I knew what was coming next, so I did not hesitate to run. I pulled off the head of the undead knight and hung it on my waist, and it was still snarling. I guess the only way to fully kill them was to burn them to ash.
The cold wave of the Sovereign’s attention washed over me like a physical weight, pressing against my soul. If I was correct, then the attention I was sensing through Death Touched came from Sid, and not Sad, and I wonder if I avoided the Sovereign in this loop, I could escape this facility and not have to deal with that Soul Flayer.
The orb was still in the fox’s mouth, and it was occasionally echoing a muffled "WAKE UP" that bounced off the walls ahead of us.
"Put that thing away!" I shouted.
"NEVER!" the fox shouted back, around the metal.
Why does she pick these moments to be stubborn? I did not argue, since I could hear the sounds of heavy metallic boots hitting the ground; the knights were coming.
I recalled the passages I took to the command center the last time and determined that I would not follow that path; instead, I would be going in the opposite direction... although I knew I was just delaying the inevitable, as I was already in the belly of the beast.
As I ran through the facility, knights began to emerge from side passages. Dozens of them, then hundreds, their black armor gleaming with the pale light from the vat. It was creepy how silent they were even in the heavy armor.
They moved with mechanical precision, but they were far too slow to catch me, even though I was not using Stormstep.
I ran for several seconds, dodging reaching hands, until I saw hundreds of knights pouring towards me from the front with blades drawn; if I did not know better, I would think they were trying to kill me.
Stormstep carried me through the first wave, my body flickering between the knights like a ghost. I did not fight them, just kept moving away from where I knew the Sovereign was, in the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, Sid would watch me leave.
The fox’s claws dug into my shoulder. "Where are we going?!"
I could not answer her question truthfully, knowing that we were being watched, so I said, "I don’t know! Anywhere but here!"
The Moon Fox caught on quickly, and she screamed, "THAT’S NOT A PLAN!"
"Well, it’s the best I have. If you have a better plan, then you tell me."
I could not leave the knights behind; it was almost as if any dark spots in this place were spawning them, and although they were not fast, their undead bodies did not tire, and they knew the layout of this place better than I ever could.
However, I noted that they were trying to herd me back towards my vat, and that was not something I was going to be doing, thank you very much. The ones that were a bit too insistent on their task, I cut them in two.
The odd columns and vats gave way to bare metal, grey and thick, no writing or embellishment on it. It was as if this section of the facility were largely untouched and forgotten.
Every turn I was making here was the fox’s call and a guess. In that way, going against the tide, I burst through a doorway and found myself in a massive chamber. The ceiling was lost in darkness, and the walls were lined with the same hooded statues I had seen before; however, these statues seemed older, almost as if they were breaking down.
I stopped running and looked behind me, noting that all the pursuing knights had stopped a few meters away, as they did not seem willing to cross into this place with me.
Hmm, interesting.
I looked around and noticed that at the far end of the chamber, there was a door, and I wondered why the first thing I noticed was not the door, just for the sheer fact that it was massive.
It was taller than the statues and wider than the hall. Its surface was dark metal, etched with the same dense, living Inscriptions I had seen in the chips. And as I looked at it, I felt a strange pull, a sense of familiarity that I could not explain.
I had never seen this door before, but I knew it as it resonated with the rhythm of my own heartbeat.
The Hollow Avatar stirred in the deep, and its voice was careful, almost wondering.
"That door was not made by mages; its true shape is covered."
"Why does it feel so familiar?"
"That is because you have seen one like it before."
The memory of the door I had seen inside Caelith Mourne flashed into my head, the door that led to the Jade Oracle.
"Goddamn it, am I inside a Caelith?"
"Unknown, but that door is Celestial in origin; you need to see what is behind it."
As I stared at this door, I felt the nature of the cold gaze of the Sovereign on my body. I can describe it as if a cold hand around my throat had been changed to a dead one, and although the dead hands were still cold, there was a certain quality about it that was wrong.
I think Sid was gone, and Sad had just taken his place.
My time was up.
∞
I hit the door as a Titan.
My spells were already primed, and the moment I slammed into the door, it was as if a small star exploded, and the power of the detonation scraped the surface Inscriptions on the door.
This was how it looked visually, but most of those were just flash; the real tool that ate through the Inscriptions was the silver flames of the Soul Forge.
Soul Forge did not care if the Inscriptions were Tier 5 Inscriptions or higher; it disintegrated them all the same, exposing the true face of the door behind.
I barely paused before I drove my hands into the seam and pulled. It held. I set my feet and pulled again, and it gave a finger’s width.
A cold air came through, and I felt the piercing wave of cold filling me from Death touched, and a roar of anger in the distance. Oops, I may have done something that the demon did not like.
I glanced behind me to see the knights standing still as a wave of darkness covered them, and inside that darkness were two bright spots of yellow.
The fox was flat against my neck, the orb still in her teeth.
"Elric." Muffled. "Faster."
"I’m trying!"
I pulled, as I reached into my soul. I remembered the feeling of the door in the Caelith, the way it had opened for me when I was ready. I remembered the Jade Oracle’s voice, telling me I was a miracle... the Hollow Avatar’s cold certainty that I was the world’s last argument.
I opened my eyes, and I said, "Let me in."
The door parted like a curtain of metal and light, revealing a passage beyond. The darkness entered the hall behind me, not caring for whatever restrictions held back the knights, and I grabbed the fox and threw myself through the gap.
The door closed behind me with a sound like thunder, which, in hindsight, must be the sound of the Soul Flayer hitting the door on the other side.