Bargain

As soon as the first few words came out of Mira's mouth, Lucius knew what she was about to do. He could feel the determination that was laced with madness in her voice and could tell that she had lost her sense of self. The moment Mira completed her declaration, Lucius could feel the control he had on her weaken.

"AARGH!" Lucius grunted as he recoiled from the backlash.

He had been controlling multiple spell constructs at the same time, which was quite difficult and taxing on his mind. If he had lost control of such a large number normally, it would have been enough to destroy his body. But thankfully, while he was controlling the spell constructs, he wasn't actually supplying them with his own mana.

About 95% of the entire load was on the native runes that were carved in this hall and the ancient spell constructs that were integrated into them. Lucius had merely modified them enough using a few adjunct spell constructs, so that he could turn them into a new functioning spell matrix.

"Dammit! What part went wrong? How can she resist the control?" Lucius questioned in frustration.

Mira had gone silent after her speaking her part, and the power that was filling her had also started dissipating. But it didn't disappear into the air, rather it was starting to condense back into the Amulet of Barrom.

Lucius saw the mana patterns that were appearing and realized that the sacrificial spell that Mira had used was complete. He could only curse his luck that he was in the dark about Mira being pregnant.

'If I knew about this beforehand, I would have been able to figure out a different approach. It was that unborn child which prevented my restraints from working, and now it's that very unborn child that is the fuel for the curse.' Lucius quickly analyzed.

When Lucius had made the restraints, they were only made to handle a single True blood at a time. He not only needed to know their True name but also their mana signature. And because the unborn child was unknown to him, the restraining spell had been unable to exert its full power as it was not restraining one, but two True Bloods.

'Looks like the sacrificial spell took all of her effort to cast…' Lucius thought to himself as the weakness washed over him and he collapsed on his knees.

~woosh~

The Demonic energy started stirring as the Amulet of Barrom drew on more mana. The body of Mira started shriveling at a visible rate as the Amulet drew everything that she had. Finally, the beautiful and graceful Mira faded away into dust, leaving behind a curse as her final words.

~HONG~

A loud noise was heard as the Amulet of Barrom floated up in the air and glowed with a deadly light. Lucius estimated that the amount of demonic energy that it had within it would be enough to rip this world in half if it went berserk.

No artifact in the world was as strong as the Amulet of Barrom currently. Lucius was powerless to stop it and was unable to do anything right now. His magic had already been stripped by the Amulet, as part of the curse.

~Sigh~

"All that effort… all for nothing…" Lucius muttered in an unwilling tone.

Then suddenly he shouted, "NOO! I HAVE FULFILLED MY END OF THE BARGAIN! I DEMAND IT! IN THE HONOR OF BARROM!"

The spell contracts in the hall started glowing again and the runes flickered, as if uncertain whose orders to follow.

Everything seemed to have frozen in time for a moment before a booming voice was heard.

"A bargain has been fulfilled and a bargain has been paid. A bargain once paid cannot be returned, but another bargain shall be balanced against it." The voice said.

Lucius felt his heart stop as soon as the sound was heard. He could feel the sheer power in it and knew that if it were to command anyone to do something, they would have to do it. It had a power to compel souls, the likes of which he had never seen, but had only read about in ancient tomes.

Lucius reckoned that even the Supreme Pontiff of the Tharian Theocracy may have to obey the will of that voice.

~HWA~

The next second after the voice disappeared, Lucius felt a strong gust of wind hitting his back. He turned his head with great difficulty and saw something that shocked his very core.

"This… it can't be…" Lucius uttered in disbelief.

The thing in front of him was a portal, but this one was different than the hell portal that he had seen previously. There was only absolute darkness behind that portal and an eerie aura emanating from it. Unlike the hell portal which had a powerful presence, this portal seemed rather weak.

But Lucius knew that it was something that was not only rarer than a hell portal, but also countless times stronger.

A few years ago, he had come across an ancient ruin that had some fragments of documents in them. They spoke of a place called the Grand Void. It was said that the Grand Void was a realm beyond even the hell dimension and contained everything in this universe and even the things beyond it.

Lucius had not believed it till now and had just thought that whoever wrote those documents mistook an abnormal spatial rift for something like that. But now that he matched the characteristics described in the documents, he couldn't help but feel that it was all true.

~DENG~

~SHATTER~

A loud explosion was heard as the Amulet Of Barrom shattered and a massive wave of energy came out of it. The energy struck Lucius's body, reducing it to atoms in less than a second. Lucius didn't feel anything, yet he could feel that he still existed.

"What… is… this…" Lucius said, but no voice came.

His body was gone, yet he was still there, but with no sight, no vision and no hearing.

"The first bargain is fulfilled, now you shall fulfill the other bargainer's debt." The voice spoke again, this time directly in his mind.