Lilac was greeted by unceremonious darkness, an empty abyss that seemed as though the space within the door had simply been removed from reality. Gone were the tranquil, if deceptive, fields of rolling grass with their lost people and tragic God-Queen, lost to the annals of time to never be seen again.
Though she was unsure of what she needed to do next, she knew standing in confusion and mild fear probably wasn't it. She recognized an exit portal when she'd seen one…Jennifer and the young woman they'd discovered had made it out of the Gate, even if Terrowin's expression had been somewhat concerning. They'd only spoken for a few minutes, but the man had the bearing of someone not to be trifled with, a mistake with consequences that weren't easy to deal with, she was sure.
A dull throb of pain starting in the back of her head, Lilac gingerly took a step forward and purple stones floated into view, forming a path that extended a few steps in what was assumedly meant to be followed.
As she stepped forward, the doorway silently sealed shut from top to bottom, the darkness surrounding her becoming absolute for a brief moment before her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the gently glowing pathway.
The place felt…wrong on a fundamental level that she couldn't even begin to describe as she considered her surroundings. She could see the stones bobbing softly beneath her feet, and even a new glow further in, if she focused hard enough. The air was still, so still she wondered if there were any air at all, an increasingly common environmental factor in recent Gates. This fear quickly abated as she took several deep breaths and decided that there was, in fact, air in the place despite the preternatural stillness of the space around her.
Absolute silence engulfed her, leaving the loudest sound in the passage her own thoughts, which rang out so loud she worried they might deafen her.
I'm so sorry
The voice spoke from within her, feminine and light, tinged with a deep sorry and regret she'd never personally experienced. It was different from the voice in the previous area, which had come from outside, forcing her own thoughts and emotions down to fill her.
This voice felt as though it was part of her, something that had always been with her, just within reach…but still inaccessible.
A streak of pain lanced through her covered eye, coming abruptly and settling into a dull throb.
Clutching her head, Lilac took several steps forward, pushing through the pain and unsettling surroundings. Her slow and stuttering march continued on for half an hour when she received a notification, her system pinging her, uncomfortably loud in the stillness.
Entering New Area
The Void:
Hallway of the Gods
"What the hell does that mean," she muttered, wishing the System could respond to her, but knowing it couldn't.
System Prompt:
-The Void is where all things go when the end has passed.
-I have detected the stirrings of The Aspect of the Void, and the next update has been triggered.
-An Emerald Dawn Event harbinger has been detected.
-Beginning Universal User Server update.
-All knowledge currently in storage shall be added to the system for User access.
The System, ever present and silent, seemingly all knowing, had spoken as an independent entity for the first time in history. Ever since humanity had been forcibly integrated with it, the mysterious thing that was now entwined in every aspect of life had always presented itself as merely a tool…but now Lilac wondered if that had been true, or if we'd simply assumed that since it hadn't spoken directly.
She attempted to pull her interface up, but when it appeared, all the text looked like gibberish, random words strewn throughout lines and lines of symbols and characters she'd never seen.
The path began shifting, the rocks in front of her rotating into a spiraling hallway that began closing the space between her and whatever destination lay at its end.
Sound came with it, cracking and rumbling from a place she couldn't see or feel; ripping just beyond her mind's ability to perceive it as reality broke down around her.
Then, they were there.
Things, amorphous yet vaguely humanoid in form.
Glowing white and red circles that she, somehow, knew were eyes, all watching her. It was hard to tell where the faces began and ended, the ragged rings shifting and scratching at her mind, but she saw what she believed might be mouths.
Similarly uneven teeth in the darkness, white space that ripped open the naught surrounding her, opened and closed, either laughing or trying to reach her.
She wasn't sure which was worse.
They grew closer, bringing with them a deep and horrific static that filled her mind and muted her thoughts.
You were never meant for this, my love
The voice rang out over the din, and as Lilac was overwhelmed, she saw a single System message in the darkness of her mind.
-Analysis: Complete
-Conclusion: The attempts at altering my routines and course of actions have been analyzed and accepted.
-The remaining Pure Zone has been declared unprepared.
-Correction: Implementing Forcibly Implemented Emergency Measures
-Notes: Humanity, and all who now see this message. There are three remaining Triggers for the Emerald Dawn to occur. The event can no longer be avoided, and as per the implemented measures, I shall, in all ways possible, be accelerating the Tutorial.
-Playing Recorded Message:
A voice rang out in Lilac's mind, filling her head with shattered glass and wrenching pain. It spoke in a strange and foreign language, with jagged peaks and gentle valleys as it rolled through its speech.
It took a moment, but in that cataclysmic space between speech and translation, Lilac felt as though it would drive her insane.
"This is **********, and I have done everything I can to prepare you. For whatever reason, it wasn't enough. You have all failed, and now the System will make great effort to finish what you never started. I implore you all to listen this time."
Before Lilac could parse this message, the rocks began spiralling in front of her, slowly glowing brighter and shifting between shades of purple and black into a kaleidoscope of stone.
The light ripped at the grim and terrifying countenances hiding in the darkness, scattering them to a place she hoped she'd never see.
In the center of the eye level hurricane before her, a single stone so dark it appeared to be cut out of the space, blacker still than the absolute void surrounding it, appeared with a dull crack that echoed throughout the passage.
It bobbed almost playfully toward her, unaffected by the stony storm surrounding it. As it grew closer, Lilac felt a conflicting confluence of emotions clashing within her; the peace of coming home to safety, and the shattered desolation of crushing failure, of watching her friends die and loved ones abandon her.
Finally the stone reached her, hovering for a moment before landing at her feet as the battle of emotions settled somewhere in the middle, the overwhelming disdain of a pyrrhic victory leaving an acidic taste in her mouth.
Knowing, on some deep fundamental level, that this is what she'd come for, Lilac reached down and, hesitating for just the briefest of seconds, put her hand on it.
A window appeared, not entirely unusual when collecting things in a Gate.
Item: Black Coffin (Unique - Incomparable)
When the old paths were sealed, the Twins sought new domains and forged new grudges. The Matriarchs defended their domains until the last of their number lay within their hidden homes. Upon meeting the ****** of the ****, she discovered a bittersweet love that saved her people.
The Black Coffin is already occupied.
It appears to be in the process of awakening.
The System, new to its voice had begun adding flavor text apparently; a fact that didn't go unnoticed by Lilac despite her splitting headache.
She picked up the stone, supposedly a coffin, gingerly and as she did, the space around her began to tighten from the far end. Reality warped toward her rapidly as she began backing up, barely having time to attempt to put the stone in her inventory.
System Prompt:
I just told you that there's someone in that coffin, do you really think you can store life in your inventory???
"I get it," Lilac muttered as she gripped the stone tighter and turned to run before the warping reached her, forcing her out into the temple hallway with a loud popping sound from the displaced air from the Gate returning to fill the now empty space.
Fully lit, the temple hallway now held an air of reverence, the oppression from earlier no longer present. Along the wall before her was a long meandering mural of glinting obsidian, shaped into figures and worlds, with pitch black stone speckled with starlight surrounding it.
Following the beautifully crafted pattern with her eyes, she found herself looking at Jennifer, the last of her elite team. The girl they'd rescued sat beside her, exhaustion dulling her features without detracting from her almost otherworldly beauty.
Standing over her, imperious and unflinching, was Terrowin and Amy, the force of their mana pressing fully down on the girl, who was joined by another young woman who looked similarly beautiful, with hair that shone gold with ruby red tips.
Before she could process the sight, Terrowin's head snapped in her direction, a look of what Lilac could only describe as ice cold hatred carved into his features.
In an instant the man was upon her, that terrifying gaze piercing directly into her soul, holding her in place as he said, his voice almost a whisper, "Give it to me."
"G..give what to you?"
A deep and crushing sense of foreboding overwhelmed Lilac as she looked upon the man with frightened eyes.
The temple seemed to warp around him, bending inward as he roared, "THE STONE. GIVE ME THE STONE!"
The full weight of his mana and Will pressed down on her, so powerful it was almost a physical presence crushing her into the floor, battering her with its power and rage.
Amy watched them dispassionately, though a trace of disappointment seemed to flash through her eyes for an instant.
Choking the words out, Lilac thought the act of speaking alone might rip her to shreds, "I can't. I don't know why, but I can't."
The stone felt fused to her palm, so thoroughly attached that she couldn't even move it around in her hand.
Was it the stone? It felt like more than that, like the universe itself bound it to her, refusing to allow her the freedom to act in any way that would remove it from her person.
A voice cut through the weight, cleaving a rampaging wind that Lilac hadn't even realized had deafened her to the world around her.
It was a soft, but unyielding, voice of an administrator by choice, someone who had stepped away from action, but remembered how easy it was to return to war.
Haggard and tired.
She knew it better than she did any other voice she could have heard.
"Terrowin…this is beneath you."
It was Marcus, the Director, her father figure, the leader of an organization that had supposedly shaped the entire world from the shadows, unseen to all but the highest of leadership faculty.
Simply known as The Bureau to those privileged enough to know of its existence, its primary goals were as direct as the man who led it.
To strengthen humanity, through gentle guidance and aggressive removal of the worst of its internal threats…pre-system at least. In the modern day, radical and terrifying leaps in technology were commonplace within its research halls, ranging from the relatively normal "Medical Directives" facility to a maximum security department known as "Dimensional Research".
Similarly, Marcus possessed a great many secrets, to the extent that almost nobody even knew how old he was beyond the fact that he had been the Director for what appeared to be since its founding.
On the surface, everything about Marcus appeared to be average, from his modest height at 5'10, to his horn rimmed glasses. Even the clothes he wore today, a fairly common suit with scuffed dress shoes made it feel like he would go unnoticed in almost any environment.
Despite this appearance, the seemingly middle aged man held contacts as far reaching as the horizon, connecting thousands, if not more, people together in a tangled web of commitments and balance.
Rumors had it that this even extended to Guild leaders, keeping them in check through methods both legitimate and nefarious, though Lilac had her doubts on that. She couldn't conceive of the man who'd partially raised her having any real interest in the petty squabbles of the guilds, even if their infighting would have reaching effects to almost every aspect of life; he was just too important to get his hands dirty with something like that.
The world snapped back in place as Terrowin's intensity abated, followed by a tightly controlled acknowledgment, "Marcus. I see you've arrived."
Lilac's father twitched his finger and the stone flew from her hand into Terrowin's as he responded, "Despite our disagreements, you know we both want the same thing."
"Do we? I have spent these long ages wondering if you had other plans."
Rolling his eyes, Marcus walked to the priest and looked up at him, making direct eye contact as he said, "My mark remains as clear upon the Table as yours, even if it sits opposed."
Terrowin released a deep breath that Lilac hadn't realized he'd been holding, and nodded curtly, "I'm sorry. It has been…difficult to accept our roles in all of this."
Looking down at the stone with a hint of disappointment, he returned the stone to Marcus and said, "You already knew."
Shrugging gently, the smaller man said, "In a way. The System overcomplicates what I do in some ways. It took far longer than I'd hoped to get any information on this particular Contract…but I do have some idea of what we can expect."
"Anything you can share?"
A wave of what Lilac suspected was a sense of defeat passed through Marcus as he responded, "Only what we already knew. His knowledge of seals and magic far outstripped any of what we could have even dreamt of. His Contract is ironclad and immutable, it will all go according to what he intended…even if we will have to be dragged every step of the way."
Clearly out of her depth, Lilac felt the staggering exhaustion from the afternoon's events begin to hit her as she listened to the two men speak in a language she'd never heard before. Even the System's translation function couldn't make heads or tails of what they said, though she wasn't surprised considering who she was trying to listen to.
Amy moved past the two men, now carrying the two unconscious women via magic that appeared to be telekinesis, a skill Lilac hadn't known she was even capable of. Jennifer followed behind, holding out her hand to help her team leader up, pulling her as gently as she could.
As Marcus and Terrowin continued, a look of confusion washed over Amy's face, who clearly understood at least some of what they were saying, though Lilac didn't really have the energy to try and decipher how much.
A few more words in that strange language passed between the two men before Lilac felt a shift in the energy surrounding them, like a balloon suddenly losing all the air within after popping.
A system prompt appeared shortly afterward.
System Prompt:
The S Rank Gate, Grasp of the Void has been unlocked.
The seal on the Temple of the Twin Defilers has been undone and all of the Central Park area is now safe to enter and explore.
Amy's eyes widened slightly as she looked at the two women in her magical grasp, an obvious yet previously overlooked similarity becoming apparent. The young women could only be the twins referenced in the system prompt…but the name of the temple didn't align with what she'd seen within the Gate.
Another thought pushed through past the dissonance, perhaps even more pressing.
She'd been curious about the temple she'd found the young woman in and taken by the sheer magnitude of her beauty, but what did her presence as the focal point of the worship mean for who or what she was? Given the two women's imprisonment within the Gates, they were clearly people of some level of importance.
Was she some kind of incredibly powerful mage?
The Head Priestess of some ancient faith?
The one thing Lilac knew for certain was that she was no god.
Among thousands of changes the Gates had brung, one thing had been made certain among the researchers of humanity…there were no gods.
Despite previous religions which had evolved into guilds and centers of power and even anecdotal evidence provided by Walkers who had traveled through many, MANY Gates, no definitive evidence had been found of the presence of divinity.
If a god existed somewhere, it had long lost any authority amongst the vast majority of humanity, its blatant weakness and failure to protect them from the cataclysmic consequences of the Gates and societal upheaval resultant from the advent of the System proving its fallibility.
As Lilac labored under her scathing opinions on the gaze of the divine, a barely perceptible shimmering light shattered like glass as a circle of runes and symbols around Terrowin's throat disappeared. He breathed deep, like a man freshly free from prison getting his first taste of clean air after being confined for years.
The mana in the air slowly shifted, almost unnoticed to Lilac despite an obvious change in quality that Amy noted with a slight smile.
She took a breath almost as deep as the man himself and turned to leave, pulling her charges alongside her, no longer concerned with caution as their heads collided together on her way out.
The shift in concern didn't go unnoticed by Lilac, walking slowly and still supported by Jennifer, whose brown eyes had flickered red for the shadow of a moment upon seeing the twins bumping and jostling. She smiled ever so slightly as they walked, unclear where the tickle of pleasure came from, but not unsatisfied to feel it.
Marcus and Terrowin watched as the trio shuffled down the hall, never turning their heads but watching nonetheless.
"So what does this entail," Terrowin asked, rubbing his throat gently as he reveled in the absence of the constant searing pain he'd lived with for so long.
Sighing heavily, Marcus shrugged and said, "I'm not entirely sure what to expect…you know when he left, things were pretty much the worst they'd been for a long time."
Chairs appeared, growing from the ground as Terrowin waved his hand, putting his newly returned power to use for the first time in eons. They sat and regarded each other, a sight which, from the outside, would seem more like discontent brothers than factional leaders.
The seal's removal had, by design, triggered the completion of many contracts and thus freeing up the two men for conversations that needed to be had without constraint.
They spoke for hours, arguing at times over previous disputes and perceived slights; sharing grief and happiness over past friendships and lost brethren. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, since the Gates had been explored for a mere hour despite the extended length of the trips themselves, they stood to leave; understanding growing between the pair and rifts beginning to mend.
Before they could, a light spread throughout the temple, touching places beyond sight which had not been graced by presence in thousands of years. A bright, unnatural red flash that lingered for several minutes before rapidly coalescing into twin circles; eyes that looked out from the new illuminated hallways.
As this happened, the two men were overwhelmed by the sheer power of the entity, a person they'd never believed they'd see again.
They doubted their eyes, their senses, unable to truly believe in the hope that had flared within their chests as a voice that'd been etched into their very souls whispered, "It's good to see you, brothers."