Echoes of the Abyssal Blade: Path to Free Will-Chapter 94: Inheritance of Dawn
The figure in the mirror neither moved nor spoke, yet its presence weighed heavier than silence itself. It looked and felt ominous, its figure had the form of a shadow and flame.
Jonan’s breath caught, as the being tilted its head, it felt as if it was studying everyone present under its gaze. The key in his hand pulsed more slowly now.
Kedes stepped beside him, his eyes never leaving the mirror. "Just what in the abyss is this being?"
Raerin drew in a breath and slowly let it out. "Being hopeful can sometimes lead to great disappointment, I thought we would reach the first layer by now, but it looks like things are not that simple anymore, a lot has changed since the time of our ancestors."
The being within the mirror extended one hand, not in demand, but in offering. And Jonan felt the ancient voice return, not from the air, but from within his chest.
"You who carry the echoes," it said, "do you bring the weight of your suffering to impart or the hunger of ambition?" Its words bent around time, making memory feel freshly inflicted.
"I bring neither," Jonan answered instantly, his voice steady, but low." I.....I don’t understand what you mean."
Instead of answering, the figure’s hand closed slightly, and the mirror trembled like a surface beneath thunder. Images rose, flashes of fire-storms, dead gods, and Abyssal Creatures clawing for Human life.
Kedes flinched, and Raerin looked away, his jaw tight. Only Jonan stood still, watching as if the scenes did not affect him much.
"What do you see?" the voice asked, not testing him, but weighing him. Jonan stared at the shifting visions, the cities and war that led to the destruction of the godly weapons of some of the natives.
"I see destruction," he said. "I see war." And the mirror calmed, the figure could still be seen, it had not disappeared, it was just standing.
Then the figure withdrew its hand, and the key grew heavy in Jonan’s palm. Raerin stepped closer, lifting his spear toward the mirror.
"If we break this mirror, will we escape this place, will we be free?" he asked. The voice answered with neither promise nor threat: "Can you ever escape, can you ever be free."
A pause filled the air, thick as oil on water. Kedes shifted uneasily, his eyes scanning the void surrounding them.
Jonan turned to the others. "We didn’t come here to be locked and sealed, can you at least tell us what this city is?"
The figure stepped forward, out of the mirror, but left no shadow. It moved like memory waking, its voice now resonating through the platform itself.
"You seek truth," it said. "But are you worthy, are you even capable of finding the truth." Each word of the figure was sonorous and grand.
Behind them, the spiral tower trembled, no longer content to be dormant, and below, the city stirred the pulsing streets forming lines, and then symbols.
The being turned to Jonan. "You are not the first to reach this place." Jonan nodded. "But try your best not to be like the others, buried here, and forgotten forever."
The being tilted its head again, and Jonan saw the faces of multiple people in it. As its twisted form tried to solidify, multiple faces could be seen within it.
The Mirror split into three pathways, one turned into a river of fire, one turned into a sky of water, and the last one was just a road to darkness.
Each seemed daunting, breathing challenges into the air around them.
"You must choose," the voice said. "Rest assured, all paths will lead you to where you desire." Raerin then looked at Jonan and some of the elders, asking them for their insight.
"It is hard for me to comprehend what we can do by going through either of these paths. The path of fire is scorching, and it will flay our skin, maybe just leave the bones. I can feel it, and if we take the water pathway, for how long could we hold our breath before we could even pass through these pathways."
Kedes nodded, his face was solemn, and his hand was gripping his spear tightly. Jonan turned to the path of darkness, the middle path, which was still and gray like ash after a storm. Surprisingly, Jonan felt familiar energy from it, he felt as if he knew this type of energy.
He stepped forward, not thinking much about the others, and the moment he crossed and entered the dark path, he understood now the reason behind this familiarity.
Here, there was no sound, only the press of thought, the density of awareness. Even his footsteps was stolen, absorbed into the pathway like secrets into time.
Symbols began to appear beneath his feet, one by one, glowing faintly. Each symbol matched those that he had seen in his secret technique, ’The Domineering Baleful Aura’, it was hard for him to fathom the reason behind the same symbols appearing here in this place.
Little by little as Jonan moved forward alone, he felt his memories slipping, not erasing, but slipping away, without much choice, now that he was alone, Jonan released his aura using the secret technique, which helped him in negating the effects of the darkness pathway.
It was also then, Jonan could feel the pathway of darkness getting solidified, and Jonan then sprinted to reach the end of the path.
At the end of the path stood a statue, it was twice Jonan’s height, robed and crowned. Its face was smooth, featureless, but with multiple horns jutting out of its forehead, which looked horrific, and damning to Jonan.
In its hands, it held a bowl of shadow liquid, moving constantly. The voice returned, softer than ever: "Inheritor, who has chosen the path of Abyss, place your hand in the bowl, and receive your birthright."
Jonan stood there confused, "Birthright, I am a human, and it seems this inheritance space is for the abyssal creatures, but why is there power similar to my secret technique....wait."
And with a stunned expression, Jonan realized his secret technique helped him in using the power of those abyssal creatures. He suddenly felt guilty, and relieved at the same time, if he had released his aura in front of the natives, they would have killed him.
He knew that the abyssal creatures were the native’s foremost enemy, and him using his secret technique would lead to a lot of complications.
Anyway, it’s good that now he has access to his normal aura, which those from the Dreavows used, so that might not create any problem for him, among the natives.
Still, he had to now resolve what was in front of him, he poured his hand into the bowl and released his aura of hatred more into it, the shadowy liquid inside started to churn, and released some kind of dark aura, it then all converged and pierced near his heart.
At the same time, Jonan could feel his eyes turn crimson with anger, he could suddenly feel endless anger, he had multiple thoughts that pointed to his anger.
It did not stop, he kept getting angry for no reason, his anger then flared, and in his mind, he felt anger at Kedes for trampling him during training every day, Raerin, who had brought him here to this forsaken place, and his anger was even directed towards his family members.
Jonan then felt a trace of clarity, he could feel similar to his belief of ’Hatred’, that this was another belief which had anger present in it, he also felt guilty that he had such improper thoughts.
The statue then opened its eyes, which resembled twin suns that bore no warmth. It spoke without moving: "Let your anger be a compass, not a storm; it can point to the injustice and drive you to build a better way..."
Jonan lowered his head. He could not understand what the statue meant, and the statue’s words seemed righteous instead of its darkening nature and attributes. He expected it to be an evil power, but he felt that maybe the one who left his inheritance here was different from the abyssal creatures.
The bowl of shadow and the flame of light merged into a single sphere—pure dusk. It hovered above the statue, pulsing in rhythm with Jonan’s heart.
Then an orb of light flew into his mind, which replayed a scene of a knight clad in purplish silver armor, it had the same aura that Jonan had just received, at first he thought it to be a Battle Art that he has received, but instead this seemed to be a set of scriptures, which the knight would daily recite for some reason.
The scriptures did not seem magical, but Jonan could not point out why these scriptures were so important to the knight that he would recite them day and night.
He could see a large amount of text stored in his brain, in the native’s language, which, after reading for a bit, he could not understand much. These scriptures were quite puzzling for him to understand, while he could read them, but understanding them was a different problem altogether.
Jonan could also see that there was not much about himself that the knight had left for him, except that his name was ’Dawn’.
