“It seems I will have to use my tricks again,” Horace chuckled.
The dragon glowed brightly, and in an instant, a blast of green light shot out, surging out as a wave piercing the forest. I shielded my eyes from the smokescreen that followed, and my heartbeat raced.
It’ll be okay. My fists clenched. You can get through this.
When the smokescreen cleared, the golden-armored man was the only one standing. The three shadowy figures laid on the floor, frozen.
“Damn you,” Figure one yelled. “What did you do to us?”
“Paralyzing magic.” Horace walked up to him. “It would have done you well to kill that dragon, but I have Diablo to thank for making that an impossibility.”
My heart thumped harder. Focus.
“So.” Horace knelt next to Figure one. He pulled out a dagger—a solid jade-blade with a golden handle. “How slowly can you take it?”
“Eh?”
Horace plunged his dagger into the figure’s chest, right where his heart should have been. Screams surged into the air, and blood spilled over onto the forest floor.
“Now, now, it’ll only take a second.” Horace’s blade glowed a bright golden, and he twisted it. The screams immediately stopped, and figure one’s head went limp.
“Diablo, what is this?” Nyx’s voice trembled for the first time.
Tears welled up in my eyes, even though I didn’t want them to, but I kept watching, staring at the scene. There was no meaning to reliving this if I didn’t pay attention now.
“You fiend,” Figure two said. “You can’t do this to us. We’re Eternals. We’ll come back to life. We’ll—”
“Eternals.” Horace chuckled, and stepped up to him. “You think you’ll live forever don’t you.”
My eyes widened, and the words echoed through my mind.
“W-what are you talking about?” Figure two’s body twitched but he still couldn’t move.
“You see, there are ways to kill an Eternal,” he said. “You just don’t know about it.”
Horace plunged his knife into Figure two’s heart this time, with the blade glowing before it even went in. He twisted in a flash, and Figure two slumped on the floor. He chuckled, and turned to Shadow Me.
“Third time’s the charm,” he said.
“You’re kidding,” Shadow Me said. “An Eternal can never die.”
“Oh really?” Horace chuckled. “Do you see those two disappearing? Their bodies are stuck here. Because they’re all dead. They’re not going to resurrect, Diablo. The same way you never will.”
Shadow Me thrashed around, or at least tried to, but his feet hardly moved around.
“Zoran!” Nyx said. “You have to do something.”
But I didn’t.
I quietly stood where I was, my eyes focused on my past-form’s heart and nothing else.
Horace knelt before Shadow Me. “You know,” he said. “You could have prevented all of this. All you had to do was let your friends kill the Dragon.”
Shadow me trembled. “Spare me your speech.”
He chuckled. “Are you telling me you feel no guilt for what you just did? Or is it that those two lives didn’t mean anything to you?”
“Diablo,” Nyx said. “We have to stop—”
“There’s nothing we can do, Nyx!” I yelled.
My voice boomed through the forest, and yet, the event before went on like I didn’t even exist. And that was the case, for in this image, I was not one who existed. I was an observer.
Nothing else.
No matter how many times I tried.
“So.” Horace leaned closer to Shadow me. “Is their blood on your hands?”
He plunged his knife into past-me’s chest. But before anything happened, a dark glow overtook them both, flowing around their bodies like a second skin. In the blink of an eye, the entire forest glowed in a black aura.
“What in the world?” Horace’s voice shook. His fingers gripped his dagger, and he tried desperately to twist it, but to no avail. His hands were frozen, shaking, clutching the dagger desperately. And yet, he laughed like a madman. “Such power.” His voice still shook, but with excitement now, rather than fear. “You are a wonderful creature, Diablo.”
“Get. Away. From. Me!” Shadow me yelled out, with his voice dual-toned, and the second tone was something I knew well. A blast of purple shot out, and the man flew away.
I paid no attention to him, for I already knew he would disappear, and instead looked right at my Shadow self. A purple light consumed my body, and an object faded in out of nowhere.
A crystal object, about the size of my fist, hovered over my chest. Lines of ethereal purple ran inside it, pulsating like a heartbeat. The bright light from the object bathed my face, searing heat onto my skin.
“Just like the Time Lord’s stones,” Nyx said.
I nodded. “Just like his stones.”
A trickle of blood found its way to my feet. My gaze shifted, to the shadowy forms on the floor. I didn’t know who they were, I couldn’t remember, but I could feel what they meant to me, what their existence had been to my past self.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I let the guilt, the horror, and the rage fill me up, consuming my heart. My vision stayed focused, and I stared at the crystal object hovering in the air. A bright purple light soared from it, sinking into the sky with every pulse. That thing was what I came here for, it was what I had relived this painful memory for again.
And I’d finally seen it.
“Just what is it?” Nyx asked.
“A manifestation of my rage.” I smiled. “That Nyx, is the Phantom Heart.”
***
CHAPTER TEN
Heat coursed through my body, and seared out my fingertips like flames of a raging fire. A sharp scent hit the air, spiking my nostrils. I slowly opened my eyes, and a sigh left my lips.
A village of rubble no longer existed around me.
Dark fires broke through the entire place, making the structures that once existed all go join the rest of the rubble. Cinders and sparks spewed into the air, and danced within the breeze.
“W-what the hell,” Nyx gasped.
A burst of fire rushed past me, just inches from my face. “Yeah.” I gazed at the burning rubble.
“Did YOU do this? Is this why you wanted to be alone?”
I nodded. “Delving into my old memories is never a fun thing.”
A crack sounded, and the few remaining pieces of stone snapped, crashing down to the ground. A large fire jumped up from the impact point, and then subdued back to its normal size. The winds around me kicked up, urged on by the additional heat.
“So,” the spirit said, his voice stronger. “What was that back there?”
It was my turn to get shaky. The scent of blood and the sounds of screams filled my mind, sifting into every other thought that I tried to divert to. There’s no escaping this.
I sighed. “It was a certain event from my past.”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve seen that, is it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh please. It was clear as night and day, that you’d seen that scene before. This was definitely not your first time.”
Orange light faded from the skies, and the clouds welcomed us all with their black darkness. “It wasn’t my first time.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve gone through that memory more than a hundred times before.”
“WHAT?”
Silence.
The crackling fire echoed into my mind. I gazed at its inner flames, staring into the shades of darkness that filled the now darkening lands.
“Do you remember when we first met the Time Lord, he mentioned something about how an event changed me?”
“Oh gods.”
“That was it.”
“The man in the gold and green?”
I nodded. “The Time Lord.”
“He’s the one that flipped you,” Nyx said. “Cha
nged you from that to…this.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You think I’ve changed too?”
“Do you not see it?”
“No, I do.” I gripped my wrist, running my fingers along my forearm. “He forced this change.”
“Who were those two men?”
I smiled. “Friends.”
The spirit silenced, letting the crackling fire speak between us for a moment.
“Anyway,” I said. “Did you get a good look at the Phantom Heart?”
“Yeah,” Nyx said. “That’s the first time I’ve seen or heard of something like that.”
“The same,” I said. “This memory…I’ve run through this plenty of time, but every time we get to the murder part, I lose it, and return back. I’ve only caught glimpses of the crystal, never the full picture.”
“Ah, so that’s why you thought you knew something about the Time Lord’s crystals.”
I nodded. “There is a resemblance between the two things.”
“Your Phantom Heart and his crystals?” Nyx asked. “Well, they are very similarly structured, apart from the actual runes and the shades of color.”
“They look the exact same too,” I said. “There has to be a connection.”
“What is your Phantom Heart anyway?” Nyx asked. “You said it was a manifestation of your rage.”
I bit my lip. “There isn’t much I could tell you about it, especially since it’s the first time I’ve properly seen the thing,” I said. “But from my countless experiences of this memory before, I can tell you that anger is what fuels it into existence. Whatever it is, it certainly is connected to my capacity to feel rage.”
“Whatever it was, it’s the reason you’re still alive.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“I can’t believe the Time Lord actually has a way to end an Eternal’s life. That must be jarring to find out.”
I smiled. “It gets okay when you find out for the tenth time. By the hundredth you’re like ‘whatever’.”
The spirit sighed. “You’re too tough for your own good.”
“Oh please, the first time I did this I teared up.”
“You did?” His tone rose. “Okay, why exactly was I unable to see any of this stuff? I didn’t have the faintest clue until right now that you’d done any of this. Since when has all of this been going on?”
“Since I broke my fourth seal.”
He sighed. “Figured.”
“My new powers give me heightened control of my Spirit Space,” I said. “So every time I replayed a memory in that Space, and didn’t want someone else to be a part of it, you were forcefully put to sleep. You just didn’t know it.”
“So, you hypnotized me.”
“Basically.”
“Great, now I have to worry about that,” Nyx sighed. “Alright, we’re going to save that part of the conversation for later. Right now, we still need to figure out what kind of information we can gather from this.”
“Not much,” I said. “One, the Time Lord is the one who changed me, two, he can permanently kill Eternals, and three, I have something called a Phantom Heart that acts as a defense mechanism.”
“Just defense? I felt a much stronger presence from it.”
“Are you implying it’s a larger part of my powers?”
“Yeah. It definitely seemed to me like that heart was some sort of carrier.”
“Do you think that’s what those green stones are as well?”
“I haven’t the faintest clue,” he said. “I will say though, the Time Lord’s crystals caused the same uneasiness in me as your Phantom Heart did.”
“Ah. That’s…good to hear?”
Nyx chuckled. “Hey, you’re the one that said there were similarities you saw.”
“I know,” I quietened. “Doesn’t mean I like them.”
“So, what are we going to do now?” Nyx asked.
“The Death Lord hopefully brought back the stone he’d seen, so we have something to analyze at the very least.”
“See, I don’t get that either. If the crystal is something important, why the heck is it lying in the chamber like that?”
“I’m as clueless as you are.”
“Always the case,” he chuckled.
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway,” I said.
“You want to find your Phantom Heart, don’t you?”
I blinked. “How do you know I don’t have it?”
“If you did, you wouldn’t have put yourself through that memory just to see it once again,” he said. “I’m assuming when you resurrected into this world again, it was without the Phantom Heart.”
“That’s what happened,” I said. “I don’t know what exactly occurred, but I don’t have the Phantom Heart with me anymore. I’m not sure why.”
“And I presume this means there’s nothing in your memories about the event?”
“I haven’t obtained all of them yet,” I said. “And I’m not sure I want to, all things considered.”
“That certainly doesn’t sound ominous,” the spirit sighed.
“Anyway, open a channel to Ijyela,” I said. “I need to send her a message.”
“Phantom Heart?”
“Yeah.”
DING!
A screen popped up before me, and on it was the Ga’em Messaging Service. I quickly typed out a message to Ijyela.
I’ve found a possible lead. If the Death Lord gets back tell him not to lose the crystal that he’d found before. It’s important that we keep it safe. Additionally, can you check with your contacts if they’ve ever heard anything about a crystal heart? It doesn’t matter in what context. If they heard about a pigeon that once had a crystal heart, I want to know about it.
“Wow. Serious message,” Nyx said.
“Well, yeah.” I tapped the send button. “You think now’s a time to be slacking off?”
“Considering everything you just went through, I’m surprised you’re not. If it were me, I’d have trouble just speaking.”
“That was me the first time I ran through this,” I said. “Stayed in my Spirit Space for hours, watching those dead bodies. After a few times, you kind of get used to it.”
“You are not okay.”
The flames cracked underneath my feet, sending dark fire up along my legs. Heat singed my skin, but I stood there, taking it all in.
I smiled. “Maybe”
DING!
Ijyela replied back.
Is everything okay? Freya said you sent her back, and I have to say she is NOT thrilled about that. The Death Lord hasn’t come back yet, so I suggest you send him a message just in case. I will also contact people I know and ask about this crystal heart. Personally, I have not heard of such a thing, and that makes me think most of the others have not either. Nonetheless I will give it a try.
I closed the screen. “Good, now we have that set up and ready to go.”
“Do you want me to open a channel to the Death Lord?” Nyx asked.
“Just send him a quick message. ‘Keep the crystal rock safe’. That should be enough.”
The fire around us burned brighter, which was an odd thing to say given it was burning black. However, I’d had enough of the heat pouring into me now. I put my hand up. “Vapireo Giola!”
A twister of water surged up all around me, and shot high up into the sky. Rubble and dust rose with the flow, and the swirling blue expanded out, dousing every flame on the field.
I dropped my hand to the side and the attack cut off too. The rubble caught in the water flow dropped back to the ground, cracking the streets and the heavier debris left on it.
Nyx chuckled. “Well, that’s one way to put out a fire.”
My legs went numb and I collapsed to the floor.
“Zoran!’ the spirit exclaimed.
“I’m fine.” I took a few breaths and sat myself up.
“Hundredth time, sure. You’re not okay with seeing that seen at all, are you?”
“I’m…not.”
“Listen, it’s normal to feel that way, to—”
“It was my fault, Nyx.” My voice shook now. “If I hadn’t been such an idealist back then, we’d have killed the dragon. Everyone would have been safe.”
“Listen, you idiot, you don’t know that. Don’t make hypotheticals. It’s easy to fall prey to those kinds of things. What’s to say the Time Lord didn’t have a backup plan to paralyze you all?”
“Because he didn’t.”
“Yes, but what if he did? There’s nothing telling you he didn’t, right?”
“That’s how I rid myself of guilt? By hypothesizing something?”
“Gee, I wonder how you got yourself into the guilt in the first place.”
I stood up. “We really don’t have to fight about this here.”
“Fine,” the spirit said. “But we need to talk about this some other time.”
“We’ll see.”
“By the way, should we be worried the Death Lord still hasn’t responded?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe he’s traveling?”
“Wouldn’t he be using his Shadow Travel skill?”
“He probably used it to get to the energy signature. And he’ll probably have to wait at least half a day more before he uses it again.”
“That isn’t very clever.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” I said. “Right now, we need to figure out our own way of finding out more about this Phantom Heart.”
“Zoran, those shadowy figures from before—”
“They were shadows because I don’t remember them exactly,” I said. “Can we stop talking about this please?”
“Are they shadows because you don’t remember them or because you don’t want to see them?”
“Really, can we stop talking about this?”
A gentle gust of wind blew past me. It was chilling, unlike the hot gusts I’d faced. I closed my eyes, reveling in the cold sensation I felt on my face. A clap of thunder cracked through the skies, descending from the dark clouds above.
There were no stars in the night sky, for they were all hidden by the black puffs roaming the air beneath them.
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 104
