Vilari came to a stop a hundred meters shy of the mountain crest. The desolation was so dense that it had gained a will of its own, along with physical manifestations. Translucent hands made from ancient despair rose from the ground. They were covered in grime, and their nails were chipped, like they'd tried to hold on while being dragged away.
Now, those hands were grasping toward Vilari in search of a companion to share in their misery. Even from a distance, she felt heartstrings tugging, and her emotional index approached dangerous levels. [Seven Downfalls] attacked the intangible threads holding emotional cues, but the idols couldn't block out hundreds of discarnate appendages. Similarly, the emotionless eye glowing above Vilari's head could only suppress part of the mountain slope's accumulated despair.
It was the very same scene that had forced her back down the mountain five times over the past weeks, each failure almost shattering her mind. Despite the harrowing scene, a smile slowly appeared on Vilari's face. There would not be a sixth. Every climb brought new insights, every failure represented an opportunity to rebuild.
Instead of resisting the desolation, Vilari began to commune with the mountain. While it didn't have a spirit that could share its tale, one could still hear its story if they knew where to listen. Beneath seemingly bottomless layers of suffocating despair, there was a sense of longing. Vilari allowed it to pass through her heart, and she experienced the Dao-seeking heart of an existence whose life was nearing its end.
The Daynight Dreamer hadn't been ready to embrace the release of death. Its Dao remained unfulfilled, the Terminus remained out of reach. As day turned to night one last time, it had looked to the sky in search of... something, anything. It fervently tried to find salvation as it stood at the threshold, balancing on the twilight between life and death.
Seeing as its Soul Aperture became a playground for the Limitless Empire, its prayers weren't met. Vilari didn't lament its demise. The Daynight Dreamer was given more time under the stars than most could dream of, and it experienced glory reserved for a lucky few. Yet she harmonized with the beast's sorrow, allowing her presence to shift.
It took a few rounds of trial and error, where each success triggered a harrowing backlash to her heart. Eventually, Vilari managed to nurture a personal despair that elicited a response from the mountain. The feat was only possible after observing and refining the myriad manifestations of the Seven Sensations inside the Elder Turtle's lotus worlds.
The towering pressure that had pushed on her mind for weeks relented by half. It was as though a set of shackles had been unfettered while a second set remained. It was no surprise, considering the Daynight Dreamer was not the only source of the mountain's despair. Not one, but two more presences were lurking within.
The first was comfortably familiar, giving Vilari the feeling of coming home. It was a pure version of the environment she'd faced when facing Ralz Carzood inside the Crown of Despair inheritance. Vilari looked at the empty peak with a gleam in her eyes. It was no coincidence that her dreams had led her here.
It was not just the resting location of the treasure she sought, it was the site for the Beseechment Pavilion's ultimate ritual. The Beseechment Pavilion chose this nameless mountain because of the sentiments it held. They had borrowed the Daynight Dreamer's lingering desires in their ill-fated attempt to call for help from beyond the veil.
This ritual was the source of vast amounts of regret that tainted the mountain, blending with the Daynight Dreamer's own despair. The emotions had fused with each other, becoming more than the sum of their parts. Simply by separating the two in her immediate surroundings, Vilari drastically reduced the pressure she faced.
With the dreamer's attachments filtered out, the hidden spirituality could be considered a pure elixir to Vilari. She drew a breath, confirming it barely needed any refinement before it could be absorbed. It was the most hidden layer of emotional residue that left Vilari afraid of turning the mountain into a cultivation haven.
While so weak that it barely made up a percent of the mountain's spirituality, it was also the scariest presence on the mountain. A few rotten apples can spoil the bunch. Similarly, this emotional trace exuded a twisted evil that shifted the mountain's original spirituality. Like the Lost Era's corruption, the mountain's evil subtly altered the emotions that were impossible for Vilari to fully understand.
Unfortunately, this emotional signature was also exceedingly familiar. It was a trace of her "master" Jalach. Since the mountain was the location of the Beseechment Pavilion's ritual, it was also the place of Jalach's descent. While the evil entity was ultimately severely wounded and split into pieces that had to hide inside [Epiclesis Bells], some of his aura lingered.
Jalach's shadow was the reason that the mountain's pure despair had almost driven Vilari mad. It had triggered the trauma hidden in the depths of her soul. A single step could sometimes be the difference between heaven and hell. Only by exposing it to the light did Vilari gain the confidence to continue her climb.
Vilari wasn't the only one reacting to Jalach's presence. It was as if its appearance triggered a dormant memory in the Beseechment Pavilion's despair, causing it to target Jalach's will. Unfortunately, Vilari knew just how stubborn Jalach's unique brand was. While some of his spirituality was destroyed in acts of mutual destruction, nearly half eluded capture. It repeatedly hid itself within the Daynight Dreamer's despair, causing the pavilion's spirituality to lose its trace.
At least it was enough to keep the madness occupied. Without the mountain to lend them its strength, the grasping hands made from resentment crumbled before Vilari's gaze. Step by step, she covered the final distance and stepped onto the summit. The peak was perfectly smooth and significantly larger than it appeared from below. An almost perfectly spherical plateau stretched half a mile.
It was also completely empty beyond its lingering attachments.
There were no buildings, no treasures, no gateways leading to a treasury. There were not even any constructs made from the emotional remains. Vilari didn't know what she expected to find on the summit, but it was not nothing. She had to stop and meditate to prevent her emotional index from fluctuating.
The spirituality at the summit was even stronger than before. The slightest lapse in concentration would allow the three presences around her to fuse back together, at which point she'd quickly be overwhelmed.
There had to be a solution, she just needed to find it. Vilari walked around the empty peak, allowing the entangled emotions to wash over her in her search for answers. She could easily hypnotize herself into falling asleep, and the final episode of her recurring dreams might appear now that she'd arrived at the summit. Vilari dared not take that risk, nor did she think it was necessary.
The spiritual composition was more unstable on the summit than on the slopes, and the reason behind it was the greater intensity of the Pavilion's despair. It was like the Memory Root was being rewritten by something that had yet to come to pass. This was a clue on its own. She was currently standing in the past, so how could she sense the Beseechment Pavilion?
Vilari silently followed the call of her soul, trying to pinpoint where the resonance with her Heritage was the strongest. Her search led her to a specific spot just a few dozen meters from the summit's absolute center. Beyond a thin, obscuring film of the Daynight Dreamer's own despair, the spirituality was almost entirely that of the Beseechment Pavilion's.
There was still no sign of the [Pasho'Har Bell] or what should be done next, yet Vilari could feel in her bones she'd arrived where she needed to be. After a while, she sat down and began practicing her [Blackwood Liberation Cycle]. All the Spiritual, Mental, and Emotional Energy within a hundred meters immediately stirred.
It was the unified method she'd built by combining the Crown of Despair inheritance, her self-made Bloodline Cultivation method, and the pieces she'd extracted from Jalach's corrupted version of the Beseechment Pavilion's core manuals. While it remained rough around the edges, particularly the bloodline chapter.
While created with the help of Ultom's truths, it lacked the vantage of a comprehensive understanding of her body. She would have to uncover the truth of her origin and peruse the bloodline manuals of her predecessor's Ignis Clan to perfect it. Nevertheless, her creation sufficed for her current cultivation stage, and it perfectly complemented her attributes. Emotions nurtured the blood, blood strengthened the soul, and the soul harnessed the emotions.
Wave after wave, cycle after cycle, the desolation gathered around her. It eventually reached a level of intensity that forced Jalach's evil into a full retreat. Only pure despair remained, and Vilari finally dared to absorb some of it in earnest. Still, cultivation wasn't her main objective, and she released most of the energy she'd gathered.
[Seven Downfalls] became a funnel that refined the vast amounts of accessible impetus. Through Vilari's guidance, it gathered into an invisible swirl right at the nexus of foreign emotion. She quickly saw confirmation of the merit of her idea. The swirl anchored itself in place without prompting, connecting to something hidden from Vilari's vision.
Hours passed this way, with the swirl growing continuously stronger. Finally, Vilari's eyes shot open, and she escaped at the greatest speed she could muster. The purity had reached critical mass and began gathering strength on its own at an accelerating pace. In minutes, its intensity exceeded what Vilari could withstand. Thankfully, its forces were being drawn inward, compressing themselves into incomprehensible levels.
Sparks of opalescent light appeared at the center. By sneaking a glance at it from the periphery, Vilari could vaguely make out something like a diamond the size of an egg. Looking at it filled Vilari with both fear and desire. It was pure desolation left by an A-grade organization. Even in its decayed and weakened state, it was more valuable to her cultivation than any number of Soul Crystals. Vilari tried various methods of extracting it, but its surroundings had become an absolute no-man's land. She could only pray that the diamond would survive whatever came next.
It didn't take long before the gathering singularity emanated fluctuations exceeding anything an Early or even Middle Monarch could emit, and it just kept growing. The spirituality in Vilari's surroundings had been utterly subdued, whether it was Jalach or the Daynight Dreamer. She could no longer observe the scene, but the sudden shift was impossible to miss.
It was like the air had gone out of the mountain. Vilari opened her eyes just in time to see reality unfurl like a flower. Only, it was a hidden world blooming from the despair, and it soon covered the whole peak. Vilari stood right at its edge, looking at the familiar barrier just before her. The film of Imperial Faith looked no different than the edges of any memory domain. In other words, the world within was not a subspace of Anima Court's vast memory.
She was looking at a pocket of the present surrounded by the past, likely invisible to the court's native inhabitants. Beyond the barrier was a large temple left in utter disrepair. There were no clear signs of battle, but its signs of erosion were significantly more pronounced than what she'd seen in the Centurion Base.
The temple was clearly designed solely for ritualistic purposes. Apart from six structures facing outward at the edge, there were no actual houses—no places to reside or cultivate. Instead, the temple was a complex tapestry of broken statues, crumbled pillars, and collapsed bell towers. The further toward the center you looked, the more comprehensive the decay became. At the center where the main tower should have stood, there was only a huge mound of debris.
Vilari quickly performed a few tests to confirm that the energies and lingering emotions were within acceptable limits before stepping through. She had correctly assumed that the memory domain's integrity was frayed atop the mountain, seeing as so much energy was seeping through. However, she'd only planned on opening a small hole in the memory and sneaking through. She hadn't expected a whole temple to open up. While it appeared stable enough, there was no telling how long it could resist the pressure from the Imperial Faith. If she missed this chance, there might not be a next one.
The spatial compression was significantly more pronounced inside the pocket. The hidden summit covered miles upon miles of land and housed the ruins of a sprawling temple. Even through the memory domain's isolating barrier, she'd felt the intense gloom, as if it had become part of the crumbling architecture. The feeling only became more pronounced after stepping through.
There was nary a whisper of the Daynight Dreamer's spirituality within the inverted memory domain. Vilari assumed the Memory Root had been fully exhausted during the Beseechment Ritual. In return, there was more than enough of the Beseechment Pavilion's despair to go around. It pressed on the temple like a suffocating blanket, coating every inch of it in a sickly oil.
Oddly enough, Vilari couldn't find any hint of Jalach's presence in the temple's outer rim. She remained cautious as she inched her way toward the temple interiors. The evil she'd felt on the mountain had to come from somewhere, and there was no telling what contingencies Jalach had left behind.
A quick count brought the tally to 81 towers. The number was an estimate based on placement and foundations. Only the towers at the temple's very edges remained somewhat intact, giving a hint of what they once looked like. The rest had long since crumbled, and the Epiclesis bells they housed were rotted into soulless splinters that could fit in one's hand.
Vilari solemnly looked at the six towers connected to the mysterious buildings. While sporting plenty of damage, something had clearly protected them from the worst of the backlash. In addition, there were no signs of the bells they should have housed. No rubble, no engraved pieces of brass. Nothing. These were likely the bells that had become housing for Jalach's shattered consciousness.
Vilari's heart hammered as she repeatedly swept the closest tower with her Soul Sense. Her biggest fear was that a part of Jalach had been hiding in the temple all this time. What she'd learned from Ralz Calzood indicated the pavilion ultimately forced the creature into retreat, but she was by no means a true inheritor.
The Calzood Clan had simply been lucky and stumbled onto a partial inheritance of the Beseechment Pavilion. A piece of Jalach could very well have embedded itself without anyone's knowing. What better place to elude Heaven's gaze than a remote corner of the Left Imperial Expanse?
Despite the lack of physical evidence to corroborate her fears, Vilari's steps picked up in speed as she passed the outer rim of bell towers. She understood that her declining mental index posed a threat, but she couldn't stop it. This cursed place, steeped in despair, brought back traumatic memories she'd kept locked away.
She kept reminding herself that the most difficult part of her mission was over. She'd reached the Anima Court, she'd climbed the nameless mountain, and she'd exposed the hidden resting place of the [Pasho'Har Bell]. The rest was simple. She just needed to extract the bell from the central mound. Time permitting, she could even search the rubble for the Beseechment Pavilion's forgotten inheritances.
The fact that she could stand on the mountain peak at all should be good news. It proved that the Supreme Treasure was in a sealed state and safe to approach. Certainly, there was a small risk that the bell simply wasn't here. Vilari believed the odds of that were low. The mark of the Beseechment Pavilion remained fresh without a single intact structure or [Epiclesis Bell]. Something must have nourished the summit's impetus all these years.
Nevertheless, Vilari's breaths grew ragged as she reached the inner sections, her mind conjuring monsters in every crook and threats in every shadow. Her thoughts became sharp and jagged, lashing out at everything her Soul Sense registered. She repeatedly had to stop to confirm that Jalach's aura wasn't sneaking back into her mind. It had taken Heaven's Judgment to excise the evil last time, and she wasn't sure if its gaze could reach her current location.
Every search came up empty, yet Vilari's unease only grew. At the same time, she couldn't find it in her to stop her approach. The mound was calling her. It held the destiny she needed to face before she could truly be free.
The moment Vilari stepped onto the central pile, she knew it wasn't paranoia that had been fraying her nerves. There was no prize for the realization, only profound horror as she felt her soul dislodge. She fought back with everything she had, yet found herself washed away by a darkness that came pouring out of the depths of her mind.
Pain tore through Vilari's soul as the world spun. The next moment, she found herself facing her own body standing a dozen meters away. Looking down, Vilari was shocked to see she currently existed in a purely spiritual state. Worse, this differed from the astral walks mentioned in techniques like [Thousand Lights Chapter]. Such methods always stressed the need for an anchor that would return you to your body.
Vilari felt no such anchor connecting her discarnate soul to her body. She may as well have been looking at a complete stranger. That ominous feeling only grew stronger when Vilari's body moved on its own. A macabre, unnaturally wide smile appeared on her body's face as it turned to face Vilari's soul.