The jagged walls of the World's Grave stirred with a rhythm Void did not recognise, an eerie low pulse reverberated through the rock, as if the archive had finally roared to life, no longer bound by silence.
Halfway down the last step, Void stopped. The depths below hummed. A wicked presence moved in the archive, one that had not been here the first time. Void leaned closer to the wall; his instincts flared.
'I can feel something, what is it?' The thought echoed in his mind.
Zamyr whispered back, ~Careful~
Void crept closer and angled one eye around the jagged wall. Four wizards drifted towards the top of the archives, doggedly labouring away to mark more scrolls. Mossy runic lamps flittered at the hems of their tattered robes, shading the depths of the archive with their sickly green hue.
"Wizards..." Void frowned, "What are they doing here?"
~...Archiving?~ Zamyr tilted his head.
Void sighed, clenched his teeth and whispered back, "I know that...I meant, why are they here now!"
~Perhaps we left quite the mess last time. Looks like they're busy organising the scrolls back to their place.~ Zamyr shook his head.
"Great." Void pinched his forehead, "So the archives are closed for cleanup? What do we do now? If we fight here, the guardian Knight's gonna come running."
~Indeed, nothing in these chambers hides from his eyes.~ Zamyr nodded.
"Any ideas?" Void softly heaved a breath, his eyes darted around the room, tracking the wizards who were enscribing the scrolls.
Zamyr paused, a fleeting wisdom flashed in his spirit, ~There is one way. Imagine the wizard. Feel its magic, you can see it, can't you?~
Void frowned, his pupils flickered with an azure glint, he closed his eyes and etched the shape by memory: The sway of their tattered robes, the sickly magic curling their figure, and their wretched presence. Void imagined every last detail.
~Good.~ Zamyr's phantom stirred.
A pale light enveloped Void. When he moved again, the air took him for a wizard; he changed, as if the world itself forgot what he looked like.
Void's eyes widened, and he stared down at his arms, now transformed to deathly pale appendages, his fingers curled around his face, a mere husk shaped by bone.
"This..." Void hummed in thought, "Will work."
~An illusion. One that will break, but for now, use it well.~
He floated forwards, robes swaying in the wind. Void reached towards the archive and entered it.
Void's presence seemed to break the silence; one wizard turned its face toward him by instinct. The black pits in its skull reflected nothing, but it held its gaze, as if to measure him. For a moment, Void held his breath, and the air shifted.
But then, the wizard finally turned away, continuing its work.
Obsidian kept close, transformed to a faint shadow that tugged at the hems of Void's robe, his voice damped to a whisper. "I have the records from last time. The archive hasn't changed. If we're still looking for sword-rites, it would be towards the end of the hall."
Void kept the glide smooth and slow, flittering down the archive. Ahead, runic lamps hung on the ceiling, and as he approached, they drew close, hovering above a lane of shelves that breathed stale and bitter.
When his hands touched the bones, the scrolls unravelled.
The first one held scripture on the Hive's law of conquering. He closed it. Void knew there was nothing more than rituals to defile and desecrate within it. The second scroll rattled, and as he touched it, visions of creating binding runic enchantments flashed in his mind.
He closed it. The knowledge was far too skewed; it wasn't something he could comprehend, not now.
The third scroll on the shelf stirred, almost as af it wept. Void opened it, and etched within was the fable of a Hive knight who had ascended by claiming the souls of his own reflections. Void's fingers caressed the scroll, brushing past the inscriptions. They seemed recent, far too recent. Yet at the same time, they felt ancient.
He looked closer, and the inscriptions trembled, changing their shape. The scroll felt alive, but there was no memory stored within; it seemed incomplete. Void hesitated, but finally put it back.
The last scroll on the shelf illustrated the ritual of rites sung by the Swarm Princes during a siege that had lasted centuries.
He opened it and waited. The words flared like old scars, and the glyphs organised as meaning before sound. He did not blink.
Void channelled his light within, and the vision came.
The memory did not waste time with reverence. What he saw was a blade, bound by chains. Surrounding the blade were Hive princes. They knelt, whispering old and wicked magic into the sword. And as the centuries passed, the blade hummed.
The world flared around him, the memory of the scroll stretched further and further, but there was no more to see. Finally, Void heaved a breath, and he was thrown out.
"That sword."
~The blade of ruin~ Zamyr continued, ~So we finally understand its origins.~
"Centuries of dark magic poured into the blade. I guess the Hive really don't hold back." Void shook his head.
~It is magic that made it. Only magic can undo it.~ Zamyr concluded, his words drifting into the silence of the archive.
"What if I killed those who bind it? All the ones that gave it the power to begin with." Void's thoughts raced, "Would that not be enough?"
Zamyr considered it, but then he paused, his thoughts drifting through timelines.
~No. It's not enough. The sword has spent centuries consuming souls to strengthen its power. Its strength is beyond its makers. Even if you remove the bindings that attach it to our world, the sword will not become undone. And if the sword remains....~
"Crota will find a few to rebind it." Void grimly nodded, "If the sword was made by magic, can you not do anything? What if I break its bindings, and then you consume it?"
Zamyr flinched and eyed Void, ~To consider eating that magic is daring.~
~It is possible, but the darkness in the sword is something beyond even me. I'll do what I can.~
"That'll be enough." Void glided deeper, taking one last look at the page in his sight until the characters sank into him. He folded the knowledge down and put it with the rest.
But Void wasn't done. He still needed context for the mechanism the Hive referred to as sword logic. He read the shelves, dust slanted thicker where the older scrolls were racked.
Void took the oldest three and opened them. Some of what he saw inside, he already knew.
The idea of it was simple. Brutal, but clean. A cut was a statement: I am stronger than what I took from you. If the soul accepted the statement, then sword logic reinforced it.
But what he found next shocked him.
Sword logic was incomplete. The Hive couldn't force its will onto the world. Despite their wretched magic, in the end, they were still mortal. So they used a conduit, one given to them by the ancient darkness. The Hive used protoworms.
Pseudo-worms that fed on tithes of soul, and allowed the Hive to commune with the world's laws. Through them, the hive ascended. Through them, the Hive made sword logic.
Void shuddered. He had known about the worms, but seeing them in a memory was entirely different. He could understand why the Hive had chosen to use them. The protoworm seemed harmless at first. But as it continued to grow, a strange power bloomed within it, one that allowed its wielder to etch their will into the world.
Void continued his search, looking for all the ways the Hive had tried to contact the protoworms, how they had done their rituals, what the worms had promised them, and what the Hive had done to finally ascend. As it all was revealed to him, Void finally understood why the prince of ruin had shown interest in him on that fateful day.
He had noticed it. Zamyr's presence. A way to imprint will onto reality. A way that was eerily similar to sword logic, and yet entirely different. Perhaps the prince of ruin himself wanted to see how Void had achieved it.
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