I tried not to focus on what it was saying; there was something about the words of the demon that seemed to have the power to drag my attention into its words, and if I was not careful, I would find myself deliberating on the meaning behind its words.
Gritting my teeth against this invisible mental assault, the glow of the lightning rushing through my veins began to brighten, pushing against the darkness, and slowly exposing the form of Sad, who had silently dropped down from the vat now covered in darkness and was looking at me.
It now stood at least fourteen feet, and so its back was hunched as it stared at me with its hungry yellow eyes. When the glow from my lightning reached it, I observed that it flinched a bit, and it raised its hand, and whatever progress I made vanished, as the darkness pushed against the light and slammed into me, snuffing out the light on my skin.
The darkness around me thickened. I could feel it pressing against my skin, trying to enter my mouth, my nose, my eyes. I clenched my jaw and screamed inside my head as I pushed back with the Loom, silver-white threads erupting from my skin to push the darkness away.
The demon laughed. "Oh, that is adorable. You are fighting the dark with threads. Ah, like a child waving a stick at the ocean."
I attacked the laughing monster. Stormstep carried me to its flank, Heaven’s Verdict already forming in my palm, as I did not care about my Anima, and I cast it ten times in the span of a breath. The golden spear of judgement expanded with a loud cracking sound, resembling the Tribulation Lightning that had crushed four Arcanists.
It fell from above, aimed at the demon’s skull... and it did not hit.
The darkness folded, and the space between the spear and the demon’s head bent; the spear struck the floor beside it, carving a deep gouge in the metal.
I growled in annoyance. This annoying ability to manipulate space had reared its ugly head once again, and this demon had used this ability in a manner that none of the Arcanists I had fought had been able to.
"Laws," the Hollow Avatar said, its voice sharp with urgency. "It is using the Law of Darkness. This Soul Flayer is a demon that should not have the ability to reach the Sovereign Tier, but it must have a parasitic relationship with Sid, giving it the ability to borrow his strength and control darkness."
"So, that old man is really a Sovereign?"
"I am afraid so. Prepare yourself, Elric. Although I doubt this Soul Flayer would be able to use the full measure of a Sovereign’s strength, I doubt we would be able to escape its control over space and darkness."
The demon’s yellow eyes fixed on me. "I can hear whispers in your head, naughty boy. Is it the same entity that ran from me for so long when I supped on your mind? Ah, it speaks. I wonder why it refuses to speak to me... not fair! Always whispering, always guiding, always pushing the little boy toward the next death. I have tasted it through you, Elric, but it was not enough; I must have more."
I struck again, casting Lightning Edict at full force, "Burn."
The Soul Flayer may have avoided Heaven’s Verdict, but the bolt of lightning had struck the ground, and so at the moment all around us was a large amount of lightning essence, and the more I stood here listening to the demon, the less essence there was in the air as something in this place was draining it.
The command shot through my channels and erupted from my mouth, and a wave of golden light exploded in all directions as if a volcano had just erupted, but this bright flame only lasted for a second before the darkness ate it.
"Is that all?" it asked. "Hmm, I know that after three months of feeding on your mind, you will not be at your peak, but is that all you have? The Sovereign of the Stars held you with too much value, I think."
The Hollow Avatar’s voice was cold in my mind, "You cannot beat it with lightning or any of the powers you control. The Law of Darkness is antithetical to light. It will consume anything you throw at it unless you strike from within its domain, and it is a good thing we are already within it."
"We are within a domain?"
"It is using the darkness to suppress the essence in this facility, and it must have been doing this for millennia. The darkness is its territory. The lack of essence in this place and why there are no mages here is because we are inside a Sovereign’s territory, and in this place, you must create a space where its law does not reach; that is the only way you can even touch it."
The words from the Hollow Avatar were like a knife in my chest. From the moment I entered this place, I was in the stomach of this monster. The entire facility was his territory, and it was no wonder it was hard to find any essence in the air, and perhaps if I reached deep enough, I would have seen one essence, and that was darkness.
I looked at the darkness around me. The yellow eyes of the demon stared at me, with no attempt to attack me, as it seemed to be content with breaking my mind.
The threads of the Loom were still glowing faintly around my hands, but I could feel them fraying.
"How do I do that... create a space inside this territory?"
"You do not, at least not yet. Your soul is too young, and the fragments of the laws inside your soul are not complete. You will need to find the mysteries within lightning, and you cannot find them in this place... not easily. No one would seek lightning inside darkness, let alone a darkness that has a mind of its own."
I smiled, but there was no happiness in my smile. "Then I’ll die trying. I am sorry, little fox, we are going to die."
"It’s okay," it said, "Just make sure you hurt it before you die."
"I will do my best."
I looked at the demon, and I became Lightning Incarnate, and I maintained it. Death Touch was useless, so I swapped it with Storm Bearer. My body dissolved into silver-white light, and I poured myself through the darkness, as spears of lightning converged around me.