As they walked through the seemingly endless tunnel, torches on either side flared to life, illuminating their way ahead.
The silence was only broken by the rhythmic clicking of the saint's joints.
"Who are you anyway?" Lucien asked after a while.
The stone saint stayed silent for a while before eventually speaking in a neutral tone.
"One of Nether's failed experiments, one he tossed aside. Only, I wasn't content being disposed of. So, I evolved and overcame my shortcomings."
By this point Lucien had an idea about his identity. But still he asked:
"What happened after that?"
"He took me back in, and I fought for him. I was content being his pawn back then. But then the war began, and my usefulness ended. An Ascended Titan can only do so much in a war of that scale."
'War? What war?' Lucien frowned, 'Certainly not his skirmish with Storm…right?'
Unbeknownst to his thoughts, the saint continued speaking.
"But then something changed in the Daemon. He had learned something he never should have, something so vile it drove him mad. So he called me back to his citadel, and unmade me. Then, he remade me and gave me one final order."
Lucien was certain of the identity of his abductor now. The clues were right there.
To begin with, how was the corpse of the Stone Goliath there? How had it gotten there? What killed it.
But most importantly, why was there a massive hole in his chest?
Now, Lucien did not claim to be an expert in the field of chest holes, but he knew how it looked when a blow ripped someone's chest open. He had seen Effie fight after all.
The hole in the Goliath's chest opened outwards, as if something had pierced through its back. But the back of the corpse was still in one piece. There was no gruesome wound there.
Then what exactly had done that? Something must have torn its way out from the inside.
Or someone.
Come to think about it, how would someone go about creating life? For humans, and stormborn, stormforged? Anyways, for humans the new life had to be incubated inside another body for 9 months before it could actually live. How then had Nether created life?
Somehow he doubted he carried the newborn life within him to be incubated.
The laws of their world did not apply to beings like Nether.
Lucien thought back to the description of one of his attributes.
[Stormborn : Back before the fall of the gods, there existed a race born of Storm God, a portion of her divine tempest that split off and became its own being. All storms consider you one of their kin, for you are their only remaining successor.]
The Stormborn had been created by Storm God by shaving off a part of herself. She had created the progenitors of his race alone in a way not humanly possible.
Would Nether have used a different way? What was he the Daemon of anyway? Was he the Daemon of Stone?
If so, had he created the stone children by incubating them in eggs of stone? Or perhaps, had he simply cast off a part of himself that later became the stone children?
Then, how would one go about remaking someone? By the saint's words, he had to die to be reborn.
If so, how would one be sure that what was reborn was still the same being? Had Nether ripped out the soul of his previous form and imbued it into the new one?
Was that why there was a hole in the Stone Goliaths chest? Had his soul cores been ripped out?
Glancing at his companion, Lucien opened his mouth and said:
"By any chance, were you called the Stone Goliath before Nether remade you?"
The saint froze, and slowly turned to face Lucien.
"How…do you know that?"
So he was right, his companion was none other than the Stone Goliath. The very same one he fought in his first nightmare.
Lucien grinned, "I may or may not have killed you in my first nightmare."
The Stone Goliath stared at him, too stunned to speak. This…bag of flesh had killed him?
"What rank was I in there… if you don't mind me asking?" His tone indignant, he stared at the Stormborn expectantly.
Lucien raised an eyebrow at the tone. What had gotten into the saint? Then again, if he learned that someone had killed a version of him in a nightmare, he too would be distraught.
"An awakened Terror." He said, quietly observing the Goliath's face.
Was that a hint of relief he saw?
A satisfied smile crawled up his companion's face.
"Ah the siege of Styrmir. Yes I remember that, we won that battle."
Lucien shrugged, "And my task was to change that outcome. So I did, I killed you and managed to sneak a glance at Nether as he rose from the depths of the earth in his terrible form."
The saint's expression faltered, and he whispered in confusion. "Nether was there?"
Then he chuckled, but there was no mirth in his laughter.
"Heh, you planned that didn't you, you old bastard. I knew something was off about that battle."
Planned? What do you mean planned? Nether had planned that battle? A chill went down his spine.
Was that why he had appeared in the end? Because Lucien had ruined that plan?
Ba-dum.
Nether had been enraged when he rose up from the hole below. He had come to punish him.
Thank the gods his nightmare ended when it did. If merely looking at the daemon had shattered his body, facing his killing intent would have destroyed him on a fundamental level.
And now he was entering that very daemon's fortress.
Lucien was suddenly scared of all the stone walls surrounding him.
It wasn't long before they reached the end of the tunnel. As the last torch lit up in ghostly blue flames, Lucien could finally see their destination.
The narrow stone tunnel opened up into a wide antechamber. Lucien stared at the scene before him.
To their left was a long workstation with every tool humanly conceivable, and some he couldn't even begin to understand the purpose for.
To their right, were rows upon rows of operating tables. And on top of those tables were corpses.
As Lucien walked into the room, his attention remained on the corpses.
The bodies had been cut open with surgical precision. Each one for a different reason. One corpse had its organs taken out and arranged neatly beside it. Another had all of its bones cleanly removed, not a drop of blood on them.
At the far end of the human corpses was a vast reservoir full of sanguine liquid. Their blood had been extracted and stored. Right beside it was yet another container. This one stores ruby dust.
The same dust that flowed through the Stone Children.
Lucien paused as the last human corpse came into his view.
Strange, why was this one unscathed?
The body of this particular human was left in pristine condition. Not a single wound marred his flawless skin. Unlike the rest of its kin, he wasn't deathly pale either. He still had blood flowing in him.
Even stranger still, the body of a rudimentary stone saint lay beside him.
Lucien said rudimentary because, well, compared to the stone children he had fought, this one was…primitive.
For one, it did not have pale white stone-like skin. Rather its skin was coarse and rough. Unpolished. Its eyes were simple lumps of the ruby-like gem, not masterfully cut like the rest of its kin.
It lacked a face too, there was no mouth to speak with, no nose to smell, no ears to listen. Nothing.
It was fundamentally incomplete.
But why was it here? And why was it placed next to a pristine human corpse?
Lucien shook his head, he could not begin to understand a daemon's intentions. So he kept walking
That was not the end of the corpses either. Far from it. A chill went down Lucien's spine as he stared at the next row of corpses.
Beyond the rows of human corpses, lay the remains of a race long dead. The same race Lucien came from.
The Stormforged.
'What the hell?'
The members of his race, his ancestors, had also been cut open like the humans. There was little difference between them. In fact, apart from the property of their blood to attract lightning, they were identical.
But then something in his vision shifted, and he saw the bodies start to fade for a moment before becoming real again.
Lucien blinked in surprise and stared intently at the corpses. There, right under his vision, the corpses seemed to fade again and then come back.
As if they were stuck between existence and non-existence. Stuck between being something and nothing. It was difficult to even perceive their bodies. It was like a soft breeze, if you didn't focus entirely on it, it'll slip away.
'Thats…odd.'
Lucien looked down at his own body, but his own self was stable. There was no risk of disappearing into nothingness.
Why then were the corpses of his kin like that? Would that also be his fate when he died?
With these thoughts running in his mind, he kept walking forward, until eventually he came across a pristine Stormforged corpse.
He expected to see yet another rudimentary stone saint beside it but…
It was empty. The space reserved for the stone child was empty.
Lucien stared at the empty table for a while, trying to figure out what had happened.
It was like piecing together a puzzle with only a handful of pieces.
Regrettably, this secret was not his to uncover. At least not yet.
Sighing, he turned his gaze to the other things in the massive room.
After the line of corpses ended, there were yet more corpses. Corpses of stone saints unceremoniously discarded into a pile near the wall. Ruby dust surrounded that pile like a pool of blood.
It was their blood. Lucien had to remind himself. What he was seeing was no better than a pile of human corpses lying in a pool of blood.
The thought of it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Trying his best to ignore the bodies, Lucien kept going.
There, at the end of the room something caught his eye. Intrigued, he took a step forward, and then froze.
A shiver rattled his whole being, and his heart seemed to fly out of his chest with how fast it was beating. His eyes transfixed on what was in front of him.
An altar cut from a single slab of black onyx stood at the end of the room. And behind it was an incredibly beautiful statue of a young woman dressed in a flowing tunic, her face obscured by a veil. The young woman was holding a star in one hand, and a bolt of lightning in the other.
There was something incredibly familiar about her. It was almost as if he had seen that face before. As if she was kin.
But he hadn't. After all, who could ever forget meeting a Goddess?
That was unmistakably a statue of the Great Mother. Storm God. Goddess of Black Skies. Deity of the oceans, of the depths, darkness, stars, travel, guidance, and disaster.
Staring at it, Lucien felt a sudden tug at his soul. As if it was calling out to him, telling him to come closer and…
A sudden sharp pain brought him back to reality. Deep magenta blood was slowly dripping out of a cut in his finger.
It seemed he had inadvertently cut himself on a piece of scrap metal. He really needed to get rid of that habit.
'Then again…' He stared warily at the statue of Storm and its strangely alluring call. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to keep this particular habit.
Forcing himself to look away, Lucien turned to the other side of the room where the workstation of the Tenebrous Daemon lay untouched by the throes of time.
And right beside it.
Lucien's eyes widened as he recognized what exactly he was looking at.
It was a gateway.