Void descended, and the world narrowed. A fierce hot updraft pushed up at his armour and brushed past his face in thin streams, as if Hellmouth exhaled through the seams in the rock. He continued falling, Void angled his body sharply, legs straight, shoulders rolled inwards like a needle. His eyes flared; the ground was near.
Void jolted mid-air, twirling his feet to the ground. A jet of light burst from the soles of his feet and shot to the ground, rocking him up. The momentum jerked through his body, and Void took in a breath. A second later, the light dissipated, and he softly dropped to the floor.
"Obsidian," he said, and looked around.
Everything was dark, oppressively dark, as if light itself was afraid of being swallowed here. Void took a step forward, and the ground beneath his feet seemed to pulse with each movement, shivering under his weight.
His eyes narrowed, and his gaze drifted upwards. Void spotted gargantuan ribs that lined Hellmouth's tunnels, bound to the molten lunar rock that barely held its shape through unknown magic, "I am here."
The blade at his side shook and drew a pale fringe out of the dark; a burst of pale aura illuminated the dark around him. Void's fingers twitched; he opened his hand and reached for the arc out of habit.
But his palm stayed empty. There were no jolts, no arcs.... no light.
"Obsidian?"
He tried again—smaller this time, but nothing. The refusal was clean. Void's face turned grim.
Obsidian appeared and flittered beside him, voice eerily thin. "Your light... It's gone. I can't feel it. I, this isn't happening, is it? This feels wrong." He uttered faintly, shell shivering as a strange chill gripped it.
"Obsidian" Void frowned, cupping the shell in his palm.
"I feel weak. Be careful, Void. Be..... very... carefu-" Obsidian's voice flickered to static, it gently dropped into Void's palm, and the last of the light in its eye faded to black.
Void felt it instantly, like a hole in his chest. Something was missing. His stomach churned, and a brutal twinge of pain burned across his body as a gentle wisp of light splintered away from him.
"What the hell is happening!" Void spoke through gritted teeth and dropped to one knee as he howled in pain.
«Worry not, O brother mine. The dark has merely stripped you of your light. The Traveler can no longer reach you. For now.» Zamyr murmured, his ethereal form more vivid than ever.
«But, it's strange. I cannot sense the being that seems to affect you this way. It's resisting me, wrestling your power against my control.»
"Is it Crota?" Void panted, the muscles tensed, and he struggled to his feet.
«No. Crota still sleeps. This is something else. Something worse than a prince with a blade, or the witch. Something, older.»
"Name it."
«Its nature is wicked, something that is beyond an ascendant. A being with control over life and death itself. A being that has decided that you cannot wield your light here, but that is the extent of its power.»
Void flexed his fingers and let that settle in. "A being with control over life and death." He touched the Ahamkara blade softly. The pale at the edge thickened, "Almost seems to me as if you've talking about-" A memory flashed in Void's mind. A single name appeared in his thought, a name he didn't dare utter in the dark.
«Indeed, now I know, it is the sovereign of the Osmium Throne», Zamyr whispered, and the dark seemed to flutter in response, as if keen. «The Taken King watches from beyond.»
Void's heart dropped. His eyes flickered azure, and he glanced around, but he couldn't see anything strange.
Zamyr chuckled heartily; its shrill voice seemed to shake the dark and scatter it away.
« Interesting, how interesting. O brother mine.» Zamyr flashed a fanged grin, « For countless centuries and countless cycles, fate persisted, but this? This was not written. The Taken King, he watches you, he knows what you are, O brother mine, just like I do. »
Zamyr paused, and then a dreadful vision flashed in the Ahamkara's mind, and it stirred. «No, perhaps. Perhaps he even knows more than I of what you are.»
He eyed Void.
"Stop the riddles. What are we doing now? If Oryx is watching...then is this even possible?" Void frowned as his grip on the sword tightened.
« We do what we came here to do. Stop the witch.» Zamyr replied, « The King won't stop you. No, he cannot stop you. He is not here, not yet. It was only your presence that drew his gaze. All he did was take away your light.»
Void rolled his shoulders and walked into the tunnels of Hellmouth, "Might I remind you, I do need the light."
Zamyr chuckled again, the fierce pale aura wrapped around Void and seemed to amplify «In a clash of dark and light, there is always a possibility. And with possibility comes power, O brother mine.»
The coat of pale aura seemed stronger; power coursed through Void's veins, a power he'd never felt before.
« Let's go. I will show you the way,» Zamyr's voice wisped away, and a pale trail seemed to stretch into the dark ahead.
Void nodded and continued moving. He did not run. He slid through sloped ribs, kept his shoulders tight under arches that would have scraped his head. The air thickened and turned murky.
Void continued.
He dropped into a chamber that seemed to stretch eerily. Space folded inward by increments. At the far side, a Wizard stood inside a ring of marks that made the eyes ache when you tried to read them. Fog curled at its feet.
The wizard raised his head, awed at what he was witnessing. It looked at Void, and the mask tilted in surprise; the chamber tightened.
"Hello," Void said. He kept the word plain.
The fog along the walls thickened and leaned in. The ring lit from the floor up, each glyph glowing a sick green.
Zamyr whispered, « Break the ring.»
Void set his stance. He didn't reach for Light again. He drew the Ahamkara blade, and its grey halo ate the colour off the nearest symbol. The Wizard saw that and pulled the air with one hand until it clenched. The chamber was shocked, and a pressure wave rocked towards the Void.
He moved.
He slashed forward, the pale energy cut through the air with a surge and ate away the wave. Void, crossed to the right and slashed again, a wave tore through to the wizard. The fog cloaked its body and barely blocked the strike.
The Wizard tilted its head a degree, remeasuring him. It raised its hand, and the fog hurled towards him like a tide.
Void stepped and struck into the apparent empty floor. The blade bit into the ground, and the fog pulled back. The Wizards' arms rose. It reached for the chamber again, trying to fill the room with fog.
«The wizard is one of the Fog's anchors. Kill it now.» Zamyr said, closer now. «Get to the Witch.»
The fog at the edges sagged, being pulled back into the Wizard's robe.
The Wizard hissed. It pulled a seam of dark and fired at Void with tendrils that rushed towards him. He kicked off and slid to the side, with a jolt, he came up inside her reach.
Void slashed, the blade snapped across the Wizard's throat, grazing its bones.
The Wizard fell back into the circle of runes and tried to stand. Void cut across again, aiming for its legs. The fog tried one more time to organise itself, but it couldn't block in time.
Its legs were cleaved off, the Wizard shrieked. It squirmed on the ground, magic festering in its palms as it tried to wield the last of its power.
"Zamyr," Void said, breath even.
The pale aura leaked along the groove of his blade and shot towards the Wizard, coiling around its robes like a serpent. The Wizard's magic was drawn out, sucked away by Zamyr's phantom.
An instant later, the Wizard's bones shook, crumbling into dust as its corpse dried out.
The fog in the room loosened. It didn't vanish completely. Far above, the viridian flare along Hellmouth dimmed a fraction.
«Good,» Zamyr said, quiet and flat. «Again, we must continue. The Witch has realised that we're here. It will search for us.»
"I don't suppose you're having second thoughts?" Void smirked as he stepped closer to the Wizard's corpse, now fully drained of any power, just a husk of dust.
Zamyr hummed ecstatically, «Please, there is much more to be eaten, O brother mine.»
"That's what I thought." Void nodded, he sheathed the blade and walked forwards, "Find me the next one."
The pale wisp trailed further inside Hellmouth, and he followed.
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