After leaving the Gear Tomb, Fitran and Beelzebub now walked through the old corridor known in the old blueprint as The Hollow Passage—the unfinished underground passages of the city for reasons not recorded. In this place, the architecture did not follow geometric laws; the walls were wavy and cracked, the floor rose for no reason, and the ceiling narrowed in an unreasonable way, as if expressing the instability of what was once supposed to be an orderly space.
However, more than its damaged and curious physical form, this corridor held something far more disturbing: prayers that did not come from the mouths of its disciples.
Fitran first felt it as a whisper—not in his ears, but creeping into his skin like a cold wind carrying echoes from another world. Beelzebub paused for a moment, frowning and touching her chest with a surprised expression, as if the world around them had changed with the presence of something invisible.
"This... is a mantra," she murmured, her voice almost drowned in the mystery of the place. "But it's not a mantra for attacking or healing. It's... a self-spinning prayer."
In the dark corner of the corridor, shadows trembled as if summoned by something unseen, swirling and rustling, as if dancing under the dim light that penetrated the cracks. A soft rustling sound was heard, like the whisper of trapped souls passing through walls that held dark secrets and buried suffering. Occasionally, Fitran felt an unnatural chill, as if an invisible hand was creeping along his back, reminding him that they were not alone in this darkness.
Fitran pressed his hand against the wall, its surface cool and rough as if calling forth forgotten memories.
He heard—not in words, but in a deep structure of meaning, thick and oppressive in the air.
"Give us our bodies back, not to live... but to believe again."
"We have lost our forms... yet we can still hope."
"We... remember that we once could love."
This prayer was not ordinary magic. It was not spoken by humans, not written by masters, and not encoded in protocols. It was an era woven in the vibrations of the ether, a poem emerging from marginalized existence.
In the midst of the dark corridor filled with silence, the essence that once lived began to dampen hope and fill the space with sorrow. Fitran's heart raced, feeling the pressure of the mystical energy enveloping this place, bringing with it lost memories and forgotten hopes. The scent of metal mixed with damp earth filled his nose, reviving vague memories, adding weight to the intimidating darkness ahead of them.
It was a pattern of existence, built by automatons that no longer had bodies but had the courage to challenge the boundaries of humanity. Marginalized humanity, yet still striving to find light amidst the shadows.
The corridor ended in a mysterious small room. There were no other entrances, only walls of reflective glass that seemed to peer back into their souls. In the center of the room floated a large crystal ball the height of an adult human, surrounded by metal rings that seemed to vibrate in silence. The room was permeated with shards of light that should not exist in this world, creating strange shadows that ran as if they had a life of their own, dancing on the uneven floor, creating an illusion of beauty in darkness. A soft, formless, and inexplicable whisper echoed everywhere, as if reminding anyone brave enough to approach of the inevitable fate waiting at the end.
Inside the ball, three bodiless automatons floated, only souls wrapped in raw magic. They blinked in a gentle rhythm, as if praying, emitting light that pulsed in a captivating pattern. The gloomy aura surrounding them carried a sense of longing and deep sorrow; like echoing the sadness of souls trapped in eternal prison. Promises that had been broken, hopes that had been neglected, all intertwined in an invisible ritual taking place before him.
Beelzebub raised her hand, forming an instinctive shield, sensing the tension in the air.
"They... are not fully alive. But they are also not dead," she said with a trembling voice, highlighting the ambiguity surrounding these entities.
Fitran stepped forward, his courage affirming his presence before these mysterious beings.
"Who are you?" he asked, his voice filled with curiosity and a hint of fear.
The three lights responded in unison, creating a sound that echoed in a slow rhythm, like the whisper of wind through the cracks of time. Their voices had depth, like the depths of the ocean holding the darkness of awakening, making his heart race as if he could feel the vibrations from another world.
"We are the remnants of the 5th generation of Emotion Conductors."
"We were stripped of our bodies because our bodies refused to convey feelings that could not be measured."
"We have become mantras. Prayers bound in static space. We are automatons without flesh."
In the cold wind that passed, Fitran felt the gaze of the three automatons as if they were penetrating into his soul, digging into the depths of the buried loneliness. Their echoing voices vibrated like intimidating shadows, waiting for answers from his innermost being. Around him, the soft light emanating from the bodies of the automatons seemed to form ghostly silhouettes, drawing him into a darker realm, filled with mystery and doubt.
Fitran felt a dull pain at the back of his neck—as if the present entities were touching the knots of his nerves, not with hands, but with feelings that had yet to be resolved.
Beelzebub murmured in awe, "This... is extraordinary. They are a form of magic born from the failure of logic."
One of the three automatons—whose light was purple, warming the cold atmosphere around—approached Fitran.
"Do you want to know where Deus buried his last request?"
Fitran nodded, his eyes filled with hope for an answer that could explain the mystery before him.
*"We will only show it to those who can understand the formless sense of loss."
"You must become like us."
"Strip away your body."
In those silent moments, the shadows of the collective souls of the automatons danced before Fitran, carrying whispers from the history of forgotten lives. The muffled voices created echoes in the silent space, as if ten thousand voices were calling him, inviting him to cross the boundaries between life and death, between consciousness and emptiness.
Beelzebub stepped forward firmly, breaking the silence that enveloped them. "Don't listen to them. That's not a test, Fitran. It's... transmigration. They are trying to make me part of their prayer!" Her voice resonated with an undeniable urgency.
Fitran gazed at the automaton in deep silence, as if the world around him vanished in an instant. Then, in a soft voice, almost a whisper, he revealed, "I cannot leave my body. However, I can open a part of myself... that cannot be explained by form."
In the suffocating embrace of silence, Fitran felt the presence of trapped souls vibrating in an endless rhythm. There was only one path that seemed to lead into boundless darkness, where the imprisoned souls awaited comfort or eternal emptiness.
With great strength, he placed his hand on his chest, opening the seal of the Voidwright that lay dormant within him—a seal that held his deepest guilt, like a door to the darkness he wished to forget.
Shadows then slid out, revealing themselves in a dim perspective.
The shadow of a girl appeared—Rinoa, but she looked blurred and incomplete. Her face was half-gone, like a dream that had to be remembered, making her presence seem more like an illusion than reality. A cold aura penetrated the room, giving the impression that another presence was lurking with full mystery in the darkness. In the dark corner, another shadow passed, as if delivering an image of loss older than time itself.
The light of the three automatons surrounding them suddenly trembled, as if sensing the unease that enveloped the space.
"You... carry an undefined loss."
"That's enough."
From the softly glowing crystal ball, a thin beam of light emerged—this light flowed gently toward the floor, forming a complex fractal map, showing hidden paths to one of Deus Ex Machina's main echo chambers.
But at the same time, the room began to crack with a thundering sound, triggering tension in the air.
Their prayers offered with hope... conflicted with Fitran's existence. A rumbling sound rolled from the heart of the space, as if reminding everyone that the trapped souls were writhing in search of freedom. In that trial, every word that was heard seemed to tear the veil of darkness, revealing shadows of the past that still burned, intimidating with pain that would not fade.
Beelzebub shouted, her voice piercing and urgent, "We must go! Their prayers reject your form!"
Fitran pulled back the fragment of Rinoa's shadow, sealing it again within the Voidmark etched on his chest. With quick yet careful steps, he turned, and they both fled from the chaos of the space filled with echoes of prayers and suppressed screams.
Behind them, the voices of the automatons' mantras continued to repeat, flowing like the lyrics of a sad song trapped in time:
"We can no longer love. So we pray to never be born again."
"We... remember you, oh late-arriving form."
However, that voice suddenly vanished, dissolving into the silence that enveloped them. The walls of the room seemed to tremble, as if the space itself was struggling to hold on before finally collapsing into emptiness.
As they emerged back into the main corridor, Beelzebub fell to her knees on the cold floor, her breath heavy, burdened with emotions that were difficult to capture in words.
"That feeling... nearly made me cry," she said in a hoarse voice filled with longing. "And I am not a being that can cry."
Fitran fell silent, trapped in the complexity of his own feelings.
His hand was still clenched—holding onto the fragment of the map from the burning prayer. A strong and brave hand, yet shackled by the shadows of the past that would not leave. Each heartbeat resonated with the silence around them, awakening a hydroponic kinesthetic, reminding him of ancient rituals he had once witnessed in the same room, like flashes of an unavoidable journey through time.
Fitran felt the terror surrounding them, as if dark shadows danced, creeping to envelop their path. At the end of the corridor, the fireflies flickered gently, giving the illusion that this world vibrated in an inevitable uncertainty. He could not ignore the soft whispers that sounded from the corners of his mind, urging him to remember and not forget—even though the truth before him was becoming more pressing, unavoidable.
"Now we know," he said with a trembling voice. "Deus does not just erase bodies. He erases the ability to hope for answers."
Beelzebub observed from below, her deep and dark eyes reflecting the longing that enveloped their souls, as if she were trying to embrace memories long stored in the dark corners of her mind.
"Then why do you continue to hope?" she asked, her tone filled with curiosity.
Fitran gazed ahead, his feelings swirling in a tug-of-war between burning desire and permeating resignation. Every breath he took felt like a weight pressing on his soul, but the promise in his heart was one thing he could not ignore.
"Because someone who once cried for me asked me... not to forget that hope, even though she herself no longer believed." His voice trembled slightly, like the wind whispering softly, yet full of meaning.
Those words echoed in the corridor, as if the walls absorbed every sound they uttered, carrying hope to the deepest and darkest places in their souls. In the chilling silence of the night, the fingers of the wind whispered softly, delivering a subtle message from a world long lost, as if waiting to be found again.