Peace

Voices resonated with each other, intertwining. Each of them spoke with its own accent, tone, even in other languages, but Arlok understood the meaning of that word.

When the rift swallowed the darkness, the voices disappeared. He felt as if he was in the midst of a cloud, and suddenly, he began to fall.

In front of his eyes was a man unknown to him. He gazed at the sky; his eyes seemed erased from this world, but Arlok understood where the man was looking.

The man sighed a couple of times, stood up, and plucked a "forget-me-not" flower nearby. He walked somewhere through the forest, which gradually faded until his legs brought him to the edge of the mountain. There, a view of strange places opened up, as if each shard of a broken mirror had its own reflection. Somewhere were huge villages, somewhere skyscrapers, somewhere ruins, somewhere emptiness. There were hundreds of variations of one place, or maybe different ones.

The man was speaking, but his voice was not audible. He tossed the flower from the edge of the mountain and then pointed forward, to the place where in the hundreds of shards, reality merged and formed something new.

He smiled, looked at Arlok, who had no body, and suddenly, everything began to change again. With incredible speed, Carnage found himself back in the middle of the room. The symbols around were glowing, sometimes white light, sometimes red again.

He was back in his body again, but he hadn't fallen yet; he continued to stand on his own two feet.

"What the hell did I just witness?!" He directed his hand toward the silhouette, but hastily remembered that Eden didn't work here.

The silhouette in front of his eyes didn't move, but the lines from the Eden crystal began to move toward the center of the altar. Arlok tried to stop it, but unsuccessfully. The black silhouette began to fill with blue light, and the outlines completely revealed a female figure.

There was a theory that Eden Crystals сlass A were not just made from metal and a colossal amount of Eden but from people. It was hard to believe because every Alliance member had a Eden Crystal сlass A, and that accounted for billions and trillions of people. That's why this theory sounded like nonsense, but every bit of nonsense holds a grain of truth, and that's exactly what Arlok was thinking. He was engulfed in a multitude of emotions, from astonishment to anger, but he tried to think.

He took a few steps away from the altar, thinking it might be dangerous, and he might again find himself in that strange place against his will.

"The theory of those lunatics was right..." He looked at the body of the girl that began to appear above the altar.

In the hands of this girl, scales began to appear, the very ones depicted on the wall but much smaller. The girl opened her mouth, but something seemed to prevent her from speaking.

The crimson eyes focused; he had long remembered many things from ancient history back when he was studying at the Zero Sector military college. He loved her, and because of that, Arlok understood that the scales in her hands were used for judgment.

"Judgment upon me, it's absurd even to think about it," he swallowed, his lungs aching.

But with the appearance of the scales, the symbols completely changed their color to white. His eyes tried to see them, but it was in vain. And the girl's mouth tried to articulate something until Arlok began to stare into her eyes.

Red eyes, having gone through countless battles without knowing defeat, stared at the girl. He didn't possess Eden, but his appearance already instilled fear and pressure, yet it was all in vain; the girl lacked human emotions and didn't quite fear the creature before her.

"This situation, it's starting to anger me!" One side of the scales dipped lower; it was the side with the heart.

The man's eyes darkened, his brows furrowed, and his pupils dilated. They seemed calm, but it looked as if he was about to take action.

"You clearly want something from me, but what is it? Heart and mind, are you judging my actions now? I gave in to emotions a little, and these..." He tried to remember the name of the item in her hands. "Scales instantly tilt to one side?" He observed the scales' cups.

"Yet I am right," the mind became "heavier" than the heart again.

"So I must solve the riddle myself, although there won't even be a question..." He took hold of his chin. "Let's first think. The battlefield visions, it wasn't an illusion in my head like last time; it was something real—Aria confirmed that." She started moving back toward the locked doors when the scales suddenly began to crack. "Ah, I can't leave. This is problematic; I'll have to think here." He held both hands behind his back, tightly clasping one with the other.

"Afterward, I encountered that creature, and then..." His eyes looked at the girl. "I was overtaken by a terrible feeling of attraction; I even forgot about the pain," even now, he could hear the hum and feel the pain in his chest.

"Did this place manage to manipulate me? Or are these the same tricks of those creatures, but they didn't seem so intelligent... They could only speak lies, but when you think about it, they might just influence consciousness," the scales inclined again toward the "mind."

"If the first time I saw childhood memories in the Core, and it changed, then this time, I saw something similar again: a world shattered into hundreds of shards. Somewhere in these visions lies my question, to which I must answer, or maybe I don't have to respond?" The scales began to tilt the "heart," making it heavier.

"It seems I'm doing the right thing by saying everything aloud..." He watched the scales, which again inclined toward the "mind." "But everywhere I've been, there was no question... Ha-ha-ha! Could it be that it's all so meticulous; I've already given the answer to this question!" He smiled. "There's nothing more important than fulfilling the higher purpose—a command," the scales entirely fell toward the "heart," and Arlok's eyes flickered.

He presumed otherwise, but the "judge" decided completely differently, not as Arlok desired. He clicked his tongue and said:

"Wrong, so the question is deeper and has no relation to memories? In the environment, perhaps..." He glanced around but didn't see anything new, trying to recall those shards. "Village, skyscraper, ruins, emptiness... These are the ruins of some state," he denied the possibility that it depicted the fall of his country.

"Lord of the Forgotten Sea, it's been so long since I've seen you," at the moment when the scales cracked, shattered, and disappeared. "I'm surprised how you managed to meet me and how you could remember my guidance, although it's probably more luck," he didn't understand what the girl was talking about, but her body started to crack. "I don't have as much time as before; I can't be with you for even a minute, but I'll bring you a warning—'he' made his move, 'he' made it so long ago that it's terrifying to imagine, but with the passage of time, a small step then will become a huge wave of change! Lord, please don't let the 'Scripture' come to pass, don't let us become forgotten fools! Unfortunately, you didn't manage to arrive in our 'prison' in time, so head to the Abyss; there awaits you a question and an answer that you missed right under your nose! And forgive me for such a confusing message, Lord..." The girl cracked and exploded into shards.