Lucien had never seen stone melting, he never thought he would. Yet, as he was rising to meet the sea of flames, he felt his armour grow uncomfortably hot. His clothes were drenched in sweat long before he even reached the flames.
By the time he got to them, his armour had already started glowing red and losing its shape. He barely managed to raise his arm and command the [Soul Sack] to pull in the surrounding fire. It worked magnificently, the golden-white flames were pulled into the opening of the bag like a vortex, nestling deep within the boundless space inside the Divine memory.
As he watched the flames pouring into the memory, something in the distance caught his eye, which was strange since all he could see was a bright sea of flames. He shouldn't have been able to see anything inside it.
But he did. He saw something nestled within the flames, unaffected by their scorching heat. Something within him yearned to reach out towards it and grab hold of it, but his armour was at a perilous state. The stone had begun dripping down as molten magma, any longer and it would be destroyed.
And so he gave up on looking for the item and began descending back down to the Ebony Tower. His armour rapidly cooled as he left the superheated space, solidifying in the process.
Soon enough he reached the floating island, and stumbled as he landed. His armour had grown unbearably stiff all of a sudden. He couldn't even bring his arm down, he was stuck in a position holding the Soul Sack up. Like a statue.
Cursing under his breath, he dismissed the armour, returning it to his soul sea. Had it been a mundane armour, he might just have been stuck in that position until his death.
Shaking his head, he tied the Soul Sack to his waist once again and turned to Sunny, who was staring at him silently.
Lucien raised his prosthetic hand, and Sunny's gaze followed. Eventually he broke his gaze away from it and back to Lucien's face.
"What happened to your hand?"
"I lost it in a fight recently," Lucien explained, "Fortunately, there was a spare hand inside Nether's Citadel."
Sunny raised an eyebrow, the only hands of Nether's make he had seen were the porcelain doll like arms. Something about this arm specifically made him uneasy.
"Doesn't it feel weird?" He asked, taking his eyes off the appendage, "I mean, it's not going to work as well as your actual hand right?"
"Actually, it does," Lucien said, "It's surprisingly similar to an actual hand. I don't really feel the difference. That's a daemon's craftsmanship for you."
Sunny nodded, he didn't quite get it, but he wasn't going to push him about it. With that, he shifted the topic, "How did you manage to take that much divine flame, where did you even keep it?"
Lucien smiled and patted the memory at his waist, "It's a divine relic left behind by Nether. It never runs out of space."
'Divine.' Sunny thought, staring at the Memory. Three cores burned inside it, their light almost blinding him. No wonder it could harness the divine flames so easily. Maybe Nether had made that memory specifically for that.
"So, shall we go and power up the arch or do you plan to wait here a while longer?" Lucien said, breaking Sunny out of his thoughts
Sunny blinked, "Right, let's go."
Together, the two of them rose up the Ebony tower once again and stood in front of the arch. Lucien raised the Soul Sack and began tipping it to it's side.
A thin stream of glowing white fire began leaking out of the sack and fell onto the stone pedestal of the gateway. Strangely enough, it disappeared into the stone, and the runes began glowing, softly at first.
Eventually the glow from the runes grew strong enough to light up the entire room. Then, it stopped taking in the fire, and Lucien immediately pulled away.
Bright light suddenly hit them and Sunny stepped back, raising a hand to shield his eyes. Lucien, who was used to sudden flashes of bright light, simply stared forward as the gateway came to life and the smell of soil and grass hit his face. It was as if a rift had been torn in reality. All around the portal, the hall was just as it had been — dark, somber, cut from lusterless black stone.
Inside the portal, however, was a clear blue sky. Sunlight had suddenly invaded the Ebony Tower after thousands of years spent in utter darkness, and brought with it the sounds of the wind and the rustling of leaves.
A beautiful green meadow continued from where the obsidian floor ended, full of vibrancy and life. A shadow of a tall tree shaded the proximity of the portal, and there was a path of white stone leading from it toward a pristine white pagoda.
The tower rose higher than they could see from the portal. Surrounded by the blue skies, clouds, and vibrant green grass, it seemed to be the epitome of beauty and tranquility.
"So this is the Tower of Longing." Lucien muttered, he could see why it was named that. Even just looking at it, he wanted nothing more than to cross through the portal and reach it.
He glanced at the circle of runes under it, it was still glowing brightly. He had given it enough divine flames to last a while. Still, just to be safe, he poured a bit more directly onto the runes.
Seeing that, Sunny gulped and dismissed all of his Memories. Sunny wrapped both shadows around his body… and dashed toward the light.
'Please, please don't be an illusion!'
He appeared near the portal, dove inside…and stumbled, falling to his knees.
Behind him, Lucien slowly walked out the portal, taking in his surroundings quietly. He left Sunny to deal with his own emotions and began exploring the area.
The sunlight here wasn't nearly as hot as the Nightmare Desert was. It was rather pleasant actually. The island itself wasn't very large, Lucien could see the edge of it from where he stood. The edge was marked by floating slates of shattered marble. There was a meadow on this side of it, a grove that rustled under the wind, and a graceful gazebo built of the same white material as the Ivory Tower itself. The stone arch inside of it was also white, and a portal stood there unwavering.
Some distance away, connected to the gazebo by a stone path, stood the magnificent great pagoda that had once belonged to the Demon of Desire. If its copy in the Sky Below was somber and ominous, the original was the complete opposite. It was beautiful, graceful, and slightly surreal, as if too sublime to exist in the mortal realm.
Lucien frowned as he stared at the tower, he could feel it exerting a pull upon his soul, as if inviting him to come inside.
If experience had taught him anything, it was that if something was inviting him to come to it, it was probably not a good idea to listen.
He narrowed his eyes and scanned the tower for abnormalities until he found something strange near its base. There was something coiling around it, covering the perimeter of the tower. He couldn't see all of it, but he could see what it was. Made out of a white material, yet not as pristine as the tower itself. It was divided into multiple long and weathered sections.
Bones. They circled the tower, remnants of the tail of some giant dead creature. Narrowing his eyes, Lucien activated Nightveil.
Instantly an image was slammed into his mind. He saw a massive white dragon blotting out the Sun, a tsunami of white flames escaping from his mouth.
Lucien stumbled as the vision ended, blinking as the image swayed in his vision for a few more seconds. With Nightveil now deactivated, he looked at the bones in a new light.
'A dragon's corpse…'
He wanted a piece of it. Dragon bones would certainly be incredibly strong. The weapons he could fashion out of it…
Deciding he would grab parts of it later, Lucien began circling the tower from the right. On the other side of the great pagoda was a clear lake, with streams of water flowing out of it and falling over the edge of the island. In the bright sunlight, it seemed as though the entire surface of the lake was shining with pure golden radiance.
Then he walked a bit farther until the gate of the tower entered his vision. It was identical to the Ebony Tower below, the only difference being its colour, and the corpse of the dragon coiled around it.
The dragon's massive skull was placed near the doors, each of its wickedly sharp fangs was as tall as Lucien himself. He stared at them for a few seconds, pondering on what weapon he could make out of them.
'A spear perhaps? I am missing one right now.'
It could work, the fangs were long enough and the tip was almost perfectly shaped. But the shaft would require a lot of work, he'd need to file down the sharpness and the thickness of most of the fang. At that point would it even hold up its own weight?
Lucien saw Sunny walk towards the gate and joined him. They walked through the open mouth of the Dragon, Lucien tried to break off a fang as they walked, but the ancient bone wouldn't budge. He frowned, he'd need to cut it free later.
The sound of stone grinding on stone hit Lucien's ears, and at the same time a sudden tiredness consumed him.
All of a sudden, he wanted to fall asleep.
Grunting, he turned around to find the doors open and Sunny walking in. Cursing under his breath, he followed Sunny into the tower. The hall inside was decorated with tall windows that allowed the sunlight to enter and light it up. Even still, the inside was imbued with a strange simmering darkness.
Lucien's gaze passed through the hall until it fell in the center of the room.
Seven chains sprawled from the pristine white floor, as if growing out of it, each ending in a broken shackle. The shackles were inscribed with a myriad of runes and marred, their metal torn. They were also the source of the strange shimmering, which rose from their surface in ethereal wisps.
A chaotic, everchanging mass of pure darkness pulsated in the very center of the great hall. No, not darkness… rather, it seemed like a rift in the fabric of reality, one that could devour even light itself.
Sunny tensed and took a step forward, hoping to see what was hidden behind the darkness.
Seeing that Lucien raised his hand and stepped forward, he went to grab his shoulder and pull him back when an unfamiliar voice suddenly echoed in the great hall.
"Stop, Sunless! Turn back if you wish to live!"
Lucien's eyes widened, and his body reacted almost instinctively. Sand flowed out of his chest and into his waiting arms. At the same time, the cacophony of lightning filled up the room as well as a bright purple glow.
Arcs of lightning trailed over his body like a forest of vines as he raised his daggers.
He didn't sense anyone there, there was no life around them, he was certain about that. But someone had still managed to sneak up on them.
'Is my storm sense failing me?'
His gaze flicked around wildly, looking at every corner of the room, hoping to find their assailant. Try as he might, he could see no one in there.
'Where the hell?'
"Lucien," Sunny called all of a sudden, "Calm down, he's not a danger to us."
'Not right now,' He thought inwardly.
"You know him?" Lucien asked, turning towards Sunny, but he didnt dismiss his memory.
"He calls himself the Prince of Nothing." Sunny said truthfully, raising the mirror fragment he received from killing the mirror beast, "He's not here with us, he can only talk to us through this."
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance." The mirror said, "I am Mordret. Might you tell me your name?"