August calmly walked past the skin-walker, others stared at him. Some were a mass of limbs, others were simply too abominable to be described with words. He entered the palace. The inside of the castle was shrouded in shadows.
August calmly walked to the center. He had come too far to back down now.
Willing it, golden runes appeared and folded themselves round his eyes, sealing them shut. To gaze directly upon a true god is a fate far worse than death itself, and August refused to take unnecessary chances. With his eyes firmly barricaded, he turned his head toward the throne where he felt the absolute, overbearing gravity of the entity's gaze.
*"Hero, what do you want?"*
The entity spoke. Reality itself quaked and groaned under the crushing magnitude of the voice—and yet, the entity was holding back a fraction of its true power. Even so, though Luke was merely viewing this through the safe distance of August's memory, he still suffered under the harrowing, secondary backlash of the god's divine pressure.
"I came to offer a proposal," August said, gritting his teeth as he endured the agonizing, scorching pain of a god's unfiltered gaze.
Every single cell in his body screamed in blind, primal terror. His fundamental reasoning roared that he was going to die right here if he lingered another second. But he endured. He endured every wave of psychic agony, knowing it was infinitesimal compared to the torment he would gladly suffer to achieve his ultimate goal.
The entity chuckled, a sound like grinding tectonic plates. *"What kind of deal could a mortal offer to me? The Void King. Ruler of Gorgoroth."*
August trembled, but he held his ground. Deep inside the memory linkage, Luke was faring far worse, his spiritual tether burning under the strain.
August's voice dropped to a strained whisper. "I know you are being ravaged by corruption—" He paused, coughing violently and spitting a mouthful of blood onto the cold stone. "—and I know how you have fought it for centuries, yet it still consumes you from the inside out. Your kingdom is dying, and your time is running out. You know that as well as I do."
*"And how do you could you possibly know that?!"*
The Void King roared. The vast, heavily reinforced castle walls instantly cracked in a web of fractures; outside, the entire expanse of Gorgoroth shook violently, and the lesser skin-walkers bled from their orifices under the sudden surge of pressure. Luke's mind felt as though it were shattering into dust, the unfathomable, leaking aura of the Void King inflicting real cognitive damage on his sleeping consciousness.
By now, August was forced down to one knee, slamming his hand onto the floor to stabilize himself against the psychic shockwave. Golden runes flickered into existence, hastily weaving a protective barrier around him. But the sheer ambient mana surged violently in the palace, and August's shield snapped instantly upon contact. He was flung backward like a broken porcelain doll, crashing hard against the far wall.
*What has August gone and done to anger a god?!* Luke wailed mentally, his very being screaming under the onslaught.
"He told me," August rasped, his voice barely a breath despite the immense mana he forced into it.
*"And who is 'he'?"* the Void King demanded, the terrifying pressure easing just a fraction out of sheer curiosity.
"The Unknown," August answered.
Instantly, a strange, suffocating relief washed over both August and the trembling Luke as the Void King fell silent, absorbing the name.
*"Why would the Unknown tell someone like you that? And how could he know?"*
"He said that his ways are for him alone to understand," August replied smoothly, composition returning as his trademark, cold detachment settled back over his features. "He only instructed me to propose this deal to you, knowing you are in a desperate enough position to agree."
*"State the deal, then. I will decide for myself if it amuses me."*
"Give me your life force to fuel my spell," August said, his voice steadying, "and I will craft you a new avatar. One entirely free of corruption, capable of holding and wielding your absolute powers without breaking."
*"Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I wouldn't know if such a vessel existed?"* the Void King scoffed.
"The child has not been born yet," August replied, his voice ringing with absolute, prophetic conviction. "Years from now, an anomaly will appear, and he will shift the balance of this world. When that time comes, your true vessel will be born and grow exceedingly strong. When he reaches maturity, he will be drawn here to inherit your powers, completing your resurrection in a body brimming with divine authority and free of rot."
The Void King laughed.
It was a sound that shook the very foundations of the dimension, causing the mana to surge wildly once more. Outside, the colossal skin-walkers swayed like wheat in a storm.
*"And how do you plan to see this through? Will you even be alive to witness it?"* The Void King chuckled darkly. *"Of all my long existence, I have never heard anything so utterly ridiculous. Truly, Hero... you live up to your title. August,The Architect of Defiance"
Slowly, the oppressive weight began to lift. The dark walls of the castle dissolved, and the suffocating pressure receded into a dull hum.
Luke's consciousness drifted backward, pulling away from the ancient memory. He gradually began feeling the cold, damp stone beneath his back, the weight of his own gear, and the steady rhythm of his own breathing.
He was waking up.