As the population of Rome reacted to Flamma's unusual triumph, Daniel's mind was busy elsewhere. On a platform of solidified space he lay on his back while observing the world with his watchful senses. His gaze, however, was aimed at the starry sky.
In the stars' slow motion Daniel found comfort, as space was the one thing that his place of origin and this universe had in common. In his heart, no feeling was more prevalent than the desire to go back to the people he had left behind, yet, in his mind, he knew he couldn't.
His powers as an aspect of Karma, still weak and uncontrollable, made him a menace to the other domains, to a point where his true nature was likely to be the one thing that could unite the multiverse against a common enemy even more than his peers, the other champions of Destiny. This pressure, he knew his friends and family could not share with him.
His only option was to learn how to turn these unpredictable outbursts of power into an energy that he could wield.. And the first step was to nurture it.
To him, a planet inhabited by hundreds of millions of people who, to compensate for their extremely short lives, would strive to turn their otherwise inconsequential existence into an impactful one, was the best kind of resource. One made for him to exploit the same way the other aspects of existence would their place of birth.
While the latter had to wait millions of years for their power to condense and develop a consciousness, however, Daniel was the opposite. His aspect of existence had taken shape with his system, and attached itself to an existing consciousness. Only recently had the concept of karma become a power that, in theory, could one day rival that of other aspects of existence.
Although Daniel's presence on this planet was not necessary for his powers to grow, he could feel, deep inside, that such a breakthrough could not only be achieved through an accumulation of power. What he needed was to understand this power better.
With no clear plan in mind, Daniel slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them once again, he wasn't lying on the patch of solidified space anymore, but sitting on a beach.
In front of him, a treacherous sea that merged into the stormy clouds above thanks to a thick fog. By his right, past the shore's edge, was a rocky cliff covered in long blades of grass which struggled to stand due to the strong winds, and standing above it, were the figures of a hundred men.
These men, clearly part of a small army, shared similar attires composed of a simple steel helmet, leather gloves and shoes, pants of poor fabric, and a gambeson that covered a chainmail armor. Their hands held together a leather shield by their waistline, which hid the sheathed swords hanging from their belts.
While these men wore armor and carried weapons, which indicated that they were prepared for a fight, Daniel could see nothing but worry on their faces, as their eyes were aimed at the horizon, clearly waiting for something.
Noticing how these men's attention was taken by the sea, Daniel turned to look in the same direction, and there, covered by the fog, he saw three small shadows. Along the waves these shadows approached the shore, becoming bigger and bigger, until finally, they came too close for the layer of fog to hide, and showed their appearance. These shadows belonged to three wooden vessels.
Built in the shape of a large canoe, these ships only possessed one mast, on which was tied an enormous veil. Their hulls were covered in multicolored shields, in between which emerged dozens of wooden oars used for rowing the ship when in lack of favorable winds. The most noticeable feature of these vessels, however, were ships' bow and stern, which, carved in the shape of a dragon's head, instilled fear in the eyes of those who saw it.
It was clear to anyone with a basic understanding of naval engineering, that these vessels were not made to transport large numbers of people, nor merchandise, but for fast travel.
These ships kept approaching the shore, until finally, the water became too shallow to navigate-after which the men who were being carried on them jumped off, and by using a few thick ropes, dragged the ships onto the sand, and out of the water.
These men, dressed in pelts and leather clothes, took their shields off the sides of the ships and regrouped on the shore, where they encountered the group who was scanning the horizon for their arrival. Once in contact, the two groups, clearly uncomfortable with the other's presence, began to discuss.
Daniel did not bother to listen to their conversation, as the context of this world's events had long lost its importance for him.. After all, what was for him only one blink of his eye, was almost seven hundred years of this world's history, which he had witnessed without interfering.
What he couldn't understand in words, however, he could make out by observing these men's karma.
Covered in negative karma, the leader of the invasors, who referred to themselves as Ostmen, approached the small army. On his face a facetious smile which he used in an attempt to calm his opponents, which in turn were made nervous by his men's bigger stature and crude weaponry. At the same time, the leader of the other group, a bearded man charged with identifying foreign merchant ships who tried to enter the kingdom of Wessex, tried to communicate with him.
The two parties did not appear to speak the same language, as only the leader of the invading party was able to understand a few words. Yet, he could make out enough to understand what the royal reeve, who led the small army, was demanding of him and his men. What this man wanted was for the guests to visit the king of this land, as he was still under the impression that these men weren't there to invade, but to explore paths that could be used for commerce. But, alas, he was wrong.
As the royal reeve approached the leader of the ostmen in an attempt to exchange gifts, the latter's men embraced their weapons, and charged at the unprepared small army with an inhuman thirst for blood, initiating a deadly conflict between the two groups.
Despite their poorer equipment, the ostmen quickly took the advantage, killing dozens before the remaining few could regroup and put in place any form of military formation. The ones who survived the initial onslaught, a few minutes later, were too cut down by their opponent's battle axes and swords, allowing the ostmen to come out victorious with close to no casualties.
Proud of their achievement, the group of barbarians cheered and screamed their prayers to their gods of war.. All but one, their leader, who had finally noticed Daniel's lone presence by the shore.
"Þú, komhír!" the man shouted in Daniel's direction, hinting for him to approach unless he wished to join the soldiers in their fate.
Daniel ignored the man, who had now attracted the attention of the rest of his party. However, after seeing Daniel's appearance, as well as their leader approaching him while brandishing his large axe, they quickly lost interest, and instead focused on searching the corpses of their enemies for valuables.
The leader of the ostmen stomped in Daniel's direction, his attire now covered in blood.. Just like the axe he had already decided to use against Daniel. Yet, as he came to speaking distance to him, the man suddenly stopped. The young individual in front of him was not a simple young man any longer. His body had turned into that of a bearded and muscular old man, who scanned the sea with a single shining eye, whereas the other was missing.
Daniel's new appearance was of great shock for the warrior, who immediately fell on his knees and reached for a hammer-shaped pendant hidden underneath his shirt. "Óðinn.." He muttered over and over again, as if in prayer. In just a moment, Daniel had taken the form of Odin, the most important of the man's deities, stopping him from approaching, or even dare to speak to him.
As the man bowed in prayer, Daniel blinked once again, causing the scenery around him to change, and for six hundred years more to pass.
He was now standing in the middle of a town, with buildings that more than any other he had seen on this planet, reminded him of those back home. Despite these buildings being similar, however, this town lacked the vivacity any other settlement he had visited possessed. The black and grey smoke that covered the sky, bloated the sun, whose rays Daniel could feel land helplessly on the other side. On the roads, sickly individuals were strewn all about, coughing and dying, while on the road, only carriages full with mounds of corpses, and driven by men covered in black robes and masked by a leather helmet with a long curved beak where the mouth and nose should have been, could be seen.
In just a few minutes of walking through the streets of this town, Daniel saw many of these masked men drive their carriages to empty terrains, and unload their macabre cargo into deep mass graves, where gravediggers would set the mountains of corpses ablaze before burying what was left under tons of dirt.
Daniel had now spent over twelve hundred years observing how karma was born. Inside him, his dormant power had grown exponentially, causing him to approach the realm of a true living aspect of existence.. Yet, at the same time, he had noticed a constant decrease in his human ability to feel empathy, even while faced with the death of thousands of people.. About this change, he could not help but feel concerned.
After blinking once more, Daniel found himself on an island. Around him, soldiers dressed in green military attire charged ahead while carrying their guns. Their opponents, hidden in tunnels and holes on the ground, screamed 'Ten'nōheikabanzai!' before emerging, and meeting their enemies head on.
Within Daniel's body, the aspect of karma had almost matured completely, as he could feel the power approach the point of a breakthrough whenever one of these soldiers was stabbed or shot. Yet, as these dying men screamed for their loved ones, Daniel felt nothing.
Another blink brought Daniel to the cold and dry surface of the moon, where a small spaceship had landed, and from which three individuals dressed in large white suits had walked out of. They stepped on the unfamiliar ground, looking at the majestic view before planting a flag that depicted stars and stripes. Of Daniel's presence, they were completely unaware.
While an incredible moment for these men and the rest of humanity, Daniel felt no joy, as his mind was only occupied by the bitterness he had felt during the previous failed attempts at breaking through.
With one last blink, Daniel found himself on top of an enormous city square. Around him were hundreds of thousands of people looking in his direction, while surrounded by dozens of skyscrapers which covered most of the sky. On top of the centernmost skyscraper, a large orb of light descended, while under it, a big screen displayed a countdown to the end of the yeah.
On top of this descending orb, Daniel stood invisible to mortals. His eyes aimed at a dark alley, and at a specific point within the crowd that had formed at the base of the building.
Daniel was doing nothing to mask his presence, in fact, it was his power as an aspect of existence that, while being almost completely awakened, had turned him into one with the universe. What separated him from being the very incarnation of an invisible aspect of existence, felt to him like a paper thin barrier, which he had now failed to break through for decades.
In his failure, however, Daniel had never stopped doing what he had been doing for almost two thousand years, which was to observe the nature of karma in its every form and meaning.
What had caught his attention that day was the large crowd at his feet. Specifically, a five year old little girl who had left her mother's sight. She wandered among the cheering crowd, enchanted by the colors of the balloons and the festive atmosphere, distracting her from the danger around her.
Her exploration brought her to the entrance of a dark alley, where a friendly looking woman covered in thick blankets sat on the ground alongside a honey-colored cat.
The young girl, pure hearted as she was, noticed the empty bowl next to the woman. She then remembered how her mother, whenever they would see a homeless person by the side of the road, would share a few coins with them in an attempt to teach her a lesson about helping the less fortunate and being charitable.
With gleaming eyes the young girl fished a few coins out of her pocket, and approached the homeless woman, who looked back at her as she dropped the coins into the bowl, and with an unusually bright smile asked, "Hey princess, are you lost? Were you separated from your parents?"
The young girl finally realized that she had wandered too far, and that she had been separated from her mother-A realization which caused her to start crying almost immediately.
The homeless woman reacted right away. She grabbed her cat, and after pushing it towards the young girl, said, "No no, don't cry. Look, mister snuffles will keep you company until you find your family. I will help you!"
Easily convinced by the woman's words, the young girl approached her, and took the cat out of her hands. "He doesn't like girls who cry all the time, so don't cry, or he'll run away." The woman added right before gently grabbing the young girl's hand.
As her hand wrapped around the little girl's, the friendly smile on the woman's face turned into a malicious one. "Come, let's go find your mother.." she said while guiding the little girl deeper into the dark alley.
