447 Primal Fear

Sunny stared at the footprints for some more, then frowned.

'How does this make any sense?'

The Obsidian Tower had been sealed before he opened its gates. After he did so, the magic that had preserved everything inside was dispelled, which meant that those doors had not been opened in thousands of years.

It wasn't that easy to gain entry into the pagoda, to begin with. Not even mentioning the fact that one had to travel through the Sky Below and find the only rift in the boundless ocean of divine flames, there was also the fact that the gate had to be open by pouring essence into the weave of diamond strings beneath its surface.

Sunny could only see the weave and understand its meaning a little because his eyes had been transformed by the drop of Weaver's blood. He assumed that there were other Awakened with similar abilities, but there had to be very, very few of them… and what were the chances that one would find their way to the dark island beyond the immolating sea of stars, which was hidden in the depths of this endless void?

And how would they enter the pagoda without causing its seal to break?

'Just who was it that snuck into the Obsidian Tower unseen? And when?'

It had to have happened long before today. Sunny knew for a fact that Saint would not have let anyone come and go without waking him up. Neither would his shadows: even when he slept, they were aware and vigilant.

So… it could have happened at any point in the thousands of years since the tower had been abandoned by its rightful owner.

For now, he had no answer.

Feeling a little apprehensive, Sunny approached the pile of broken dolls and studied them for some time. Saint came closer, too, and stared at them silently. Then, she poked one with the tip of the Midnight Shard and turned away indifferently, as if loosing all interest in the porcelain mannequins.

'...I guess she doesn't care too much about lesser versions of her.'

Saint repeatedly shown her disdain toward things that seemed to be replicas of her kind. It had been the same with the Black Knight, and even with the walking colossus of the Forgotten Shore. Sunny clearly remembered how unimpressed his Shadow had been with the awesome stone giant.

Turning away from the broken dolls, Sunny looked around and noticed that the walls of the chamber were lined with massive glass vessels. Some were whole and some were broken, but all were empty. The glass was black and opaque, covered with a thick layer of soot… from the inside.

'...Weird.'

Not finding anything else of interest on the underground level, he returned to where he had started and rested for a while, drinking water from the Endless Spring and trying to suppress his hunger.

'This place is so… eerie.'

It was, indeed. The black tower stood at the edge of an endless void of darkness, empty and abandoned, with everything inside of it made out of nothing by an inhuman mind. It was not a very welcoming place... at least not for humans. Sunny stared at the ancient walls that surrounded him, and wondered about the secrets of the past.

After a while, he stood up and cautiously headed for the second level of the great pagoda.

…As soon as Sunny set foot on it, though, he instantly felt that something was very, very wrong there.

The feeling of deep, subtle, primordial terror he suddenly experienced was unlike anything he had known before… with the exception, perhaps, of those few moments back on the Forgotten Shore when the walking colossus had lifted the giant three-eyed skull from the depths of the dark sea.

But here, this feeling was even more dire, even more invasive.

'What… what is this…'

Just like the underground level, this one consisted of only one great hall. The black walls rose high into the darkness, creating a magnificent and solemn atmosphere. At the center of it, cut into the obsidian floor, was a massive silver brazier. And in it…

Sunny shuddered and took a step back.

Something was… growing from the brazier, spreading outward like a vile kind of rot. It had infected the very stone of the ancient tower, turning it into a semblance of repulsive, black, pulsating flesh. The silver brazier was infected by the terrifying growth, too, its metal somehow becoming a part of it. It seemed as if everything would become absorbed and transformed by the spreading corruption as long as it was touched by the harrowing growth… entire worlds would be devoured by it, perhaps, if given chance.

The thing slowly spreading from the ancient brazier felt like… pure evil.

Sunny shivered, gave Saint a signal to stay back, and shifted his gaze slightly. He was looking past spreading black flesh, at the source of this harrowing infection.

At the very center of the brazier, blackened by the flames that must have raged in it once, lay a severed human arm. Well… it resembled that of a human, at least.

The arm was much longer than it should have been, and the hand had seven fingers that ended with sharp claws. The rot seemed to be spreading from a terrible torn wound on the forearm, to the charred and emaciated flesh, and then outward, to everything else around it.

Despite the repugnant state of the severed arm, the cut that separated it at the shoulder seemed clean and perfectly smooth, as if delivered by a steady and unfaltering blade.

But Sunny was more affected in something else.

A deep frown appeared on his face when he noticed it…

In his mind's eye, the vile arm was radiating a blindingly bright, overwhelming, beautiful golden radiance.

It was awash in the light of divinity.

A frightening thought appeared in Sunny's head.

'Can... can it be?'

In front of him, stricken by the harrowing rot, was... a severed arm of a deity.

...It was also the reason why fate had brought him to this lost and forgotten corner of the abyss.