Agatha's playful voice was the last thing Kieran heard before his world grew disturbing and disorienting.
He groaned, distraught by the sudden change he felt. His body lurched, and his stomach sunk, creating a sickening feeling.
Within these tunnels linking the world in bizarre ways, logic and understanding did not exist. Kieran had learned that the hard way. The slipshod tunnels were not very kind. Nor were they meant for a Novice like him to traverse.
The entropic energies assailed Kieran's body, whereas Scar seemed unencumbered and carefree. He sauntered past like strolling through a verdant park on a pleasant day.
Though, his expression was not as insouciant as his movements let on.
When they finally arrived, stepping foot within a place inside the Hero's Sanctuary Kieran had never been to or knew existed before, he rejoiced. That journey alone instilled in him a newfound appreciation for the established and stable teleportation gates.
The entire Hero's Sanctuary was a lavish place built to embody glory, grandeur, and antiquity. It was a place where the past and present met, and the future could be etched.
Massive alabaster columns standing like proud spires could be seen littering the labyrinthine walkways paved with lacquered gray stones. The Sanctuary traveled that fine line between a florid and garish setting, seating perfectly as a breathtaking vista.
It inspired one to be heroic and filled people with valiance. That quality was accomplished through exquisite effigies erected along an arched corridor—likely fallen Heroes of considerable repute.
Kieran wondered many things as his eyes traveled apace.
'What is the story behind this place?'
The carved statues were too numerous to be Myths. They had always existed in limited supply. That wasn't the only reason Kieran doubted these sculptures had anything to do with the Myth, not directly, at least.
The effigies varied greatly in size. Some were lifelike, others were genuinely colossal as if attempting to capture the presence the simulacrum was made to represent and not the person.
'I'd reckon they were some kind of lesser Hero. And the statue's size is a symbol of their contribution and an echo of their status.'
Scar had kept walking, inured to the awe-inspiring scenery. Anyone would grow numb after having seen this place for countless years.
Kieran stopped, though. His attention was grasped by a statue that seemed strikingly familiar.
'Is this a coincidence? Or…'
The face had been sullied and tarnished, maybe as punishment for some misdeed or the result of willful neglect, but the details of that sleek armor were something Kieran would never forget.
While gazing upon the statue, Kieran subconsciously touched the scars left upon his chest. They had faded by now, but the remnants were stark reminders.
'Is that Adeia? Or was the armor she wore once a standard issue? Wherever she came from…'
Kieran did not see Deidamia, Adeia's famed odachi, anywhere in sight. The statue's pose suggested something belonged beneath the open, overlapped palms facing the ground, but there was nothing.
He instinctively ran his fingers along the lower palm and felt a rough, jagged fracture. Its sharpness was timeworn, but it was proof. The statue had been damaged, and an armament, likely a blade replica, was missing.
Scar stopped, noticing Kieran had paused before a specific statue.
"Boy… come on. The others are waiting. I do not want to hear their moans and groans because I swear I will draw my blade and cut them."
Kieran lingered, staring at the possible statue of Adeia for a few seconds longer before catching up with the stalwart brute.
"You shouldn't threaten to cut people. That's not very civilized. You'll even be seen as a barbarian."
Scar spared Kieran an unamused look, something dangerous and volatile shading his eyes.
"Are you joking with me, boy? Belittling my brothers and sisters? My people?"
Savagery and murderous intent mixed with colossal pressure and assaulted Kieran. Having just barely recovered from the disorientation of the journey here, he was catapulted back into an unsettling atmosphere.
The pallor of his skin returned in a more alarming shade of white.
But it disappeared abruptly.
Scar stopped and slapped his knee, laughing boisterously. The area rumbled like it suffering from a great earthquake.
"Boy, you should have seen your face! You looked like you were ready to shit your trousers!"
Kieran exhaled unsteadily, then toppled over and hurled the contents of his empty stomach. The acrid liquid burned his throat and nostrils and tasted terrible. Other than that, it mainly was a violent episode of dry heaving.
"Toughen up, boy. The Drained Space is not kind to weaklings like you, but you're gonna have to be more resilient than that."
'Drained Space?'
Kieran guessed it was the void that existed between spatial entryways and exits on Xenith. Or perhaps it stretched even greater than that, including the entire Boundary.
That queasy feeling started subsiding quickly as Kieran felt a light thrum and itch spread across his back. In place of that sick feeling, a sense of inexplicable emptiness appeared in Kieran.
'How does this work?'
He was clueless about the specifics of this new Imprint and knew little about the old one. But he could feel a nascent link emerging between his two Imprints, like they were learning to communicate and assist in their limited activity.
Kieran would have liked to ask Scar what this meant, but he was confident he knew nothing of Imprint. He seemed alarmed and bewildered when he first learned that Kieran had essentially fused with the Imprint of Might.
The feeling was fortunately not an encumbrance. It was akin to a persistent growl when hungry.
'Yeah… I don't know how to feed you. I don't know where to get this Significance.'
Soon, Scar and Kieran arrived at an enormous glossy gate. It was colossal and ornate, with complex gilded patterns forming a perforated swirl in the center.
Scar sighed with resignation and lifted his large palm. He winced with a dark expression as the clinks of mechanisms falling into place echoed. Then a grand rumbling took hold, shaking the entire Sanctuary.
Kieran was alarmed.
"What is that?"
Clearly under duress, Scar's veins writhed, and his presence became small like a droplet in a vast ocean.
"It is the Oath's Significance! Didn't I tell you, boy? You were bound to experience it even if Agatha never alerted you of its existence."
The weight of this Significance was titanic and felt irrefutable. How boundless was this vast, unknown thing Kieran felt?
Weight, grandeur, and significance—the Sanctuary had all this in spades. Agatha's reasoning for refusing to become a Myth gradually didn't seem like a petulant, irrational thought.
Kieran reactively retreated as it impressed upon every fiber of his being, morphing into a terrifying and inescapable pull.
'That… is absurd. Who would willingly want to bear that kind of massive burden? This is the price of acceptance?!'
Then, Kieran stopped reacting so sporadically and stimulated the Fifth Syllable slumbering within his Mystic Gate. Calming waves of mystic essence seeped out, leveling Kieran's thoughts and providing a sense of tranquility and evenness.
He scrutinized the weight from every angle.
'If the weight brought severe detriments… it would similarly have to bring gracious benefits, right? The question is, how do you gain those benefits?'
The Oath was a restriction but doubled as a sea of untapped might. This line of thought engendered a spark of sudden realization.
'Why was the Oath's sea untapped? What were the consequences of tapping it?'
An eerie chill utterly unrelated to his new Imprint ran down Kieran's spine. Something told Kieran his assumptions were headed in the right direction without having concrete proof.
The Oath itself… was a tap. But where taps were usually a trickle, it was an unimaginable torrent.
What happened when a tap was tapped, though?
And… what did the Oath tap?
'Damn it! Always questions!'
Seconds later, the doors swung open.
