Isle fell through the dark section of the realm, he held out the cutlass manifested by his quantum to test if mana would be disrupted here.
Nothing changed so he put the cutlass away and held Rene instead.
There were large chains raising from the ground to the ceiling of the prison, it was a similar scene to when Cassius conjured then earlier.
Though the difference between the two times was easily perceivable. The upper area was only darkened when Cassius showed up, while this entire section was almost pitch black.
If it was completely black, he wouldn't have been able to see anything at all even with the faint glow of Rene's runes.
Eventually he hit the floor, the ground rumbled but it didn't break at all. He used mana to heavily soften his landing.
He looked around the prison then down at the floor, a silk-like material covered the ground, it was laid on the ground just about everywhere he could see.
He kneeled to feel it, off the top of his head he couldn't make a guess but he'd have plenty of time to think about what it was anyways.
Far off in the distance was a column of chains that had coalesced to form a gigantic pillar, the imperfect tower had a few pockets in it.
Isle had a feeling that the crow was chained up in the nest of chains — there weren't many other places he could be anyways.
Vermilion didn't give much info on what it'd look like in here but he did say that wherever there's no mana, Isle should check.
And that tower had little to no mana resonating around it. Isle had no idea what could deprive a deity of mana but he didn't want to ever find out.
He began to walk towards the pillar, avoiding hitting any chains as he walked.
Isle had found out that Cassius was a deity of sorts when Vermilion revealed that he was one as well, yet he decided to deny any help in the upcoming fight.
For whatever reason, Isle felt as if something would happen to Vermilion if he came with him.
Vermilion himself was a deity but he never went into depth on which one he was. Isle guessed that he was the Deity of Dragons, his draconic characteristics exceeded those of any other dragon Isle had ever met, plus, what other one would he be.
He was sure that Caeruleus was also a deity. He didn't have any guess of what he might've been a deity of, but he still firmly believed that Caeruleus was one.
It likely would've taken Isle a month or two to reach the pillar but that wouldn't be doable for Isle currently, while hunger and thirst were weirdly absent in this realm. Isle still had a shattered mana core and had to ask Vermilion for mana just to live.
With the rate of how fast his mana drained, he only had roughly 2 weeks left before he'd be crippled and eventually die.
He could insert mana into his legs and try to sprint over, if he did that with an ample amount of mana he'd make it in 2 weeks, but with his broken mana core, the mana would finish by the fourth day.
His control of mana was much too mediocre for him to only put the necessary amount of mana he needed into his muscles to move faster.
Sprinting normally wasn't an option. There weren't a whole lot of ideas Isle had on how to get there.
When he checked Rene, he didn't find anything that'd help him get there — although he didn't expect to find much considering it was a lance.
The book was stuck in his mana core so he couldn't try anything regarding it, his last thought went to the mysterious flower, he'd started to form some theories about the roses when he met Sandrone.
He took the rose he picked up earlier out of his pocket then crushed it in his hand, the thorns of the flower's tangled stem cut into his skin and steeped the rose with his blood.
The stem grew and several other stems grew off of it, forming a runic shape before Isle was suddenly much closer to the chain pillar.
Isle's head dropped as he held his stomach, he was getting queasy. Despite all the growth he had undergone in this prison, Isle still couldn't handle warping.
Atleast he'd slightly improved, he managed to hold it in this time.
He thought back to the Aklyne forest bounty. That was almost 2 months ago though it felt a little longer to him.
He looked back up and saw that he was much closer to the pillar. Close enough that he could sprint normally and make it there in a hour or two.
Like magic, the rose was back in his pocket but Isle couldn't touch it, his hand would warp away from it every time it got close to touching the rose.
He figured there was a cooldown of sorts that he'd need to wait for, so he pulled his hand away.
His feet slammed into the ground repeatedly as he rushed towards the pillar with Rene in hand.
He didn't bother to hold the cutlass as it likely wouldn't be able to harm the deity anyways.
After awhile Isle stopped running and caught his breath while looking up at the gargantuan column with a newfound sense of awe.
From far away, the bunch of coalesced chains already looked obscenely large, but up close it looked to be the height of one of Hells rings widthwise, and the width of the entirety of Pandora.
He'd grown to hate the crow during his stay at the prison so he was happy to see him imprisoned like this.
He was impressed by the work of whoever had chained Cassius up here.
He took one more step then he broke into a cold sweat and his legs felt weak, the rate of his mana draining had accelerated greatly, he would be dead meat in a few minutes.
The feeling was extremely familiar to Isle, it was the gaze of Cassius.
After the first time he'd gone through it, Vermilion explained to him that Cassius would sleep a majority of the time and only open his eyes when he was interested in something.
Vermilion had also described in great detail how even the crow's gaze could kill you from the sheer amount of mana you'd lose. Isle had prepared for it but he didn't know it would be this bad.
He already felt his body start to shutdown, his eyes were slowly beginning to shut before they snapped open again.
Isle had fallen to his knees without noticing, he got back up and stood firmly.
He glared up at the pillar. It shouldn't have been possible for him to move his body even a little bit, let alone stand up and stare at the column.
The strain on his body stopped, Cassius was finished with his prying.
Isle's mana drain went back to normal, he had enough mana left to stay alive for one more hour.
Isle fell to the ground and panted.
The lack of mana was starting to get to him, it was already crazy that he was still conscious with this much mana left but he was somehow functioning relatively fine.
He heard a silky smooth voice resonate around the chain tower.
"You're quite an odd human you know that…?"
The crow questioned him in a new voice.
Isle didn't know why Cassius sounded so much different, he assumed it was a result of him not making the voice box of the puppet the same as his.
"I'm gonna kill you…"
Isle propped himself up with Rene.
"Is that what you believe?"
Cassius chuckled lightly.
Isle reappeared in a hollow section of the tower high up in the air, his eyes widened slightly as he looked back slowly and saw how high up they were. He felt his stomach churn.
If Cassius was to push Isle from here, there'd be absolutely nothing that Isle would be able to do with his limited mana.
He turned back around then saw a lithe figure chained up. Suspended in the air was the Lord of Crows.
"Hello, Isle Calamitas, we've technically already met but I suppose I haven't formally introduced myself yet. My name is Cassius Noctis Reus. I've gone by many titles, but the most used one is False Crow God."
He smiled with his eyes closed.