'Argh, my head.' Lucien groaned, pushing himself off the cold, wet stone floor. His head was throbbing in pain, it felt like someone had taken a hammer and was constantly banging the underside of his head.
Forcing himself on his knees, he looked down at the small pool of blood and the face it reflected. Streaks of magenta liquid flowed out from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears, giving him a haunting look. He looked like a corpse who had just woken up after years of slumber.
Shaking his head, Lucien began organizing his thoughts. He had read the runes depicting the gods, and passed out because of it. But he had managed to gain that information. The six gods, Shadow, Sun, Heart, War, Beast, and Storm.
And along with them, was the information of the seven parts that make a person. The Blood, Bone, Flesh, Shadow, Soul, Spirit, and Mind.
Looking up at the runes, Lucien focused on the connection between these two sets of runes.
Sun was connected to Soul. The Sun god had a connection to Souls? But wasn't Heart god the god of souls?
Shadow was connected to…well Shadow. That one explained itself.
Storm was connected to Spirit, surprisingly enough. With how unique his blood was, he expected storm god to be connected to blood instead.
However, it was Beast who was connected to Blood instead.
That left Mind, Bone, and Flesh. Those weren't connected to anything. Neither was Heart or War. It seemed even Nether didn't know what those two gods represented.
Even if he did, that left one unaccounted for.
A seventh god? Lucien had theorized the existence of a hidden god before. Now, he had even more incentive to think that way. If there were seven parts to a being, and each god corresponded to one of these, why wouldn't there be a seventh god? It didn't make sense.
Why then, was the seventh never mentioned? Not even Nether knew of its existence.
Frowning, Lucien added investigating the seventh god into his ever growing list of things to do. For now, he turned his attention back to the seven runes describing life.
He had seen that before, when he looked at Nephis using Nightveils attribute. Her body had been split into seven distinct parts. Among them, the Soul was the brightest.
And Soul was connected to Sun god. Together with her aspect ability… It would be within reason to believe she had the lineage of Sun God. That would explain her explosive strength.
But what about Lucien?
In his curiosity, he looked down at his body and activated the attribute. Instantly, his entire body lit up, his blood, bone, flesh, soul, shadow, and spirit began glowing golden. Among them, the blood and spirit were the brightest.
He knew that Storm god was connected to spirit, so her Lineage must have enhanced his spirit somehow. But what about the blood? Why was his blood divine?
It had been like that ever since he first awakened, so it couldn't be because of Nether's artificial lineage.
From what he had gathered, his, and the stormforged's, blood had the ability to attract lightning. That was likely due to their origin of being split off of Storms divine corpus.
His blood was divine because of his origin as a Stormborn? Because he was directly related to the Storm God? That seemed extremely likely.
Then what about Nether's lineage?
It had increased the capacity of his mind, allowing him to comprehend these runes, it allowed him to have hundreds, if not thousands of different streams of thoughts all at once.
Mind?
Frowning, he looked at his reflection in the pool of blood, and sure enough, bright gold electricity lit up his head, it was like a forest of lightning in there. The part of Nether's lineage he had received was the one corresponding to Mind.
Goliath had once said that this was just a fragment of Nethers lineage, one of many. Back then Lucien didn't really understand what he meant, but now armed with new knowledge, he finally understood.
He would likely need to find the other 6 parts of Nethers lineage that corresponded to the Flesh, Blood, Bone, Soul, Spirit, and Shadow.
But what would happen if he found the spirit or blood of nethers lineage? Those parts of him were already enhanced by divinity. Would it get stronger? Or would one devour the other?
He didn't know if he wanted to find that out.
Sighing, he got off the ground and wobbled a bit before stabilizing. He wanted to look at more of the runes, but with his current state, that would be a death sentence.
Taking one last look at the room of runes, Lucien walked back down to the shrine of stars and left the Obsidian Tower.
Back inside Nether's Citadel, Lucien sat down on the ground and began summoning lightning. He had originally planned to go hunting after studying the runes in the tower, but it had taken too big of a toll on him. If he went hunting now, chances were that he would die.
So, the only thing that was left to do was to train his aspect legacy.
Just like last time he went through it step by step, lightning to wind, wind to sand, sand to steel. And just like last time he failed right before he could make the steel.
But Lucien was nothing if not stubborn, so he went for it again, and again, until finally he couldn't anymore. Depleting both his blood and his essence.
Did he get any closer? He didn't know, but it was possible, it had to be possible. Sighing deeply, Lucien lay down on the stone floor and let the sleep claim him.
Over the course of the next few days, Lucien alternated between learning the runes left behind by Nether and hunting inside the Hollow Mountains. He'd practise his aspect legacy every day, and slowly he was getting closer and closer to creating steel.
On the seventh day after returning to the citadel, Lucien was in the middle of a hunt. This time, his target was a Fallen Devil who looked like an unholy combination between a crocodile, a gorilla, and a scorpion. It had the body of a crocodile, with thick green scales protecting the skin. Four giant muscular limbs extended out of its sides, each limb ending with razor sharp claws. Its tail was curled upwards, with a bulbed stinger at the end.
Lucien had been observing it for a few hours at that point, he had seen how it moved, and fought. It would use its huge arms to grab onto poor nightmare creatures, rendering them unable to move. They could only struggle against its monstrous strength, even if they managed to hit it, their blows wouldn't penetrate the scales.
While this happened, it would stab them with its tail, injecting a deadly poison in their bloodstream. Seconds later, they would grow still, not quite dead, but completely unable to move. Almost as if they had entered a deep sleep. Once that happened, the monster would simply raise the body and bide down on its head, ripping it clean off.
'Stay away from the arms, avoid the stinger, and find a way to bypass the scales.' He thought to himself. Gripping the stone spear, Lucien pumped a large amount of essence into it and while the monster was still distracted, shot forward. His body zoomed through the air, leaving a blurry afterimage.
Enhancing his muscles with his remaining essence, he raised the spear and struck. The blade of the spear flashed through the air in a horizontal slash and collided with the curled tail, cutting clean through it. The tip of the tail fell to the ground, rendered useless.
The dormant memory instantly cracked as soon as it was done and with a thought, it disappeared back into his soul sea. While this happened, Lucien unsheathed the Storm Blade and prepared to react to the monster's counterattack.
As soon as it felt the pain on its tail, it turned around and tried to grab Lucien. Having anticipated this, Lucien lashed out with his sword, cutting a deep gash into the soft inside of the monster's palm.
It immediately retracted its hand and at the same time opened its terrifying maw wide. Lucien could see inside the mouth of the beast, the pink flesh was unprotected, almost as if it was waiting for him to attack.
Lucien jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding the sharp teeth as the monster crashed into his previous position. Landing beside the dismembered stinger, Lucien picked it up and waited for the monster to turn around.
As the Fallen Devil turned towards Lucien, its eyes shone with intelligence as it saw its severed tail in his hand. It promptly closed its mouth, and began rushing towards him, it was planning to crush him under its weight.
'This is why I hate smart monsters.' Lucien cursed under his breath and used the wind around him to fly up, far above where the monster could reach him.
"I don't suppose I could convince you to open your mouth wide again?"
The monster below only glared up at him.
"Figures," He sighed, and pointed his blade towards it. Purple electricity flowed out of his body and into the blade before gathering near its tip. A ball of lightning formed in front of the tip, getting bigger by the second.
Taking a moment to aim, Lucien released a thick bolt of lightning towards the monster. It tore through the air and struck the ground, shattering a layer of stone. The monster was surprisingly nimble for its size.
Frowning, Lucien aimed and struck again, once again the monster dodged, using two of its limbs to roll to the side.
Time slowed as Lucien entered his soul sea. The view of the monster dodging was burned into his mind. A thousand possibilities ran by him in a split second before he decided on one.
Returning to the real world, Lucien raised his other arm, and launched the severed stinger towards it. While it was mid roll, the underside of its belly was visible, the layer of scales was thinner there. The monster watched in horror as the stinger neared it, unable to do anything as it pierced through the layer of scares and into its flesh, injecting it with its own poison.
It was only there for a second before it ripped it away, but it had already done its job. The poison had infected his bloodstream, and it was already feeling sluggish.
At the same time a giant bolt of lightning fell on it, covering his whole body. Its green scales had been charred, and its muscles failed to listen to its commands as they uselessly spasmed.
Lucien slowly descended to the ground, breathing heavily as he felt the impact of using that much storm essence at once. He walked up to the monster which was still thrashing around wildly, and summoned another memory. His left arm was covered in sparks as a purple and gold gauntlet appeared over it.
An invisible ripple passed through the world, and the monster stopped resisting almost instantly.
Seeing how it had grown docile, Lucien pried open its mouth, and revealed the soft flesh inside. He knew his previous blows wouldn't kill it, so he planned to stab it through the roof of its mouth to get to its brain and directly fry with with a lethal dose of electricity.
Looking at the length of its snout, Lucien frowned and looked down at his blade. A moment later, he dismissed it and summoned the stone spear. That should be long enough to reach it.
Using his remaining hand to summon Mictlan's demise, he willed the sand to form into a thick pillar between the monster's jaw, keeping it open.
'Alright, time for the final blow.' Taking a deep breath in, Lucien reared his hand back, and stabbed the spear deep into the monster's mouth.
The crocodile hybrid trembled violently, thrashing around the ground, but it was unable to move as the sharp end of the spear slowly made its way to its brain. It tried to close its jaw, but the pillar of sand wouldn't budge.
Its eyes shone briefly as one of its arms limply rose up and fell over its head, pushing the snout downward. The pillar of sand shook and crumbled a bit.
Cursing under his breath, Lucien continued the process, stabbing deeper and deeper with his spear. Even if it was unprotected, the flesh of the monster was tough to cut through with just a dormant weapon.
The pillar kept crumbling as he pushed deeper and deeper into the head of the monster.
Then, his spear hit something hard, bone. He'd reached the skull, all he needed to do was to pierce it. The monster thrashed violently, and the entire cavern began shaking. The pillar of sand was getting smaller by the second.
Preparing himself to pour essence into it, Lucien altered his grip on the spear and thrusted forward, half of his hand was now inside the jaw. Something cracked inside the monster, and its eyes grew wide.
Lucien froze, a cold feeling draped over him, his breath trembled. Because he had heard what the spell had said.
[Your Memory has been destroyed.]
By then, the sharp teeth of the monster had already begun touching his body. There was no time for him to summon another memory, and Mictlan's demise couldn't make a solid blade of sand while maintaining the pillar.
Taking a deep breath in, Lucien poured all his remaining essence into his hand. The lightning flowed out of his fingers, taking shape in his palm. The shaft formed first, extending forward towards the skull, slowly taking the shape of the spear.
The pillar crumbled further, and the jaw of the monster locked around Lucien's hand. Thin cracks appeared on his armoured hand.
All the information about the Decree of Creation flowed through his mind, clicking into place one by one. From the formation of the lightning sheets, to the transmutation of it into steel. It felt as though a fog pressing down on his mind had disappeared, finally allowing him to realize his full potential.
Lucien focused all of his will into the spear made out of lightning in his hand. Three waves passed through his hand into the spear, as they passed the lightning turned into wind, sand, and finally, steel.
A moment before the pillar disappeared, Lucien summoned all of his strength and thrusted the spear deep into the monster's head, shattering the thick skull bone and scrambling the brain.
A loud crack filled the underground space, and the armour around Lucien's arm shattered. The sharp teeth of the monster clamped down on his hand, biting through the flesh like it wasn't even there.
White hot pain flared through Lucien's body. It was strange, there was pain from the force of the bite, there was also a relaxation as his skin lost the tension, and the burning sensation as his inner body came into contact with the outside world.
One by one, each fragment of Lucien's mind was consumed by pain. Hundreds, if not thousands of different streams of thought all filled with the agony of having your arm severed. Clinging on to the last shreds of his conscious mind, he forced his body to move.
Right before the jagged teeth severed through his bone, Lucien sent one last command to the spear, and the steel suddenly turned into lightning, flowing deep into the creature's brain, frying it from the inside.
The monster's body lost all its energy, and the jaw clamping down on Lucien's arm finally managed to shatter through the bone.
[You have killed a Fallen Devil, Ciphrus.]
[You have received a Memory.]
[Your Spirit surges Brighter.]
Lucien fell to his knees, his armour disappearing in a shower of sparks. Magenta blood poured down his arm like a small waterfall, it had begun to form a pool beside him.
'I can't stay here like this.' Lucien thought, gritting his teeth, trying his best to ignore the pain.
'I need to go, I'm not safe here.'
With shaky legs, he pushed himself off the ground. Purple lightning flowed out of his chest and concentrated around his legs. A loud boom exploded in the underground cavern, and Lucien's body disappeared in a flash of purple.
Holding his bleeding stump with his remaining hand, Lucien ran as fast as he could. Following the complicated tunnels, retracing his path back to the citadel.
His speed combined with his flight, he returned to the citadel in record time, all the while leaving a trail of blood behind him. He sped past Goliath guarding the door, crossing the long tunnel in a split second.
Only when he was safely inside the room did he slow down. Leaning down on Nethers Workbench, he finally got a chance to relax.
Breathing heavily he considered his options. With one remaining hand, he couldn't hunt as freely anymore. So trying to awaken his fifth core would have to wait.
Even if he made his way out to the waking world, human medicine couldn't regrow a hand. Neither were there any aspect abilities. Although Nephis' healing was potent, it couldn't grow a limb from nothing. At least not yet.
From what he knew, clearing the second nightmare and becoming a master brings a qualitative change to your body. Maybe then he'd be able to regrow his arm.
Pausing, Lucien looked down at the [Soul Sack]. He had taken the arm of the Fallen Terror Caulborne, what would happen if he were to try and use it to replace his lost arm?
No, it wouldn't work, not without someone knowledgeable in the human body, or someone who had the ability to heal.
He glanced at the bleeding stump, feeling his mind slowly go numb. His body was weakening as the blood continued to flow out of him.
He had to find a way to close the wound. He couldn't just burn the wound to seal it like he had seen many hunters do. He'd need a large piece of metal to do that, not to mention the time it would take to heat it up.
As his knees began trembling, Lucien cast his gaze towards the table, hoping that one of Nether's tools could help him. His eyes passed through the operating tools and froze when he saw the black and blue arm.
It was one of the three items that had initially caught his attention when he first came to this place. The other two being the [Soul Sack] and [Nightveil].
It was a prosthetic arm made of a black thread like material. He hadn't paid it much mind back then, as it was useless to him. But now perhaps…
Steeling his mind, he reached out towards the arm and grabbed it. It was cold to the touch, like metal. The threads ran parallelly giving it a strange texture he couldn't quite describe with words.
Turning the arm around, Lucien observed the craftmanship. If one ignored the colour and texture, it looked identical to a human hand. Its shape was perfect, the muscle definition was completely on point. The only thing that was different were the clawed fingers.
Glancing between the arm and his own bleeding wound, Luciens heart skipped a beat. It was perfectly sized, the prosthetic arm began exactly where his arm ended.
It gave him the feeling that this was made specifically for him.
Was it?
Did Nether foresee this happening? Did he make this arm knowing this would happen one day?
But how could he? How could anyone look into the future? How could they know exactly where I'd lose my hand?
This was too perfect to just be a coincidence.
At that moment Lucien's legs finally gave in and he fell down to his knees. His eyelids were growing heavier by the second and his lucidity was leaving with it.
'It's no use pondering it, if this was made for me, so be it!'
With his last remaining strength, he raised the prosthetic arm, and jammed it at his open wound.
The arm came alive almost immediately. The fingers twisted and turned unnaturally, the 'flesh' of the forearms bulged and shrunk, and something seemed to be digging into his skin. A purple light began flowing through the arm like blood flowing beneath the skin.
Lucien didn't have the time to question the changes as his consciousness was rapidly fading. As he fell to the ground, all he saw was a sudden glow coming from the gateway, the sound of someone speaking, and a pristine white glow descending upon him.