Codex Fragment: The Origin of Paragon

  "Death is but a whisper between breaths,

  a passage veiled in illusion.

  The endless wheel of rebirth turns,

  spinning the dream of Samsara.

  What lies beyond the veil…

  only the Awakened One knows."

  The Paragon is born from the ashes of countless lives, transcending death and life alike. They are both bound by and free from the cycle of Samsara, existing between realms as a bridge to the beyond. Their journey is the ultimate awakening, for only through mastering both death and rebirth can one break the chains of the eternal cycle.

  The Paragon is not merely a soul, but the embodiment of the end and the beginning—walking through fire until the last step is taken. Only the Awakened One knows what lies beyond this path, a knowledge guarded by the endless veil of the unknown.

  —Translated from the surviving leaves of the Nameless Path, unearthed during the eclipse excavation at Yuron’s Fall

  ***

  His consciousness flickered—caught between the weightlessness of memory and the heaviness of unraveling.

  He was nowhere and everywhere, unmoored in space and time. The "self" could find no center, no anchor within the expanding chaos.

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  He was stretched beyond limit—pulled in every direction—until his existence fractured into fragments, scattered across the void. He was everywhere, all at once.

  His awareness splintered, cast across the Yugas—tens, hundreds, thousands of lifetimes unfurling within the ceaseless cycle of Samsara. He dissolved, crumbling toward nihility, as ego and identity faded into silence.

  And then—just before oblivion could claim him—a thread of darkness wove through the dust of his unraveling self.

  It pulled him inward, toward the unknowable source.

  Faint vibrations surged—each scattered shard of his being instinctively drawn toward the core.

  A sound, so potent it summoned the scattered fragments into collision.

  The echo aligned through the abyss—

  Om.

  The resonance pulsed through the void, rippling across the fabric of the cosmos. Each vibration summoned him back from the brink, tethering his consciousness, crystallizing his awareness.

  Weight returned. Form found center.

  Dissolution gave way to becoming.

  "I am."

  The words emerged effortlessly.

  His soul began to mend of its own accord, and that will—his will—reached into the world that mirrored his own.

  There, the source became the womb of rebirth.

  There, he became again.

  The process never ceased.

  Then—

  The scent of decay, thick and oppressive, gave way to the fragrance of new life.

  The sensation of flesh knitting over bone, fragile and powerful in equal measure.

  The taste of salt and blood, pulsing in rhythm—bridging heart and mind.

  Each sensation grounded him.

  Each moment restored what had been lost.

  Until all that he was met all that he is.

  "I am."

  The darkness receded to the edges of his being.

  He opened his eyes.

  "Om"