Silas stood before the wall, his spear's shaft pressed against the floor.
"There must be some mechanism to open it."
Zerath eyed him. "Can you break it?"
He threw him a scornful look in return. "You think I can't break a hollow wall of this aging crumbling cave?"
Zerath stepped back, giving him the space he needed and pulled Eurus behind him as well. "Stay back."
Lifting the spear to his shoulder level, Silas aimed its tip at the wall. Clenching his fingers around the shaft, his knuckles tightened. The next moment, a lethal blow ripped through the crevices, forcing the very air to shudder. Dust escaped through the creeping cracks immediately, and with another strike as destructive as the first one, the wall crumbled down quickly. A massive cloud of dust and debris blocked their view and nostrils, making them cough. As the dust settled, the hollow wall opened down to a darker stairwell, leading further downward.
Silas raised a brow. "This cave is even deeper than we thought."
"Let's hope it's also the last," Zerath's senses sharpened.
All of a sudden, Eurus collapsed on his knees, hands clutching into his neck. Every breath took a laborious turn as his chest heaved up and down.
"Eurus!"
Zerath nestled him against his chest while he furiously patted his back. Breathless and ashen, Eurus looked as if a noose strangled around his neck.
"Bad…Bad…"
Zerath turned to face the stairwell once. His gaze returned to him. "I guess the nauseating mana Arzan mentioned before stems from here."
"My lord, what was the sound I heard-" Gressil's eyes widened upon the revelation of a third passage.
"Sir Gressil, take Eurus back up. Whatever is inside here seems to be the core of this cave."
"Yes, my lord!"
Though Eurus's condition kept worsening, he refused to let go of Zerath's sleeve. "Mother…!"
Zerath raised his stern voice. "Enough. You'll seriously fall sick at this rate. I cannot allow you to accompany us any further."
He was about to hand Eurus over to Gressil when Eurus jumped on his feet and dashed straight down the stairwell to everyone's shock.
"Eurus! Come back!"
Zerath rushed inside, urgently following his trail inside the passage.
Silas drew out a lazy yawn. "Everyone's so excited."
Gressil commanded his knights to summon Arzan as he began to follow Zerath. They brought him a few almost immediately and as soon as Arzan stepped in, a gagged reflex nearly consumed him as if he would throw up the next moment.
"What is this disgusting stench!" He trembled hard. "It feels so blasphemous. Just what the hell happened down there?"
"That's what you're supposed to help us figure out," Gressil said while pinching his nostrils shut.
Arzan turned white. The dense, loathsome miasma barely allowed him to breathe even though it was just the entrance. He shuddered to think about his fate at the heart of it.
"T-That's…"
"You're a brave and talented demon from the Magic Ministry. Show the same spark your Master has!"
Spark? Even Sir Draconis would refuse to step in that abhorrent space!
Gressil dragged him inside anyway. Silas casually followed them. Two steps in, his brows knitted as an almost indecipherable faint chime reached his ears. A sound he couldn't identify where it came from. He shrugged it off and continued.
Maybe it's the wind.
—
Eurus's legs gave out as soon as he reached his destination. He struggled to stand amidst his pounding heartbeats and agonizing headaches.
A shadow loomed over him, furious. "Eurus!"
Eurus ducked slightly, Zerath's fury-laced raining displeasure at him like pointed arrows.
"Mark my words - you'll be punished for this. There's a boundary you cannot cross, and my commands are one of them."
Though frustrated as he was, Zerath still picked him in his arms. A thin layer of sweat had coated his small face by now. Zerath let out an exasperated breath but as he lifted his gaze, doom fell upon his expression.
He recognized what looked like an altar at some distance. Walking over, he discovered that there were not one - but two altars facing each other. At the center of it rose an elevated platform with deep grooves hinting at some faded away circular inscriptions. They were worn and scorched, as if it held something small.
"Ughh!!! I cannot do this!" Arzan's cries echoed bounced off the cavern's rocky walls.
Gressil and Silas soon made their way in as well, just as stumped to witness the place unfold before them like a deck of cards.
Zerath beckoned them to his side. "Here."
Arzan, though resisting at first, widened his eyes. Studying some mysterious runes along the altar's frames, he reached out to touch them.
"Do you know what it is?"
He said, as breathless as Eurus. "These are the runes of the Sun and Moon. They look…quite ancient."
Gressil blinked. "Runes of the Sun and Moon?"
"The celestial bodies that look after our Demon Realm. Like how Seasons encompass the Human Realm. The runes signify the energies of the Sun and Moon."
"And this?" Zerath pointed at the circular groove.
"That's a vessel."
"Vessel?"
"A place where a spell is cast upon a subject."
"Which spell?"
"That's what these runes signify," Arzan walked over to the other side towards the second altar "Strange. These runes are different…But I've never seen these before. Wait…I think I have? I don't remember though…" his gaze turned thoughtful.
"Do two different runes signify anything?" Gressil asked.
"Master Draconis says that every magic spell is associated with a very particular pattern - consistent and homogeneous. But…" breaths seemed to escape him the more he sucked in air.
"I've never seen two very distinct runes like these. It's very difficult for two runes - which means two different spells, to come together and work cohesively. It requires abundant mana and energy, but even then, it's close to impossible."
His speech turned fragmented. "I'm not able to recollect…w-where I've seen the other runes. But they do feel oddly familiar."
Silas leaned closer. His fingertips grazed against the small hollow vessel at the center when a black residue coated a thin layer upon them. He took a light sniff and his expression changed.
"This is ash."
As if lightning struck them with a realization, they stared at the vessel with a renewed light - or despair in this case.
Two kinds of prison cells, forced breeding and the delivery chamber…
"Whatever the spell was - it was cast upon newborns," Zerath's voice turned down by a nauseating decibel. "That vessel is roughly the size of a newborn child."
Arzan covered his mouth. "When the unification of two spells fails, the result is often a complete obliteration of the subject. The abundant mana consumes it fully."
An oppressive silence ensued. Even the demons, who were known for their brutality and ruthlessness, couldn't stomach the pure lunacy of this horrifying truth.
"But what was the purpose?" Silas asked, "If these children were bred to become the future soldiers for the war, why was there a need to cast any spell on them?"
"Perhaps to make them unnaturally stronger whom the humans cannot defeat?" Zerath thought out loud.
"But as far I've read, there were no such abnormal mutations of demons that participated in the war."
Gressil agreed. "That's true. I've a good understanding of the war history and the tactics that were used. This wasn't one of them. Or are we wrong? That they weren't bred to become future soldiers but something else?"
Arzan was now pretty close to puking his guts out. "The main concern is where did the demons of that time get this abundant mana to cast such a complicated unified spell? Merging two spells isn't a child's play."
"Don't you always say that mana is everywhere around us?"
"But not everyone can harvest it. Even we syrevars can synchronize only a limited amount that our bodies can handle. This spell and the energy it'd have needed goes beyond that. Only Gods can achieve something like this."
Zerath and Silas lifted their gazes at once.
Gods?
Before Zerath could solidify that chain of thought, he placed a nearly dizzy Eurus down and asked Gressil to look over him.
"I'll check what lies at the other end of this cave."
But that was just an excuse. Distanced from his troop now, Zerath's palm pressed against the rocky wall as he lightly leaned his weight upon his shoulder. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead, a tired, hazy fog veiling his eyes. His body shook and trembled as it fought back the repulsive and revolting feeling invading his senses.
"I thought so."
Zerath turned to that voice, his face moist with sweat. Silas's back faced him as he stood at a distance from him.
"You were holding back your nausea. It wasn't just the brat and that syrevar who were sensitive to the repugnant energy here. You are, too, particularly when you stepped down to the deepest floor here. Also, you've been gripping your sword too hard this entire time."
Silas finally turned. "Do you still deny my theory? You're probably nauseated because you've a similar power flowing within you as that brat has. Something very pure, almost the Blessed kind of an essence that cannot absorb the extreme negative mana hovering here."
His gaze then shifted to his sword. "That's why your blade was shaking restlessly all this time - which you were trying to stop."
Zerath lacked the energy to think straight. He licked his dry, almost white lips. "I'm fine. Just-"
"Mother!" Eurus came rushing to where they were.
Zerath straightened up immediately, swallowing back his discomfort. "I left you with Sir Gressil."
But Eurus seemed like he was searching for something frantically. Though weak and pale, a strange renewed energy had now charged him up. His eyes locked somewhere far in the distance, and he ran.
"Wait, you cannot run around like that."
"Mother!"
Zerath walked over and pulled him back. At the same time, he noticed a shackle dangling from the wall. His eyes caught something silvery, and he pulled it out.
"Mo-Mother…!"
Zerath watched him tremble with an inexplicable emotion in his eyes as he waved his hands at the silvery piece of cloth.
"It's a woman's hair ribbon," Silas observed.
Zerath looked at Eurus. "Do you sense your mother's mana? Does this belong to her?"
Eurus nodded hard, tears brimming his eyes. "Mother!"
Zerath and Silas exchanged a look, recalling Arzan's earlier words.
It was impossible to summon the Gods but what if…it was a spirit who held powers similar to a God's?
This is completely messed up-
A low rumble quaked beneath them. The floor groaned as if the cave itself had sensed a breach. The walls began to shift rapidly and ominously. The very structure of the cave seemed to be closing in on them as if it would engulf them whole. Cracks slithered across the rocky walls violently, causing the ceiling to cave in.
Turning around to the troops, Silas cursed. "ESCAPE! This cave is going to collapse upon us!"