“So, you can’t feel anything from your World Core because of something Bohum did?” Kafkë asked. It had emerged from Jack’s body and now floated beside him which only served to further increase Jack’s anxiety. Nothing would get him caught faster than being seen with a talking skull. Thankfully, the light portal had taken the pair to a rather isolated area. Jack sensed no threats in the vicinity with his relic detection or his hearing; however, the light portal hadn’t teleported them closer to the outside like he had hoped it would. At the moment, they were beneath the dungeons which Jack knew because they were near one of the powerful Relics he had detected earlier, specifically the one far below the dungeons.

“Yes, he called it an Illumination. He shot a beam of light into the Blue Heart which made it go dormant. I haven’t been able to sense much out of it since. The fuzzy soul you are feeling might just be the Blue Heart,” Jack explained as he peeked around the next corner.

The new area was simultaneously strange in its contrast with the other areas and frightening in its size. Unlike the rest of the castle, the passageways through it were more like tunnels. Roughhewn stone composed the majority of the floor, walls, and ceiling lending the location a less manufactured appearance than the others, almost as if it had been dug out by some kind of massive burrowing creature. The walls had veins of crystal snaking across their stone surface and an eerie chime rang through the air every few seconds. Something about the sound straddled the border of familiarity but Jack couldn’t put a finger on why.

“Why would I sense a soul from your World Core?”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s been kind of expressive since you helped awaken it so I was thinking it could have its own soul or at least something like it.”

“That can’t be it. I didn’t sense anything from it last time I saw you and it was already awakened.”

“Hm,” Jack grumbled.

Before continuing, he paused considering the Purification of Terras objective that he and the others had received after destroying the strange light creature on the first floor of the Eternal Light’s temple. Whatever was happening to the Blue Heart probably related to the reason why a creature of the Eternal Light had produced a corrupted eidos stone. “Did the others mention anything about corruption to you?”

“Not a thing, chief. I do know what an Illumination is though. That’s how Bohum makes his Justiciars, according to the boss. He fills ‘em up with the Eternal Light until they are ready to burst then they either die or become Justiciars. Most of them die from what I’m told, so good on you for surviving and not becoming a mindless zealot,” Kafkë said, swaying from side to side as it looked over the crystal veins in the wall.

Jack shivered as he imagined himself bowing in forced servitude to Pope Bohum. Not happening. I’d rather die than have my soul enslaved. Speaking of enslaved souls…

“Kafkë, does the Twilight King know that his wife is a Justiciar?”

The floating skull came to an abrupt halt turning to peer at Jack with its jaw partially open. “What did you just say?”

Jack frowned. “I guess that would be a no.” Kafkë continued to stare at him in apparent disbelief. Running a hand through his hair, Jack sighed and began recounting his discovery of Lilan’s identity. Kafkë listened quietly hovering like it was frozen in place.

In the meantime, Jack sat down with his back against a wall, eager for even a small bit of rest. It hadn’t escaped his attention that the weariness in his body was abnormal even considering the high levels of stress he’d been under. With the Ore Father’s Token boosting his Stamina, he should have been fine. From his waking up after the Blue Heart awakened to present, less than a day had passed. He suspected the Illumination had a role in his bodily fatigue, but without more information, all he could do was trudge forward and search for answers. That was what he had always done.

By the end of his retelling, Kafkë sagged slightly in the air, its glowing red eyes downcast. “We knew Bohum had her prisoner but it never occurred to us that he would make her a Justiciar. Her body should’ve been too weak and her mind was barely whole due to her illness. Oh, by the Trinity. When the boss finds out about this, I have no idea what he’s going to do.”

Jack shook his head, not wanting to think about what a rage-fueled and vengeance-driven S-rank World Boss would look like. He leaned his head against a particularly comfortable divot in the wall which conveniently allowed him to look up at Kafkë. “I’m sure we’ll find out when he gets here but what I care about is whether or not the effects of the Illumination can be removed.”

“That’s a good question. If the Illumination’s effects can be removed or negated then Lilan can be saved. As someone who’s gone through the process, how did it feel? Do you remember how the Eternal Light felt exactly? Anything that helps us identify its nature or how it works would be good.”

“It was unpleasant…,” Jack said, severely understating the horror of the experience and trailing off when his body trembled at the memory. “I can’t really describe it other than that it was unequivocally the worst thing I’ve ever experienced and I’ve been through some shit.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised, but I sorry to hear it.” Kafkë sagged a little further. “Poor Lilan. Poor boss.” It sighed, going silent for a few seconds before looking Jack in the eye. “Well, nothing will get done moping about, so tell me about the ‘corrupted energy’, According to the boss, it’s the Eternal Light in its purest form.”

Jack nodded, though his mind drifted to Lilan. Did she undergo the same thing I did? The experience had been such that the suffering he endured seemed exclusive to him. Although he knew it was plausible, the idea of anyone going through what he did felt as unbelievable as it was unreasonable. He thoughts lingered on the way Lilan had ground her head against the floor in supplication to Bohum. The memory made him furious; not because of the tragedy wrought upon Lilan but because he was perilously close to being in her position were it not for the Earth Mother’s intervention.

Eventually, Kafkë lowered itself so it hovered directly in front of Jack and said, “Hey anyone home?”

He blinked realizing he had gotten lost in his thoughts instead of answering Kafkë. He gave the skull a weary look which took remarkably little effort to muster. “I’m a little tired if you couldn’t tell so cut me some slack.”

“You are looking a bit off-blue now that you mention it,” Kafkë responded looking him up and down.

“Very funny.” He groaned as he pulled himself to his feet; all the while, his body vehemently protested. “But to answer your question about the Eternal Light, I wasn’t exactly lucid during the ordeal so I can’t say.”

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“Huh, that’s unfortunate.”

Chuckling darkly, Jack said, “Yeah, unfortunate is a word for it.”

He began walking again to fight off the growing fatigue in his body. Kafkë followed silently for a few minutes as they traverse the expansive tunnels. The ambient chime started to increase in volume the further they ventured into the depths.

Eventually, Kafkë asked, “By the way, I got a bit sidetracked what with how different you seem since the last time I saw you, but I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you escape Bohum in the first place?”

“That’s quite a story that I’m not sure anyone is going to believe,” Jack replied.

“Try me.”

He exhaled to steady himself as he went over the events that had transpired since his arrival at the Eternal Light’s Bastion. Nodding at Kafkë, he started to describe his meeting with the Earth Mother and how he had used Soul Cradle to avoid detection thus far. In his description of Soul Cradle, Jack omitted the ability’s connection to his designation instead making it sound like the Earth Mother had bequeathed the ability to him directly.

When he finished, Kafkë’s jaw hung open in disbelief once more. Jack smirked with a bit of satisfaction at the skull’s apparent incredulity. “Told you it was unbelievable.”

Admittedly, Jack still had unsettled feelings about the experience. He was glad to be free of Pope Bohum but the fact that he had been subjected to such a vulnerable situation frustrated him to no end. Since his arrival in Fracture, his entire life had been dictated by the whims of outside forces while he was pushed into reacting. Even now, after being liberated by a supposed literal god, he ran for his life from someone more powerful and after he escaped this situation, he still had to worry about Ciel.

Rather than acknowledging his comment, Kafkë looked at his collar. “Show me the medallion she gave you.”

The authority in the skull’s tone took Jack by surprise and rubbed him the wrong way. Pushing his impulsive feelings aside, he reached into the neckline of his lightweaver robes and pulled out the Ore Father’s Token. Kafkë stared at the dull grey medallion for nearly half a minute before muttering to itself.

“You alright?” he asked waving his hand in front of the skull’s glowing red eyes.

Kafkë’s gaze snapped up to meet his own. He somehow sensed a wave of frustration from the skull. Without warning, the skull shot upward and headbutted him right in the center of his forehead. He stumbled into a nearby wall, swearing.

“What the fuck was that for?” He asked holding off his impulse to get angry over the sudden attack. He hadn’t actually taken any damage because his Ethos had absorbed the blow though it was still disorienting. He glanced at the drop in his Ethos. That damn skull hits hard.

“Next time, how about you lead with the ‘I met a goddess story’, eh Jack?”

“How about you fuck off? I’ve got a lot of shit on my plate right now.”

“Do you even know what this means?”

“Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn’t have headbutted me. Need I remind you that I’m from another world?”

“Huh.” It tilted its head as though thinking about Jack’s words. “You’ve got a point. Sorry about the headbutt.”

“Just get on with the explanation,” he ground out while he bit back a few choice words for the floating skull.

“Right, you remember the story I told you about the Dark Ones, the Three Heroes, and the birth of the Crystal Child?”

“Uh-huh.” Jack nodded.

“Well, in all of the Chthonian Trinity’s stories, the only time the gods manifested themselves in the way you are saying the Earth Mother did is when she and the Ore Father ordained the Three Heroes. They blessed each hero with a piece of their divine providence and an item of great power so that they could stand against the Dark Ones. It—”

“Wait, wait,” Jack said waving his hands to stop the skull from continuing. “So, you’re saying I’ve been picked as a hero by the Earth Mother?”

“Technically, but that’s not what’s important,” Kafkë said, annoyed by the interruption. Jack gave the skull a glare but it continued on without a care. “What’s important is that the only time the gods have felt it necessary to manifest themselves on Terras was the rise of the Dark Ones. It means whatever is going on here is just as bad as that.”

“Well according to her, the Ore Father and the Crystal Child are dead and by your own admission, Terras is dying. Sounds pretty bad to me.”

“True, but Terras has been like this for years before you arrived. The stalemate between the boss and Bohum has been going one for a while. Why wouldn’t she show herself sooner when it could have potentially changed the flow of events?”

Jack thought about it for a minute stroking his chin. “Maybe both sides were part of the problem so she felt approaching either wouldn’t solve anything?”

Kafkë recoiled. “What?! Bohum literally scorched the face of Terras because he was going to lose the war. The boss has always been a champion of the Chthonian Trinity since his rise to power. He even has the Twilight Key.”

Jack shrugged. “You asked and I gave you an answer.”

Kafkë scoffed and flew slightly ahead of him so it could float backward while looking him in the eye. “Anyway, what I’m getting at is that the Earth Mother didn’t step in because the death of Terras isn’t something she would stop. While she represents life first and foremost, death is also a part of the natural cycle. Everything has to die eventually. But when Bohum had you in his clutches, she stepped in to save you. Why not just let you suffer the fate the other Justiciars did? I think the reason is that whatever he planned to do with you must’ve been worse than the death of Terras as a whole.”

“That’s a lot of supposition of your part,” Jack said. “Don’t get me wrong. The pope is definitely up to something bad. The guy seems incredibly off and I remember looking at his eyes and feeling like something had to be wrong with him. It was like a horrific creature was wearing his skin and staring back at me.” An involuntary shiver traveled down his spine. “But still, we don’t know anything for sure. For all we know, she might have saved me because I’m trying to restore Terras and that’s it.”

“Maybe, but I still think we should find out exactly what Bohum is planning.”

“I agree though I’m going to need to rest before long or I might collapse.”

“Well, why haven’t you? You have a pretty convincing disguise. If I hadn’t arrived through your soul and known what to look for, I might not have recognized you.”

He sighed, stopping for a moment to lean up against the tunnel wall. “Soul Cradle doesn’t last for very long, only half an hour. I need to refresh it before it runs out or Bohum will detect me with his magic or whatever the hell it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bohum has a way of detecting things. He uses this bright flash of light that somehow encompasses everything and it lets him detect whatever is in the light. I don’t know how the hell it works exactly, but he can also move the Justiciars around with it. That’s how I got captured by the way. I know it’s the same ability because every time he does it, he says, ‘The Eternal Light will reveal all’ and then a few seconds later, the light flashes. It must be some kind of chant that he needs to say or something like that.”

“Huh... That does explain a few things like how he found your group so quickly and it matches what the ordinary-looking guy told the boss. I didn’t know Bohum had such an ability.”

I should hope not.” Jack snorted, frowning at the skull. “If you had, I would be pretty angry about being sent into his territory considering he could catch us at any time.”

“Yeah, your friend wasn’t too happy about it regardless. Can’t say I blame him all that much considering what happened. The boss didn’t make a great case for himself.”

“I bet,” Jack said, a bit of amusement in his heart as he pictured Cordan telling off the Twilight King.

“Say, I could try filling your soul with restorative energy. That might help with the fatigue.”

“Go ahead. Not like I’ve got any better options.”

“Alright, hold still, I’ve been told this is a bit intense.”

A tendril of energy drifted from the red symbol on Kafkë’s forehead. It alighted on Jack’s brow and a rush of frigid energy rushed into him. The feeling was pointedly not physical though he shivered nonetheless. The energy filled him like an adrenaline rush banishing the fatigue and the dreariness that hampered his senses. The tendril withdrew and Jack blinked rapidly as he realized how sharp everything appeared. He made a note to identify Kafkë immediately. As an artifact, it had a lot of power and he preferred to know instead of waiting for the skull to mention it.

“Holy shit, Kafkë. I—”

Within the Blue Heart, a presence stirred and called out in hunger. “More”