Alister looked at him with disgust.
"Crime? What crime?"
Nacht raised an eyebrow in confusion. It seemed that he had accidentally offended the red eyed sinner.
"You know what I—"
Alister sneered and answered in an aggrieved tone.
"I didn't commit a crime. No, I killed a snake. A vile obnoxious snake that sacrificed herself to protect a monster! killing her would have been atonement for a hundred years in penance!"
Blood stained Alister's teeth red as he continued with a hateful grin.
"That imbecile cost me more than you could ever imagine! Even after her death she still managed to stab me in the back! If I had succeeded, I would have been crowned with glory… but now I am trapped. Trapped in this hell with no way out."
They were both quiet for a while after that. It seemed that Alister had gone through his own troubles before he died and was sent to penance. He still seemed very peeved about it, but above all he yearned to escape this place.
'Unfortunately, leaving penance is impossible.'
Alister threw his blade to the side causing its clamor to reverberate across the room. He stood up and walked towards the fountain before drinking its liquid. Alister's wounds visibly began to heal at a remarkable rate. Eventually he finished drinking and turned around to look at Nacht.
His voice returned to its usual tone.
"You win, you can ask me another question if you like."
Before Nacht answered, he began to try and make his way over to the fountain. He tried to stand only to topple back down to the floor. Nacht was heavily injured and had lost a lot of blood making him light headed.
Alister walked over to him and began dragging his near limp body towards the fountain.
"Drink up!"
In the next moment Nacht found himself swimming inside the fountain for the second time. He felt himself relaxing as the miracle liquid healed his body back to its original state. Eventually, he crawled out of the fountain and found Alister with his blade back in his hand leaning against the fountain's edge.
Wasting no time, Nacht began to ask his final question.
"Can you elaborate on what happens when you physically die in penance instead of succumbing to the infection?"
Alister licked his lips.
"To die in penance is to meet a fate far worse than anything you could imagine."
Alister paused for a moment.
"When you die in penance you enter the domain of one of the eephermals."
Nacht leaned forward slightly.
"The eephermals?"
Alister nodded.
"Their name means eternal punishment. They are the first and most powerful of the abstracts, believed to be born at the dawn of the dark age. Think of them as fallen deities who are comparable to even the gods. They are the very entities that rule over penance and prevent us enlightened from leaving. In fact, you have already met one of them already."
Nacht's eyes widened.
"I have?"
Thinking back on his experience so far within the first gate, there was only one entity that Nacht could think of that fit Alister's description. Alister answered a moment later as if to confirm his suspicions.
"The Voice, the being that answers your call when you invoke the law and speaks to your mind when you first enter penance. It is believed to be the only abstract that can influence the overworld.
Nacht shivered when he heard that he had actually come in contact with a deity. A fallen deity no less but still a deity!
"The Voice is one of five eephermals. The second eephermal is the Black Pillar. It holds dominion over death, so when you die in penance you enter its domain. No one knows what happens when you die but unlike a mundane human, your soul isn't put to rest."
Nacht had already thought the voice was quite creepy. However, the black pillar seemed to somehow outmatch it. Now that he thought about it, how did the eephermals manage to reach their current power? Were they born with it like the gods or did they advance to their current might?
Nacht knew of four levels of power for the enlightened and six for the abstracts… well now seven. For humans once you conquer the first gate you become a sinner. Sinners are the most common enlightened and only gain access to a single ability.
After the second gate you reach the second level, a redeemer. Only the most exceptional enlightened can become a redeemer. This wasn't just because of their power, it was because they chose to challenge the second gate when they didn't have to. They are seen as the ideal enlightened, both fearless and powerful.
The third level is called an exalt. They are the elite of the elite and are by far the most powerful tools in humanity's arsenal as well as the most respected. In fact, humanity only had nine current exalts. A loss of a single exalt would be a detrimental loss to humanity, which is why they are rarely ever sent into battle. However, if they are sent into battle then it would have to be against an existential threat like an abstract of equal rank. The exalts can also no longer be considered mortal since at this level they begin to show signs of a superior nature.
After the fourth gate an enlightened becomes a champion. Humanity currently only had three champions, they were also humanities current leaders. Nacht didn't know much about the champions since they never appeared in public and Solren had refused to tell him much more. However, knowing how powerful the exalts were, the champions must be an unimaginable existence.
Nacht didn't know any of the other ranks after champion since no one had ever managed to reach a rank beyond the fourth level. Unlike the enlightened though, the abstracts had managed to reach the pinnacle of power. Thankfully, they were all sealed away in penance. Still, some managed to escape into their world which was causing humanity's current predicament.
The first level for an abstract was a blight. He had already seen one on the floor of the dark forest and he had witnessed how easily they can overpower even experienced enlightened sinners. The second level was dreg, the third thrall, the fourth abomination, the fifth sinwrought, the sixth godfall, and finally eephermal.
Nacht didn't know a lot about the capabilities of the abstracts besides his own experience, but to reach the third or even fourth level, meant that it had to have caused an enormous amount of suffering. Unlike how enlightened advance, the abstracts feed off of sin which can only be provided by humans.
Now that he thought about it, the abstracts weren't the only ones who had caused a lot of suffering. Humanities champions must have performed four rituals to enter into penance with each ritual being a greater sin than the last. Sin was the origin of suffering after all, so the champions must have caused enough harm to facilitate their own rise to power.
'All the more reason I have to succeed.'
Nacht leaned forward slightly.
"What about the other eephermals?"
"The third eephermal is the Blood Moon. It's always above you whenever you're in penance."
Alister looked to the ceiling.
"Well, except when you're in weird places I guess? Usually no matter where you go the blood moon's red light is always with you, but in the crucible I guess it's different."
Nacht was a little disappointed that he hadn't yet seen the blood moon. He had known about penance's red sky and had been looking forward to seeing it. Now that Alister had revealed that it was an eephermal he was even more interested.
"The fourth eephermal is called the dreamer. As you can guess from its name, it causes you to dream… or rather, traps you in a dream. However, you don't have to worry, it only traps you in a dream if you try to worship or pray to the gods."
Nacht had never once prayed to the gods, hell he didn't even know how. The gods had gone silent long ago so he doubted anyone would even think of praying when they knew their plea wouldn't be answered.
So far the eephermals seemed to be less like abstracts and more like the laws of penance. Perhaps that's exactly what they were.
"The last eephermal is the Authority. Not much is known about it besides its name."
Nacht waited to hear more about the Authority, but it seemed that was all he had to say about the last of the forsaken deities. He had many more questions to ask Alister but it seemed that he'd have to figure out the answers by himself. Alister seemed to be done with answering all of his questions and the temperature of the room had been rising for quite some time.
Nacht sighed in disappointment.
"It seems like it's time to go."
They both walked to the other end of the room where Alister activated the engravings. Nacht felt the familiar pull of the engravings enchantment until he was someplace else.