remained nevertheless curious. This domain of his had several oddities about it.

Where the duo was masters and creators of the Mental Space, Dimitri was more or less a passive observer in Endless Midnight. He summoned and maintained its existence with his Unique power, but he didn’t consciously affect it. He played no part in creating the domain’s imagery either.

The first time he came here, everything was as is - well more or less. As mentioned, Endless Midnight was a reflection of the entity known as Dimitri. It changed as the entity did. Right now, the winds and waters were gentle, but this wasn’t always the case.

In the early days of Endless Midnight’s existence, whirlpools, tornadoes and torrential black rain were the standard weather report. It had taken a very long time for things to become as mellow as they were now.

That aside, the exact imagery in this place was what Dimitri was most curious about. One might venture that this was a snippet of reality taken from his memories, but this wasn’t the case. Before stepping into this domain for the first time, Dimitri had never been in the middle of the ocean, ever…or even seen such a large body of water for that matter.

If it wasn’t from a memory, it had to be subconsciously created, right? This was logical but Dimitri always had doubts. While the presence of a moon made perfect sense, water and its symbology didn’t apply to him at all. He couldn’t imagine that he became so fixated with it that he’d materialise an endless ocean of it.

Also, this place was too realistic. It truly felt like a snippet of reality, somewhere. But this provoked an even more interesting question, where exactly? There was a lot of open ocean around the planet, so this snippet could be tens of thousands of spots, right? This is what your average Jane and Joe would reason, but no, this couldn’t be the case.

The problem was the moon; it was just too big. Ordinary people might not notice, but Dimitri did. The moon was too close to the planet for the scene to be taken from the Earth he knew.

So then, where exactly was he?

Dimitri had given this question great deliberation over the years. He mapped out the Endless Midnight’s night sky for comparison and surprisingly found that they lined up almost perfectly with the outside world’s night sky. In the end, he believed that the scene the Endless Midnight copied came from an alternate Earth, from either far into the past or far into the future - no, ‘believed’ wasn’t right, rather he strongly hoped that this was the case.

For if any time travel was possible then he…

Dimitri shook his head as his thoughts reached this familiar destination. The Raven didn’t let his mind linger on the topic. With a thought, he had his body plunge into the ocean.

The moon became a blurry existence through the water’s filter. Dimitri dived deeper and deeper until no less than a hundred metres of water separated him from the ocean surface. At this depth, there wasn’t much light to go around. Looking down, one would find only darkness. Dimitri ceased his descent, any further down was pointless.

The ocean was lukewarm and comfortable; Dimitri liked bathing in these waters and had spent a great deal of time doing so…for better or worse. Also, despite the overall realism, he didn’t have to hold his breath. Relishing in the sensations reaching him, Dimitri’s thoughts turned to the black ocean.

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Within these waters, tens of thousands of people’s life experiences existed, having all been - or were currently - vessels of his. The amalgamation of these many experiences was known as the….Collective, and represented one of the two wills running the entity known as Dimitri, the other will being the Dimitri currently submerged in the ocean. The Collective’s will was shaped by the aggregate of all vessels’ values, philosophies, desires and beliefs.

Two wills running the show hadn’t always been a thing; at one point in time, there were three wills and at another point in time, only the Collective operated the various vessels. Having an even number of wills seemed problematic on the surface, but it wasn’t. The Collective had no power over Dimitri at this point; his will directed affairs. The Collective’s desires were noted and considered when making decisions but ultimately, he steered the ship.

Poor, rich, young, old, man, woman, norin, psionic, hero, villain, bystander…

There was little Dimitri hadn’t experienced, either directly or indirectly, in his last three centuries of living. His vessels occupied every stratum of society, playing nearly every role there was to play, observing reality from every imaginable perspective.

This was no happenstance; Dimitri had a natural curiosity to learn - to turn the unfamiliar into the familiar. Because of this tendency, he actively moved to fill gaps in his knowledge throughout the years by either adding vessels which already specialised in a certain area or dedicating some time to learning the desired domain himself. The former was his go-to method for the longest time, but recent developments had made him abandon it.

Regardless, at this point in time, his database was enormous. And it wasn’t just knowledge, but skill. He could effectively apply his vast ocean of knowledge perfectly. He wasn’t a master of one path nor a Jack of all trades master of none - no, he was a master of all paths - or at least, a master of an absurd number of them.

Love or more likely hate him, the world understood this fact. The books they read, the movies they watched, the food they ate, the technology they used; a large portion of what made up their daily lives stemmed from him and his numerous vessels.

Thoughts reaching this point, Dimitri’s eyes focused on the plethora of sparkling specks of light drifting through the black ocean. They could be likened to twinkling stars as instead of getting their light from the moon, they naturally emitted light themselves, evidenced by them shining even when surrounded by the ocean depth’s darkness.

Looking around, one would find no less than a thousand glittering specks. They weren’t for decoration purposes - rather, each spec represented a fragment of Dimitri’s original soul.

What differentiated these fragments from the Dimitri who was currently observing them, was that where they were secondary and tertiary existences, the submerged Dimitri was the original Dimitri’s Soul Core. He had once swum through the black ocean no different from them, but those were days long gone. He couldn’t join them even if he wanted to, and now, these waters were only good for relaxing or dreaming in.

The soul fragments weren’t identical. There were two types present, which could be identified by the difference in brightness and frequency of flashes. The bright ones represented soul fragments that were attached to a vessel currently, while the dim ones represented free soul fragments.

His infamous Possession power worked by firing these free soul fragments at his target/targets. It took the form of a high-level telepathic attack, no different than one delivered by a Mental Master.

If his target’s mental defences were lacking, the soul fragment would latch onto their soul and then assume authority. At the same time, the nigh-undetectable telepathic link that connected to the greater Dimitri network would come into existence. Once a vessel, all the target’s experiences, memories and skills would be transferred over to the black ocean’s database. The process was lightning-quick.

The lifespan of vessels varied widely, depending on whether they fell into the Controlled or Control group. Once they died, the soul fragment wouldn’t pass on into the Great Aether with the vessel’s original soul but instead return back to Dimitri, where it would stay as a free soul fragment until he decided to use it again. Importantly, the death of a vessel was the only way to reclaim his soul fragment. He had tried many many many methods over the last three centuries to undo his Possession, all to no avail.

Another important thing to note was that Dimitri’s Possession only worked on humans. Monsters and aresians, even the weakest of their kind, were immune to his body-snatching attempts. His soul fragments just didn’t latch onto their souls as they did with humans, being a simple case of incompatibility.

On a related note, vessel number. The world had long speculated on the exact number. Did he have a limit or was the number of vessels he could possess limitless?

The answer was: the former.

More precisely, three thousand and sixty-seven. This was the number of soul fragments swimming in the black ocean and also his limit. Looking around, one would find most of the soul fragments shining brightly and flickering.

Running through his usual thoughts, Dimitri's thoughts circled back to his previous dream/nightmare. Discomfort visited him, but even more than this, longing.

He contemplated closing his eyes once again but…

‘No. That’s enough. I’ve spent too long here already. Sleeping is fine in short bursts only. To avert my eyes from reality for too long, it’s never helped me or anyone…only the opposite.’

Truer words hadn’t been strung together. Escaping had done him no good, nor the world, especially the latter.

Reminding himself of this point, Dimitri ceased relaxing. With a thought, his figure shot up like a torpedo. Water spurting up at his return to the surface, Dimitri made a graceful landing atop the swishing waters.

He waited for the ocean to calm down before striding forth atop the water’s surface. While endless in nature, Endless Midnight did have a centre. Dimitri liked to orient himself at it before leaving for the outside world. Walking towards it, creating ripples with every step, he looked forward, to what lay ahead for him while contemplating the actions he’d need to take to reach that point.

‘That’s right, I have no time to be dreaming here. There’s still so much to be done. Who knows when our clocks will cease ticking…I can’t afford to waste any more precious time.’

The past was the past. He didn’t know if it could be changed, and knowing all that he knew, he couldn’t rule out the possibility entirely. Still, it was a far-fetched notion at the end of the day. He wouldn’t put his stock in the unlikely, absurd or incomprehensible.

Time travel? The Divines’ return? Magical artefacts? Instead of relying on these far-out possibilities, he’d carve out his desired future with meticulous plans. They weren’t perfect, but nothing was. Still, with hope and confidence, he moved forward.

And so, after reaching the centre, Dimitri shut his eyes and with a thought, returned to the outside world, where he would direct affairs with a hands-on approach. He had a lot of work still left to do. The Raven was determined to see ‘his’ goal through to the end…even at the cost of another sea of blood.

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