Heart of Darkness

"Hm?"

Unconcerned with the artificial post in front of him, Barion raised his head as a strangely nostalgic feeling overcame him all of a sudden. As if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, it was the sensation of being liberated, like some grand, faraway evil had been extinguished.

"This feeling…" He muttered.

"You sense it as well?" Manyu crossed his arms, "A Heavenly King has been defeated."

"Leviathan?" Barion wondered, "...But, by who? I thought it appeared in Onaffor-Hen? Dorma wouldn't suddenly disappear to fight it without telling anyone."

"That is the question, isn't it?"

"It couldn't be…" He lowered his head, "...No. I doubt it. Fleecia must have been preparing to get rid of it all this time. I would have liked to see that battle."

"Let's not get side-tracked, now. We still have questions of our own to answer."

"Right. Even if this barrier is powerful, I doubt it'll last forever."

"What do you make of this sign?" Manyu asked, "I don't understand a word of it, or that strange symbol at the bottom. Was it created by some ancient culture? Perhaps a nation defeated by Demonkind in the past?"

"If that's the case, why--or how, would they have placed a sign down here?"

"Too many questions. Far, far too many for my liking."

"Let's keep moving. Even if it's a warning, that isn't going to stop us."

"You make a fine point."

The only sounds that accompanied their footsteps were those of the cerulean waters being repelled around them. The landscape had transformed fully into a dumping ground, covered with gargantuan piles of metal pipes. A forest of iron, or something more sinister, illuminated in sickly aquamarine shades. It was the very picture of a forbidden place, never meant to be traversed by anything resembling men.

"How much air do you suppose we have left?" Manyu wondered.

"What?" Barion tilted his head, "We're wearing the necklaces, aren't we?"

"Barion-" The former Demon King paused, "The necklaces allow us to breathe without our lungs filling with water. Tell me, are we swimming right now?"

"Well… we're underwater."

"This magical bubble we're standing in only has so much air to go around." He corrected, "Certainly, we wouldn't have to worry about air if we were swimming, but as I'm sure you already know, coming into contact with this lake is a death sentence."

"Well…" He began again, "-Wasting all of our air arguing isn't going to help, is it?"

"Of all the places to die, I would be rather embarrassed to meet my end here."

"I'm sure it's fine. If we start to get light-headed, I'll just summon a Gate and get us out."

Their constant bickering was the type one would see from a pair of rotten siblings, but it was obvious that they held no genuine hatred for one-another. The undeveloped branches of their past philosophies, and the battles they had found themselves caught up in, had occurred ever so long ago. As arrogant young lads, they fought to decide the fate of the world, but as men, they sought to understand each-other in that strange manner.

The lake was an engulfing basin of metal, wholly unnatural and deeply corrupted. They hadn't walked on for five minutes before encountering another phenomenon of a seemingly unearthly persuasion.

"...What is that?" Manyu looked up, "A tentacle?"

"No." Barion stepped forward, "Look closely."

Indeed, under those murky waters, everything seemed to mesh together at a distance. The tendril which emerged like a gargantuan shadow from the distance, reaching up towards the lake's surface, appeared very much like the appendage of some gargantuan creature, but upon closer inspection, its true form was revealed--a gangly, twitching mass of flesh, with eyes, teeth, mouth and nostrils sewn upon a crimson canvas of skin.

"It's one of the pillars." Manyu concluded, "Are we approaching the source?"

"I'm not looking forward to seeing what could possibly create such horrors." Barion lamented.

"Based on what we've already seen, I would be prepared for anything." He replied, "But, this isn't the place for fighting, if this spelunking of ours does end up coming to blows. Be ready to create a Gate quickly if we need one."

As they drew closer, yet more tentacles of viscera emerged from the darkness. Descending towards a singular point, the duo found their paces slowing in preparation of encountering some kind of repulsive creature, and as a silhouette emerged from the brine, they stopped in their tracks completely.

"Is that a Demon?" Barion gripped the sceptre tightly.

"No. It's not alive." Manyu relaxed his posture, "It looks… metallic."

What they had encountered was not a beast in the slightest, but a structure. A dome of rusted metal, comparable to the enigmatic Crucibles or the mysterious tower in the Henklomeon Steppe. Upon its near perfectly-smooth hemisphere were openings, or perhaps cavities, from which the turgid pillars of flesh spilled forth.

"This is… where Demons are created?" Barion wondered, "How does it work?"

"Look. There's an entrance." Manyu raised an arm to point towards what appeared to be a set of doors built within an alcove near the front of the dome, "Shall we let ourselves in?"

"Is that a good idea?"

"Was jumping into this lake a good idea? I was under the impression that we're no longer concerned with whether something is a good idea or not."

"Alright, but if anything bad happens, I'll be putting the blame on you."

"You already blamed all of the world's woes on me 500 years ago. A few tentative risks are quite the simple burden to bear in comparison."

The doors were closed, naturally, and like the dome itself, they appeared to be made of an exceptionally durable metal. As the duo brainstormed ideas as to how they would gain entry on their path forward, they were startled by a beeping sound as a small cover above the door retracted to reveal a glass ball poking out from the hole.

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"I-I can hear a voice…" Barion stammered, "What's it saying?"

"Use the sceptre." Manyu recommended, "Cast a spell of comprehending languages."

"Oh, that's not a bad idea at all!" He quickly took the sceptre in both hands.

Manipulating the national treasure's innate magical particles, both Barion and Manyu suddenly found their hearing stolen from them, and felt stinging sensations in their skulls before the sense was returned to them, and suddenly, the strange voice emanating from above the door became perfectly understandable.

Unknown lifeforms detected. Please wait for scan.

Unknown lifeforms detected. Please wait for scan.

Unknown lifeforms detected. Please wait for scan.

"L-Lifeforms?" Barion repeated, "What's a scan?"

His answer came immediately. Recoiling at the presence of a crimson beam of light emitting from the small black sphere.

"...Is this magic?" Manyu asked.

"You're taking this quite well, aren't you!? What's it doing!?"

Scan completed.

(2) Lifeforms identified as (SEED 1) and (SEED 2) recognised.

Entry granted. Have a pleasant day.

At that, the doors shuttered open at an astonishing speed, disappearing into thin alcoves. A hallway enveloped by darkness awaited beyond, and a matter of seconds later, strange lights trapped in the sterile ceiling flickered to life, illuminating a passageway too long to see the end of.

"Seems as if we've been invited." Manyu noticed, "Shall we, Barion?"

"Are you mad!?" He shouted, "Haven't we seen enough? Weren't you concerned about our lack of air just a few minutes ago? We should report what we've found back to Gria before we end up dying down here!."

"Think about this rationally for a moment." Manyu crossed his arms, "If this lake truly is a spawning ground for Demons, and this dome is where they originate from, we could potentially find a way to stop them from being created if we go inside."

"How do you suppose we'll be doing that?"

"I'm afraid there's only one way to find out."

"Be honest with me--is this some ploy to get me killed so that the world will be overrun with Demons again?"

"Of course. However did you figure that out? Naturally, I've always known about the enormous domes of metal beneath these dangerous subterranean lakes. Diving into them is actually a hobby of mine, you know?"

"Alright, now. Simmer down. I was only joking."

"Are we going in or not?"

"Fine, then. What's the worst that could possibly happen?"

"Let's not allow our minds to wander that far."

Within the entrance was a single hallway, wide enough to accommodate a small group of people. Seemingly unending, Barion couldn't help but feel as if he was straying into a trap when crossing the threshold. In his youthful days when dungeon-crawling was a daily occurrence, he was forced to develop a sixth-sense for such things. Venturing through the flooded passageway, He and Manyu dared not to hurry themselves--as endless as it appeared to be.

"Forgive me for forgetting, but does a spell of Comprehending Languages translate the written word, too?" He asked.

"It does." Manyu answered,

"Then why didn't you suggest we use it to understand the sign we saw earlier?"

"It slipped my mind. Or, it would be more correct to say that the idea only occurred to me after we'd already left the sign behind us."

"That voice at the door called us something…" He muttered, "Seed 1… and Seed 2."

"Probably just a title to keep track of whoever visits, I imagine."

"But, it did recognise us."

"That's true… it didn't seem like the kind of door that would open for two measly humans."

"More to the point, what was that voice?" He continued, "Maybe there's a sorcerer scrying us?"

"A sorcerer living at the bottom of a lake?"

"Well, what do you think it was?"

"I'm sure we'll be finding out shortly. Let's forego our burning questions until we see where this corridor spits us out."

A hollow sound accompanied their footsteps as the two of them pressed onward, illuminated by the fading cerulean glow of the waters surrounding them, and the yellowish light fixtures shining down from above. 5 minutes passed. Then 10. When the 15-minute mark approached, Barion dared to look behind him, finding himself unable to spot the entrance they had wandered in from.

"Barion." Manyu caught his attention, "Something's ahead."

The silver sheen of the corridor gave way to a terminating point in the far distance--some kind of room, or chamber, which only grew in scope as the two of them drew closer. Though its ceiling remained the same height past the meagre doorway leading inward, it seemed to spread for miles horizontally, such that its furthest reaches were obscured by the murkiness of the water. To the left and right of its central walkway stood endless arrays of cylindrical glass tubes, each of them large enough to comfortably accommodate a standing human.

"This has to be some horrible dream…" Barion muttered, "Just what have we stumbled upon?"

"Look. These glass prisons…" Manyu approached one of the cylinders, "They're filled with… blood? Blood and viscera…"

An amalgamation of tissue and gore was pressed up against the glass. Each of the cylinders had varying amounts of flesh contained within them--some only half-full, and others completely empty. As he reached a hand out, Manyu recoiled as a deep, tonal sound shrieked from the strange container, before its contents were funnelled like a godless slurry through an aperture which had opened on the cylinder's floor, leaving naught but stubborn bands of muscles clinging to the glass.

"What did you do?" Barion asked.

"Not a thing." The former Demon King answered, "It was… full, I suppose. In need of emptying."

"But why?" He insisted, "What kind of forsaken place is this!? Tentacles of flesh pouring out from holes in the dome--glass tubes filled with nothing but skin and muscle! What reason is there for any of this!?"

"I must admit that it confounds me just as well as it does yourself." Manyu admitted, "-But there must be a method to this madness. Let's move on."

The draining tubes of flesh were innumerable--their placement and design undeniably manmade. But no nation which had ever graced the world could have possibly created something so utterly sterile and perfect. The answer to all of their questions, the two of them hoped, lay at the strange facility's heart, which they appeared to encounter after an indeterminate amount of time crossing through the gargantuan chamber.

It was a bare space--a break in the floorplan. A single slab of metal, embedded with a black mirror, standing on its lonesome before a tremendous stretch of untouched estate, with yet more cylinders rising to flank it in the distance.

"There's nothing here except for this monolith…" Manyu observed, "Perhaps it's magical?"

"I simply can't wait to see what's going to happen when you begin fiddling around with it."

Drawing closer to the slab, Manyu could plainly see that its supposed mirror wasn't a mirror at all, but a plaque of some sort, with white lettering that contrasted with the pitch-black sheen of its background.

Corpse Disposal Station #4490

Facility capacity - 27%

Containment cell acidity - Nominal

Biomass excretion efficiency - 92%

Corpse disposal chamber capacity - 82%

Open chamber?

[YES] NO

CAUTION - Please remain aware of your surroundings when examining the chamber. Falling into the chamber may cause grievous bodily harm. Only approach the chamber perimeter in the case of a blockage or emergency. Please entrust facility caretakers with the responsibility of corpse disposal.

"Corpse… disposal?" Barion repeated, "...Demon corpses?"

"I suppose so. This enchanted mirror appears to be measuring the dome's available storage space… among other things." Manyu theorised, "There's certainly some kind of sorcery at play here. I suppose the 'chamber' can be opened remotely from this plaque? Quite convenient."

"Where is it?"

"I have no clue. I'm going to select 'yes' so we can have a look at what happens."

"Not one to waste any time, are you?"

Tapping a finger against the highlighted option, Manyu went silent for a few seconds as nothing appeared to happen, before a grating sound suddenly assaulted his hearing. As the two men watched on, the floor itself appeared to move, with the large, sunken space in front of the monolith sliding away like a massive hatch, disappearing into a hollowed alcove.

"Unbelievable… what an incredible contraption." Manyu muttered, "If only we could- urgh!"

Unable to finish his sentence, Manyu was forced to cover his nose with both hands as a sickening, decaying stench wafted out from the hole revealing itself in front of them.

"Goddess!" Barion cursed, grimacing at the stench, "What is that!?"

"A smell the two of us are all too familiar with, I'm afraid." He answered, "The stench of rot."

They went silent, and for a moment, neither of them dared to speak up, for they knew that whatever had just been revealed was something better off never acknowledged. An overwhelming urge to turn back and forget what they had stumbled upon blossomed in both of their chests. But a morbid thirst for the truth--or even a chance at unravelling the demonic conspiracy, forced them to take those tentative few steps forward, to stare unwillingly into the very heart of darkness itself.

"No…" Manyu blinked, "That isn't… it can't be…"

"Are those…" Barion began, "...people?"