The darkness that covered me was a presence that had weight, and it was not an absence of light. I became truly blind, and for a moment, I was reminded of the darkness of the Hollow in that room behind my Anima Depth, and this was a primary reason why I did not freak out.
A long, drawn-out laughter rang from all around me, stretching far past what was normal, and the weight of the darkness began to press against my skin, trying to worm its way into my eyes. I could feel it crawling over me, searching for a way in, trying to fill the spaces where my lightning should have been.
Death Touch screamed in my senses; the entire surface of my body was covered in the chill of a danger I could not see or track, since it covered my entire body.
A cold voice whispered in my ear, "Naughty boy, this is the part where you run."
Say what you want about me, but I could take good advice, even when it was coming from a demon.
Everywhere was covered with darkness, but that did not mean that I had been taken to a different space. I was still in the same facility, only I was now blind.
I became Lightning Incarnate and cast Stormstep, the image of the passage firmly in my mind. I felt my body compress, and space shifted, and for a moment there was a bright flash of light as I reappeared in the passage, and the light from my lightning pushed back the darkness, but it barely held for a tenth of a second before it was suppressed.
"Hehehehe..HAAhahaheha... That’s right, run, run for Sad."
The darkness seemed to have covered the entire space, even as I took several Stormsteps, and soon the destination I was running towards was revealed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
The massive vats holding every imprisoned specimen here were still glowing. The light was faint and did not travel far in the darkness, but I had suspected that this very invasive darkness might not want to sniff out the light from the vats.
I stopped beside a vat that contained something that looked like a snake combined with a goat, and sucked in a deep breath. My heart was pounding, and I did not realize up till this moment how freaked out I was when I was inside the darkness with no way to see anything.
In the light, the lightning suppressed under my skin leaped out of it, and the darkness was pushed back a bit, but it soon flowed even closer, as if it were eating my light.
I looked around me, and I could see faint spots of light that were most likely coming from the other vats in this place. The fox had squeezed itself beside my neck, wrapping its tails around my neck so hard that it was nearly painful, and its little heart was beating rapidly.
"It’s okay... it’s okay," I whispered to it, causing it to whimper, and its heart began to slow down a little.
A weird sound like a saw running through the string of a guitar sounded in the distance, and I looked over to see that one of the pale spots of light from a vat in the distance suddenly went out.
The sound happened again, and another light vanished, and again and again... and again.
I watched in silence as all the lights I could see vanished, leaving the vat behind me as the only source of light, and all this while, my entire body was a mass of cold, making it impossible for Death Touch to help me understand where the threat was coming from.
I understood that the threat against my life was so massive, it no longer needed to focus on a single part of me; just the thought of harming me was more than enough to erase who I was in its entirety.
Even when I fought with Vrakth, I did not feel this way, and so the only reason why this was happening was if this demon Sad, had the power of a Sovereign.
"Tap... tap... tap... tap"
Above me, the sound of claw on glass drew my eyes, and I saw it crouched above the vat, yellow eyes watching me with amusement.
The old man’s body was gone. In its place was a barely humanoid creature. Its skin was the colour of old bruises, and its limbs were too long, with multiple joints that made no sense.
Those limbs nearly wrapped around the vat as it held itself up like a spider; the tentacles that had burst from its jaw were now a nest of writhing feelers around its mouth, tasting the air, and slowly, as if it wanted to make sure I could see, the light of the vat began to dim until its yellow eyes were the only source of light.
"Hello, Elric... the smell of your fear is... delightful, and the taste of your soul was a feast that I would give my brood to taste again and again and again... hmm, to think that Sad had to leave for a short while, and you are out of the nice bath I gave you. Was it not good for you as it was for me?"
Even in the darkness, leaving only the sick yellow light of its eyes, I had something to focus on, and despite my heart beating like a drum, I tried to reply calmly... I may have failed.
"You were the thing inside my dreams," I said. "For three months, that was you eating my mind."
"Eating?" The demon must have tilted its head because its eyes went nearly vertical. "That is such a crude word. I HATE it! I was... savoring you. A time-scarred soul, welded to a fragment of a Celestial and something else, with the extensive modifications made to your soul, you have become the most delicious thing I have tasted in many, many millennia."
For a while, I had been fighting against the pressure of the darkness, and my channels finally pushed through part of the pressure, and I reached for my lightning. It came, but slower than it should have, as the darkness was pressing against my channels, trying to smother the light before it could form.
"You are the Soul Flayer, the real thing and not that shell inside the vat with me," I said.
"I am Sad," the demon corrected, and its voice was almost gentle. "Sad is what I am. Sad is what I make. You have been sad for a very long time, Elric Voss. You just did not know it."