The stone and I dropped from the air into the sand. I returned my focus to my main self and called the tendrils back to me. They dragged the stone and the sword with it toward my pool. The sword struggled to make flames as the miasma strangled it tinging the steel black. The worms seemed to writhe as the sword moved overhead but none attacked. Disspationting, I haven't had the chance to taste those worms yet. Finally, the tendrils dragged the stone and the sword into the pool, and the tendrils dissolved away. Some of the power had faded away but I was able to get the memories of several cultists but the best was Rammstein. His fumes resembled a soul but lacked the power that made them so strong but it was enough to slow down my mind.

I fought against that as I looked at the sword. It was a regular one-handed sword but in its hilt was a crystal that exuded power. It reeked of that fiery land the imps called home and held a potent flame that wanted to burn everything. I was tempted to eat it but I remember what it was like when I was young, moving constantly. I can’t imagine it now, moving from one area to another seemed wrong. I grew and spread owning everything I took but the imps merely destroyed and abandoned it, the nature of this crystal will go against everything that I am now. I stab the sword into the stone at the bottom of the pool to be stored for when I find a use.

I looked at the stone as it slowly dissolved in the pool, it tasted like blood and almost felt like a waste to eat. I moved the dissolved pieces up the tendrils toward the ceiling. The stalactites slowly absorbed and changed but for now, nothing had changed. This was the same with the miasma but I probably won’t see what that change was until something besides the shadows entered it. The miasma had grown thick, obscuring the sight of anything taller than a human. It didn’t affect me and I suspect any of the shadows since we don’t rely on eyes to see. The ceiling is like an ocean of darkness hiding all but the longest stalactites that reached low down to the pools that had formed around the area.

The area grew even larger with black sand and pools dotting the evergrowing areas. I suspect that the imps probably had all died by now and now those worms out there probably changed into pools and infected the shadows they hunted with. So far I saw no traces of it but as the ceiling continued to grow I should spot those pools soon. Strangely the miasma didn’t spread beyond my tendrils creating an expanding circle of thick miasma that obscured everything that was in it. Along the floor, the growing crystals around my pool thickened as more crystals poked out of the sand. Some of the larger pools around also started to form crystals but they were fairly rare.

The land was quiet as only large worms rested here. It seems at some point the smaller worms had long left leaving only the slow large worms left. The only movement in my sight is of wisps appearing and changing into shadows by the miasma. Those shadows left the black sand quickly, dissolved in a pool, eaten by a worm, or simply faded away. It seems that even the miasma could eat or hide the shadows from even my sight. I felt nothing moving around in the air so I suspect that they merely dissolved into the miasma helping thicken it.

My focus went to the captured fumes of Rammstein, it held his entire life story and his wishes for tomorrow. I slowly ate the tasty parts first, the time with the cult and his regrets. He lived a pointless life until he found his wife and the sorrow of watching it all taken away stained his memories even now after his death. I sifted the memories seeing if I could find out more about the cult or the imps but he didn’t know anything. The other aspect of the fumes seemed wrong to me, wishes and dreams for a world that never came to be, filled with the other half of the fumes I had taken. They didn’t fill my hunger and they weren’t as fun but something about it resonated with a part of me deep down. ‘Maybe it's Rat? What remains of his soul wishes for tomorrow?’ I thought but had no way to reach that soul so I separated those fumes from the rest and hid it in a nearby crystal. They seemed wrong and vile even more than the imp’s flames so instead of leaving them inside of me I wanted to keep them near just in case I could find a way to lure Rat’s soul to the surface. The crystal in question became jagged and I buried it deep in the sand next to the stone so there was no chance of finding it unless I wanted it to be.

I sifted through the remaining food I had taken from the cultists. Promises of a wonderful tomorrow and filled bellies were promised to them in return for betraying those that they cared for. The cult didn’t have only humans, it had Kolbolds, Geitlans, and other races that I didn’t care for. The regret was hidden behind notions of the greater good and needs but in the end, they all died by Rammstien’s hands. The memories of Vyras were interesting though, a deal was struck with Exacerbate and in return for burning my layer, the cult would feed its souls. It seems that the summoning was the first that would be spread across multiple months or at least it would be but the blood bath that I left behind should stop them. That is sad to learn, these creatures were more fun to play with than imps and tasted way better. ‘It is possible they would still summon so I should focus on spreading my tendrils to make sure that I would be summoned with it.’ I thought to myself as I focused on the ceiling.

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It grew naturally as the shadows that made up the stalactites grew larger. If I released more power they would grow faster but most of it would go to the miasma. While it is good to help thicken it and maybe make more crystals it probably only helps the growth a little bit. There should be another way to help grow it further so I turned my attention to the edge of the growth. It had long spread beyond the original pool that had formed and beyond new ones but not beyond the black sand as if something had stunted its growth. The pools on the edge were small and barely stirred the miasma as they released fumes that fed the ceiling. There seems to be not enough food to help grow the ceiling beyond here fast enough, the odd wisp being consumed was too slow of a process but all the food that could have fed the ceiling had long run away. ‘Either I find a new way to get food or wait until the invasion comes. I worry if I grow the ceiling too fast then the miasma would be too thin to affect those demons but if those cultists try to summon something beyond my reach then I won’t be able to eat any of them.’ I thought and weighed my options. On one hand, I knew I became more able with every creature I ate but if the threat of the imps proved to be too great then I might die.

My attention went back to what I took back from the surface. The sword and the blood shadow rock, the rock is slowly being absorbed so I would have to wait for that but the sword may help me. I grabbed the sword and stabbed the stone of the layer. From the memories of the imps and Vyras I know that the abyss has multiple layers stacked on top of each other then with this sword that wishes to destroy everything I should be able to enter the layer below me. At first nothing but I fed the crystal some of my power and the next stab cracked the stone slightly. At the same time, the crystal lost some of its fiery nature. ‘It works but I doubt that this will last. Is this how the imps came here then? No, they used a fire pillar so there must be a way to each other layers.’ I thought to myself as I continued to attack the stone.

After a while, the crystal lost all of its fiery power leaving a crack in the stone. The crack was enough to fit an imp’s hand so I tried my hand at expanding the crack. At first, I tried to continue to attack it with the sword but nothing. Next, I tried to spread my tendrils into the crack and pull it wider, but nothing. Interestingly at the bottom of the crack, there are stone fragments but my tendrils or the sword couldn’t move them so instead I wrapped them in my tendrils. If this stone was anything like the sand then my power should be enough to effect it so I pumped power into those fragments. It was small but I felt the fragments slowly lose shape but it was taking too much power. I sent thick tendrils to the large pools of the area and siphoned some of their power pushing it all into the fragments. Instead of the stone melting like the sand it broke into smaller fragments that eventually became too small to hold in my tendrils. Those small fragments instead entered my tendrils without me even realizing and by the time I did some had flowed throughout my tendrils. This helped expand the crack more even by a small amount so instead of stopping those fragments I allowed them to circulate inside of me.

Slowly more of the stone broke and turned into fragments but it was a very slow process and I had no idea how thick the stone was between layers so I moved my focus back to the ceiling. The blood shadow stone had been fully processed by the ceiling and now liquid started to form on it. At the tips of the stalactites droplets of what tasted like blood dropped into the pools or the black sand. I was curious about where this blood originated from and pulled some of the blood back to my pool through my tendrils. While it tasted like blood but had no traces of surface. I’ve noticed that the bodies of the creatures on the surface each had a unique taste compared to the fiery one that all imps had. This blood didn’t taste like either and seemed to carry my corrupting nature with it. Sadly I had no way to see how that would affect shadows since any that appeared didn’t last long enough to see and the pools that were collecting the stuff didn’t seem any different from before. The large worms were also absorbing some of the blood that fell onto the sand but they were too large so it would take time to see if they would change at all.

Corruption, a term that was stuck in my head but for the longest time had no idea what it meant. Rat’s memories didn’t know what it meant and Rammstein thought it was bad. Vryas believed it was the abuse of power but that didn’t fit either. Oh well, I’ll just shove the term somewhere in my mind until it floats up again, maybe another soul will give me the answer.

The blood gave me an interesting idea, imps and the creatures on the surface all had blood and meat. Why don’t shadows? These pools and the worms are a fusion of melted sand and my power but the imps and this blood were different. In my experience with those bodies, all that blood went through a piece of meat inside of the ribcage, the heart. To everything I ate the heart was one part that was highly valued and the second was the brain. I tried to look for a reason why but found nothing besides something about emotions and true self. While eating the heart killed the cultists quickly imps could survive for a long time without it but everything ended when the brain was destroyed. Was I the brain of all these shadows? They would all die by the imps if I die and I do all the thinking for them.

My mind was wandering but the idea of storing all of this blood to be used on one of the demons sounded good so my tendrils started to dig into the stalactite that had grown long enough to enter my pool. At the tip, my tendrils started to dig through it until I reached the middle and started to store blood in it. The next time I’m attacked and if one of those demons got close I could dump all of this blood on them. It should be enough to snuff out their flames and maybe enough to allow me to fight control for power in them. It’s only a matter of time.