Fall of the Black Seraph: The Complete Genesis Game Collection, page 46
Details: For some acts, there will never be forgiveness. But there can be redemption. Having refused to kill the Titan, you have filled this requirement.
Notification: Quest Status Change – Pillars of Forgiveness - SUSPENDED
Details: Due to the presence of Wormwood, the current trials have been suspended. As such you have your access to the inventory and your status screen is restored until the current situation has been stabilized.
Chapter 63: The Invasion
Global Notification: Invasion
Emergency Protocols – Immediate: The lower floors of the dungeon are currently under attack by the forces of Aeon, the Infernal Legion. Floors 5, 9, and 13 have almost been overwhelmed. Based on the rate of advancement, the Infernal Legion will reach Hometown within hours and the surface world shortly after.
Quest Details – Resist the coming Infernals and survive. Do not let them reach the surface.
Reward - All survivors will have experience requirements to advance for the next 5 years reduced by 85%.
Reward – If you successfully kill an Infernal you may choose either an ability or artifact-level item.
Reward – All participants in the battle will be temporarily granted the Last Stand ability which boosts battle power by a proportional share of damage received.
*Note* Possessors of Legendary Classes do not have access to this ability.
Seraph dismissed the prompt and muttered, “They could use the boosts now up front, they’ll be massacred otherwise. They aren’t ready for that.”
The Titan interjected. “I saw that, of course they aren’t ready, but who is for the end of the world? The dungeon has his reasons, you’ll see soon enough. This Last Stand ability and the promise of a bonus to come might be the only thing he can currently provide. Things are not always as easy as they seem.”
Nodding in agreement, Seraph changed the topic. “You said Amarath wants to talk to me, are you not going to help me?" he asked, as he thought of the dungeon spirit and the shadows that he had seen fighting against the mist golems and the warning he'd received through the Black Emblem from the spirit to keep moving.
"Amarath?" asked the Titan as he looked at Seraph for a moment with an odd expression on his face. “He's known by Michael now. It's true then. You traveled through time along with the rest of us. "
Seraph nodded. "Something like that. As far as I understood, I had thought I replaced my younger self, but recent events make me think perhaps I did something more like merge with him."
"Ah," replied the Titan, nodding his head. "That would explain why the corruption within you is incomplete. Almost like it’s stalled. That fragment of your younger self fosters your own humanity. Hold on to that and keep it close to you."
Seraph agreed, thinking of how the Demon Prince Beelzebub had tried to claim the that fragment of his soul for his own. What is his true goal? He said he wanted me to become a Demon Prince like him, and if what this Titan is saying is true, that fragment of a soul within me is what prevents me from becoming something else.
"Seraph. We don't have time for this. My master needs to see you," the Titan interjected, breaking Seraph out of his thoughts as the Titan pointed to the window of the cabin and both could see shambling horrors moving towards them in a haze of green. "We both know what that means. Our time together is almost ever."
"How are we supposed to get out of here?" replied Seraph, looking around for an exit and finding none, nor did he see any signs of a secret hatch he could pull up. "It looks like we are sealed in. We'll have to fight our way out of here, but I don't have any protection from the Wormwood mist. My body won’t last once exposed and it will kill me."
The Titan shook his head as he lifted himself off the table, but rather than stand up, the Titan proceeded to get on his hands and knees. "We are not going anywhere, Seraph. Only you. I am bound to this location. I cannot be killed, and I cannot be turned. I will allow for your escape. There is a portal within me and you must merely step through it. This is how I will help you.”
Seraph looked at the Titan and watched as he opened his mouth wide and wider still until it was wide enough for a man to step into it. Though Seraph was unsure of what he was going to see, he was surprised by the appearance of a thin blue film that he recognized as being a portal. The Titan continued to stretch his jaws and locked them in place before motioning for Seraph to pass through.
“Take care of yourself. Don’t let them turn you, when this is over you and I should have a talk,” Seraph said as he ducked underneath the Titan’s teeth and passed through the portal.
Within seconds, Seraph was transported through space and found himself back where he had started, back in the darkness of his cell. A cell now illuminated by a single mage light, but Seraph knew that something else was different about this place, something had changed. The door to his cell looked like it had been forced ajar and looked to be broken at the corners.
Carefully and quietly, Seraph crept towards the door to look out onto the hall to see what had happened, to see what reason he had been taken back to this place. The very aura of the place was different. The red gleam that had shone off of the Golem’s Eyes had gone dark, as had many of the mage lights that had formerly illuminated the hallway.
With the scant light, Seraph could make out that the green mist had spread up and down the hallway and was much thicker than it had been before. The mist was so thick Seraph could no longer see the floor. If the floor even exists anymore. Who knows what horror it might have been changed into. Signs of Wormwood were everywhere. But why would they teleport me here? Seraph wondered with a dark edge of panic to his thoughts, believing himself to be trapped. How could this have even happened? It's too early. Far too early. Wormwood didn't start seeping into the dungeon until close to the very end. I have not been here for thirty years already. Something has gone wrong in the world.
For a moment, Seraph thought maybe he should try to chance it. To try and just run through the green mist, to take the opportunity to escape to the higher floors and wait for a better plan or insight from the dungeon, but instantly realized it would be a fatal mistake. I don't have the protection I did in my former life. This body I have now, even with the Abyssal Body type, will be destroyed. I'm still just a pale imitation of who I was.
Walking around with his hands folded on his head, Seraph tried to figure out what to do next, uncomfortable with just sitting around and waiting. The entire time keeping his eyes centered on the door and readying himself to attack, prepared for whatever might surface from within that green mist or beyond, ready for whatever monster would come for him. Soon Seraph heard movement from the hallway, followed by the sound of talons against stone as something began to work its way through the mist, heading his direction. Having no other choice, Seraph turned around and retreated back away from the entryway and brought out Ajana’s Wrath. Are you ready? Seraph aimed the thought at the weapon, but received no reply.
I'll have to buy myself some time, once the first attacks, more will follow, Seraph realized as he ran forward and slammed the door shut as the monster in the hallway thudded with heavy steps and started running straight towards him. Seraph knew that something fundamental had changed. No longer did he smell his own aged blood on the floor, or the smell of his own filth. The very room had changed. Seraph turned around, readying himself as he did. His spectral arms each armed with one of the different spell he had at his disposal. Ready to attack, and ready to kill.
What he saw confused and concerned him as he dismissed the activated spells.
The room was no longer a stone cell, but a modern office full of monitors and in front of him, sitting in a chair was Michael, the physical avatar of the spirit of the World Dungeon. The man looked older than Seraph had seen him last, ancient even, his hair no longer black, but white as spider silk and just as thin. The man’s skin was heavily marred by wrinkles and spots of age. He was surrounded on all sides by monitors that showed almost every single event happening within the dungeon at all times.
"It has been some time since we last talked, Seraph. We did not part on the best of terms when I saw you last at the Visitors Center. I am glad the shadows I sent were able to save you," Michael said, his voice low and somber, raspy even. "I am dying, not just this body, but me. I need your help."
Chapter 64: The Immortal Amarath
"It's only been a few months since I saw you last, Seraph, and much has happened while you were imprisoned," Michael said as he sat in his great chair and pushed his glasses off of his eyes and set them down on a small table next to him.
I didn't know that much time passed, but if it's only been a few months, why does he look so much older. Why does he look older at all? He shouldn't, not if he's immortal, Seraph thought to himself in confusion.
"Why did you leave me in that cell?" Seraph asked, surprising himself with the undercurrent of betrayal he heard in his voice. “Why did you change everything? I’ve suffered and almost died so many times because of you. The one advantage I had, knowing the future, you took that away from me.”
A flash of irritation crossed Michael’s face, but it was only a flash, if Seraph had not been paying attention, he would have never caught it. “I gave you everything, Seraph. I gave you my Emblem, I gave you the power of the Angel of Death, I gave you every advantage and all I did was handicap you. Tell me, Seraph, if you had struggled to find power, if you had to train and hone your skills and your body like the others, how much more powerful would you have been?"
Seraph considered the question but didn’t answer, he had an idea, and the implications hadn’t sat well with him. It was a tough admission to think that one’s own strength is a hindrance, but he couldn’t argue with Michael. He had found himself barely surviving encounters that he should have dominated or at least not been a struggle.
When Seraph didn’t answer, Michael continued. “I needed you humbled, Seraph. I needed you to see the gaps in your own strength and struggle like the rest of humanity. I had not anticipated you would linger so long and almost die to night creatures that haunt Hometown. Do you know why I let that happen? Why I let the shades of the past linger like that in my city?
“No, I don’t,” Seraph answered. “But it was a problem, those things are going to kill a lot of people. You know Hometown isn’t big enough to accommodate too many people.”
Michael reached out a hand and a glass appeared on the table full of water and had a sip before another appeared and he handed it to Seraph. “No, you’re right. Hometown doesn’t have the space, but I didn’t want you to be put into another position where you’d have to cull humanity. So I added the night creatures to do just that. We need more people to survive, Seraph, but we don’t need everyone to survive. You were on to something before in that approach.”
“You mean the approach you condemned me for?” Seraph asked, balking at the Dungeon Spirit’s logic.
Michael shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “I’m not a God, Seraph. All these changes are in hopes of making you and the rest of humanity stronger, and I no longer have the strength that I once did. This is the last time.”
“The last time for what?” Seraph asked as he took a sip of the water, curious.
“The Genesis Game,” Michael responded with a tired look on his face. “The last one. I have done this across countless worlds and the effect has been the same every time. Aeon marks a world, and I am given the chance to prepare the people of that world for his invasion. Few ever progress far enough into my inner world to grow, and few still climb as far as you did. You were worth trying to save, and I was not ready to condemn Earth. This was once my world too. Long before choosing the name of Michael or Amarath or any of the other thousand names I have gone by throughout the millennia.”
Seraph grimaced and felt a deep resentment towards the man. “Why do any of this then?” he asked. “If this is our last chance, why risk so much?”
Michael looked up at him, and in his eyes, Seraph saw the reflection of time innumerable and the dead who numbered far beyond what Seraph had ever managed. “You forget yourself, and you forget me. I who was Amarath the Immortal. The World Dungeon. I have seen the span of galaxies turned to dust and the endless march of the Infernal Legion across reality. I have consumed the lives of billions to try and stop their advancement. But I could not do it here.”
“Why me then?” asked Seraph as a horrible realization dawned on him. “You gave me your Emblem, you remade me in your image in that dark cave all those years ago, didn’t you?”
Michael closed his eyes and sighed. “Yes, yes I did. Because I needed you in this place, I needed a pawn I could act with, I needed a way to interact beyond this avatar of flesh. A mistake I made. I took away too many things from you and left you a calloused husk.
“No,” muttered Michael. “Not you, not this version of you at least. You’ve become someone else altogether. Neither the young boy from the cave or the ruthless killer I molded you to be. I imagine you have many more questions, and as much as I wish I could answer them, our time together is rather limited.”
Seraph heard Michael’s words wash over him, and at the disclosure he felt a sense of relief. He had felt, what’s the word. Inconsistent.
“I have removed you from the prison within the dungeon. Things outside of this room are rapidly moving at a pace I cannot control. First, this place I have transported you to is my command node. This is how I maintain a physical manifestation within the dungeon, in a sense you could call this place an extension of my soul, I’ve hopes you might take it up. Many of the functions of my dungeon have been disabled for the time being, I cannot manage them." Michael explained as he held his hands up showing off the screens before bowing over in a fit as coughs wracked his body, leaving a small trail of blood around his mouth.
Seraph looked at the blood with a grimace. Whatever his feelings were, he knew it was best to put them aside for the time being. He was not sure about many things regarding the dungeon spirit, but one thing he knew to be sure of beyond a doubt, the physical manifestation of blood on the spiritual being was an ill omen with dire ramifications.
"I'm dying, at least this part of me is dying. Soon my infinite self will go into a near comatose state to heal," Michael explained with a half-smile. "And it was for this possibility that I long ago planned. When a crippled boy entered a dark cave in my domain. When I implanted the black emblem into your chest. My emblem, and within the emblem, part of my essence. That essence still remains within you. You, Seraph, are in a sense my own phylactery, just as I have been yours. The phylactery of my true self, Amarath the Immortal. This form you see before you, this Michael, is like your own a pale imitation, and even now it is dying. My own powers were hobbled by the journey through time, and hindered more by this invasion."
Furrowing his brows, Seraph looked at the dungeon spirit as faint stirrings of memories clawed about within his head of his first encounter with the dungeon spirit, back when Michael had still been known as Amarath. Back when he was still known as Luca. A memory of the dark cave and the way he was brutalized by the dark spirit before being thrust into danger. "And what is it that you require of me?" Seraph asked suspiciously, his voice bitter, fully expecting the dungeon spirit to reach out with those brittle hands and consume him, just as Seraph had once consumed others.
Michael shook his head regretfully as though sensing Seraph’s thoughts as wisps of his white hair fell to the ground, torn off by the friction of movement, accenting the acceleration of the dungeon spirit’s decline. "To live within you. A joining at least for a time. Even though you no longer possess your original body, residuals of my essence still exist within you, I can harness those residuals until you can accomplish the mission for which I have called you here. I can protect you from the encroaching effects of the Wormwood and we can both survive long enough to see this through."
"You expect me to believe this, dungeon? That you, Michael, Amarath, whatever other names you have called yourself, that you are dying and need me to survive?" To Seraph it sounded unbelievable what he was hearing. The dungeon spirit was the closest thing to infinite power he had ever known.
"Yes, I do," responded Michael, raising his voice. "We don’t have time for this anymore. That is exactly what I expect you to believe. I have no reason to lie to you. Wormwood has come. You've seen it for yourself. The green mists even now fill this floor and I cannot stop it. There is only one thing that can be done," Michael explained, looking seriously at Seraph, imploring him to accept.
Seraph leaned against the wall, not wanting to disrespect the spirit, but needing to know. "What’s happened. Why now, why this?"
"A rift in time, Seraph. I have never before, not once, not in the scores of the worlds I have visited interfered as I did with this one. By either your fault or mine, a tear in reality was created. A tear that connects my dungeon to the ruined future we fled from. I had not noticed it at first, it was subtle and slow-building." Michael stopped and stared at Seraph, and for the first time, Seraph recognized an almost humanlike tiredness. Maybe he really is dying.
"Even now, Seraph, I can feel them. Moving around inside me like parasites. Little by little carving and corrupting the floors of my dungeon. You’ve seen it, my physical form is a consequence of that. Siphoning my strength and taking it for themselves. I will not survive if this rift is not shut," Michael explained. "This is why I need you. I cannot send any others. The few minions I possess who are strong enough to face the creatures of Wormwood would be corrupted by the green mist, and the Demon Princes have their own motivations. I cannot trust them, but I also cannot risk sending them, I need their strength to defend the floors. You, Seraph, are the only hope."
Seraph looked at him and knew that this was the time to ask, the time to secure for himself a promise and an answer to a question as his thoughts turned towards the future, and what would happen to him. "Does Luca, my younger self, still exist within me? I've a promise to keep to my father. If he can be saved, do so."
