A disturbance deep in the underground recesses of the Derma Layer caused the red-lined walls to violently tremble. And then as though in pain, the collective wails of millions cried out.
“_____________!”
Dark beings that fed and made their roost with the bones of the fearful had their minds corroded by visions of something they could not begin to fathom. Those same shadows fell into a collective heap of consciousness.
They could not even say the name of the very thing that rendered their minds.
But every one of the Hearts knew precisely what it was.
“The Amalgam has made their first move.”
This single phrase was spoken by an entity embraced by the shadows. A veil of darkness followed them as they wandered from city to city – Heart to Heart – within the bowels of the Derma Layer.
He was a specter walking amongst the madness.
Organizers stole the innards of people and claimed it for their own, leaving behind only the flesh of their victims to roam to repeat the endless cycle.
Flying books swooped and added those with interesting tales to their own stories, rearranging their words to accommodate their own. It was all written in blood, and it dripped from those books like a crushed cherry.
Musicians harped on bodies like a violin, the screams of their Instruments creating a foul ambience of terror that would have brought a smile to the man’s face where his body…
“… In due time.” He spoke to himself with distorted gravitas.
Connecting the Hearts were tunnels that bored through the Derma Layer like arterial pathways. They were inconceivably large and were more like an expansive world than a cavern. But in this place where he held his shadowy head high up there were no stars to be found.
And so, a glimmer of light emerged in the center of his form as he pushed onwards. Trailing behind him was a Laughing Box – a colorful box with two scrawny legs no thicker than a pair of twigs and a lever stabbed into its side.
It bled profusely as groans could be heard from within. The entity was a storage compartment that could hold upwards of a hundred people. However, that was not because it was spacious.
No. In that tiny two-meter cubed box a total of one hundred people could be compressed and uncompressed later. As one would expect, people were not expected to survive inside save for the truly durable.
The Hearts of the Derma Layer had never been in such turmoil. The instantaneous loss of millions of Fractured Nilhim denizens created a void that was instantly swallowed by neighboring Hearts.
Every single one of their Fractured – the collective consciousness that made up more than three quarters of the Fractured Nilhim – was destroyed in the span of a single minute.
Caverns housing subterranean cities were engulfed in the madness. The terror of the Amalgam spread like wildfire. Doubt brewed but so did the strength of those truly devoted to the Hearts.
“It will be problematic if we are not seeing the same light. O Brightest Star.” The man spoke, his warped, heavily distorted voice disappearing almost as quickly as it came out.
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An expanse of unprecedented proportions was laid out before him. The devoid purgatory was a place where no Heart dared to tread for nothing laid here but a black atmosphere that smothered all.
This dust was what he and the Aspiring Stars of the Brightest Star called the Zone of Avoidance.
His light wavered, but he pressed on and called for the name once more.
“O Brightest Star. The ashes of the old strive to block your light. But to you, I and us who seek for the light know what lays behind the veil of darkness.”
Flashes of light emerged like shooting stars. They began from the very outer reaches of this expansive place, meeting somewhere behind the darkness. He walked though breathing death itself.
Pieces of the Laughing Box were chewed off by the acrid powers of the dust. It belonged to the Memento Mori and served as a security mechanism for what laid ahead. The lights eventually became tails. Those tails connected to form what appeared to be a colossal constellation that created the image of a Hallucigenia.
“You who attracted us to bond together… I bring forth a Musician willing to speak.”
* * *
Nilhim. This person was Nilhim.
An unfathomable power coursed through him as he became one with the void, and yet, when he looked down at himself with invisible eyes, he could not help but to feel immense sadness.
“A form that harbors fear is one that is most indescribable to all. Musician. Hear me. I can still be described as a shadow because there is a light that exist to cast it.”
The source of the light disappeared the moment he pierced through the dust. The Laughing Box was reduced to a limping lump of meat that carried the voice of a woman within.
“Please listen to me…! The Amalgam – We can’t fight them! It’s over… I’m telling you… It’s all over…!”
“Nothing begins without end.” Nilhim cared little for what she had to say even though it was what wiped out so many of his underlings.
Instead, he was intrigued by it. Envious that it was not him. And frustrated that despite it existing, the Amalgam had not brazenly used it to what was needed of this world.
“The end brings about two kinds of people.” He began as he reached the center of it all, which was a black pillar that rose towards the subterranean heavens.
It was the second half of the Nexus. The colossal tower was so large that it encompassed his entire field of view, dominating everything as he hovered towards it. But he could not get far. No matter how much he walked that thing never seemed to get any closer.
“The first are those that face the terror bearing a transformative fruit that completes us. To become their own light. A Star.”
Something reverberated from within, and that thing was what only the Brightest Star could translate it.
“And the second are those that succumb to it. That fall to their knees and beg for their lives. Who seek the light hoping to be saved.” He came to an abrupt stop.
The Laughing Box vomited various limbs and organs before the woman was spat out. It was the same Musician who had witnessed the Amalgam descend upon them, and she like others, had spread word of their terror.
“We can’t be saved. We can’t be Stars! That thing… It eats them! Don’t you get it! That thing won’t just kill you! It will… That thing will…!”
Words struggled to leave her throat. The fear strangled her as she grasped at the sands with broken fingers.
“It won’t just end with us dying. Did you ever see one of us grovel like this to the likes of you!? You just use the fears of others… But the Amalgam… That thing uses its own. What chance do you even have!? Do we have –!?”
The shadows wrapped aound her throat and brought her up until her feet could no longer reach the ground. Despite being nothing but shadows, Nilhim was obviously furious to hear this from someone – no… something so insignificant that she may as well be an ant.
The light within him intensified as his shadowy form engulfed her, and her eyes widened tenfold as visions of terror filled her mind. She screamed but no sound came out, for they were drowned by his form.
“Were you not summoned by the Brightest Star himself then I would have slaughtered you. In fact – I may just do that!”
“Would it not be better to hear this one out?” A voice spoke from behind them.
It was a gentle voice belonging to a man. A harmonic, near angelic quality was woven into it. Nilhim’s shadow released the woman and she collapsed onto her knees, sobbing as she clutched onto her head.
“Mercy to this one? Know that while we have agreed with this proposal of yours – that does not give you authority over us!” Nilhim threatened, his form becoming a blade that was pointed at the figure behind him.
And that person, whose white hair radiated like the peerless walls of the Nexus, was their Brightest Star.
It was Iscario.