Lord of Annihilation

Dud. Dud. Dud.

Stepping on the stone-floored ground with his feet, Lucius walked towards the center of the massive runic formation. The sounds of his steps seemed heavier than usual.

Dud. Dud. Dud.

With a strange unease weighing on his heart, Lucius felt the time around him to be strangely slow. The feeling of nervousness, an emotion that was as foreign as it was old, crept into his mind.

Dud. Dud. Dud.

Nearing the intended position, Lucius inhaled a cold breath of air. He could feel beads of sweat rolling down his face and the clamminess of his hands felt strange and unfamiliar. 

In fact, everything around him felt strange and unfamiliar. The sound of his heartbeat, the scent in the air, the distance on the ground. Details that would insignificant on any other day, were all magnified in Lucius' mind. 

"Step into that circle." 

Ka'lor'ah's dignified voice quietly resounded near his ears. Nodding his head, Lucius stepped forward. Entering the runic circle, Lucius reflexively closed his eyes.

Whirrr!!!

The whirring sounds of 'something' moving resounded within Lucius' mind. He could feel the space around his grow thicker and heavier, as he felt tens of thousands of 'chains' bind and restrict him.

'…I remember.' Feeling that familiar weight on his body, Lucius recalled the name of these chains.

'The Bindings of Cause.'

Opening his eyes, Lucius looked down to see the innumerable number of rusty-looking dark iron chains coiling around his body. While the thickness of each chain was quite small, they were incomparably heavy.

"Uh!!" Lucius let out a light cry, as he collapsed onto his knees. The weight of the chains was too heavy to bear.

As the seconds continued to pass, the number of chains continued to increase in magnitude and size, alongside their weight. They also continued to wrap around him with increasing strength.

"Just hang on for a second, Lucius! It's almost over!!" Ka'lor'ah's cries of encouragement fell on deaf ears.

'I can't take this anymore. I…'

As the pressure surrounding him continued to increase, Lucius could feel his surroundings slowly grow darker. His vision has started to dim and his breaths started to become fainter.

He could feel it.

He could feel 'something' pull him to the other side.

'Strange…even now…I still feel empty.'

Lucius' head slumped downwards and darkness consumed him.

----------

Meanwhile, outside the runic circle.

"You must hold on, Lucius! This will be over soon!"

Seeing the endless amount of chains continuously appearing out of thin air and bind Lucius, Ka'lor'ah shouted her words of comfort.

Even though she knew that he couldn't hear her, she continued to shout without pause. 

Looking at those chains materializing without pause, fear gripped Ka'lor'ah's heart.

'Although this is my second time seeing this scene, I still can't believe it. So many 'Bindings of Cause' just to restrain him…'

'It almost as if, the Universe itself is restraining him!' 

The ritual to summon the Bindings of Cause was nothing new and was well known among the people of power within the Universe. In fact, it was a necessary ritual to be performed, before one's ascension into Stage 6. 

The Bindings of Cause will appear and restrain the person on whom it's summoned. The weight of Cause will bear down upon the target, who then has to break free from its restrictions, thus birthing anew.

Once one has washed away all of their previous Cause, their souls would be ready to ascend into the realm of Stage 6.

However, the reason why Ka'lor'ah's heart was gripped with fear was that, usually, there exited a limit on the number of Bindings that would appear for restriction. 

The longer one lived and the more one has experienced, the greater will be their involvement with Cause. Conversely, the shorter and fewer one's life and experiences were the lesser the amount chains that would appear.

This is why youngsters who ascend through quicker are greatly valued within the Universe. The younger one was, the greater would be his/her chances at entering Stage 6.

This held true for all parties, except Lucius.

In his case, the number of Bindings that appeared was literally uncountable. They simply continued to endlessly appear and restrain him.

Returning back to the story.

Ka'lor'ah who was anxiously waiting for something to happen, finally had her patience rewarded. 

In the space above Lucius, a golden cloud suddenly appeared. Upon appearance the cloud grew in size, roughly reaching 300m in length after which it stopped and continued to silently float in space.

Ka'lor'ah who was waiting for this cloud to appear keenly started to study it. A few seconds later, she finally noticed a small abnormality. 

At one corner of the golden cloud, a part of it disengaged from the larger mass and silently disappeared. While the part that disappeared was very, very small, it was nonetheless noticeable.

In other words, the overall volume of the golden cloud was shrinking.

'Just as we had guessed.' 

Ka'lor'ah sighed to herself and immediately shut down the runic formation. Contrary to her normal self, where she would grow happy and proud upon her guesses being proved correct, Ka'lor'ah's mood soured and turned heavy.

With Ka'lor'ah's actions, the runes stopped glowing and started to spontaneously collapse before disintegrating into thin air. Alongside the disappearance of the runes, the Bindings of Cause also started to disappear and Lucius' unconscious body was finally revealed.

-----------

"…wa…ke…up!"

"…wak…up!"

"Lucius, wake up!" Ka'lor'ah's shouts finally brought Lucius' consciousness to the surface.

Waking up groggily, Lucius looked around with his unfocused eyes and noticed that the chains surrounding him had vanished.

Shaking his head a few times, his mind finally regained sufficient clarity after which he turned to face Ka'lor'ah.

"What's the verdict?" he asked.

"It is as we thought," Ka'lor'ah replied with a grim voice.

Lucius sighed to himself and turned silent.

"We have been noticed by a Lord. Our share of Cause in Mankind is slipping away." 

"In other words, something bad is happening to Mankind."

Her final words hit home the reality of their situation.

------------

"Try to recall as much as possible, Lucius. Did you, perhaps by accident, mention any topic that could have drawn the attention of a Lord?"

"I told you already, the answer is no."

"Are you sure? It might have been an unintentional action or perhaps by accident."

"No, I did not."

"Then we got nothing." 

Ka'lor'ah unhappily said and slumped onto the ground. Lucius who was sitting on a rock fragment, next to her also turned his head away in dissatisfaction.

"This wouldn't have happened if you had obediently stayed with me, at all times. Your little self excursion has resulted in our current situation." Lucius voiced his dissatisfaction.

"You're telling me that it's my fault, seriously? And who was it that got caught by a bunch of weaklings in the first place? If you hadn't been caught, then we wouldn't have gotten separated in the first place." Ka'lor'ah replied in kind.

"If you had just stayed in one place…"

"Hey look at me!! I'm a fricking crystal, for god's sake! How can I decide whether I can move around or stay put? I couldn't even move back then!!"

"Do you know what the first thought of those bastards was after getting me? 'This stone looks expensive. Perhaps we can cut it into pieces and sell it for a good price'. Should I have just waited for those infidels to do so?" 

Unable to hold her anger, Ka'lor'ah burst out.

"I did what I could at that instance, okay? We should already be thanking our lucky stars, that I managed to meet that Alex 'whatever his name' and stayed within the city. Just imagine, what our situation would be like if I had been shipped off somewhere else?!"

"And you! Back then you knew you were surrounded. Why did you not just break from one side and just run away? If you had simply decided to leave them alone, you wouldn't have even gotten caught in the first place!"

"ENOUGH!!" Lucius snapped.

A wave of soul power exploded from within Lucius and utterly decimated his surroundings. He stared at the startled crystal with anger in his eyes, as his hands trembled.

"Lucius, you…" Ka'lor'ah's surprised tone exited the crystal when Lucius' body suddenly stiffened. 

His eyes turned momentarily blank, before regaining focus. The anger within had completely disappeared and was replaced with a blank, empty look.

He then restrained his overflowing soul power and spoke.

"Apologies, I did not mean to do that." He realized that his anger was meaningless and promptly apologized.

"Arguing will get us nowhere and time is running out. If it wasn't a taboo topic or name that attracted the Lord's attention, then could it be something or perhaps someone else? There was that mysterious female voice after all and that definitely wasn't a Lord."

"Let's start by going through every single person that we interacted with, since the return."

Ka'lor'ah, who had been startled away paused for a moment before nodding her head. 

He was right, arguing would be pointless. Perhaps, a newer angle would give them a lead into what caused a Lord to be interested in Mankind.

Was it just a coincidence? Or did they see through the plan?

'But before that….was that anger? Was Lucius angry?'

The fact that the ex-Stage 7 [Killer] was able to feel anger was the fact that surprised her the most.

'Was the suppression on his emotions...lifted?'