Decrypting the Artefact
"What is it? What?No.... No,no,no,no.. Why am I here again?"
Alex breathed hard, his lungs feeling on fire but the surroundings instead darkened further, fueling the rising fear in him. He grabbed his head as he kneeled down trembling, wanting all of it to go away but it didn't help in the least.
"No… No it must be a dream. I can't be here again! It is a dream, I need to leave. I need to… "
Alex whispered continuously to himself, but mid-sentence lost his voice. His throat became parched dry, making it hard to utter even a single word. The surroundings spun around him till he felt a Shadow darken above him making him shiver uncontrollably.
He could smell his own fear in the air, while extreme colors swirled around his eyes but no matter how much he tried to rationalize his mind to remember that it is just a dream, it didn't help.
Like a puppet controlled by strings, Alex felt his neck being restrained and moved upwards bit by bit by some uncontrolled threads. Tears, blood or maybe cold sweat ran through his face but he was at complete mercy of some unknown force, who was making him look up no matter what he tried not to.
Just as he saw the familiar thing above him once again, coming face to face again with monstrosity, he had thought that he had long overcome it. But….
Nothing changed, all remained the same.
Death was a few seconds away from him, he saw people falling down becoming corpses around him, till he was the only one remaining looking at his killer with their eyes locked. He was helpless like a newborn child, watching his doom coming to him in slow motion.
"I am…. "
With a start, Alex woke up from his sleep. His breathing and heartbeat was almost touching the extremes of what a human body could handle. His body was drenched in cold sweat, yet an expression of fear was still etched on his face contorting his features.
Subconsciously, he fired up his power with energy snakes immediately materialized around him upto two hundred at once. Only then did he felt calming down a little. Taking a few seconds of breather, he slowly dispelled the visualization of all of his snakes until only a tiny snake remained.
It was an inch-length white colored energy snake that almost looked like a worm due to its small size. But the importance of this adorable white snake was…several times more than all of his power combined.
He slowly took a deep breath and tried to smile as he whispered while bringing his palm up close to his face,
"You helped me survive here. But why can't you help in my dreams too?"
Listening to his whisper, the small snake cutely flicked its forked tongue out, clearly not understanding a word he was saying. After all, no matter how strong a Visualization is, it is impossible to give birth to a new life and consciousness.
He was about to touch the snake, to pet him when a knock sounded on the door making him pop out this energy snake from this world.
"Alex? You have been summoned by the Shadow Master to the Royal Castle. He said it is the time for questioning, so be prepared mentally."
Alex sighed as he quickly recalled everything that happened and once again trembled involuntarily.
"Fortunately, it didn't happen otherwise…."
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In one of the castle's gardens under the waning moonlight, people were already long waiting for him when Alex arrived. He quickly glanced and found two familiar faces. In the front was the Young Master Rook, dressed in the same gaudy yet elegant clothing and was holding a folding fan in his clenched hand, while another was Shadow Master who waved at him to make him stand near him, in the corner of the garden.
"Greetings Alex, I hope you don't mind the emergency summons?"
A lady sitting on the only seat placed in the center of the garden, like a lone shining moon amongst the several stars. Her appearance made Alex breathless for a moment as soon as he laid his eyes on her. But gathering back his scattered thoughts he quickly bowed,
"This trainee shadow Guard pays a greeting to the High Princess. Please, it is my…." Only at this moment, a hand slapped his back making him shut up as he looked up in annoyance to find Shadow Master in owl mask, shaking his head.
"Ahem! We serve directly to the royal family. We need not follow such formalities."
"Hahaha…" A gentle laugh resounded right in the beautiful garden which found its splendor increased several times with just her presence. "It's alright Shadow Master, I don't mind a few praises here and there. And especially by such a handsome little brother."
Her sweet, chuckling face made few people who were familiar with her charm, like Young Master Rook, immediately look away from the beautiful figure of the Princess. Alex, who was caught off guard by the direct onslaught of such a beautiful scene, nearly lost himself.
"How beautiful!"
Alex was about to blurt it out unconsciously when once again Shadow Master came forward to rescue his man. By coughing loudly, he made him break out of his reverie. Alex who just came to himself, sweated bullets realizing he was this close to committing a disgrace in front of a royalty.
"OK Alex, now coming to the crux of business. I want you to take part in this mission, since more or less you are already included in this matter."
Suddenly, High Princess turned serious as she exclaimed a sentence which made Alex subconsciously nod though it was a little he understood. Knowing the confusion in his mind of the Youngster, she gestured to the late middle aged man standing at another side who bowed and stepped forward.
"My name is Edwards, a low Noble who has inherited the title from the court. Let me explain the situation from the start and it would also help the rest of us to summarize the situation till now."
.
.
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"So this brings us to tonight's incident. In which Alex you were directly involved. So…. would you mind answering a few questions? "
Alex was about to answer in affirmative when he immediately felt the change in the atmosphere. The gentleman who was narrating the incident till now in a calm voice, Alex suddenly felt his eyes turning sharp as he looked at him. Not only him, he felt obvious tension emerge in the garden. He could even feel some more auras becoming pronounced, like a predator ready to pounce at any second, in the shadows vaguely. Only the High Princess remained relaxed like before, paying attention to him all the while smiling faintly.
At this moment, he felt like he was in the center of the eye of the storm. It appeared that he was in calm but all around him danger was condensing at such a rate, that any wrong move or sentence on his part, and it would end up crushing him into pieces.
"Relax! Just answer honestly what happened when Aukhy activated his Artefact. And how did you extract yourself from its influence so quickly."
Alex abruptly felt pressure lessening on him as he heard the loud words of the Shadow Master. There was a hint of warning in his voice for others while he encouraged him to answer, which made Alex finally understand that it is not some simple situation he had found himself in here.
He swallowed and answered truthfully,
"I knew the situation was wrong once Aukhy looked like he had lost his calmness therefore I tried to kill him quickly before he could do anything and succeeded too.
But in hurry I forgot that he had already activated the Artefact, and also started feeding his life force to it using his fresh blood. Thus even after death, Psionic energy supply got cut off but due to it being in direct contact with his fresh flowing blood, it continued soaking energy and got activated eventually.
It released an invisible Shockwave of energy which the moment it touches an individual, makes him fall into unconsciousness. I was also knocked out without any resistance and then I found out that it wasn't just a simple coma… As I was literally forced into a sleep nightmare."
"What was this nightmare about? If you don't mind us asking. " Young Master spoke gently as his eyes focused on Alex.
"I… saw a nightmare related to my past. An incident where I nearly died in the past and it has a very deep impression on my subconscious. I think you can say that it is the past I am most afraid of.
Thus when I became unconscious and dropped into that nightmare, I knew I had fallen into a dream since I often have these nightmares when I sleep. I have somewhat become aware of these situations, due to the repeated frequency of this nightmare in my sleep.
Thus, I immediately tried to break free from it and surprisingly it worked. I broke free from its influence easily."
"Surprisingly?" An old voice cracked in the air, making Alex jump in surprise. He looked around and found an individual standing near all of them in the shade of the bushes. But despite her being in the open, she has almost no presence like there was no one standing there, only if you don't see her directly.
'What the fuck? Who is she and was she there from the start? Why didn't I see her before, it was like she…. '
Alex, finding everyone calm, understood that she must be here from the start and only he was unaware of her presence. This means only one thing…
At this moment the shadow Master calmed him down, "She is one of the seniors of the palace. She is here to help us identify the artifact's use."
Alex nodded and then answered to her while bowing lightly as greeting,
"Surprisingly because.. When I have these nightmares in my sleep none of my power works at those times. I.. I can't seem to summon any power during that nightmare. But in this case, I summoned my power to break free in less than instant. "
There was a grave expression on the face of the old lady as she grimly looked towards the Shadow Master, who understood her meaning and bowed to her.
"I will take care of it, Senior. You need not worry about this, I assure you."
"Since it is like this. I think the matter is solved, it is exactly what I predicted. The Artefact is not something from this era, the guy must have found this artifact from a fortuitous encounter in some old ruins. The artifact is able to see the one's most harrowing near-death experience in one's life that still is engraved in the mind of the target and brings it… albeit only its replica shadow version in reality."
"Kid, was it your memory that materialized tonight?"
Alex shook his head, "No, but it was a good thing it didn't otherwise… "
"That artifact's outburst touched nearly everyone in the west half of the city. So nearly a million people were its targets, then how did it decide to conjure whose memory?
In my opinion, normally it could be controlled to target a specific person, but because that guy was dead before it fully activated then it must have chosen the strongest memory it could find."
The old lady waved her hand, and began to walk away leaving behind surprised people,
"The man you are looking for is right in the capital and he should be an above-average San Soothsayer. Lock the capital if you don't want him to flee and as for the rest you have to depend on yourself, Princess. I can't break rules again to come out and help you further."