Thal, Grand Cathedral
Deep beneath the cathedral in the place known as the underworld, Neil stood at the entrance of the facility alongside Marcus. His expression towards the sight in front of him was unreadable, the old man tapped him on his shoulder and that is when he regained his senses.
"What is this place?"
Neil turnexd to the old man and asked, Marcus gave him a mysterious smile and looked at his daughter as if he was passing the question on to her.
"This is our stronghold, and your new home."
For a country that neglected their technology growth Neil was shocked to see such a technological advanced facility in Thal. This facility was probably among the top advanced research facilities in the world. About a hundred people were in the place each busy with their own projects, the different sections were separated by transparent tempered glasses meaning he could see everything.
At section A they had labs, section B were expert computer analysts, in the middle was a command center, and at section C there were a group of inventors working on different projects many high tech gadgets were sprawled on their tables and the final section was what surprised him the most.
"Is that the Conspiracy."
Neil pointed towards section D, he could see the Conspiracy locked in cages unmoving. Sister Elowen approached and took his arm, she led him towards section D.
"These are our unwilling test subjects."
They were about 10 Of the monsters locked in cages, each of them with a different form. Standing near them, a slight pressure emnated from the monsters.
"How are you keeping them unconscious, these things do not possess a brain isn't it?"
Surprisingly he was answered by the old man,
"We are able to achieve some thing like this because of our extensive research and experiments on the Conspiracy for three decades. If you want to learn more you have to first accept puff proposal."
Neil regarded the old man with a questioning gaze, old Marcus pointed towards the command center.
"You mentioned a proposal?"
In the command center two other people had joined them, the old man had introdfuced them as Inquisitor Marcellus Drake and Noctalis the head scientist in the underworld. Marcellus is a bald middle aged man, with only one good emerald eye. He wore navy combat gear with the church's crest, Noctalis is an old man possibly Marcus's age with unkept gray hair, he had his lab coat on with a black shirt and formal trousers underneath.
Their attention was on Neil, especially Noctalis. Neil paid them no attention and focused his gaze on Marcus, the old man sat on the leader's chair. His expression was hard and unreadable, the nonchalant air that surrounded the old man had dissipated.
"Everybody in this room has my trust and respect, that is why this little organization of ours has been striving for so many years predating even my daughter.
The underworld was founded by Noctalis and I, in hopes of trying to understand the nature of our enemies and develop ways we can deal with them permanently. Although we have barely managed to understand our enemy we have also developed various ways to fight them for both the system bearers and the mundane.
This way we were able to resist a great deal against our enemies, but that was until 10 years ago. When the Conspiracy began attacking in a strategized manner, their attacks suddenly became harder to repel and we began getting more casualties whenever they attacked.
That is when we began having suspicions that it's either we have a human working with those monsters or we have been infiltrated, and it was only five years ago in the attack of Grynovia where we learned that they can take perfect human form.
The ancient texts did mention that the twelve champions fought with evil in human skin, and that they prevailed. And since there was no sighting of human looking Conspiracy over the thousands years since the great battle, we thought that it was merely a mistake in translation or something.
But then when I was in the battlefield at Grynovia, I was attacked by my fellow human. A man I trusted with my life, suddenly placed a knife in my chest missing my heart by a few inches.
And that is when he revealed his true form of a half-serpentine human that towered above the battlefield. Luckily I had an old friend nearby who managed to save my life from that abomination.
That day I realized that we are on the verge of extinction, if a man I had known for twenty five years could turn out to be a monsterg bred from darkness then how about the general population. How many of the high ranking demons had infiltrated our world, I knew then I had to act.
The preservation of humanity comes first, and I would give anything to wipe out those cursed things. "
Neil listened earnestly, he knew most of the story but not from a person who had personally experienced it. He resisted the urge to ask the old man to get to the point, he wanted to know what was the proposal? Marcus paused and his eyes scanned through the four people in front of him.
"I want to eradicate the source of the Conspiracy, the very being the Gods themselves fail to vanquish. I believe it can be done, but I cannot do it alone.
Every single one of you here has very vital role to play, and that includes you Neil Thorne. I need you, I want to make you my weapon against the Conspiracy. "
Neil pointed at himself as if he had not heard the old man correctly, the old man nodded. Multiple questions arose,
" okay firstly, what? Secondly, why? "
"Because it has to be you." Sister Elowen responded with a gentle smile.
Giving the sister an intense look, he sighed and forced himself to look away.
"Explain yourself?"
The inquisitor's expression instantly changed to irritation.
"How dare you? If the sister talks you listen."
Neil shrugged, disregarding the man. His gaze remained on Elowen, unwavering.
"It's okay, Marcellus, we are all equals here if the man demands an explanation I will gladly show it to him."
Sister Elowen responded, Neil scrunched his brows at her answer.
[The hell does she mean show?]
She turned to him and raised a hand about to touch him but Neil instinctively moved his head avoiding her hand.
" I'm not going go harm you, stay still. "
They locked eyes briefly and then her soft hand touched his cheek like she was aboutv to caress him.
"System open archive and transfer memory."
Before he could even conjure a thought he was transported to a land of pure darkness .
...
Neil blinked twice and even rubbed his eyes, yet all he could see was darkness. For a moment he thought he had been turned blind by sister but then he remembered that there was no system cabable of stealing people's sight unless one simply gouged a person's eyes out.
No matter where he looked there was darkness, but the was an eerie feeling about the darkness it felt alive. He began walking in search for light, but the darkness began talking to him.
He heard voices, screams, cries for help. The blood curling screams, and the loud banging of his head became too much for him. He screamed, clamped his ears in attempt to block out the noise like how he had done when the framework had awakened.
"Stop!" he screamed into the darkness, to no one.
Louder, the voices, the cries, the screams they all became louder a thousand voices all at the same time.
He tried, to resist, he yelled at the darkness but it didn't stop. He fell to his knees crying, and then among the thousand voices he heard a familiar voice.
The voice brought back memories, the voice that used to be filled with admiration for him. The voice that he heard all of his life, the voice of the one he had lost.
"Neil! Where are you? I'm right here, help me. I cannot see a thing. "
His tears flowed endlessly, out of all the thousand voices he listened to only one. Kyle's voice called to him within the living darkness, he relentlessly began to look around yet the darkness encompassed everything. And the voice of kyjle grew distant, like he was being pulled further and further away from him.
"Please Neil, save me."
"Kyle! Don't leave please, Kyle! I'm right here!" Neil bellows into the darkness, yet no reply came only the grating cries of a thousand voices scraping his ears.
And then the mechanical voice spoke into his ear.
[Warning: INTEGRITY level low]
[INTEGRITY: 35%] [ESSENCE BALANCE: RED 85 : BLUE 15]
[Host must calm down.]
Neil opened his eyes trembling, the system warning still carved into his sight. With a trembling hand he wiped his tears, and then with a slightly hoarse voice he asked;
"What is this place?"
The system remained quiet for a moment before it responded
[Host's current level is still too low, for him to comprehend the information regarding this place.]
Blinking softly he loudly exhaled.
[Hosts has received an archived memory.]
[Do you want to view the memory, Y/N?]
Reading the system notification he frowned, was this not supposed to be the memory? If not then where was he? He hesitantly agreed,.
"Yes."
[Command Recognized.]
[Archived memory used up.]