CHAPTER 14 — ARKOMB AND THE PORTAL
Râ barely moved. He stood at the center of the frozen cave, upright, calm, one hand in the pocket of his long white-and-gold coat, the other slightly raised toward the object he had come to seek from the very beginning. In front of him, in the middle of the motionless metallic statues and the cold shadows of the Temple of Frost, the blue light of Arkomb pulsed faintly between the little white devil's hands, as if the stone possessed a breath, a will, an almost living heartbeat. The silence was so deep that the only thing one could hear was the distant dripping of ice somewhere in the darkness, until the exact moment Râ's fingers drew near the gem, and the little devil's black, round eyes snapped open all at once with a dry, almost mechanical sound. Its head slowly lifted. Its smile was too wide. Too fixed. Too inhuman. Then its shrill voice split the cold like a blade: "Don't touch that." Râ stopped, very slightly, before turning his eyes toward it with an almost amused expression. The little devil then raised its small clawed hand toward the ceiling, and immediately, in a metallic rumble that made the entire cavern vibrate, the motionless silhouettes around them began to move. The enormous metal golems lined up in the shadows opened their blue eyes one by one, their joints creaking like ancient doors forced open after a thousand years of sleep. Some carried gigantic spears, others war hammers, and others still blades too heavy to belong to any human. The ground trembled slightly beneath their first step. The little devil quickly backed away with Arkomb pressed against its chest and let out a nervous little laugh before shouting in a higher voice: "You're going to die, thief!" Râ barely tilted his head. His smile stretched. "Really?"
At that very moment, miles away, in a small snowy village still alive despite the cold, an old merchant wrapped up behind his stall was shouting at the top of his lungs in the main street: "Fish! Fish! Cheap fish! Fis—" A monstrous sound suddenly tore through the air. BOOM. A distant shockwave made the windows, buckets, and wooden rooftops tremble. The merchant jumped so hard he almost knocked over his entire stand, then lifted his head toward the mountains and turned pale when he saw a huge column of smoke rising in the distance behind the white hills. "Good heavens…" he breathed. The inn door creaked open behind him, and Vachi slowly stepped out into the street, his hands tucked inside his sleeves, his eyes half-closed, as if he had already understood before even looking. His gaze settled on the black smoke rising far away into the gray sky. Then, to the merchant's surprise, a small smile appeared on his wrinkled face. A discreet smile. Almost satisfied. "Hm…" he murmured, and nothing more.
Inside the cave, the fight had not even truly begun, and Râ was already bored. The golems advanced all together like a tide of metal, their heavy steps shaking the ice, their weapons throwing frozen splinters into the air with every movement, but in his eyes, they were nothing more than a crowd of slow guardians, powerful perhaps, but deprived of that essential thing Râ despised in almost all his enemies: the soul of battle. The first golem raised its gigantic axe. The second almost leaped forward with surprising speed for its size. The third drove its spear into the ground to propel its armored body ahead. Râ sighed. "Are you serious?" The next second, the temperature in the chamber changed violently. A crushing heat devoured the air. A golden light burst through the darkness. And suddenly, Râ's body seemed to become the center of a miniature sun. He stepped forward. Just one step. The first golem melted from chest to skull before it could even complete its movement, its metal liquefying in a dreadful mechanical scream. Râ then turned his hand slightly to the right. A solar wave crossed the chamber and sliced two more guardians clean in half, leaving their upper parts to slide slowly into the snow. A fourth tried to crush him with its hammer; Râ barely raised a finger, and an explosion of heat shot upward, blowing off the colossus's arm and head into the icy ceiling. The others kept coming regardless, walking through the molten wreckage as if their programming surpassed all fear. Râ then burst into laughter, spread his arms, and behind him appeared a blazing solar sphere, immense, compact, almost unbearable to look at. "Ahhh… there we go. You want noise? Let's make noise." He snapped his fingers. The sphere dropped brutally into the chamber. The whole cave shook. The ground cracked. The light swallowed everything. Metal screamed. And when the heat finally faded, almost nothing remained of the golems except twisted, melted silhouettes embedded in a pool of red-hot iron already cooling against the snow. At the back of the chamber, the little devil had remained frozen in place, its legs trembling, its small round eyes completely widened with panic. Râ slowly turned toward it, brushing imaginary dust off his shoulder. "What were you saying?"
The little devil opened its mouth, backed away again, tripped over a stone, then got back up screaming in a broken voice: "Y-you… you're not normal!" Râ tilted his head, then walked forward. The little creature tried to run, but it didn't even make it three steps. A streak of light shot across the cave like a line of gold. A second later, the little devil remained standing, still frozen in place… before its body split cleanly in two along a glowing red line. The two halves slowly slid to the floor, dropping Arkomb into the frozen snow. Silence returned immediately. Râ crouched down, observed the stone for a few seconds, then finally picked it up in his hand. The blue gem pulsed once. Then a second time. As if it were observing him in return. "So you're Arkomb…" he murmured. "You made me come all this way for this? You'd better be useful." He straightened up, put the stone away, and left the chamber without even giving one last glance to the smoking ruins behind him.
After several minutes of walking through the heart of the mountain, alone amid increasingly silent frozen tunnels, Râ gradually felt something in the air begin to change. It was no longer just cold. It was something else. A strange density. A sensation of emptiness. As if the world itself was becoming thinner with every step. The rock around him seemed less natural, more ancient, almost polished by an unknown force. Eventually, he emerged into an immense underground cavity so vast that its boundaries could barely be seen. There, far in the distance, shone a gigantic opening: a kind of monumental portal, embedded in the stone, made of black concentric circles and glowing bluish lines that pulsed slowly like celestial veins. And standing right before this portal… was a colossal silhouette. An immense mass. A draconic shape. Folded wings. A long spiked tail. A horned head turned toward the darkness. The entire ground seemed smaller next to it. Râ stopped, looked up, and smiled. "Ah… so this is where you were." The creature slowly straightened, its claws scraping against the stone. Then it turned its head toward him. Its eyes shone in the darkness. It was indeed the Messenger. The dragon. The one who should never have been standing again. Its deep, growling voice made the whole cavity vibrate: "You have returned again." Râ raised an eyebrow, almost disappointed at not being more impressed. "Ah… so you can talk." The dragon suddenly opened its jaws and let out a roar so violent that shards of ice fell from the ceiling. But at the very moment it seemed ready to charge, something changed behind it.
The portal began to beat like a monstrous heart. An invisible force crossed the air. An attraction. A pull. The Messenger's gigantic body tensed instantly. Its claws dug into the stone with an atrocious sound. It tried to resist. Its wings spread wide. It roared in anger. But the power of the portal was too great. Too absolute. Its body was slowly dragged backward, as if a giant hand were seizing it from the other side of the world. "No…!" it growled while plowing the ground with its paws. Râ blinked, stepped back half a pace, then watched the scene with the smile of a child standing before a forbidden spectacle. "It looks like a cinematic movie… amazing." The dragon was then swallowed all at once. WHOOM. Its immense body disappeared into the portal's light, devoured by the other side in a whirlwind of wind and dead snow. Silence fell in an instant. Heavier than ever. More unreal than ever. Râ stood there for a few seconds, motionless, facing the vibrating opening. Then he lowered his eyes toward Arkomb in his hand. The stone was pulsing more strongly now, as if it were answering the portal's call. "So that's how this works…" he whispered. His smile widened even more. Then, without hesitating for a single second, he closed his fingers around the gem.
CRACK.
Arkomb shattered in his palm.
A violent blue light burst between his fingers. Then a silent wave passed through his entire body. For a fraction of a second, Râ felt something he had almost never known before: a sensation of detachment. Of tearing away. As if his entire being were being separated into two layers. He lowered his eyes… and saw his own body still standing in front of him. Motionless. Empty. While a translucent, luminous, almost solar version of himself was already floating slightly above the ground. His soul had just left its physical shell. Râ's lifeless body swayed, then fell heavily onto the frozen stone behind him. THUD. Râ looked at his own spiritual hands, opened them, closed them again, then gazed at the portal which now seemed to be calling to him directly. A gleam of pure excitement passed through his eyes. "Ah… this is new." He cast a glance at his body lying on the ground, then shrugged as if it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "I hope this goes well." And with that almost insolent calm that belonged only to him, Râ's soul stepped forward… and entered the portal.