Ascension of the elder

Chapter 1: An end or a beginning?

Joseph was just an unknown and faceless working class body. He left school with a few qualifications and then onto college where he gained a little knowledge and some scraps of paper, but unfortunately he could never find a job he wanted to do, so he took a general vacancy in a mid level company just "to tide me over until something better comes along". However nothing better ever seemed to be on the horizon and as the years passed he saw people come and go, some left, some got promoted, others got married and had kids but Joe stayed in the same place always waiting for something to come to him.

Before he was even aware 40 years had passed and Joe was already in his sixties and was approaching retirement. In this time there had been friends and lovers but they all came and went leaving Joe alone with only the current generation of work colleagues who even knew who he was as his parents had long since passed and he had no siblings.

In all this time Joe had very little to distinguish him from the crowd, in fact you could say he was average in almost every way. Average height, average build, average looks even his name, you could say he's an average Joe. The only things that were his own was his slightly above average intelligence which meant he picked up new things faster and more completely than other people around him and his stubbornness. You may have heard the term "as stubborn as a mule", well Joe could be as stubborn as three mules on strike as one of his bosses once said. As people who work in an office can attest stories stick around and the most prominent one about Joe was when he had a shouting match with the CEO of the company because he didn't agree with how he was treating one of the interns, this quickly snowballed so even though the CEO wanted to sack Joe he couldn't without causing a lot of the interns, new starters and even some of the middle managers who were taught by Joe when they first started taking up arms. So the CEO could only wait and push Joe for early retirement which Joe was happy to agree to.

But as with all things, an end must come and as Joe was getting closer and closer to retirement his age began catching up to him. One day as he was clocking in he suddenly felt a pain shoot through his chest, he began gasping for air and everything around him began getting dark. As his point of view was gradually getting smaller and smaller he saw the kids(almost everyone at his company was a kid to him at this point) running to him and with his faltering hearing he could hear shouts and screams but his mind wasn't functioning clearly at this point and couldn't make out what the voices were saying. On this day Joe died of an almost simultaneous heart attack and stroke. At his funeral which was paid from his own savings there were a surprising number of people, such a number in fact that if he wasn't already dead Joe would have another heart attack. There were of course his work colleagues including the interns, the mail room, the people from his department and also some from every other department. But the surprising thing was the rest, almost the entirety of the management attended, people who had left from years ago and even some of the children of those who had left decades ago attended on their behalf. As the CEO who had the argument with Joe all that time ago said during a speech on behalf of the management,

"I may not have considered Joe a friend but I respected the old man".

But back to Joe, after his everything went dark and Joe's mind began to shut down his mind/soul he didn't know which would be more accurate or correct, began to function again. He couldn't see per se but somehow he could sense what was around him. He had no body but appeared to be a slightly luminous cloud of gas while all around him was dark with other clouds moving through seemingly unaware and unconcerned. As Joe was analysing what was happening he noticed the clouds further in front of him based on the direction he was gradually moving, began to break down or dissipate.

Joe couldn't tell what was happening but as he got closer he began to feel himself becoming less. In a panic Joe observed himself again and saw the his nebulous form had begun to come apart and now this was happening to him he could feel it was a force being exerted on this form, tearing him apart and crushing him all at the same time. As he was becoming less he could feel his memories slipping away. His parents, grandparents, childhood friends, first kiss even his name became dim. At this point Joe realised what was happening, he was dead and this was the afterlife. It wasn't what he was expecting to say the least, no pearly gates, no fire and brimstone, no yama, no river styx. So Joe began to panic, if his soul is lost will his mind be gone as well which seemed to be the case as it looked like the force was breaking the souls down and wiping the memories from them, with this though Joe's stubborn side reared it's ugly head like Jekyll. In his mind(as he didn't have a mouth at this point) Joe roared with all the rage that only those who have to work a dead end job for years can muster "Oh hell no!!" and with this thought a strange phenomenon happened. Out of the surrounding darkness mist began to appear and coalesce around what was left of our protagonist who by this time had lost his name and a lot of his personal memories but still retained his personality and most of his general knowledge along with some acquired skills and not forgetting his stubbornness which I think we should call willpower as it makes him sound more heroic.

As the mist was surrounding our MC he could feel the pull and pressure being exerted by the force became less but with this realisation the force came back with twice the power which the MC took as a challenge and exerted more of his willpower and contended with the force pulling in more of the mist.

As time passed this contest of will continued between the force and the MC increasing in power and ferocity. After an unknown amount of time the force began directly attacking the MC's soul as it couldn't break him down by purely exerting pressure. This attack cannot be explained clearly but the MC thought it would be similar to being stuck with hundreds of red hot needles at the same time. So in response the MC pulled in the mist that surrounded him as tightly as possible as he couldn't attack as he wasn't able to locate a target. After a while of resisting the attacks from the force the MC found a way to shield himself, he projected a form of energy outside of himself which began to block the attacks. To start with the pain from the attacks gradually became less, until finally he was able to completely block the attack. With this little bit of breathing room he was able to finally think about what was happening and came up with a theory.

1. He was a soul resisting reincarnation.

2. What was attacking him was the will of the universe

3. The mist he was absorbing was the nascent form of souls

4. The energy he used to protect himself could be termed soul force

With these thoughts the MC began to worry, if the universe was trying to break him down to return him to the cycle of reincarnation, was he doing the right thing resisting. But he couldn't just allow himself to give up so he continued resisting while absorbing more of the mist growing stronger by the minute.

After an unknown amount of time our MC also noticed something else which confused him. While he was using soul force to resist the attacks his soul which was absorbing the soul mist wasn't losing anything to use the soul force. This meant that soul force didn't use the soul mist as fuel but must mean the soul mist generated the soul force on it's own with no need for outside energy or fuel. Realising this our MC began to absorb the soul mist with renewed vigour and gradually his soul form began to change.

Previously his soul form appeared to be a loose cloud which could be pulled apart at any time but as time passed under a constant and increasing attack by the force, he formed something akin to a energy nucleus which looked not unlike a plasma ball. When this new form had stabilised it was no longer an issue to resist the attacks which unbeknown to our MC had gradually been increasing in power and due to the constant attack had purified his newly enlarged soul and strengthened his willpower to an enormous degree, beyond anything that had been seen on our world or any world in our universe for that matter.

However at this point it seemed as though our universe have had enough and with a flash of what appeared to be pure white lightning our plasma ball of an MC was cast out of the darkness. Looking around himself all he could say was "damn" looking around he could see colours everywhere some could be described reds, yellows, blues, greens and everything else but others didn't exist elsewhere and he could only "see" them in his current form. There where also lights and clouds of nebulous and gigantic forms which considering where he just was he could only assume were whole other universes. There were also forms moving through this chaotic void, mindless and uncaring these forms must be things beyond gods but they where an unknown quantity, so as previously our "plasma ball" began to try absorbing some of the local energy.

This was much harder to do than previously however, if any of the gods from our universe saw the "plasma ball" trying to do this they would shout "are you nuts". As unknown to him he had entered the chaotic realm. This was the source for all the universes but was also a realm who's power could even destroy gods with no effort. But our MC didn't know this and just continued with his now indomitable willpower. Eventually he managed to absorb just a tiny piece of the local energy which began to run rampant within him. But as usual using his admittedly insane willpower and soul force which could now contend with the collective soul energy of several planets, gained control of this chaos energy and began to refine and merge with it. This was a slow process and after untold amounts of pain to his soul and an unknown procession of time it was complete.

This new energy was to put it mildly insane adding it to his soul had changed him again now looking like a crystal sphere with a soul force so strong he thought he could tear apart these beings that were beyond gods who had begun to observe him.

After all this time our now "disco ball" MC suddenly asked himself a question "why do I want to get stronger?", he started this to resist losing who he was, but due to this he was cast out of his universe into what he now termed the chaos realm presumably to be destroyed but it didn't happen as he'd done something theoretically impossible in absorbing and refining pure chaos energy into his soul. So what did he want to do now. While thinking on this he began to feel a pull in a certain direction. Following this feeling he thought this may be a new direction to take so as the feeling became stronger he began moving faster by using his will and soul force he moved at rates beyond any mortal conception.

When he began moving the unknown beings that were observing him started following, it is unknown what would be going through their minds if they even had them but by their actions and the fact they kept a reasonable distance it can be thought they were just curious. It has to be known these beings sometimes come into the corporeal universes and the gods of these universes are terrified of these beings as they overpower them by a huge margin.

Back to the disco ball who was rocketing through the chaos aiming for a far universe composed of a highly energetic form which was closer to the chaos realm than others while being composed of many more colours than the rest. Thinking "this may be an interesting place to start" our disco ball moved into this universe following the pull and looking behind himself he saw he was being followed by three of the unknown beings who actually appeared to be having fun playing tag. Several of the local deities to where they entered this universe could feel a disturbance and directed their divine sight to this and what they saw left them shocked, scared and most assuredly confused. There were three lovecraftian horrors playing tag with a Christmas decoration heading towards a huge world largely separated from the rest of the universe.

While the rest of the universe was in a state of panic the disco ball began to descend towards the planet where he could feel the pull from followed by his entourage as he began to think of them as the three stooges.

Following the direction of the pull he headed towards the eastern side of the southern most continent of this planet and further zooming in on a city on the edge of an empire on that continent. He eventually approached the medieval looking town aiming for a large reinforced mansion at the northern side of the city where there was a collapsed boy of maybe 8-9 years old. Slowly our MC phased through the wall and approached the fallen child, eventually stopping above his head feeling the pull he followed his instinct and entered his head. Nobody saw any of this as there was no one there and even if there was they still wouldn't see anything as the disco ball and the three stooges were in soul form so no mortal could see them. As our MC entered the mind of the child he could hear a thought from the three monstrosities loud and clear, even if it was in a childish voice

"THIS LOOKS LIKE FUN"

to which our MC finally responded to them "you have no idea?".