There was a silence that followed the Monumental's announcement. Ostrava didn't know what to say. Clearly, Biorr didn't either.

Finally, the big man spoke.

"If she's so strong, why doesn't she just get rid of The Old One now?"

"I said she was," the Monumental said. "Long ago, when she wasn't crippled."

"Her blindness," Ostrava said. "She can't fight the Old One, because she can't see."

"And whose bloody idear was that?"

"Someone much wiser than you," The Monumental said, in a warning tone.

"Well balls to'em," Biorr said. "Cuz the Old One is out, and the only person who could do anything about it is a blind lil'girl."

"She can still do something about it," The Monumental said. "But we need to bring The Old One to her."

"By killing all of the Archdemons that are its main soul-gatherers. By making it desperate," Ostrava said.

"And then by offering it one more," said the Monumental.

"One more...but..." And then Ostrava remembered Astraea. He remembered the Yellow King. Humans can become Archdemons.

"Nameless. You're going to turn him into an Archdemon."

"We're going to make him something close," The Monumental said.

"Did he...did he agree to that? Did he know that was what was going on?"

The Monumental was silent.

"For the love of god. You never even told him, did you?"

Still silence.

"How was he supposed to control himself when the voices started? How were you going to get him to do everything for you when he was just some kind of pawn? Umbasa, I'm here because I choose to be, so is Biorr, and it's still hard to keep fighting. You've basically kidnapped him, forced him to fight for you, and given him nothing else. You liked when he started losing his identity, didn't you? It meant that there was nothing in the way. You're forcing him to be a hero, he never had a choice."

And then a sound boomed outward, throughout the chamber and then echoing around the entire Nexus, with so much power behind it that Ostrava had to cover his ears and cower. As the sheer volume receded, it formed into words, a colossal, rending yell:

"NEITHER DID I!"

Ostrava tried to stand again. Even Biorr was covering his ears.

The Monumental spoke softer now. "Neither did the men who made me. They couldn't. And we can't. There are more important things at stake than my happiness. Than yours, or his, or hers. We are fighting a war for the sake of human existence. If we fail, everything is lost.

Do you know what it is like to sit, unmoving, petrified, in a room for a thousand years? Not alone, but with companions. Do you have any idea what it is like to feel those companions around you, slowly dying, one by one? All the while, not knowing whether you will even be needed. Not knowing whether this sacrifice even mattered. And then, the last of your companions dying, and being alone. Paralyzed, unsure, and alone for a hundred years. After already being paralyzed for nine-hundred before that."

The knights just stared at him.

"No. You haven't even lived for a fraction of that time. You could never imagine. But you can at least try. I could cower in a corner, like Her Champion did, and refuse to help. I could fall apart, and it would be justified. But I am not going to, because you need my help. Now, did you have any other questions?"

Biorr raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Do ye know anyone we can find to help us who doesn't have bloody emotional issues?"

"No."

"Oh. Okay, then."

Just then, another wave of sound came off from the Monumental, this one much slighter than the one before.

"What is it?" Ostrava asked.

"We're being attacked," The Monumental said.

When they formed again, his mind felt as though it had woken up from an overlong sleep. Despite how no time had passed, the previous visions felt like distant memories. He tried to shake the lethargy out before remembering that he didn't have a body to shake, then, finally, gave up, and looked at his surroundings.

What he saw froze him.

"What dost thou see?" She asked.

I'll tell you. But you'll have to explain it to me.

"I expect that I shall; prithee, speakest."

They were standing on the shores of a massive lake that stretched farther than he could see. Mist hung in the air, surrounding the water, but somehow not blocking the his view of what was in its center. And there was something in the center, something almost indescribable.

Though if it could have been described, it would be as a gigantic tree.

Yet that wasn't enough. The tree was the size of a mountain. Its branches stretched out across the entire lake. He looked down, and he saw that the water was shallow not because there was dirt under their feet, but because they were standing on the webs of its massive roots. From the trees branches grew round orbs that looked like fruit, but were entirely made out of light. They were like blue-white suns.

And around them were people, not standing, but kneeling. It wasn't a few people, it was like an army, in a perfectly circular formation, rotated around the tree with their knees in the water and their faces just above it. The crowd went all the way to the trunk of the tree, and all the way back to the lake's shore. They sat still, perfectly still.

He explained it as best he could, and before he finished she nodded.

"We may have gone too far; we have arrived at the beginning."

The beginning? The beginning of what?

"Everything."

What is that tree?

"Umbasa."

What?

"The tree containeth the soul of God."

He looked at it again. Suddenly, he felt much smaller. Smaller than he had felt in his entire life.

But there is no God.

"Incorrect."

Even if there was, God is not a tree.

"The tree beith merely a vessel. Yet quite the glorious one."

He looked around again, at the people kneeling, praying. One of them looked up at the fruits of light, his face was wet. It wasn't from the lake. He was crying.

There is no way that this is real.

"It was; no longer."

His mind raced with questions that all seemed to bleed together. He tried to separate them, he couldn't. He felt small and empty and deprived, as if he'd found something he'd been searching for and simultaneously learned he could never have it.

I need a minute.

"Quite understandable."

He walked toward the tree. He walked away from the tree. He paced too and fro and then noticed other figures, spirits, moving through the fog. They weren't the echoes of warriors he was used to seeing, they were dancing, they were laughing and singing. It was beautiful. It hurt, something inside of him that he hadn't known hurt. And with it came rage.

This isn't real! His mind screamed at her, with shocking anger. Humanity never...we didn't...this wasn't real. We didn't have this.

"Thou didst not; but thy race did."

And that was what hurt. He examined what he was feeling and realized that for a moment, in the presence of this thing, he felt complete, he felt whole.

But it wasn't real. He wasn't really here, he would never be here. He would never have this. Where was it? Where was the tree? Where had it gone?

Can we find it again? Something inside of him asked. Hopefully. Desperately. He was going to cry. He needed the tree. He needed to be near it not just in the past, but now.

"Maybe," she said, but she didn't sound hopeful.

It still hurt. He looked down at the people in front of the tree and suddenly hated them. They had that emptied core inside of him, inside of everyone. The hole that Freke, or Yuria, or Saint Urbain had all tried to fill through knowledge or magic or faith. And it was right here. The real thing. These people had it, and they had never lacked it. Not for a moment. He tried to calm himself. What was he going to do? Attack them? It wasn't their fault.

I'm sorry. He said. I...I overreacted.

"No, thou didst not," she said. "If anything, thy reaction hath been weaker than expected."

So...this...this really is God.

"Yes."

What are those fruits?

"Souls, growing, ripening on its branches."

Good god.

"Yes."

How do the scriptures not know about this?

"They were written long after the fact, by men who did not remember."

But...when did we lose this? And how?

The Maiden turned her head downward.

What?

"I shall show thee that which cometh next," she said. "However, thou must be ready."

Ready for?

"Thou must be ready to see the cause of thy war, and of all wars. The first of all sins and the root of all folly."

And then an ugly suspicion struck him. One that seemed warranted by his experiences since he had started this quest, and that seemed increasingly likely as he thought of it. But he didn't want it to be true. Please, God. Don't let it be true. But God was right here. Something inside of him laughed. And the laughter turned sick once he realized that that may not be true anymore. In his time, God was not there.

And he needed to know why.

I'm ready.

"Ist thou sure?"

Yes.

"Then..." she gulped, and then whispered. "We shall move on."

She held out her hand, limply and clumsily, in the direction that he wasn't standing in. He reached over and grasped it, pulling her gently toward him. He concentrated. He touched the demon in her. That vicious thing which, in contrast to the tree near them, he saw all the more clearly.

This time, she didn't take him through an immediate transition. The world was moving around them. Day, night, Summer, Winter, people moved in flashes like light and sound.

"In the beginning," The Maiden repeated. "God gaveth man a soul. With that soul, clarity. The mind to distinguisheth black from white, right from wrong, man from woman and human from animal and a hundred thousand other differences. And so, with this clarity, we think, know, and feel."

Praying humans came, they drank from the water, they glowed and became full in a way they had not been before. They stood, and they were so beautiful that again, his emotions stirred in ways he couldn't fully understand.

"But with every creature borneth, everything from an animal, to a tree, to any other being, a new soul was granted. And Umbasa sawth this as an overflowing cup, so on the second day, he createdth a poison. A soul devouring demon. Intended to absorb the souls left behind."

The Old One?

Her lip twinged. Around her, he saw the scenes of the world unfolding, still extremely quickly. And he saw something that horrified him at once more than anything else he had ever known. It was a mass of a color so dark that it made everything black look grey, with a strange silvery edge. It crawled along the ground and flew and overtook the souls departing from dying humans, absorbing them, growing with each one.

That...that isn't the Old One. What is that thing?

She smiled sadly. "I just told thee. The Great Poison. The hated creature. The First and most powerful of Demons."

Strange, white slugs squrried along the ground, pulling souls out of the fog and then giving them to the black thing. Primeval Demons. Somehow, he knew what they were. He could see the unconsciousness in their souls, the colorlessness, and then he realized that he could see their souls. What was happening here? Was he seeing the past or was he seeing into her mind?

But he didn't have time to question it, so much was happening, so quickly. Humans took up swords and spears and charged. They fought the Primeval demons, and he saw them kill one after the other after the other.

"The Children of Umbasa rebelled," she said. "They refused to be the food for their God's monstrosity."

It seems almost..reasonable. He said. It was eating them. Right?

"So that more could be made," she said. "It beith a dark thing, but it hath its place."

He saw a child die of sickness, and a mother grasp at the fog as the soul floated from her. She tried to grab at it in vain. Then, a Primeval Demon was there, it knocked her aside and absorbed the soul, then slithered away.

Still. He said. Perhaps I can understand.

She frowned heavily, and was silent.

But what happened next?

"Right." She whispered, then took a breath and continued. "They rebelled, they fought the demons, and they learned to preserve and contain the human soul."

In Augites.

"Indeed. And they discovered the Soul Arts."

And he saw it. He saw the first human crack an augite into dust, and absorb the soul inside.

But...wait. He said. They had been fighting this whole time to preserve their souls, to stop them from being absorbed. If they do it themselves, isn't that hypocritical?

"They fought for that at first," she said. "But the war ranneth on. For hundreds of years; even a thousand. And over generations, they forgot their reasons, only understanding Demons as the enemy. By the end, it becameth like all wars: fighting just to fight."

Superpowered soldiers, addled by the Soul arts, charged across fields. They impaled Demons, strong ones, weak ones, even ones that were fleeing from them. And in turn, he saw it, the Demons began to take the souls from the living. They bolstered their numbers by driving human beings insane and forcing them to fight for them.

But aren't Demons just creatures who have been too corrupted by the Soul Arts? He asked her. Isn't that all that they are?

"Now it beith so," she said. "But in the time before, they were a race distinct from men."

What happened to them? He asked without thinking.

She said nothing. Behind her, he saw Demons in all their forms cut up, burned, stabbed, destroyed, almost systematically so.

Oh.

"They all died, or went into hiding," she said. "All but one."

And the black mass moved through the throngs of soldiers, tearing them to shreds, effortlessly obliterating them, swallowing them into darkness and destroying them forever. Armies ran from it, but it overtook them with its sheer power.

"The First Demon wasth a god. They stood not a chance," she said.

He saw it win entire battles by itself. He saw it roam through the world, killing everyone who attacked its demons, and then once all demons were dead, killing everyone.

So. He guessed. His heart dropped in horror as he did. They...they took the power of a god.

She frowned deeper than he had ever seen her, and nodded.

And he saw it. Though he wanted to look away.

They came as they had years before, in their race's beginning, walking through the water and across the roots. But this time they weren't praying. Not all of them, at least. The ones who were stood up, and rushed at them, and tried to stop them. They drew their swords and slaughtered them. Their faces showed no remorse. After all of those who were still devout to god were dead, they threw aside their swords, and drew massive, powerful augites, pulsing with a thirst to be filled.

No.

They walked to the tree, and he ran to them, trying to stop them. He had to, he had to prevent it. But it wasn't his time or place, and it was too late. He saw energy and colors and life flowing out of the tree. There was a scream so loud, so simultaneously low and high, that it felt as though the world were collapsing. The lights from its branches dimmed. A face appeared, briefly, screaming in agony, before it too vanished into the augites.

NO! STOP!

He screamed at them. But they couldn't hear, all the color disappeared from the tree, it turned grey, then black, its leaves immediately rotted and died. The water surrounding it turned sickly. The fog changed from white to grey. Then, its branches began to fall from it. They hit the water with powerful splashes and large waves. Some of the warriors staggered, and looked around as if weren't so sure anymore. But others kept going, and were rewarded with a larger share for their resolve. Parts of the tree rotted away now, until it was just a husk, a dead, dried up husk.

There was one last, terrible scream, not loud, and not intense, but disturbing in its softness. Then, it was over.

They cracked the augites open. And he saw the power flow into them.

He fell to his knees.

They...they destroyed it. We destroyed it. We...we killed God. Just for power, just to win a war. We killed God.

"No," she murmured. "Worse."

And he remembered. Those without souls still live. But they lose their minds.

And the scream came again.

But it wasn't the same, this time.

The ground began to shake. Even the warriors who had been sure of themselves now staggered. The ones who had already been unsure outright ran. They were soon followed by the others.

The roots began to uplift, and it screamed again. He heard it in its cry. A desperate, deprived hunger, a confusion and a fear and a desire for what was taken from it. But it didn't know how to get it, it didn't know anything anymore. And it was desperate for the consciousness it had once had.

Its roots pulled free of the water. They swung around like horrid tendrils and then propelled it upward. Up, into the sky, it swam up through the air like a squid, and vanished into the horrible grey fog that spread outward from its own body.

The Old One.

His head bowed.

"There beith more," she said, quietly.

Just...give me one second. Please.

She nodded.

It's true. There is only the Old One, he laughed harshly. And the First Demon...I guess. Whatever they did to it.

"We shall see that, but I shall wait until thee ist ready."

It's all our fault. He said. Everything is our fault.

"Their fault," she said, gently. "Thou didst not do this."

He bit his lip. There was a long silence.

Show me. Whatever else happened...show me. It can't be worse than this.

She gave another sad smile, then offered him her hand.

He grimaced, and took it.

And then, they weren't there anymore.

I made you wait a long time for this one, so I figured I'd give you something substantial. And I am really glad to finally (FINALLY) be able to reveal my perspective on the Demon's Souls lore. I almost (ALMOST) included the rest of the backstory in this, but this chapter was already getting long. Don't worry, it'll definitely be in the next chapter...uh...Probably.

The reason why I'm saying this is because I think that I'm going to have to screw Chronological order for just the next two Chapters and write the exposition-laden journey into the past and Mephistopheles' invasion separately, because both are going to be long important things that are literally going on at the exact same time. Exciting. Also irritating. I don't know which one next chapter will be, but it will be one or the other. (Maybe you can suggest which?) Regardless, some stuff might happen that you don't understand right away, but will make sense when you find out what else is going on at the same time.

Alright, enough blathering. Hope you enjoyed it. And seriously, guys, thanks for all this popularity. To give you an idea, this story has recently just hit 100 reviews, and 15,000 views. I'm worried it's my fifteen minutes of fame but, well, Y'KNOW, MIGHT AS WELL GO WITH IT.