Floating fast, the dark purple light at the top of the platform seemed to have a more uncanny aspect. In Roberion's eyes, he saw the light warp itself and changing its shape, horrendous creatures being born from it—happenings that the null never saw. Most of it had a fictional aspect to it, but sometimes it seemed more than that. One of them was when he saw an elf slicing the head of another, its blood flowing down to feed what seemed to be aquatic life—fish, snakes, and other animals.

In another one, a human entered a richly decorated room, only to run ahead, evading the guards and thundering his hand at the elf's desk. The elf, who seemed to be a noble, got up and appeared to be yelling and pointing at the human. The vision changed again, becoming a giant monkey's head and its fanged mouth, and as Roberion passed, it seemed to eat him whole.

Roberion closed his eyes to his impeding doom. "There we are; the ritual will begin soon", the Cerulean Baroness said solemnly, snapping the null from his reverie.

That was intense; it seemed real and unreal at the same time. What is this light to begin with? Roberion opened his eyes only to see that he was some centimeters above the platform. Soon, his foot touched the ground; all around him, he seemed to be in a metal cage, technological aparatus all around.

The entrance of the research station already seemed like a horrendous mix of austere antique architecture and cancerous technological aparatus. Roberion suspected that this new addition was the work of the Empire of Creation; now he is sure.

What he is seeing deserves to be called cancer; it is a monstruosity of cables and equipment, looking like metallic dunes and futuristic energy conduits snaking through its gleaming hulls. It was like a metallic bull was being eaten inside out by cable worms that exploded out of his body. The dark purple energy is traveling through it with its visible light.

The part that wasn't covered by the metallic aberration was beautiful. It was like a tapestry of runes, both a work of art and ultimate magic. Roberion couldn't understand anything but fundamentally knew the stupendous power and wisdom necessary to create such a thing. He got a feeling that this was just the surface, only what someone like him could see, hiding a complex clockwork system underneath. In the center of it, connected by multiple cables, was an altar where the light was even more intense. Roberion couldn't see anything when looking at it.

What did I get myself into? With dread, Roberion noticed that in front of him, the way was clear to the altar; he was sure it wasn't a coincidence.

"Roberion, all is ready; just walk to the platform and lay in there", the baroness said solemnly.

Damn, this is all shady as hell, but I'm already too deep on this. What can I do? This will be the last time. This is the last time I will be forced to do something against my will. Who'm I fooling?! No, I won't think like this; enough with the victimization, I will win something from this. I will only go as far as I get something from it; it's obvious that the weak don't have a choice, so I will create one where I will get something. It can be the trashiest choice, but as long as I win something, it works for me.

Roberion walked resolutely; the more he neared the altar, the more he felt an alien sensation in his body—of vitality, of the surreal. His addiction, his mental exhaustion, his body fatigue—it was all forgotten. The light blinded him, but he didn't need his eyes for direction; this ethereal feeling guided him. Roberion closed his eyes and followed it. The promise of power and evolution was near; he just needed to be courageous and take it.

With resplendent light, the altar graced Roberion's vision, like a santified object; the runes there weren't static, always moving like maelstroms, each one feeding on the other, the old ones giving way to the new; it was magestic. The retangular stone looked more like a mirror reflecting a sky that couldn't be seen here underground, transporting him away from here.

Even this fantastic place wasn't safe from the cancerous technology growing all around the platform. Cables from various places on the platform reach here at a unique point. Looking like magnetic resonance apparel, with all the cables connected to it, the thing floated, positioned to cross the retangular mirror-like stone as if doing a scan.

"I need to lie down here, right?", Roberion asked no one. Looking around, even the Ceruelean Baroness vanished; all he could see was the dark purple light around him, and even the gargantuan machinery around the altar was hidden by the powerful energy.

Alright, just lie down here, and everything will be okay. Wait, I think it's better to take out this bag. Roberion took out his bag. Seeing the poor state of his leather clothes given by the fizznaults, which looked more like thorn rags than clothes, the null also took them out; their only destiny was in the trash. When he put the thing on the ground, the rags vanished as well as the bag.

"What?! Where is my bag?! Focus Roberion. No way, I won't take the [Behemoth Skin] out. Maybe it could even help me, like I'm getting hurt like my incarnation from before; this ritual is obviously on another level."

Roberion lied down on the mirror-like stone; his mind felt tranquility like no other, all his problems and weaknesses forgotten. A few seconds later, the dark purple pulsed, but instead of growing brighter, it became darker, almost reaching black. The null thought the tranquility would vanish, but it was the contrary; Roberion felt it increasing; now he didn't feel anything; he was part of something greater.

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In seconds, his mind is assaulted by thousands of pieces of information, all fragments of a distant past.

The elves are leaving the mountains frantically; the only remains of their existence are the undeads, this one with similar features to them, the knife pointed ears being the most prominent. In their leaving, something changed; the rich aura and connection to the lines were lost.

Next, there was only silence; the undead walked eternally in this stone prison, the weakness of the place slowly seeping on their bones, extracting their power and making a figment of their past selves. Until the quiet was no more, people with the emblem of the Phoenix of Creation in their armors destroyed the now ancient and weaker undead with indifference. Vortex of flames kilometers wide, thunderstorms that shocked and exploded everything but the gray material of the dome, freezing cold that stopped even molecules, transformed the undead into crystals. The battle raged until the massacre was over. Their losses were monstrous, but the emperor forces won, a pyrrhic victory.

Like insects that used the corpse of an animal both as sustenance and a home, the emperor forces brought their technicians, their engineers, constructors, and researchers, working in tandem to make the emperor demands true, repurposing the old temple. Only when they end their construction will the experiments finally start.

The time was so short that Roberion couldn't get anything but a glimpse of the grotesque experiments done to captives of the more varied species, brought from the outside, from gods know where. The memories ended, Roberion reeling from the massive amount of information that only some fragments remained.

Roberion watched with horror as a dozen, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of innumerable voices cried, yelled, talked, and singed in their madness. The null heard all the cacophony like an earbud was shoved into his brain, so he could only hear their ramblings. In a flash, all of their deaths were shown on full display to Roberion, only to be erased from his mind the next moment, with only the scars from them remaining.

What survived of Roberion's fragmented mind was restored the next second; the damage to his psyche was restored brutally without any tact. Full of scars that would remain part of Roberion's existence, condemning him to be an invalid or dying soon as the ritual vanished. That is what seemed the direction to go, until all around him everything was erased, there was only him, there wasn't any temple, no dark purple light. Soon he got company as all the ones he was forced to watch their deaths showed up around him, suspended in this emptiness.

Even with his brutalized mind, a helping hand guided him to look around. Next to him were all the people he himself killed, bringing memories of when he killed them and how their suffering was when they met the end. The orc and the invisible assassin were the ones nearest to him. From there, hundreds of thousands of other dead are scattered all around.

Again, he felt someone guiding him, completing the puzzle for him—all those that he didn't know died in these cursed halls since the elves left, a new cycle beginning, a cycle of sacrifice. Roberion heard a gurgling sound from him, and the orc and the pale youth contorted themselves. Underneath their skins, it seemed that roots were moving underneath their stiffled screams, running blood and secretions through their noses, and tearful eyes, the only way they could describe their pain.

Soon their skin and faces ruptured, with pure white roots erupting from them. To Roberion's fear and disgust, he saw that it wasn't roots. Th—ey—ar—e—Bon—es. Their bodies soon became humanoid ossuaries, efigies of bones; their flesh and blood liquified and flowed out like a sewer of carnage to the unknown.

The change spread like a wave, all being all around, becoming new efigies, gifts for the supreme being, as if in a sign of acceptance, an energy pulsed. When it shocked Roberions existence, he felt the mix of emotions clear: simple disdain and the smallest sense of approval.

Soon the void parted; what was shown to Roberion was worse than death, but as the null tried to kill himself by only letting the terror incarnated in front of him reach his mind, something stopped him. Like billions of hands collected the little fragments and glued them back instantly, as hard as he tried to die or cease to exist, the being wouldn't let him.

A dimension of bones, blood, and flesh flowed like galatical rivers around these incomprohensible, large calcium structures. This river flowed around these tittanical divine bones, not in a synergetic way; it was demeaning, like flesh and blood were lessers brought to enhance the santification of bones.

Roberion's mind zooned out, like a limiter was broken out. AHHHHHHH——————-

Billions weren't enough, but soon he recovered, and it felt like trillions of hands were placing his mind's fragments back, the delay imperceptible in the scales of existence. What shocked Roberion's mind is that now he knew what these gargantuan bones were, which varied from the yellow bones of monstrous reptiles to the disproportional blue bones of titan humanoids to light red bones that looked like calcified explosions. Their size was of galatical proportions; as things are shown, this was a universe made entirely of bones, with galatical rivers of blood and flesh as an addendum.

Near him, Roberion couldn't count how many there are—millions? But in the distance, there were more star-like lights flashing in the white space; Roberion couldn't even try to guess their number. Yes, now that the Null noticed the space was white, he could only notice the difference with the helping hand guiding him.

The enormity of the place was what was breaking Roberi's mind apart. Soon the effigies of bones, the participants, the people that were experimented with, and everyone that died in the next cycle were taken far away to one of the stars. Soon another emotional energy shocked everything, and Roberion felt it in his body. The controlled anger, a little more of it, and his existence would be erased, even from time itself.

No, they aren't all that died; they were the ones that died that the Primordial God deemed worth, even as the rabble they were, like gifting excrements to an emperor. A new emotion surged and rocketed through the supreme osseous universe. Roberions bones fragmented and restored themselves, only to fragment again. His bones grew and reduced, only to recover again. It felt like sea snakes were swimming through his body.

His bones are happy, stasiatic, euphoric, joyous, and maddened by the presence of the magananimus, the supreme, the unique, the paramount, and the one and only.

OSTOJPURULO