Archive Of Potentialities.

I'm pretty sure a good chunk of you have never read Shadow Slave (which is regrettable) and I recommend you to at least learn the general idea of how it's world works if you want to enjoy this short story. This can be found on its wiki page.

Not to say I won't be explaining such things in the story for unfamiliar readers, but I will not be writing text walls that ruin the flow of the story just to explain some things, so I've decided to get some random stuff out of the way here.

In Shadow Slave, there exists a Rank and Class system for well... basically everything. Humans, creatures, weapons, tools etc.

For humans and the inanimate objects, from least to greatest, it goes: Dormant, Awakened, Ascended, Transcendent, Supreme, Sacred, Divine. (These are Ranks) And for classes, which only apply to Nightmare Creatures (for the most part), they go : Beast, Monster, Demon, Devil, Tyrant, Terror, Titan.

The Ranks for Nightmare Creatures are so: Dormant, Awakened, Fallen, Corrupted, Great, Cursed, Unholy.

There's also the Nightmare Spell. An oversimplification of it would be something like the Voice of the World, but more active and aggressive in its mission.

Well, that's all I'll be adding here. If you guys are content with a sense of mystery, read without reading up on SS's world, I'll get around to explaining it as Rimuru learns. Otherwise? Well, said that already.

Now...

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Falling, drifting, sinking.

A series of events I could make no sense of. Where did I fall from, what am I sinking in?

…who am I?

The world around me was revealed as I finally opened my eyes. My body felt light, unburdened, wet.

I was drowning….or I was supposed to be.

Here, in the seemingly boundless depths of some ocean, I was alive. How? I tried to call forth something, anything. A memory that would tell me where I am, why I was there….

And who I am.

Oddly, I did not feel too panicked about my situation. There was only me and the calm water. And apparently, I had no need for respiration.

I looked up, towards the surface of the sea. The waters held any significant amount of light at bay, but I found my perception to be unnaturally clear.

Yes, this isn't natural. What kind of being does not need to breathe? What kind of being can see in such conditions? What kind of being am I?

I sank deeper and deeper into the depths that grew darker the further I descended. I lacked the will to remove myself from the watery embrace, I couldn't remember any reason I would have to do so.

I had instinctively realized I was incomplete, like an itch that I kept scratching but could never relieve, I felt the dismal nature of my own soul.

So I remained still, even the sinking had stopped. I couldn't discern how long I remained in such self induced stasis, I couldn't produce any reason to care either.

But then, things changed.

The once calm waters began to churn, disturbed by a foreign presence. I turned to observe the direction of the disturbance’s origin.

‘A…serpent?’

Truly, it was a serpent. One large enough to dwarf any skyscraper, but a serpent nonetheless.