Seething tendrils extended from the Knights fingers, creeping into the sword – and just as repulsive, followed whisps from the blade that crept past the Knight's armour and into its soul, fibres that weaved a seamless connection.
Like coils and braids they bound, the borders between them vanishing. It was like watching nerve endings reconnect. And just as they began to cohere, the tendrils tightened and pulled apart. Similar to when one meshes to books together, when they pulled apart, a strong and established force kept them together, force fusing them, sending a massive ripple from the point of contact between the Knight and the blade.
The entire island experienced a wave go through it. Chilling. Wrong.
It was not physical but many of the memories found themselves collapsing to the floor.
It was like a shock from a blast had passed through them.
They all fell due to their bodies instinctively bracing for the jolt.
But it never came, instead they felt its echo pass through them.
Everything around the Knight turned into shades of black and white.
The people from below all starred at this with wonder. Reserved. None knew what was happening, and this was the first ever they had seen anything happen on the island.
"I thought you said it couldn't be him." – screamed Roon as she got up.
She shielded her face with her arms, as if hurricane winds were blowing through the building. But just like the initial phantom explosion, these winds were phasing right through everything. Nonetheless, their senses braced for their impacts accordingly. It was as if they were watching an explosion as ghosts, unaffected by it, but triggered by its implications.
"I did check," said Ingris. "He didn't recognise me or the well outside." she too bracing her feet for a force pushing her away that never came.
It was like continuously missing a step on a staircase going down. Their senses were being flooded with false alerts, and visual perceptions to back it up. One thing was clear for them though; all this made them feel that they were not real.
"Then how is he holding that sword…" Roon stumbled backward from the mental winds, "do you think he didn't recognise this place because his memories are missing?"
All he Laurels looked at Roon. If she was right. There were major implications.
Then just as this psychic storm had been summoned it vanished. But everything remained the same. The grass dull. Colourless. No reminder of its once vibrant shades. The wind did not even blow – they had reached calm at the centre of the storm. No grass bent out of line, no leaf shook in the wind, and no breeze struck the walls of the Laurel home. The forces of nature had stopped. Even the river stopped flowing.
The Laurels got up, all feeling like they had just braced though a typhoon. They all looked around, confused by the lack of any physical signs of damage. The looked to each other, getting up of the ground, nothing moved so they were at least sure time had not been halted.
Cautiously the other Laurels unaware of the situation in the hallway, began walking to where they all felt the disturbance come. Even without that, they had a pretty good guess where the explosion had originated. One of them felt more from this, and this is why she ran right through everyone, blitzing straight through the hallways.
She looked inside, and just like the Laurels that were already in there, and the others that were closer than her, they looked at it. They bore witness to a sight of unimaginable emptiness.
Everything there was calm. The Knights armour was a blinding brilliance of black. It felt so deep, one wanted to look away in fear of losing themselves in it. The Knight stood there, unmoving, holding onto the blade, staring at it.
The blade then grew. Matching the Knight in size.
The Knight then moved, swinging the blade around its arm. To the left, a swing to the right. Even as it sliced through the air, it made no noise. It was thick and heavy, and yet the air did not move.
The Knight felt a creeping sensation fill its retched attempt at a soul from the inside. The fibres that had formed lined up all along the borders of the gorge like divide. They grew taught pulling firmly on each other. The boundless emptiness closed, and the divide closed.
A whole inner chasm that even the Knight had been unaware of closed.
And in this instance. The world became an unsettling level of quite.
Roon, Ingris, and the others felt a pang in their heart.
They looked away.
The pang did not leave.
A veil of black consumed them. Many hyperventilated – collapsing.
It was as if they were submerged in the void. But No. This was an utterly different presence.
The presence of a being above those that just dwell in the void.
The presence of a being that most of the void would never be in.
For at last – the Knight was whole. Complete. And rightfully the being many of the void found to utterly sinister.
The kind of soul that had never meant to be was at last reconnected.
[Vile Sword] has been successfully connected.
1703 Vermin Followers Dormant on Blade active.
Resources have been merged.
Influx of stored souls from blade added to inventory.
View [Vile Sword] stats?
…
Also…
Congratulations on becoming the rightful Dreaded soul that I was always meant to serve.
A complete dreaded soul. Ancient souls. Vermin. And The sword it had been seeking.
This was a great hall. It must be done.
The Knight had thought so – and immediately got corrected. It's blade had somehow stored one more thing in itself. It's memories – and one last message from it's former self.
Right before the Knight even made a stable connection. A flood rushed right into its mind. A flood of something the Knight was not even familiar with. This was nothing like the rush of information it got when it opened a book from the Wisdom Series.
This was a rush of images, experiences, of which could only be described as nothing but memories. Human Memories. It did not last for long; these memories were nothing compared to the extensive existence it had lived.
They were not stored an extensively as the way it's mind collected information now. So, it felt them to be foreign. Fractured. Short – yet took him time to comprehend.
It was like changing programming languages. Only this was a huge understatement of the gap between their complexities.
'Thirty-seven years of memories – I had always figured I was human – but never one for such a short life. It had my memories. Souls of the damned who touched it. Even more vermin - incredible. They had become fused to the blade because I had somehow managed to put some of my soul and my spirit essence into it before tossing down that hole. You might be even greedier than me you wretched blade.
Come to think of it, I had already gained a power level before I died. Somewhere in the middle of that night. Right as I ran from those thing – I got it. Human me would be so proud – at the very least not all of its strength was because of the void of which he so despised.
I then imparted a bit of my soul and spirit essence into it. Short though his life was – this would make him the first ever human to unseal. After all I got that power level before I even faced that horrendous One of the Void. In any case – you did well my blade – you did well.'
The Knight then lifted the sword closer to its face, glaring deeply at it.
The lack of colour remained, including the calm it had brought. All of it collecting and condensing around the Knight. The Knight then looked around, now with a revised vision. It turned around absorbing the scene in the hallway and the Laurels gawking at it.
'That can be her – is it – how is she still alive after so long?'
The Knight then thought back to the stasis town, 'I might just be because these human memories are so unfamiliar to me, but there's no way this is the same planet, is it? It used to be way smaller. And less chaotic, I guess. My battle with Romeo would have been enough to bring all of it to ruin.'
As the Knight looked around, with new and profound insight, one of the Laurels, one that had just ran in, intently gazed at the Knight, looking deeply at it more so that the others. She walked forward; she was walking towards the Knight like a lost lamb in disbelief.
"Is it you? Is it really you? I my dreaming? Am I dead?"
The Knight's train of thought then averted towards, her, it had not seen her before – she probably does not meet up with every knight that got the invitation. But surprisingly, it did know her. It looked down towards her direction.
"You must be that little girl right. Excuse my memories, they are a little foggy, that was my last night alive, you see. Let me think. Lava, Leva, no, it's Lerva, right?"
You have encountered a level 434 memory, Laurel Lerva. Type-Keeper. Class-Leagues.
"It really is you…?"