The darkness was broken by the red flames surrounding his left arm, painting the surroundings with the color of blood. The surrounding darkness fled away from the flame with a weird sigh.
Rowan looked at his hand that was still burning, and fed more vitality to the flames, making it brighten and spread its lights to encompass the entire room, since his Spatial Sight was hampered inside this facility, he had to use his senses more often.
He activated his Energy sight and immediately began picking spots of latent energy, and noticed that the power flowing through the cables had been cut off.
Picking up the Axe, he proceeded to the next room. It was more of the same, empty ports, and silent halls, and the Vestibularies he saw had no more body parts.
That ended when he saw a broken Vestibulary, where the smoldering body of a person beside it. The person was clutching a melted piece of metal that Rowan assumed they used to break open the Vestibulary.
Strangely, the armor worn by this person should be made of bones, for he saw that there was no metallic component among the ashes he left behind.
Hovering inside the broken Vestibulary was a heart that was impaled with a rib bone. The heart was black like marble with red streaks running through it, every now, and then it would spew out red flames like an erupting volcano, and without the shielding of the Vestibulary, the air around was shimmering, and the floor was turning red.
This whole facility was built with Davross alloy, which should be extremely heat-resistant. Yet, the heat was beginning to melt the floor.
This heart that hovered before him, which appeared to be made up of flames and black rock, was attuned towards energy. Rowan could not help but compare it to his present heart before it was transformed into a void.
He still sensed the familiarity with this heart also, and as he got closer to the heart, the flames that it spewed transformed into a golden Soul flame.
There was no conscious thought that made him open his burning hand and stretched it forth. The burning heart came to rest on his palm, and the flames that were burning in his hand turned golden, this was surprising, as he did not know that the Flesh Light of the Abomination could mimic Soul Flame.
Although there were slight differences, this was indeed Soul Flame, and he discovered that this flame was pure, without any fluctuations within, and even though it lacked destructive capabilities, this sort of flame may have many hidden uses.
The heart slowly turned to ash in his palm, and without any soul flame to mimic, the Flesh Light returned to its red form as Rowan braced himself for the wave of Soul Energy and the memories it would bring.
As Rowan sank into the darkness, he heard a voice, and he soon became aware of what was taking place.
“What do you think of this painting?”
He was inside the body of a short-haired man, the hands of the man were wrapped in chains and heavy manacles that clasped tight over his wrist and legs.
The chains gave out a faint silver glow that increased its weight, making each link in the chain easily weigh above a thousand tons.
The chains were very restrictive, and he could barely move, the man stood by a dark green painting that depicted a young boy being eaten by his shadow.
The countenance of the wailing boy was a picture of fear and despair, the mouth of his shadow eating him contained long fangs, and it had seized the hair of the boy with such force that part of his scalp was bleeding, tufts of his blond hair were falling like rain.
The short-haired man brought his fingers to trace the lines of fear in the boy’s face, he lingered around the mouth of the boy, as if he was listening to the sounds of his screams. The painting’s description of a doomed soul was so vivid it resembled a portal to another reality. A still moment of madness.
The voice behind the man began speaking again, after not getting any response.
“I believe It could mean many things. But this picture explains itself with a rather singular narrative. You should be very familiar with this image, don’t you, Vorsher the Fallen.” The voice had a flavor of mockery coloring its tone.
The voice seemed to trigger the chained man, and he turned away from the painting,
“Fallen?” He chuckled and shifted his position. He adjusted his hand, the manacles holding them were heavy and whenever he lifted his hands they dragged at him.
“Your people were beset by monsters on all sides, and I took it upon myself to stand before your destruction. And paying with my blood, I saved you all from a sure death. I ask for nothing from you, but you intend to kill me.”
“Kill you? Surely, you jest Vorsher. Whatever gave you that idea that we would kill you?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Vorsher growled, “maybe it’s because you have me chained for weeks while draining my blood, or the lust for my power that I see in the eyes of your people.” ｏｖ𝚕．ｃｏ𝚖
The voice was quiet for a while, before replying in a wry tone, “Nothing gets over your head, does it?”
“Eehh, This one is pretty obvious. But still, I hold nothing against you. I know the value of my bloodline. Even though you won’t be able to replicate our Pathway, it would boost your own to an enormous degree.”
“Important things are said twice. I don’t hold this matter against you. This world is hard enough and everyone struggles to survive in whichever ways they can. Even killing your savior.”
Vorsher sighed, his words grew in strength, “But I cannot die now, I have given too much for you to take my life. My mother is in pain. I did what I had to do to save her. I have to rescue her from her torture and I implore you, to let me leave, and I promise you on my name, that I would not come back for revenge.”
“Oh Vorsher, Champion of Myrrah. This world does not deserve you. Don’t you know what the gods call your people now… Abominations”
A black hand holding a pair of shears came to his vision. The arm ruthlessly pushed the blade into his stomach, and began to aggressively stab, again and again.
The voice began to giggle, “I love my work!”
Rowan focused on the painting again, the ruby blood from the scalp of the doomed boy reflected the face of Vorsher. He was not flinching in pain, instead he was mouthing words: “Do not forget. This world betrayed her first.”
Rowan’s grip on this lost memory was weakening, his heart was in chaos. All these memories were pointing to a terrifying possibility. He noticed that the shears that killed Vorsher were etched with the symbol, Three.
Also, it appeared that Vorsher was not human, but the champion of an Abomination Core, Myrrah. It was laughable that Rowan had never thought the Primordial Record would have reached non-human hands, but that should not be such a strange thing, after all, the hint was in the name of the black book–Primordial.
It must have existed for an extremely long time. Rowan wanted to view the figure behind Vorsher once more, although his instinct was screaming against it, he decided to risk the attempt.
He pushed his perception to see behind Vorsher, straining to catch what was behind him, barely seeing a shadow before he was expelled from the vision.
Opening his eyes, he saw that the darkness had deepened, and now it was bringing with it, a chill that made his breath form mist in front of him, reminding him that he had barely any clothes on his body.
Rowan gritted his teeth and pushed more vitality into the Flesh Light, the flames rose, banishing the darkness and there was a sizzling sound in the air and there was a smell of burning flesh as if the darkness were alive.