City of Sin Book 9, Chapter 21

Memories Of The Darkness
The pope explained to Richard that he could grant a temporary experience of the Darkness, a trip through his memories to pass on everything he had seen and felt during that time. This experience would even expose the laws of the Darkness for analysis.
This was an unexpected ability, the equivalent of one safe trip to prepare for his actual one. There was no way to attach any value to such a thing. Glancing at Martin once, Richard slowly nodded his head. A second later, the old man muttered under his breath before stretching a hand out to tap his forehead.
Richard suddenly found himself seeing black, unable to see nor hear anything. All of his senses were twisted, his body’s responses shattered to the point that they had no meaning.
However, things warped into colourful light the very next moment. However, it felt very strange; there seemed to be a change to the way he perceived things, with sound having colour and light having volume. All of his senses were meshed into one big whole that was difficult to decipher, leading to a bout of panic that he had to force away.
The harder he tried to piece together the mess, the more confused he grew. The natural order set by the Eternal Dragon didn’t work here, giving him no way to parse the information he was receiving. Calming himself down, he activated the Field of Truth, what he could only surmise were his eyes growing louder as he heard strings of laws all around him.
Many of these laws were tangled together, but he could tell amidst the noise that darkness and chaos underpinned the plane he was in. He started trying to analyse those laws, but he immediately hit a hurdle as he realised that his blessing of wisdom was useless. His standard models of analysis didn’t work here at all, forcing him to build a new model just to adapt to this world.
With a path ahead of him, he settled down and set about his various calculations. Thankfully, the basic calculations weren’t too difficult for him now, giving him results soon. As he adjusted his senses to fit the new model he derived, he finally found a brand new foreign world.
A dry old man blocked his vision before he could take a closer look, yanking him out of the world. The colours of the world warped once more, but this time he quickly returned his senses to normal and saw the pope and Martin in the small shrine once more.
The pope looked significantly weaker than before, so pale that he seemed to have gone through a fierce battle. One of his hands clutched the case with the Praise of Light, while the other waved in exhaustion.
“Let’s go,” Martin dragged Richard outside, leading him through a few portals to another small church elsewhere in the Sacred Tree Empire. This was his current residence.
Once they sat down to discuss, Richard finally understood what had just happened. The pope’s experience in the Darkness was his greatest asset, and upon his return he had gained the terrifying ability to manifest his memories and pull others into them. The laws of the Darkness were entirely different from the system established by the Eternal Dragon, making it difficult to even track one’s own thoughts. Most opponents would fail to adapt, leaving them catatonic for the rest of their lives.
This was the reason Martin had always been wary of the pope; knowing his own limits, the divine child understood that he would never be able to escape that memory. Of course, such an ability had to come with a price. The pope lost his memories every time he manifested upon them, and rumours were that he could use the ability only three times in total. It had already been used to get rid of two extremely powerful enemies in the past, but the one use was enough to leave even Hendrick wary. Martin would definitely die, while Hendrick’s situation would be a coin toss.
However, this opportunity had been used on Richard, which meant the pope had just given up the one card he could use to suppress his competition. The old man was still a formidable opponent, but not to nearly the same degree.
This explanation finally allowed Richard to understand just why Flowsand had wanted him to challenge the pope before setting off to find her. She must have known that the pope would send him into those memories; if he could survive that, he would know more about the Darkness. If he died, then that same situation would occur when he actually tried to go over.
This left a different question in Richard’s mind; why did the pope treasure the Praise of Light so much? Unfortunately, Martin just smiled without an answer, making it clear that this was a secret he wasn’t willing to divulge.
After allowing him to think for a while, Martin continued, “The old man still owes you a payment for the rune, double the standard price for one of these runes. Give me a number for that, and I’ll convert it into materials and have people send them over.”
Richard was perfectly happy with fleecing the Church of Glory, writing down a fairly high price before nodding, “It’s best if you give me materials strong enough to contain the power of laws.”
“Can do. Also, he also asked me to pass this to you.”
Martin passed him a slip of paper, containing a single line in divine tongue: “Freedom has its price; the heaviest chains weigh on the widest world.”
Richard didn’t understand what this meant, and Martin had no plans to explain. Repeating it under his breath a few times, he eventually just memorised it and bid farewell.
“Wait!” Martin stopped Richard as he left, “Be careful, I just felt a warning from Fate, a great danger seems to be coming for you.”
Richard frowned, “Why would you feel the danger before me?”
“Because our destinies are entwined,” Martin smiled coldly.
“Is that your bullshit about you wanting to kill me again?”
“Wouldn’t me killing you prove that our destinies are entwined?”
“But I’m not interested in any such thing. You can try killing me if you want, but you’ll fail. Every. Time.”
“Don’t worry,” Martin nodded excitedly, “I will!”
“Ugh,” Richard glared at him, “I should just kill you and get it over with.”
Martin smiled brightly, “You can’t.”
“Oh?” A dangerous blue glint appeared in Richard’s eyes, his voice strangely calm, “Why don’t we try.”
“You won’t, you still have many problems. For example—”
*CRACK!* Richard’s expression suddenly warped into one of pure panic, his gaze shooting towards his arms. He immediately looked back to Martin and stood up, “I need to go, have someone send the stuff later.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not one to waste my reputation like that. But that sound right now, did anything break?”
“Nope, not at all. You must have heard something,” Richard had already blinked away, flying towards the portal back to Faust.
Standing in place, Martin just watched the flashing figure as all expressions drained from his face. He seemed to be covered in a shadow by the time he turned around to order one of his paladins, “Let’s go see Archbishop Hendrick.”
“What? Your Excellency, isn’t it too early?”
“Sigh. Yes, but the threat is already here. We don’t have the time to waste, let’s go right away.”
The paladin bowed, following Martin into the distance.
…
Richard teleported all the way to his island and into his study, barely sitting down before opening up his sleeves. A dark crystalline orb fell from a concealed pocket, revealing a crack on the surface with the living metal within having formed two gun barrels pointed straight at his face.
For the first time ever, he felt a true consciousness within the Doomsday Imprint, a real soul. He felt pure aggression from within, and it only took a moment to realise what that meant.
The reapers were here!