"Void is Solis!"
Sylvester exclaimed with shock and surprise in his voice. He looked at the walls and the ceiling again just to make sure, and there was no doubt it was written in Russian.
"What do you mean? Our gods are the same?" Empress Zenith stood up from the floor. "How is that possible? Yours is the harbinger of light, and ours is the opposite—keeper of darkness that is the Void."
Sylvester wasn't sure, but he didn't feel like rejecting the idea. "Solis… I've met him in person a few times. He's guided me plenty and even helped me rise up. If he's the secret driving force behind the war against the Primordial Gods, then this would make sense. After all, Solis appeared five thousand years ago in my world, and your Void appeared ten thousand years ago."
Zenith walked closer to the wall and touched the handwritten notes. "For so long, my sister must have pondered and fought alone. For so long, she kept these secrets hidden in her heart. Are you two really from a different world?"
Sylvester stared at Zenith. "What do you mean by 'different' world?"
"Only that could explain how you two can understand this language; Why she was obsessed about getting in contact with you. She used to call you Johnathan… so fondly. She never told me a lot, but I wasn't naive enough to not understand a few things," Zenith said. "Were you two close?"
"Close? Yes." Sylvester muttered. "Take me to her. I'll speak with her directly."
Zenith frowned there, averting her gaze from Sylvester. "I… I don't think that's possible."
"Why?"
Zenith kept looking down, "The reason why I am now the Empress and she's not standing before you...."
Silence ensued. Sylvester seemingly lost the spark in his golden eyes. The worst possible situation he could imagine had somehow come true. "No, no… But you were talking about her like she's here and with us… don't lie to me, Empress."
At Sylvester's rising angry tone, Zenith stepped back in fright. "I'm not lying, I have no reason to. Please, come with me. You'll understand everything. She is downstairs."
'Is?' Sylvester silently nodded and gestured for her to lead the way.
Zenith started locking the doors the same way they had entered. Door after door, entrances after entrances. The entire way, the air of melancholy and dread increased the more time they spent going downstairs.
Finally, they entered the main hallway of the castle, and Zenith led him towards a regular staircase leading downwards this time. But still, there were a few locks in place, revealing the fact that this wasn't an easily accessible place either.
However, they didn't have to walk downstairs too much this time as they eventually arrived in front of massive wooden twin doors. The markings of the world's god, Void, were inscribed on the wood.
"Here." Zenith pushed one door open and entered.
The place was humongous, with a ceiling so high that the topmost part was shrouded in darkness. It seemed like the inside of a high cathedral with big pillars, walls painted with beautiful art, and stained glass tapestries. The only thing making it different was the lack of any benches.
"This is the Hall of Xikami, the eternal Empress," Zenith added and walked to the side of one of the pillars and tapped on it. "Eternal, even now."
Click!
Lights illuminated the massive cathedral from all corners. Coming from behind the stained glass artwork, it looked as if sunlight was coming from outside.
But the one thing that stood out from everything else was the end of the hall. On a short raised platform rested a cuboid glass box, upon which light was falling down from the ceiling, bringing it into focus.
Sylvester's lips shivered as if trying to find words. Without his body's command, his feet moved and brought him closer to the glass box. He could see the figure of something, or someone lying inside it.
A feminine shape with long ashen hair, and a pristine face similar to Zenith. Her head donning a regal black and golden gown, her wrist held various bracelets, and on her finger was a ring that he recognized—a replica of the original.
"W-When?" Sylvester questioned in a devastated tone.
"A decade ago, when I became the Empress," she confessed. "To maintain peace across the world, I had to act as if I'm her. I had to keep her body here. But it's been ten years, and not a speck of her has changed. Her complexion is as vibrant as when she walked."
"No…" Sylvester reached the glass box and nearly stumbled. He gently placed his palm on it, over her face. "Diana…"
Eyes sunken back, his fleshless heart screaming with each beat. His hand trembled while caressing the glass. Her face still looked young, and her lips still remained curved in a smile.
Zenith didn't know what to do. She walked behind Sylvester and gently placed her palm on his shoulder. "She tried to contact you for a very long time, Sylvester."
And that was what made him feel even more in pain. For so long, he remained skeptical about the secret messages he received from the Demon World. Always thinking it was a trap, always second-guessing his decision to enter the strange world.
"Leave us…" he ordered, voice trembling. "Let me have some peace."
Zenith didn't say anything and retreated, leaving the hall and closing the door behind her.
Left alone, Sylvester lifted the glass cuboid from her body. He tried to touch her face but stopped his hand from reaching close. For more than a thousand years, she had lived and kept him in her memories. What right did he have to shed tears anymore?
Yet, in matters of the heart, true feelings always come out. Creased brows, veins popping on his forehead, disheveled hair, his eyes silently began to shout. Faint drops of water down on his face found their own route.
At last, he couldn't hold himself and knelt beside the body. He caressed her ivory hair. No matter how much he hoped for those eyes to open, it remained a hopeful dream. Realizing he had failed to respond to her hopeful cries, he knew not how he would redeem.
He remembered all the instances he had faced the demons. The first time in Sphinx town, when the Demon tried to speak to him. It devastated him to think those were Diana's attempts to contact him. To tell him she lives and awaits him.
But once again, too late, he sat beside her body. His breath was intact, while hers long ceased. His life continues, while hers lay deceased.
Unable to hold his grief, he hugged her head closer to his chest, her hair falling all over his arms. So many times, he had told himself that he had overcome the past loss. But now, he knew he had merely kept running away from facing reality. Throwing himself into the 'holy' duty, a ruse to keep his mind busy.
"Once again..." he stared at her gentle face, different from the Diana he remembered, yet the situation made it seem all the same as then. "Once again, you have broken my heart. In the last, and in this too. You didn't let me say one last goodbye."
"John."
Sylvester looked left and right at the feminine voice. There was nobody, but then he felt something. As if two arms wrapped around his shoulder and neck. He could feel the words close to his ears. There was warmth.
"Diana?!" He exclaimed.
"John, don't shed tears."
He was now sure it was Diana speaking to him somehow. He tried to use any magic he could, turning his body into an overbearing furnace of solarium. Elder magic, creation magic, but no matter what, he could see nothing.
Only the sensation of a hug from behind him could be felt. "Diana? Is that you? Show yourself… just once."
"John, the Primordial Gods are not invincible. You can defeat them, you were born to do it. We were born to do it. I have lived my part and prepared for two thousand years, the rest is up to you. Take the locket and find the cave in Mount Doomsday."
Sylvester realized this was something akin to a pre-recorded message. She couldn't respond to him in real-time.
But then, as if she had predicted his state of mind, she spoke to him like they were face to face. The warmth around Sylvester's neck also increased, and the sensation of her embrace intensified.
"I'm sure of it now, John. This life is meant to be retribution for all the bad we did. I know yours must have been far more painful and harsh, for your world rested under the control of the demonic Primordial God. I hope you overcome all the challenges like you always did."
Sylvester nodded silently as a drop of tears slid down and fell on Diana's face. "If there is another life, I hope we meet again… alive."
"Let's meet in the next life." She added, and the warm embrace vanished, leaving him suffocated despite plenty of air.
Left alone with her body in his embrace, he looked at her neck where the locket was placed. He gently took it and observed. Shaped like a key with a hollow center, it was the work of Diana that took her two thousand years.
For some reason, he felt enraged. How their lives had been played with filled him with fury.
He caressed her face, gently placed her back on the platform, and positioned the glass box back in place.
He rose to his feet with a fire burning in his heart.
"Your sacrifice will not be in vain—Gods or not, I will purge them all! Until nothing remains!"
[See Sylvester Here]
A/N: Read the prologue chapter if you haven't. It tells the story of Johnathan and Diana before the start of the story.
