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974. The Great Unknown
🕑 Added 2025-04-09 13:14:19 +0000 UTCMeanwhile, elsewhere on the Seventh Level, a pair dug through the innards of the Site. At first, they were falling through tightly interwoven networks of massive pipes.
These became rods, the kind that reminded Frost of rebar before cement was poured over them.
A tinge of fear ran through her body. Her blood seemed to cool the further they fell.
Strange. She couldn’t help but think. On Earth, the closer one fell through the world, the hotter it would become. It was not purely about the pressure or the lack of oxygen.
The reason why these thoughts came to her was because she could see rocks here. Faint outlines of caverns cut through the thick, almost teal atmosphere. The blue hue intensified, becoming azure as though they had fallen into a winter hell.
Rime grew on the rods. Crystal shards sung to a nonexistent wind.
She could feel all of it.
The tingles in her fingers. The way her eyes squinted at nothing. How the chills bit into her bone despite possessing a flaming mantle and the crown of thorns belonging to the Crowned.
Dark Memoria shattered the silence with a breath that was less like a speech, and more like a force of nature.
“The Subderma Layer does like to have a blue tinge depending on where you are in the world. As opposed to the Derma Layer, of course. The Subderma Layer resides at 15,000 to 21,000. There are notable overlaps between the Sixth Layer (The Chasm of Souls) and the Eight Layer (The Great Unknown). Namely, the blue hue, the ridged air…”
She grazed against spear-like rock formations that jutted from the tightening cavern. It branched into numerous pathways, expanding seemingly forever until they arrived at a hollowed-out chamber where colossal chains were tethered from the ground to the ceiling.
“Ice…?” Frost blurted out.
They had entered a frozen cavity. A lake of ice, and enormous man-made structures of a long-forgotten past were buried meters deep in ice. It was so thick that it was impossible to make out if those structures belonged to ancient Elysian civilizations or came from the Old World.
There were dark dots embedded deep into the walls. They looked like inscriptions…
But she could have sworn there were faces amongst them.
“There is a common theme amongst the Layers of Elysia. The Levels of the Sites are a microcosm of the world, both past and present. Though they are not the same. Vergillia excelled in navigating through the ruins of the deep. I do recall her referring to the tombs of ice as the tombs of heretics.”
Vergillia was the Fourth Apostle of the Arbiter. Her history was briefly disclosed by Dark Memoria as they descended through this frozen plain. Looking back was an eye of light that led to greener pastures. Shadows of strange creatures could be seen through the thin veil of ice that isolated this forgotten world.
Those spires were too detailed to be mere rocks.
Surely, those were the towers of a castle.
“Vergillia was a nuisance for tampering with the Reminiscence. A harrower of hell at heart, and a poet that used to guide lost souls through the Maw of the World till one day, she disappeared. As that Horus has detailed in her G-Z0 Report and the G-Z0 Black Box, Vergillia guides lost souls in that Site.”
They broke through the earth and dug deeper into the world.
The gnawing cold lingered on her back. But she could no longer feel it biting at her fingers as she punched through tens upon tens of meters of rock. Superheated air softened the impenetrable material.
Their excavation was closer to scooping out mud from a well.
“Ice and time are one in the same. Attachment is no different than being frozen in time. But in her perspective, it was always heresy. Always treachery. I suspect she was involved in the Dark Ages. Who else rests here in the Subderma Layer, entombed in sin, than those who were condemned by the Iron Stars?”
Frost winced.
Her body was weighed down by her carefully crafted words.
They were like poison to her.
They forced her to acknowledge the scale of the world, its atrocities – the hell that existed beyond sight – and she could not look away from it.
But more importantly, Dark Memoria gave her a window to peer into the forces that moved the world behind the scenes. They had always known it was just the Ateliers and the Impuritas. But now there was Lilith, Qliphoth, the Stars… And the Apostles?
It didn’t matter now.
However, the fact that Dark Memoria was talking about it caused her gut to wrench.
She had a terrible feeling as the rocks became weaker.
They were nearing a breakthrough.
“A warning to ‘Frost’, Amalgam. Attachment is more than the past. Attachment is the concept of what we are, what is and what isn’t.”
“What do you know about me?” Frost growled through welded teeth.
“Nothing, aside that your Attachment is the only reason why I trust you, human. But beware of it. Attachment is like a star. When one component fails, then it collapses. What’s left is either stardust left to scatter the cosmos, or something worse.”
The former warning was what would happen if she died.
It would trigger the Fourth Shattering.
That risk would only increase in the future.
The second was Corruption, she believed.
At least in her heart she hoped it was.
Their speed picked up. Gravity seemed to drag them down faster and faster. At some point, Frost couldn’t tell if the flames surrounding her were from the Crowned or from the friction.
Everywhere, all at once, it felt like the weight of the world was collapsing in on her. Her ribs ached. Her fingers cramped. Her teeth gnashed as she fought against the strains of the descent.
“The Curse. Even here, as we fall through the Site’s boundaries, are not immune to it entirely. What you are feeling is the ineffable pressure of the flow. The layered Thresholds that threaten to collapse your sense of self. Condense you down under the weight of flowing unconsciousness.”
She held a piece of stone in her hand and slowly began to crush it under the weight of an invisible barrier. What was left was a formless blob of stone. It barely qualified as stone, but it existed.
That was all that mattered. As long that rock had a consciousness then what was the problem?
“The mind is a sanctuary uncorrupted by Impuritas transformation. It is a physical transformation that pits it against the Ego.”
“You’re not affected by it?” Frost winced, her [Painkiller] Passive easing much of the pain.
But she allowed herself to experience the bends in full to store it within her [Manual of Anti-Healing].
“Contrary, I am plenty affected by it. Just not in this Layer. Qliphoth does not make me immune to these forces. Only resilient. Despite my Qliphoth-based powers, I am not a being of Qliphoth. Gods of Cognition are Nex-based beings. Both of light and darkness.”
“No wonder Beholders can’t go any deeper…”
The last layer of rock split, and they were swallowed by the void. Pure darkness was all that existed beneath them in this world. But seconds later, as winds cast their hair aside, they were greeted by an infinitely spanning desert.
It was a place she fondly remembered being taken to by the Aberrations of Elysia to see the Site Core in all its glory.
It was the place where she had heard the likes of Enoch wander as they followed a Star.
And it was the same place where she had fought Iscario.
< Entering The Great Unknown For the First Time >
< Welcome to The Great Unknown >
< DEPTH: 25,000m >
< ABSOLUTE LIMIT: 40,000m >
Wasn’t it? Or… was those places something else entirely?
“Surprised? Fret not. The Site Cores exist on an island surrounded by the cruel waves of unconsciousness on this Layer. So long as we do not stray too far, then we have nothing to fear.”
Dark Memoria assured, as though she knew this place like the back of her hand. Although, that was not because she was fond of it. If anything, this was the first time Frost had seen her mouth crook with discomfort.
Even when against Lilith she fought with confidence.
The Great Unknown demanded Frost to hone her senses.
When they landed along the coarse desert hills, they were greeted with a desolate sky. There were no stars in sight, save for one pale glow.
“We follow the light. It will take us to the Site Core. Be wary. The Aberrations should have called you first. The fact that they have not attempted to grace you is why I’m taking precautions. Don’t be surprised when we begin fighting in a Reminiscence.”
Frost gazed upon the light as they dashed forward, skimming through the desert sands as though they were floating.
“… It’s a star of its own in this place, huh.”
“Indeed. I would like to see how you would look like from a distance.”
“What do you… Are you saying I’d shine like that?”
“Undoubtedly.”
For better or worse, Frost was unknowingly and unwillingly announcing her presence to the world.
And something out there, in the great unknown, shifted.
It noticed the light.
“I’m gonna need a better CognitO Filter. Tch… But Dark Memoria. This place resembles the Expanse, right?”
“It runs across all Elysia as far as we are concerned. The geology of the world does not make much sense. I’m not sure if this is where we were when we fought Iscario. But if I were to wager a guess, we were ascending to a place closest to the domain of the Stars.”
Dark Memoria’s face lightened. She exchanged a small knowing look at Frost before leading her ahead. Gradually, the star in the distance began to fall like a setting sun.
And before long, that star began to take shape.
The beginnings of enormous, hundreds of meters… no, kilometer-wide chains were anchored on foundations so large that Frost could barely comprehend it.
They were approaching the Site Core.
“Don’t be surprised if you manage to find a River here as rare as it may be. Openings into the Depths of the Timeless Ruins can be found on this Layer. But I would avoid them at all costs. Looking Glass have corroded Beholders before.”
She adamantly warned and emphasized it by wrapping her tail around Frost’s arm.
“It would be easier to lock you up. But alas, I’ll leave that for Jury.”
