'The Memory of Nothing has no shape, and as such it can only adopt the shape of others.' Lucien repeated in his mind.
A memory with no shape, Lucien wouldn't have believed such a thing existed if he hadn't seen Nephis' Nameless Sun.
He couldn't exactly summon such a memory without holding something to host it. Did it need to be a memory though? It didn't specify that.
Out of curiosity, Lucien raised both hands and attempted to create a small steel dagger. Before unlocking his aspect legacy, just doing that would take a while. He'd need to first shape the lightning into a dagger, then turn it into wind, sand and finally steel.
But this time, it was different. Between his hands, the steel dagger began manifesting out of nothing. A purple glow followed the metal as it slowly took the shape of a simple dagger.
Lucien held the dagger in his hand, momentarily stunned with how easy that was. Right at that moment his flaw claimed its price, and an amount of blood disappeared from his body.
On the other side Nephis raised an eyebrow, she hadn't ever seen a memory form like that, without any white sparks to signify its summoning. The only thing that came close was Moonlight Shard.
"A memory of yours?"
Lucien glanced at her before turning back to the weapon, "Not really."
Refusing to elaborate further, he focused his essence to summon the Memory of Nothing. An iridescent mist leaked out of Lucien's hand, shapeless and formless. Every single colour Lucien could possibly imagine was in that mist, and then there were the other colours, the ones he couldn't comprehend much less describe. These colours collided with each other, creating a myriad of shapes within. Spheres, ovals, hourglasses, some vague shapes that looked like animals, and even some lone eyes and rudimentary hands. These shapes dissipated almost as soon as they were formed, replaced in an instant.
The colourful shapeless mist flowed towards the steel dagger and wrapped around it. The silver sheen of the weapon was instantly lost as the visage of the mist took its place. Even when it was etched on the weapon, it did not stop moving. The shapes kept forming and disappearing every second. It made the simple dagger look like a high rank memory.
Holding the dagger in his hand, Lucien could feel the thrum of energy moving through it. The entire knife was trembling under the force of the memory, as if it would break at any moment. In an attempt to test it out, Lucien brought the knife close to the floor and dragged the tip of the blade on the ground.
The steel blade that couldn't have been sharp enough to scratch the stone, actually dug into it as if it wasn't even there. The blade glided through the solid stone like it was passing through water. Lucien was just about to use this method to carve a rune when a tremor suddenly passed through the blade.
The steel blade went silent, and a large crack suddenly appeared along its length, spreading outwards in a spiderweb pattern. The steel knife shattered while it was still half embedded in the ground.
Lucien stared at the broken pieces of the blade, watching as the Memory of Nothing retreated back into his body. Now curious, Lucien summoned the relic again, this time just suspending it between his hands.
He was prepared to activate the enchantment of Nightveil to study the relic in deeper detail, when his entire body froze. Every single fiber of his being was unwilling to listen to his command, it was as if he had lost control over his body. A coldness slowly crept up his body, cold sweat drenching his back. He could hear his heart beat wildly in his ears. His entire body trembled, screaming at him to move, to hide away.
'Don't look. Don't look. Don't look.' The words echoed in his mind as fear clutched its grip around his heart. When Nether's lineage had fractured his mind, it had given him the ability to hold hundreds, if not thousands of different streams of thought at the same time. Ever since that happened, all of those streams had different thoughts running through them, some mundane, some theoretical, but never once had they been as united as they were right now.
Both his conscious and subconscious mind were telling him the same thing, a warning not to look too deeply into the relic, lest something terrible happen.
This wasn't the first time this had happened. The first time, it was when Lucien tried to enter the room filled with corruption inside the tower. Back then, his legs wouldn't move until he forced them to. Now, even with force, his body didn't move, that alone told him just how dangerous this new relic was.
Immediately after, Lucien dismissed the relic, letting it return to the confines of his soul sea. And he finally breathed out a sigh of relief, it was over.
On the other side, Nephis was staring at him with a frown, trying to figure out what had just happened. That mist-like thing, she had seen them in textbooks before, but couldn't remember their name. But she knew that those weren't a form of storm, so it couldn't be a part of Lucien's aspect ability.
A memory like her Nameless Sun then?
Noticing her confusion, Lucien took in a calming breath and spoke, "It's a…relic that I got recently. I was testing it out."
Nodding Nephis' face returned to its neutral state. Then she asked, "Are you going to hunt again?"
"No," Lucien shook his head and stood up, "I need some time to rest, I will go to get back the body though."
"I'll come with you." She said standing up beside him.
Lucien glanced at her, "What? Are you worried I'll lose another hand?"
Nephis nodded, "Yes."
"…" Lucien stared at her for a few seconds, "In my defense, I was having an epiphany."
"Sure."
Sighing, the two of them left the Citadel, and found the Stone Goliath outside sitting on a small mound of monster corpses. Beside the pile, there was a singular corpse of a crocodile-like nightmare creature, it had four massive arms coming out of its sides and a severed stinger.
The goliath looked down at them and said, "I've retrieved the corpse of the monster you killed."
Lucien glanced at the body of the Ciphrus and then back at the Goliath, "What about these?"
The sound of stone hitting stone filled his ears as the goliath scoffed, "You left a trail of blood when you ran back here with your injured hand, what did you think happened?"
He stayed silent for a few seconds, 'Right, they would follow my blood to the citadel.'
Looking up, he said, "Thanks."
Then, without another word he walked up to the body of Ciphrus and pried open it's jaw, expecting to find his bloodied arm inside. But when he opened the mouth, there was nothing but ruined flesh and the monster's own red blood. There wasn't even a drop of Lucien's magenta blood.
Frowning, Lucien turned to the Goliath again, "Did you find an arm with this corpse?"
"No," the stone goliath tilted its head, "I was under the assumption you had taken it with you."
"I didn't…" Lucien muttered, that was strange. Did another monster get to the corpse before the goliath did?
But then why would it just take his arm and not the body itself?
Even if it did, there should still be some of his blood left in the mouth of Ciphrus.
The only other possibility was…
If he remembered correctly, he didn't feel the magical loss of blood when he unlocked his aspect legacy and created the spear of steel. Back then he was too occupied with his missing hand to be concerned about that, but now…
Had his flaw taken his entire arm as a price for unlocking the first edict?
Then what would be the price for the 2nd? What of the third? Would the seventh just take his entire body?
Or was there something else he was missing?
As he was considering these possibilities, another part of his mind was occupied with what he was going to do with the body. The most valuable parts were the thick green scales and its sharp teeth. He could use them to make armour and weapons. The rest…he would probably just eat the meat and discard the rest.
With that he stored the massive corpse inside the [Soul Sack] and returned to the inside of the citadel with Nephis.
"You should sleep," Lucien said, "From what I know, Awakened can only sleep in the Dream Realm, and you haven't been here for a whole week."
Nephis stared at him for a moment, "What will you do?"
"I'm going to head somewhere else," Lucien was referring to the tower of course. "Don't worry, its safe, you don't need to come with me. Well, not like you could come with me either way."
Nephis stared at him in confusion, a slight frown on her face, "Why?"
"Well firstly, I'm pretty sure only those with the Blood of Storm God could enter that place. And secondly, there's an enchantment there that will freeze you in time if you do manage to get there."
"How do you plan to break the enchantment?"
Lucien looked down at his body, and then said: "One of my attributes, my core attribute I think, grants me some level of resistance against that enchantment. When I went there originally, it took me a good while to break free of it."
She stared at him for a few seconds before tersely nodding, "Alright."
Finding an empty spot, Nephis laid down on the stone floor and almost immediately passed out.
Once she was asleep, Lucien walked up to the statue of Storm God and touched the onyx stone, and his body was instantly teleported to its twin inside the tower.
As soon as Lucien stepped into the room, he felt like something was wrong. His core attribute didn't activate like it did every time he came here, he couldn't feel the daunting force of the enchantment trying to freeze him in time. As his storm sense spread out into the room, the buzz of life suddenly struck him like a particularly strong nightmare creature.
That…wasn't supposed to happen.
For the second time that day, an uncontrollable fear descended upon him. Ever since he first came here all those months ago, time had always been frozen here, courtesy of a daemons sorcery.
It was a necessary function of the tower, to trap the physical manifestation of the corruption underneath him. Without it, the rot was free to move.
He felt like he was back in the maze of mist, where the mere act of opening your eyes would result in your death.
As cold sweat dripped down his forehead, Lucien summoned his memories one by one, the [Stone Armoursuit], [Damnatio Memoriae], [Starlight Pendant], and even [Mictlans Demise] materialized one by one.
Storm essence flowed to every inch of his body, enhancing it even further, and the Memory of nothing flowed onto his armour, making it even more potent. With all that preparation, Lucien slowly walked towards the stairs and began descending down the tower.
He walked down to the room full of floating hands and stopped. In front of him, right at the edge of the stairs leading down to the room with the rot, stood a single stone saint.
Lucien stared at the stone saint who did not attack him, she looked familiar to him. His vision switched and three black cores appeared inside her body. They weren't like the cores of corruption that nightmare creatures had, but something entirely different.
'Awakened Demon.' Lucien narrowed his eyes as his vision returned to normal. The stone child was taller than usual, she wore glossy black armour that looked to be cut of the same material as the statue of Storm. The skin underneath was pure white, unlike the stone children's grayish white. Two balls of fire glowed underneath her helmet, serving as her eyes.
At that moment, Lucien remembered where he had seen this stone child before. She was standing guard in front of the stairs, her sword and shield raised to stop anyone from going in.
Hesitating for a moment, he dismissed his helmet and asked, "Sunny's echo?"
The Stone Saint stayed silent, choosing not to answer his question.
Frowning, Lucien extended his Storm Sense, and a presence underneath made itself known. It was standing in the middle of the room, near the brazier with the rot in it.
'Sunny' He narrowed his eyes, what was Sunless doing in there? Did he not realize how dangerous the rot was?
With the seal broken, it could move again!
Lucien frowned, then why didn't he feel scared? The last time he had tried to enter the room, an immense feeling of dread and terror had almost paralyzed him. But none of that seemed to exist now. Why? Was Sunny able to deal with the rot?
No, an awakened couldn't possibly defeat something that terrifying. Did breaking the seal do something to it? Was there a contingency in place that would only kick in once the seal was broken? It was impossible to know from here.
He stared at the Stone Saint, who was guarding the path to Sunny. "Could I convince you to let me down to your master? Just in case something happens?"
She stared at him silently, and then shifted to the side, opening up a path just big enough for Lucien to squeeze through.
At that moment, a guttural scream suddenly sounded from below, a scream full of pain and suffering.