As he scrolled deeper, the content began to shift, taking a dark, unnerving turn. Blueprints started appearing, designs for prosthetics unlike anything he had ever seen. These weren't human limbs—they were animalistic, grotesque. One set resembled a segmented tail, another showed bird-like talons. There were wings, elongated limbs, spines—disfigured creations that looked like they belonged in a nightmare, not attached to living beings.

Then, he stumbled upon something even more disturbing: plans for fusing multiple human bodies into one colossal, monstrous creature. The diagrams detailed the surgical and technological procedures required to merge limbs, organs, and even minds. A cold dread settled over him as he imagined what kind of person—or thing—could create such atrocities. The lines between human and beast were blurring in these files, and the horror of it seeped into his bones.

But that wasn't the worst of it. The deeper he went, the more he uncovered experiments involving technology that pushed the very limits of human endurance. Test subjects were subjected to horrific transformations, their bodies distorted and reshaped into unnatural forms. These people were essentially being torn apart and rebuilt into something unrecognizable. As Vas studied the data, he realized they weren't just altering bodies—they were altering souls. Anima, the essence of life, was being manipulated and corrupted.

Vas spent what felt like hours combing through the experiments, his stomach churning as the reality of what Sigdra had been doing sank in. Then something caught his eye—a file with an odd name, just a string of binary code: 01001000 01100101 01101011 01100001.

"What the hell is this?" he muttered to himself, clicking to open it.

What he found wasn't more data. It was a story. Or perhaps, something far worse.

The file described beings born from the union of the earth and sky—giants, grotesque in form, feared by the very heavens. The sky, terrified of their power, had imprisoned them. But the earth, in a fit of rage, sought time itself to exact vengeance upon the heavens. A war followed, and the sky fell. The giants were freed, but instead of finding freedom, they were tricked. Bound once more, they were sent back to the prison that had once held them, under the guise of making them guardians.

As Vas continued reading, a more sinister element emerged. The giants were described as hideous, with hundreds of hands and eyes. A ritual was detailed, a grotesque sacrifice where human offerings would be contorted into monstrous shapes, meant to resemble the cursed giants. The files spoke of blood rituals, sacrificial arrangements, and tributes meant to appease these long-banished entities.

Vas shivered involuntarily. The cold dread that had been creeping up on him now solidified into terror. The descriptions in the file felt ancient, wrong, like something that should have stayed buried, forgotten in time. Yet here it was, recorded in Sigdra's files—evidence that these beings weren't mere legend.

He instinctively searched the web, hoping to find something, anything, to prove that what he had just read wasn't real. But there was nothing. No mention of these creatures, no historical accounts of such beings. The normal channels held no answers.

Vas knew there was only one place left to look.

That night, he ventured into the Void, a place where knowledge whispered in the dark and the living rarely ventured. There, standing before the Archivist, he voiced the question that had been gnawing at him.

"I need to know about giants. Ones with a hundred hands and eyes. Prisoners of the sky."

The Archivist's voice was soft but unsettling, echoing through the vast, empty space. "You seek the Hekatonkheires."

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Vas felt his chest tighten. The name sounded ancient, a whisper of a forgotten time. "Are they real?"

"They are real," the Archivist confirmed. "Children of the earth and sky. Banished, imprisoned, condemned for their grotesque forms and terrifying power."

The Archivist revealed more—three of them had existed, brothers, cursed by the heavens themselves. They had once stood as sentinels of unimaginable strength, beings feared by even the gods. Their monstrous appearance—hundreds of arms, eyes that saw all—had marked them as abominations. They were locked away, feared, and ultimately forgotten by the world.

As the Archivist spoke, Vas's mind raced. He wasn't just dealing with legends. These creatures, the Hekatonkheires, were real. And they had been linked to the Forgotten—the monstrous entities that had been showing up in Vas's life with increasing regularity. The unsettling truth sank in: these beings weren't just stories; they were connected to something far more dangerous, something that had been lurking in the shadows of his mission all along.

The last piece of the Archivist's words chilled Vas to the core. "They were banished, yes, but not destroyed. They were… Forgotten."

The weight of the revelation pressed down on him. He had come one step closer to understanding the Forgotten, but in doing so, he had stumbled upon a truth far darker and more terrifying than he had ever imagined. The Hekatonkheires weren't just ancient beings—they were part of the present. And they were now out there, lurking, waiting for the right moment to reemerge.

"Are they part of the Forgotten who escaped this place?" Vas asked, his voice calm yet calculating. His sharp eyes met the Archivist's, who stood across from him, cloaked in ancient, worn robes that draped over her small, fragile frame. The woman, old as the Void itself, bore the weight of countless millennia in her thin, wiry fingers, which were covered in intricate rings etched with symbols no one living could decipher. Her skin was like parchment—cracked, pale, and translucent, as though the very essence of time had begun to wear through it. Long, silver hair, so fine it seemed woven from cobwebs, framed her face, falling in cascading wisps that glowed faintly in the dim light of the archive.

Her eyes, though sunken deep within her withered face, shone with an unsettling intensity—ancient, knowing, and far too aware. A faint, almost imperceptible mist swirled around her, as if the atmosphere itself couldn't bear to touch her. The Archivist had been here long before any mortal memory, and her knowledge came at a price no one dared ask.

"Indeed they are," she replied, her voice a dry whisper, like the sound of old paper being turned. "And they have been scheming. Their plans are nearly complete."

Vas folded his arms, mentally digesting every word, his mind sharp and racing. "I'm going to find them before that happens."

The Archivist's eyes narrowed, the faintest hint of a smile ghosting across her thin, cracked lips. "Oh?" Her voice was barely above a breath, but it carried weight. "And do you have a plan, child?"

Vas didn't flinch. He had grown accustomed to her unsettling presence, though it still unnerved him at times. "Yes, I do. My brother—he told me about the ruins. He said there was a creature ripping human parts from bodies to complete statues. At first, it sounded like a gruesome ritual of madness, but now I realize it wasn't random. It was deliberate."

The Archivist cocked her head slightly, her ancient gaze piercing him. "Go on…"

"Sigdra's experiments—reshaping people, warping them into grotesque forms—they're not just manipulating flesh. They're recreating something. I believe they're tributes to the Hekatonkheires. Perhaps they're even trying to summon them by mimicking their original forms."

The Archivist's withered lips pulled back slightly, her smile revealing teeth as ancient and cracked as the rest of her. "A clever theory, Vas. Most would not see the pattern. And your next step?"

"I'm going to those ruins. If the creature is part of this twisted ritual, it'll give me a lead on how close they are to completing it. Meanwhile, I'll hand over Sigdra's information to the investigators. That should buy me time—either they'll uncover something that delays the Hekatonkheires' plans, or it'll force Sigdra to act recklessly."

The Archivist's eyes twinkled with something resembling approval, though it was difficult to tell in her aged, cryptic demeanor. "A calculated move, indeed. But you understand the dangers?"

Vas nodded, his expression steady. "I do. But if I don't act, they'll succeed, and then we'll have something far worse to deal with than a few broken ruins."

"Wise beyond your years," the Archivist murmured, her bony fingers absently stroking the edge of a scroll. "But be warned. The Hekatonkheires are not merely creatures—they are the very forces that shaped the chaos of the ancient world. To find them is only the beginning. To survive them is another matter entirely."

Vas locked eyes with her, his resolve unwavering. "Then I'll just have to be smarter than they are."