[Edanian Journey] Aal

Chapter 6: A Star Forged I entered the sanctum with the others. Beyond the army filling the chamber stood <b>Aal</b>. The Scouts fell to their knees, and Ayawaka pleaded for an answer. He spoke of lives spent serving Aal alone as their father. For those who had endured through devotion and faith, he asked when salvation and paradise would finally come. "Why do you not ask yourselves?" Aal replied that the path had already been opened. It was for mortals to walk it until the day of salvation, and they could not rest while they remained unworthy. Only endless struggle, he said, could reforge their weakness. Zaidan begged Aal not to abandon them, only to hear, "I have never abandoned you." Aal had given them springs in the desert, laws to bind them together, the means to survive on the battlefield, and power over the sands. These, too, had been chances to survive. I asked what any of it meant if the path ended in death. Aal answered that death was etched into the soul, and that each cycle of rebirth tempered the souls of the strong. The <b>Blackstar</b> forged through that process was a mortal soul. A soul tempered through countless deaths until it became strong enough to lead others to paradise and bring them salvation. Then Aal declared that if this was as far as they could go "this time," the hour of destruction had come. The world would fall and be reborn stronger, for even destruction was part of the path toward salvation. Through this <b>cycle of destruction and reforging</b>, I began to understand why Aal had chosen to aid Hadum. In his reasoning, claiming never to have abandoned mortals did not contradict allowing their world to end. They had come seeking an end to pain and death. Aal's answer was simply to struggle, die, and be reforged once more.