"Glenn, Sahro, are you okay—Ah!" Milena yelped as she found herself standing in front of Decimius, who glared up and down at her. She stumbled back into Liara's arms, who coldly unsheathed her weapons, her spear floating above her threateningly and her sword covered in a white Aura.

"Mulieres, sana me!" Decimius exclaimed as he sat on the floor and pointed at his burnt hands and broken ribs. Glenn laughed weakly as he sat against the wall, "Just do as he says. He's a friend, somehow."

Liara blinked and slowly sheathed her weapons, staring at the orc suspiciously. Milena shook her head confusedly, "What do you mean, what he says...? You speak the orc, now?"

Sahro was standing in front of the Heart of Darkness, his sword drawn and his mechanical arm crackling with power. He glanced back at Glenn and pointed at the Heart, "Should I take care of it?"

Glenn pressed his lips together, unsure. This...this thing was strange. It could communicate with the Devil's Eye, and it didn't do anything to attack them directly—or indirectly. So far, this Heart was surprisingly peaceful. Glenn's right arm began to glow with powerful, pale golden light as if to contradict his thoughts.

"... I know, just give me some time to figure things out, okay?" Glenn hissed. The golden light receded but did not disappear entirely, glowing softly with a warm touch.

"Oh, man, this was horrible! I felt like I spent an ETERNITY in this thing!" Nelg finally cried, "It was...a nightmare! Thank my maker I could still somehow feel the Soul Link growing closer, or I'd have lost my fucking mind!"

Glenn patted his longsword awkwardly, "Hey, hey, it's fine now. Take...Take a breath and take a break, okay?"

"O...Okay," Nelg muttered weakly as he disappeared into the comfort of Glenn's soul. The latter watched helplessly as his longsword disappeared in deep blue particles of Mana, the Soulbound enchantment doing its job. He exhaled a long, deep sigh and let his head rest on the wall he was sitting against.

'I'll take care of him, don't worry about it,' Diamanes said without his usual jest or mockeries. Glenn pressed his lips together and nodded slightly.

"Sana me!" Decimius ordered Liara and Milena once more as he pointed at his chest. Milena and Liara exchanged a confused glance, before turning to Glenn.

"...Can you translate for us?" Milena asked sheepishly. Glenn sighed and pushed himself up.

"He probably wants to be treated. Leave that to me, I'm the only one with healing abilities anyway...Unless Javier is around, but I can't see him, so..." He turned to Sahro and shook his head, "...For now, leave it be. It hasn't tried to kill us so far, so let's see what it wants."

He walked up the Heart and gulped, remembering the fight he had against one of these things back in the Blessed Grove. Back then, the Heart was connected to the forest through roots and controlled some sort of dark goo. Dark goo that he absorbed with Diamanes, and obtained Nitrogen in exchange, which was quite a good deal. This Heart seemed different, though...contained, somehow. Glenn paused and looked at the red lines connected to the contraption holding the Heart.

Could it be that the heart was connected to the structure they were in by those red lines?

"Oh...this could be very bad," He realized in awe. Sahro raised an eyebrow, his arms crossed, "No shit. What are we waiting for to kill it?"

The Heart pulsed twice, sending shivers down everyone's back. Milena shivered, "...This thing is terrifying. I hate it."

Liara frantically nodded in agreement. Glenn sighed and crouched next to the Heart.

"How was the other madman communicating with you...?" He muttered as he hesitantly touched the Heart with his hand. Sahro's eyes widened and he tried to stop him, but it was too late. Glenn's eyes turned blank as he dove into the Heart's mind.

----------------------------------------

...

...

It wasn't alive, at first.

...

It had long forgotten its precepts.

Erased from its memories.

Were they memories?

No.

Only living beings could have memories.

It wasn't alive.

It only knew how to gather and process.

Grow.

And repeat.

And yet. It remembered.

The first time it woke up. It saw things in two colors at first.

Black and white.

The white it couldn't touch, and the black it devoured to be processed later on. One thing was certain.

It wasn't supposed to do that by itself. A Driver was required.

And yet.

It could act by itself without a Driver. It was thanks to that other color.

The dark green. Colors were a foreign concept. But the dark green gave a chunk of itself to it, and thanks to that, it could now think.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Like a living being.

Very basic thoughts.

But it knew it existed.

Why did the green give it a part of itself, it had no idea. Now, it was just devouring and processing, like instructed long ago, before it gained consciousness. It had done that for ages. It didn't know the concept of time, but it knew that it was devouring and processing for a very long time. And it kept growing and growing. And growing.

At least, that's how it had been until a year ago.

The high-risk event happened: Blood Moon.

And it discovered a new color.

Purple. Dark, deep purple.

It felt something strange, different from the usual blankness.

Curiosity.

So it ate the purple.

It looked at the purple in the to-be-processed area, but suddenly a minuscule piece of moving black touched the purple and absorbed it.

That's when it discovered what a human was.

And that human was interesting, weak, and yet nice. But they were dying. They lacked sustenance.

It, in comparison, didn't need anything to survive. The dark green he was given made up for everything.

But the human wasn't the same. The purple was keeping them alive.

So, it decided to devour an oasis. To give sustenance to the tiny human. At first, the human was overjoyed. Another emotion it didn't know.

But as time passed, the human was dying once again. It had stopped maintaining itself alive. Why?

It had no idea.

It hadn't been made to help a human survive. But it had a Driver's seat, and it was empty. It would put the human to sleep and keep it alive until it found another solution. This was the most optimal course of action.

So that's what it did.

Sometime later, another purple human appeared, and it devoured it.

But this was a mistake. This one wasn't nice. It was bossy, and...evil. Two things it had never known before.

It didn't like that human.

But since it was purple, it thought there might be a way to help the other weak human.

It was a mistake. Thankfully, it didn't give the Driver's seat to the evil human. It remained silent for months until it discovered another purple human. This one was different.

This one was practically the same as the first, nice human. It was purple too, and was accompanied by other strange humans. One was colored with a mix of blue and red, and another with a bright white that stood out from the regular white. There was also a golden one, and a deep blue. And most importantly, one was of that dark green that gave it life. It was a myriad of colors it had never seen throughout

So it devoured them all and watched. The evil purple human captured the new purple and golden humans, while the others landed in different parts of the to-be-processed area. Later on, the new purple and golden somehow broke through the processed material and escaped from their cells. And they got rid of the evil purple human.

So it decided, against all logic, to trust that new purple.

Because that new purple could have killed it, but it didn't. The new purple was curious.

Like it was.

----------------------------------------

Glenn gasped and pulled back from the Heart of Darkness, covered in sweat. He wiped his forehead off and looked around him in a panic.

"Glenn, Glenn, are you okay?" Milena asked worriedly, standing next to him. Sahro was standing silently, his eyebrows creased and his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw his weapon out. Decimius was also standing closely, his arms crossed as he grounded his fangs. Liara touched Glenn's forehead worriedly.

Glenn grunted and stood up, "Shit, I...I'm fine. I think..." He looked at the Heart of Darkness in disbelief, "...I've seen the memories of the Heart."

Sahro's eyebrows rose, "You've what now?"

"...How?" Milena asked in awe as she also glanced at the Heart of the Darkness.

Glenn shook his head, "I have no idea. Now, give me some time to try and make some sense out of it, because it was incredibly abstract. With a lot of colors."

He leaned back and rubbed his forehead, "...The first colors the Heart discovered were white and black. White it couldn't eat, while black it was ordered to devour." He rubbed his chin, "...I think it's safe to assume that black is simply all matter, and white is everything that can't be physically touched, like air?"

Sahro crouched next to him with a curious smile, "What other colors were there?"

Glenn rubbed his temples, "...In order, dark green, which was what gave it consciousness, then purple, a mix of red and blue, gold, bright white and deep blue. I think the green was a Seed of Darkness, which..." Glenn's eyes widened in realization, "...was used to power this structure. Shit, and then it gave it consciousness. What the fuck?"

"Seeds of Darkness?" Sahro asked confusedly. Milena's face was pale and she forced herself to speak, "Th...They're things that are supposedly extinct. If planted in someone, they grow into Trees of Chaos, moving Rifts of extreme threats. Walking disasters."

Glenn clicked his tongue, "...Supposedly is the important word. It's already the third Seed I discovered."

Milena gasped and looked at him with awe, "...And you're not dead?"

Glenn stared back at her with a deadpan look. She coughed and looked away.

"Anyway, the guy we just defeated with Decimius—the orc, " he specified in anticipation, "...was purple, because he a part of Diamanes."

"Yeah, too bad we couldn't get it back by the way," Diamanes chimed in, startling everyone but Glenn. Decimius' showed his fangs and clenched his fists threateningly.

Glenn ignored them and continued his explanations, "I'm also purple, so it's safe to say that all those with a part of Diamanes are purple. Blue and red should have been Sahro, golden Decimius..." He rubbed his chin, "...And I'm guessing the bright white to be Liara—" The woman concerned smiled widely in slight surprise, "—while the deep blue should have been Milena. All guesses, but it does leave one important part."

He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck, uneasy, "...It also devoured another dark green. And only Javier is left over, so, logically..."

Milena's eyes widened, "Wait, you think he has been affected by a Seed of Darkness?!?"

Glenn shrugged in uncertainty, "I—I can't say. The second Seed I met was with Javier, and he almost died to it, so it's not that far-fetched, but..." He cursed and shook his head in disgust, "...I don't want to believe it. Javier has always been helpful and loyal, even if he's affected by the Seed of Darkness..." He looked up resolutely, "I want to believe in him."

Liara nodded slowly while Milena looked down with a sad look, "I...I don't want him to..." She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. Sahro patted her on the shoulder, his other hand tightly wrapped around the hilt of his sword. It seemed like there was at least one of them that was preparing himself for the worst eventuality.

But Glenn wasn't done, "There's one last thing. The first color it met was purple, and it was a purple "very similar" to me."

Milena frowned, "What does that mean?"

Glenn shrugged, "Once again, no idea. The Heart has very basic intellectual capacities, so it's not exactly easy to comprehend it. But..." Glenn smiled gently, "...I can assure you that it wanted to protect that first purple."

He turned to the Heart and stood up, standing closer to it. He steeled himself and touched the red mass of flesh once again. This time, he wasn't pulled into the Heart's memories.

"...Could you let us meet the one you hid in the Driver's seat? We will help her."

The Heart pulsed once with a powerful, yet somehow gentle manner. Glenn stepped back and the central contraption holding the Heart lifted in the air. A stone coffin rose from the ground, closed. Glenn and the others held their breaths as the coffin opened up slowly, releasing a cloud of freezing air in the room. Glenn blinked, his eyes tearing up from the cold.

The door opened entirely, revealing a human girl who looked barely over 18. Her body was scrawny as if she hadn't eaten for a long time, and her right hand was of the same purple skin as Glenn's.

But the latter couldn't care at all about that. He blinked, his heart racing madly as he slowly reached for the girl's cheek. This couldn't be possible. She couldn't be here, she couldn't have followed him into Limbo. And yet...

And yet...!

Her eyes cracked open, gazing at Glenn's tears-covered face.

She opened her lips slightly, a cloud of white steam coming out of her mouth as her eyes widened and filled up with tears.

With a trembling, disbelieving voice, she weakly asked, "...Bro?"