[Eden]
“Celeste, thunderslash!”
A flash appeared across the room, along with a thundering boom that sounded exactly like a thunderstrike.
Crack.
There was no mistaking it. The owner of the voice was definitely Prince Alex.
Crack. Crack.
Within the glimpse of an eye, he had moved all the way to the end of the room. And most importantly…
CRACK!
The orb, slashed through by the prince, quickly shattered into fine dust. Just like that, the giant remains of the jet-black armor began dissipating into thin air. At long last, we had found hope.
But the fight was far from over.
The two remaining Vahlias hadn’t slowed their paces down at all, and would soon be right in front of me. One of them had been blasted with fire for quite some time now, and its core would probably be exposed. It’s the perfect chance to level down the playing field.
“Prince Alex, now—”
I hadn’t accounted for one thing. The prince, right after casting the ultimatum spell, fell to the ground. With half a second to collect my thoughts, it became evident to me that the prince ran out of stamina to do that single strike.
This was really bad. The longer this fight dragged on, the more stamina I would lose as well. We didn’t have many options at play. The more I tried to think of a solution, the more worried I grew about our fate. These monsters had just had their weakness revealed right in front of us, yet we were powerless to finish the job.
“EDEN! GO ALL OUT!”
Hearing the prince’s call clicked me back into the battle. The Vahlias, both within striking distance from me, were definitely ready to eliminate their biggest threat. Was there any other option? I closed my eyes.
You want to burn this place to hell? Be my guest.
This time, I could feel the markings growing on my left arm. With each inch it grew, the whispers that had receded grew louder and louder. This time, instead of suppressing them, I let them run rampant in my mind.
I was reminded of the prince’s words from our earlier meeting. “Who said you needed to control it?” Was he expecting us to lose, and counting on a rampaging me to secure the victory? Was I a mere pawn in his grand plan?
What a crazy son of a bitch.
The whispers soon grew a lot louder than my own thoughts, overtaking my entire mind. I was still conscious, but I could only feel a single emotion: pure, unhinged rage.
Along with mental changes, there were noticeable physical changes as well. The markings had grown exponentially faster, and now the left side of my body was completely covered with it. Moreover, the fire spirit no longer grew out of my left arm, but completely covered my entire body, as if I was the fire spirit itself. However I moved, the fire spirit followed suit. Finally, and most importantly, I feel strong. Stronger than I could ever imagine, brimming with so much potential.
The Vahlias swung their axes, but in the blink of an eye, I dashed away to a few steps behind. The axes struck nothing but the ground, rendering the Vahlias immobile for just half a second.
I extended both my arms to the front. Concentrating every fiber in my body, I gathered all my strength and let all the unbridled rage take its form. Rings of fire formed around the hands of the fire spirit that was enveloping me, and finally, a beam of fire shot from the palms of the fire spirit.
This time around, the stream of fire was different. I could feel it. It was much more compact, concentrated, explosive. It struck the first Vahlia for a solid 2-3 seconds, before carving a hole through its chest and blasting through it to hit the second Vahlia. Just a few more seconds, and those bastards would burn to death-
What a cliché. Unfortunately, I had burned through all my stamina reserves within that short span of a couple of seconds. With that, the fire quickly flickered out of life, and the whole room was purged with darkness once again.
It was common knowledge. “Casting magic would take away one’s energy, so use wisely.” With absolutely zero energy left, I stumbled to the ground, helpless to do anything else.
So close, yet so far. The intense flames must’ve burned a hole through both of those bastards. What a shame I couldn’t finish it. With the markings on my hand disappearing once more, I regained my independent thoughts.
Prince Alex, you’re up.
As my eyelids inched closer and closer together, a brief moment of flash filled up my hazy eyesight, followed by the all-so-familiar sound of thunder.
“....there’s not much time left…”
“...complete! They can use it now…”
“...THEY’RE HERE! THE CALAMITIES ARE ALREADY—”
“You’re our only hope.”
Gaahh!
I woke up from that horrible nightmare with heavy gasps and pants. As usual, I retained absolutely nothing from the nightmare, but I knew that I had dreamt the same thing hundreds of times already.
Coming to my senses, I realized that I had ended up in a completely unfamiliar setting. I was enclosed within a dark, gloomy cubicle. The cell that I was in was made of rough, rocky walls, with the exception of one side where metal bars were in place. Dust accumulating on the coarse floor, along with all the other aspects, suggested that this place was old. The single source of light that kept my vision running was the torch placed against a wall on the other side of the gated bars. The subtle crackling it produced was the only thing accompanying me within this lonely room.
I’m in… prison? A really old one as well… huh.
I approached the metal bars in an attempt to peek through them. Though I couldn’t see a single soul along the corridor outside the cell, a certain thing piqued my interest. It was a room, completely sealed with metal at one end of the corridor. I wondered what sort of crime one had to do to be imprisoned there, where not a single ray of light could enter. Then again, why was I in prison in the first place? Didn’t I just save the day?
“You’ve awoken.”
A deep voice called out, taking me by surprise. I was confident no one else was around, so who could it be?
“Seems like fate brought us together once again.”
This time around, I noticed a peculiarity in the voice. It was… inside my head.
“Who are you, and how are you talking in my head?” I tried to ask for an answer, but the only answer I received was silence.
…Seems like I need some rest. Am I really talking to a voice inside my head?
“It seems that you don’t have any memory of what happened in the other world.” The voice appeared once again, but it didn’t give me the answers to my questions.
“Answer me! Who are you, and what do you want? How are you talking inside my head?” Either I had completely gone mad, or there was a being capable of communicating telepathically sealed within the prison, and I was definitely more inclined to believe in the former.
“None of those are important for now. What’s important is, you need to retrieve the Codex.”
It was a weird thing, having a voice speak inside your head yet your surroundings being completely tranquil. The ensuing silence gave me an opportunity to contemplate on what the hell this voice was talking about.
“What’s a codex? Why’s it important?” Finally collecting my thoughts, I decided to play along with this ‘game’ it proposed.
“You can use runes, can’t you? You’ll need the Codex to unlock your maximum potential.”
For the first time, I took the mysterious voice seriously. Was it referring to my newfound powers from the dungeon? That stone? The more I tried to come up with answers, the more questions clouded my mind.
“Find the Codex in the Garden of Books. Once you obtain it, all the answers you seek will reveal themselves to you, eventually.”
“Garden of Books? Where is that?” I’d never heard of such a place in my entire life. If this voice wanted me to look for it, couldn’t it have given me more clues as to where it was?
“I’m afraid you’ll have to figure that out yourself. Your guests didn’t give us much time to converse.”
“Wait, what? Hang on a minute. I don’t even know who you are—”
“Good luck, Omega.”
“Wait—”
My conversation with the unknown entity ended abruptly by the sound of a creaking wooden door from the other end of the corridor. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder of whatever had just occurred. Who was the owner of that voice? What was the Codex, and why did the voice want me to retrieve it? There was always the possibility that I had simply succumbed to madness, but the more I thought of it, the more it seemed unlikely. It knew that I could activate the magical stones—the ones it called ‘runes’.
As the steps grew closer and closer, I decided that it would be wise to keep whatever had happened to myself. A guy in prison telepathically communicates with an unfathomable being, who would believe that? Besides, I had my own questions, such as how I ended up here in the first place.
“Nice to finally meet you on better… conditions, Eden.” Finally, the person approaching my cell had his identity revealed by the dimly burning torch. It was none other than Prince Alex,
“With all due respect, Your Highness, I doubt I can call this better conditions.”, I snapped back.
“And I’m here to fix that.” With a face full of determination, the prince gave me a proposal that one couldn’t even imagine having the honor to receive.
“Join me.”
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