THIS CHAPTER IS NOT FINISHED!
I have a certain project in school currently, and I probably won't be able to post any chapters for the entirety of November,
Chapter 35 is extremely important for the story, and I wouldn't wanna wait another month to get it out, so that's coming in a few days and I'll finish this chapter by the start of December.
He stormed across the empty banquet, it had been defiled since his last visits.
He didn't know how to feel. Guilt? Anger? Oblivious. He hid himself and his excuses as duties, and could only hide in such. His crusade has blinded him from the real world, what his wake washed away he couldn't turn back and see. And now it was time to face his faults, for what he could build, the consequences toppled those tenfold.
The beast immediately coursed its influence across the entire city, it was its meaning for existence. Even possibly miles away, the ornate halls screamed and swirled with a vengeance, phantoms taunting him with each feverish step. As he neared the doorway, he paused. A slight scoff, perhaps a chuckle was let out. He had bested even the achievements of The Crescent Angel, yet it wasn't enough. All of Terraria kneeled to him, mountains flattened at his command, seas parted at his sight. Yet wasn't enough.
He kicked away the doors, marching into the court.
The covenant throughout every meeting was all bustling with energy. Arguments were yelled louder than the screams of the prisoners. But it was pure silence this time, sorrow peered through their hoods as they stared down at the tables. He stood firm in the center of the crowd, yet dead to motion as well. It was cold, terribly cold, a silent gloom encompassed the room, blue candlelight from the chandelier etched across their cheekbones and thinned out the brick layers. Their leader turned to stare right at him, his hands quivering in terror. He was much different than he was now, stern and cold before he drank of The Void. His avian mask peered out the hood, sickly and pale, with hollowed eyes peering to darkness.
The Cultist was the first to speak. He spoke in a frigid, mournful voice, deeper than ever.
"...Yharim...How much more time does this continue..."
Yharim scoffed. The wind was dense with a putrid, vile sting. They watched intently for a response, tapping, scorning by every second. Paladins straightened against the walls and scratched the edges of their hammers, counselors sat at the end rows, red-faced. He had heard this question many times now, from many different people and places. His crusade has become a necessity, an indispensable duty. He does not know when to stop, it has become him. And so he answered the same way he always did.
"Until every god is vanquished, this crusade cannot simply halt," Yharim replied.
The Cultist's hands shifted to clenching fist, and the audience raised their heads and stared with pure blasphemy. One slammed their palm down on the railing, another heavied their breathing until it heaved all across the court. He felt the ground chisel into sharp edges, the air shaping blades that prodded against his armor. They stormed him with a wave of desecration, yet he burned at the core, with it simply washing away.
"First, The Blood-pacted Warlocks, next, Ilmeris, and now this? How deaf you've become, your crusade has torn this world apart...everything you do tears with world apart!"
Yharim paused, then replied, "How did this alliance form? How did we blister our existence across the lands to which even the cosmos fear our name? It is with pure vehemence we did, and what keeps this world turning. So what truly creates? Not magic or technology, neither flesh nor steel. What truly creates if raw emotion, to which you will go to any lengths for fulfillment."
They fell in absolute silence, a gaping expression painted across their faces with pure absurdity. They pulled themselves off their seating, cursing and roaring in objection. Shaking and stammering, their ghoulish faces in the dim firelight circled him as if they were the souls that taunted him, bony and miskept, as they were.
"...merely a ghost...? IT'S ALIVE, YHARIM! IT BLISTERS OF A THOUSAND SOULS, BOUND TOGETHER BY ETERNAL HATRED! WE'VE SEEN IT, IT CRAWLS WITH SKIN AND TEETH, SUCH IS IMPOSSIBLE TO OUR KNOWLEDGE, AN ATROCITY TO THE PRIMORDI-"
Yharim summoned his blade and banged it hard against the ground, cinders lighting across his feet as if he was quite literally burning with anger, "YOU BELIEVE I VALUE THE PRIMORDIALS ANY MORE THAN I VALUE GODS?! THERE ARE NO LOVING DIVINE, AND PRIMORDIALS ARE ALL THE SAME. Resistances have grown to oppose my cause, strengthening their frontiers for battle, ready to bury my people if I don't act. While you're here wallowing over a ghost, I'M GETTING READY FOR WAR."
They were left dazed.
The crowd was plastered with a hideous expression of madness, followed by complete silence, not a single word let loose. The Cultist softened his hands, leaned back, and practically stumbled over nothing. He quickly placed himself back together and hung his head in terror. He writhed in his ornate robes like a rustled doll, gripping his pals around his beak, then dropped down again. The words he uttered were so small and sullen, even in the silence Yharim could barely understand.
"...y-you are paralyzed...by apathy..."
He did not respond. He did not need to. He had dominated the room, he had said his excuse, there was nothing left for him here. For a second, he thought, why would he care anymore? That specter would impose a threat upon The Dungeon, but it is not an obstacle in his path. He was sick of everyone forcing tasks onto him, to no advancement to any goal. He was sick of cleaning up after himself, what his crusade affected was not up to him to solve. So he turned back and walked away.
fools...until every one of them is dashed into rivens, there is no end.
The brisk, raw air punched across his silhouette as he fell.
It had been more than a month since he had awoken in that forest, he thought he knew this world. Even to all these places, the abyss, the jungle, Ilmeris, he had learned nothing. All those directions Cthulhu made him work for, were just directions he mindlessly followed. Yharim's recruitment to the frontiers was a forced act he had no opinion on. He doesn't fight for any cause, he never had. Even in this city, in these underground chasms, was a task that was forced onto him. He only wants to find out what the hell is with his past, but what would he do after? Even a single reminder from The Polterghast terrified him beyond his comprehension, he could not think what would become of him.
There's no left, there's no right.
So there he was, falling. Falling down a foggy canyon which an amalgam coalescence had thrown him in. He fell as the frigid water droplets stuck to his back, mind knocked into a daze, limbs still weak with pain. He didn't know when the ground would be reached, or if he'd still be alive once it arrived. He had no Cthulhu to help him, no Kade to save him, he was completely alone. Nobody was there to find him, and even if they were, they wouldn't spare a single second for him.
The mist was too dense for him to measure the width of the canyon, he was falling too fast for him to gain a good grip with a tentacle. He felt his skin tear with every approaching second, his heartbeat thrumming so hard it practically burst out his chest. He was able to withstand any injury before, broken bones, and exposed organs, due to his power. But at such height, if he struck the ground he would be nothing but formless pulp, there was no withstanding such damage.
The canyon was terribly deep, deeper than he'd ever thought possible. The mist changed to a rigid edge that prickled against him, winds that pulsed so strong they knocked the soul out of him. Then suddenly, the mist slowly passed apart, revealing a tiny piece of wall in the otherwise pale void of fog. The canyon was no longer lined with dungeon bricks, but a wicked black stone, shaped into obsidian spikes. Any shoddy mistake and the tentacles would be torn by the pressure. But if he didn't act fast, he would hit the ground before he ever had a chance.
Laurence looked down; below became darker and darker, the ground nearing to crush him whole. Instantly, he whipped out a tentacle on every finger and lashed it against the wall. Failure. Within the mist, the stone was covered by a thick layer of water, too slippery to hold on. He was out of ideas, unless a miracle appeared, his fate was sealed.
But he had experienced a miracle, right?
When that shotgun slug tore through his skull and left him without an upper body, how did he survive that? He was bound to die, yet he woke up a minute later, completely intact. There was nobody to help, that much damage couldn't have been healed with magic, so what was that? Whatever it was, it was his only hope. He bit down his tongue, squinted his eyes, and waited for the ground to drag him down into death.
He was floating.
His skeleton rattled with irritation, his skin sagging from his bones unnaturally. He felt as lofty as a feather, which quickly ended as he struck the rock-hard as he fell, though only a few feet. It was pitch black, the air was dense and moist, seeping against his elbows and armpits.
"Y-young man...please..." A raspy, old voice echoes out in the distance.
He quickly turned to find the source, digging through the fog until he stumbled upon a bound figure. It was an old man, dressed I'm regal purple robes and a narrow, star-spangled hat. Is face was wrinkled, with shadowed circles surrounding his pale eyes. A long silver beard flowed over his mouth and was tangled between the coil of golden rope he was bound to. Even with his current situation, through his eyes, the old man looked quite mournful.
"Young man...please..." He said again,
Laurence crept up closer, and asked, "What happened...Are you okay?"
"Please...free me from these bindings..."
He did what the old man asked of him, jutting up a prong of the Furicus, and slashing the golden rope away.
"Thank goodness I managed to save you from that fall...these ropes only dampen my arcane abilities," The old man said, then asked Laurence, "Now, what exactly brings you here...young man?" As Ren walked up to him and helped him up, he glanced at his grayish-blue face and yellow eyes, then shuddered. "You're an eidolon, yet you still retain a human body...how is that so?"
Laurence felt his knees weaken as he fell to the floor and sat down on the wet, cold stone. He buried his head against his arms, brushed off the dew on his coat, and scoffed in shame.
"I don't know...in fact...I don't know anything!" He responded laughably, "I've been in so much excruciating pain, YET I STILL DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! I believed that knowing would solve my problems, but now I don't even know what that is!"
His gust wrenched from the pressure, he felt his entire body crumple and squelch in delusion.
Kade stumbled into view, across the fogged canyon. The troops followed quickly behind, sliding down the cliff into the undercroft of concrete. The air stung him, not as bad as Ilmeris, but in a piercing cold. He stormed into the alleyways, still recalling what exactly happened in the archive. It was as if the entire world sped through him, a fathomless presence dragging him down. From the helix of the mirror, a dark purple mist billowed against his skin and ate away at his body. With each step, he felt the floor crumble and wither, his mind melting against the pressure.