Chapter 1814 - 1814: The Sovereign's Domain (3)

It took Skullius seeing it for himself to understand. When Paliothese had mentioned it, he'd failed to truly understand how such a thing could exist and why it would be significant, but now…

The seal. The size. The way it was on full display.

Did that factor into what Thyrgga was planning or why the Primeval Deities were interested in Breaking Chasm #59 too?

'Who knows?' Skullius thought. It wouldn't do to be explicit about the things that stole his interest. Unlike Subossais, who had the cover of his helmet, every micro-expression on Skullius' face betrayed a little about his goals.

"Grand, isn't it? Nothing the likes of you has ever seen," said Subossais, and he led the way down the narrow path from the landing port to one of the lowermost prisms. Walls of fire, toxins, and fiery gases danced on either end of the path, but couldn't harm the traversers.

Skullius sighed and followed along.

"Do all Warlords feel the need to try so hard to incite conflict?" he said.

"What was that?" Subossais said thinly.

"I'll say it plainly," said the Hybrid, and he quickened his steps so that he and the Warlord were walking side by side. "If you want a fight, just say so. I'm used to enemies who are more honest about their hostility. Why bother with this annoying verbal preamble? For a Warlord, you lack tact in actual war. I would have mistaken that for discipline, but it's just so damn tenuous."

The way Subossais suddenly burst into laughter almost startled Skullius.

"Please. What do you know of war?" said the Warlord. "You fight a few middling Deities on a footstool of a world, and suddenly, you're an expert on tact?"

"At least I don't run my mouth off, taking every chance I get to insult my enemies. Is that what the Grand General Navvexr teaches you? Or are you still pissed that Grand General Gylliard saved you from my axe back in the Quadrosphere?"

Subossais didn't have an immediate retort. Skullius raised a guard. Had he struck a nerve?

"I'm petty and cruel," the Warlord finally said, and he turned to Skullius. "Your kind taught me to be long before I met my master."

The two locked eyes for a moment. The fire between them simmered down for a reason neither of them could explain.

The bottom-most triangular prism on the giant structure held the entrance – a great, dark triangular gateway. Some might have called it a void. Two Generals stood on either side, still as stones. Only when Subossais and Skullius were within a ten-meter range did they move, turning to them.

"Pass?" one of them said robotically.

Skullius was about to produce his pass when Subossais whipped out one of his own, a plaque of a different kind, and gave it to the General. Scanning it for a second, the General gave it back with a nod.

"We'll take it from here."

Subossais took a step back and said to Skullius, "I'll be waiting for you right here. Try to come back out alive."

Skullius merely grunted at that before following after the Generals into the darkness buried in the triangular doorway.

'I guess it falls on Subossais to make sure I'm allowed here. And it appears that Warlords aren't allowed inside the Paradigm.'

It was a guess, but when the Hybrid passed the threshold into the Paradigm, the void, he felt it was probably true. Silence came first, a silence so potent that it felt material.

A gloomy space, expanding beyond, instilled a freakish feeling of foreboding. Why it was so dimly lit was a great mystery, but Skullius could still see everything. Fat, black pillars rolled forth on either side of him, meeting a floor and ceiling of dark green.

Empty as this great room was, the design and detail seemed to have been dictated by someone who enjoyed old aesthetics – rare antiques that spoke of the past.

Skullius found it all pretentious, but he kept going, following the Generals' lead. The silence and gloom lasted so long that when it abruptly changed, Skullius hadn't been paying enough attention to detect why that was.

Suddenly the darkness fled, pierced by warm light. The silence departed, erased by high, sonorous voices singing a melody. Slow – so dreadfully slow – but graceful. The pitches were perfect, the verses only a few words, but layered with blissful intent. A song that could caress the heart and feed the soul. It was sung in the Soul's Cadence, or perhaps a much more beautiful version of it.

Amathan et Mybn I'e Amanthu was the song's name. Letters from Mybn call the lord.

Skullius almost lost himself to it. He stopped moving, awestruck.

Feminine figures sat at the ends of the room, garbed in silken silver garments, vocalizing without end; they were partly hidden by the same fat pillars directing Skullius to what was ahead. The Hybrid looked.

Only when his eyes met it did he detect the frightening volumes of Conste leaking from it: a cruel-looking glaive mounted high on the wall at the end. Spurts and flashes of green fired from all the edges and curves of its design, held back only by a seal of interconnected gear shapes.

"Please keep up." If one of the Generals didn't urge him, Skullius would not have moved from the spot.

Doing as he was bid, the Hybrid continued gazing upon the glaive, stunned. The music kept his thoughts mellow, so mellow, in fact, that he belatedly realized that there was something else here – something other than the singers and the glaive.

Below the glaive, on a throne that looked like water from a bursting geyser had been flash-frozen, sat a woman, the most beautiful woman Skullius had ever seen. Sunken in the throne lazily, one leg over the other, the woman looked to be asleep or perhaps enjoying the melody. Or was it both?

Her eyes slowly opened a moment later, unnaturally green. Skullius' vulnerable heart thumped fast and faster, and he swallowed hard, shaken – taken by the woman's grace.

He barely got to see the woman give him a lazy nod of acknowledgement before everything in his vision changed again.

The glaive, the pillars, the female singers… They vanished.

Now, Skullius and the Generals were in a room that was longer than it was wide, with brighter shades and cooler air. A melody was playing here as well. A different one. Quick, deep, low. Male figures seated at the ends of the room sang an inspiring hymn.

Gegenne yei fiesces Amanthu. Betray your wrath, lord.

The hymn didn't relax Skullius, unlike the last melody. Suddenly, the Hybrid's alertness fired to maximum, and his awareness soared.

'DAMN IT! I completely lost myself back there!' was his first thought. He could hardly believe it. The melody had stolen his will immediately, leaving him so vulnerable that he became oblivious to what should have been obvious.

'That woman…'

Who that woman on the throne was, was immediately clear now that Skullius wasn't addled.

…But he didn't have the luxury of exploring that now. This next room he'd appeared in wasn't empty either.

A bearded giant standing over seven meters above everyone else was speaking to a man leaning against a long table that occupied most of the room. The giant had to look down to talk to this man, but somehow, the question of who was superior between them was uncontested.

It had nothing to do with presence.

It had nothing to do with words.

It was simply… fact.

"And of course, you would think I had willing dealings with them. Who in their right mind would invite a Zephyr to their doorstep?" said the shorter man.

"I hear that, but then I would have you answer me this: Did you invite us here before or after you realised you would be getting this unwanted guest?"

The man leaning over the table didn't answer immediately. Images were floating over its surface, crisp images and Runes. Waving them away, he turned, looking up at the giant.

"That concern shall be yours to agonize with for a little while longer, old friend." He turned to Skullius. "I have another unexpected guest to entertain."

Skullius felt the hair on the back of his neck stand. All his senses pointed sharply at the shorter man, refusing to yield attention to anyone else. He barely paid it any mind when the giant grumbled and took a few heavy steps in his direction before disappearing abruptly.

Sovereign General Momem Thyrgga approached, smiling, and extended his hand to the Hybrid.

"Welcome to my humble abode, Skullius."