The blade that Elias had callously stabbed into his flesh had inflicted untold anguish on him, so much so that only by making his mind flee into his memories for a few moments did he gain any measure of relief.
But what he was about to do required so much attention from him that he could not stay inside the safety of his mind for long; he would have to leave it to complete the process.
Elias gritted his teeth and emerged from his mind, finding that in the short moment of distraction, he had become enclosed by a cocoon of green.
Thousands of tiny eyes surrounded him, and the hissing sound they made almost felt as if he had been placed inside a boiler room that was about to explode.
Elias' skin was turning gray and purple as the chill in the air had become concentrated around his body.
One of these creatures could only freeze an entity of similar size, say an ant, but with thousands of them here, then they could freeze a man into a block of ice, and Elias was rapidly heading in that direction.
This cold did not dull his pain, only added a new layer to it, but Elias was not focused on this, instead, he began to whisper in an almost singsong tone, the words he used would not be understood by most that heard them, its intonation were undoubtedly ancient, coming from a time when true gods and daemons still walked the earth, he had found these words etched on the stone knife, and until this moment he did not understand how he was capable of understanding them,
"Flesh of mine, now hollow shell,
Open wide where dark ones dwell.
Blood to ink and bone to pyre,
Enter, claim this form, and go to your restless sleep.
Bound by will, yet wild and free,
As I speak, so shall it be.
Enter your willing dwelling to slumber until you rise again."
㉫
As he spoke the words, the sea of green around him began to softly vibrate, their harsh hissing sound lowering down to a dull buzz, Elias did not stop the flow of his words even when the sea of green began to fly into his open wound, entering inside his marrow and flesh, and despite their large number, they all managed to fit into Elias body until there was nothing left.
When the last of them had entered his body, Elias did not stop his chanting. Instead, he focused on pushing back his skin together to accelerate his healing. He had long learned that this helped his flesh in quickly mending, and in a few minutes of intense pain and suffering, his injuries healed up without even a scar to show for it, not even a drop of blood was left behind as these creatures made sure to consume all of it.
His chest glowed white with health, and he nearly collapsed to the ground from the sudden weakness that filled his limbs, but Elias did not stop his chant, reducing his words to whispers.
It would take a while before his marrow could begin producing enough blood to offset the amounts being consumed by the creatures inside of him, but thankfully, they did not take much from him. It was as if they saw him as their home, and they would not harvest much from him in order to keep him alive.
Elias was fine with this arrangement; he trusted it more than any promise or vow.
His internal clock alerted him that he had less than an hour to finish his cleaning process before his supervisor reached this place, and so Elias quickly turned to the open boxes where he had placed all of Josef's body parts, which included the separate box for the head, limbs, and torso, and he hurried towards them.
Beside the platform where he had butchered Josef, there was a large lever, and when he pulled it, harsh lighting flooded his surroundings as several large industrial-sized lamps fueled by low-grade Ember Orbs lit up, fully revealing the space where Elias had been committing his dastardly acts.
His surroundings were fully revealed, showing that he was underground, and Elias began moving the boxes into various molds he had already made weeks before, and then with a specialized nozzle, he poured a wet paste over the molds that would harden into tough rock in a few minutes.
The final deeds of his crimes would be entombed in stone forever, or at least until the city collapsed, whichever came first, he did not care, he should be long dead before the bodies of his prey were ever revealed.
He knew of many who would brag that they were able to kill powerful Siphons or beasts above their level, but Elias was not that desperate for attention; in fact, he wanted none at all, and that was why he was unhappy about the perfect features that drew attention anywhere he went.
Sealing his kills inside stone had become one of Elias's best methods of dealing with the evidence left behind after the Passenger was fed. Why else would he agree to work under the city of Stormfall, so close to the Palace, while creating marvels that no eyes would see?
He adjusted one of the lights to fully illuminate this space, revealing that it was an extensive tunnel filled with statues.
The lights illuminated almost forty meters of tunnels, all filled with the exact same statue that was lined on either side of the smooth walls.
Elias knew that there were thousands of these statues hidden in the darkness beyond the light that went on for almost fifteen thousand meters.
He was not the first person to begin working inside this tunnel, making this same statue, and he doubted he would be the last, it was dull and thankless work that did not pay for much, but the higher-ups loved to create these useless works of art that appealed to their vanity and an entire tunnel network under the town filled with nothing but statues were one of such projects.
Elias believed all these senseless acts of creating such artworks were the endless chasing of the glories of the past that surrounded them, glories mankind could never replicate, even after many years of study; now, only cheap imitations remained.
No one would ever accuse Elias of not being a deep thinker, but he mostly kept his observations in his heart, away from the light of day.
All of the statues were of a single person, once a man, then a Legend, and from the Legend was born an Immortal, Asulon The Storm, killer of Dhamtos, the God of Dreams, who inhabited one of the seven High Heavens, and whose blue light of storms and dreams shone on the shore of every ocean at the first crack of dawn.
Asulon, The Storm, became one of the Ascendant beings whose powers rivaled the gods of old and who were worshipped by all men.
Their Heavens shone the Light of Life on all creation, and their Hells ferried the souls of the fallen to their final destination.
Each statue of Asulon was twelve feet tall and displayed a man wearing an armored suit that seemed to possess unnatural curves, each side flowing into the next as if his armor was both metal and cloth at the same time, yet, everything was perfectly represented in stone, and if the light from the lamps were not too harsh, it would be easy to believe that each statue was alive.
This was a work of art that had transcended the hands of a mortal, and it was Elias's work, the primary source of income.
Of course, he was not the true carver of these pieces; he was more like the handler. Something else did the real work.
That something was a small crystal with the appearance of a cube.
An Alchemistry Crystal.