The voice of the being sounded rattling, it was as if the voice of the dark cloaked figure and the body of Cades had been switched, quite unsettling in Avere's opinion, but it was not like Karan minded in the slightest, instead grinning stupidly like a child that had just found a new toy it was soon to break apart.
"I always wanted to meet a Sekaria, it is quite ridiculous being in such a place as this one and not having met a single one in over a millenium..."
Cades let out a rattling cackle from the depths of his throat.
"Indeed, that is very interesting you had not met a single one, though I have to admit, I ahd never even heard of the articulation of Sekaria before."
"Really? I thought all newborn Sekaria knew of their name?"
"Not really, how would we know of unknown names of unknown languages?"
"I guess that is right... then what would you call yourself?"
"I use the gist of what I truly am, the subconsciousness, the desire for revenge as of right now, the glue that held Avere together up until now, and so much more, I am.. well, a subconsciousness, that is kinda what all of us do."
"Wait a f#cking second" Avere screamed in between the two that directly turned their heads to look at him, the figure that looked creepily similar to Cades and even claimed to be him even hilariously turning his head like an owls and then tilting it a bit, shocking him for a bit before he was able to talk again.
"What do you mean you were the glue that had held me together?" he managed to say, still rambling an muttering, feeling his head start to ache.
"To try and say it in the easiest possible way, you are not you right now."
"Wh-"
"I am holding together and appeasing three of your stories, three separate histories, and slowly turning them into one, ne that I like the most, that being Cades's, so right now, I am quite literally what's stopping you from going insane and your mind from breaking apart."
"F#ck."
"Yeah, the cursing actually kind of helped alleviate the pressure, so thank you for that." Cades added on as Avere was getting lost in muttering and starting to understand quite a big deal of things when he thought back on it under this new light leading his thoughts.
"Anyway" Cades looked back at Karan, "where were we?"
"I'm not too sure, but I do remember wanting to ask you what the step to becoming a... god... is?"
Loudly laughing Cades replied after about half a minute.
"I can not tell you, that is, while I know it from instinctive knowledge," he sent a kissing hand at the sky, making the kiss itself take actual form in real life and float away, leaving a spot, gigantic, on the dragon's underbelly and resulting in him uttering a sound of disgust and whipping his mouth in surprise, though that surprise might as well just have been a disguise.
"But I guess I can tell you a riddle containing the same answer..." he baited Karan, trying to get him to ask and turning his skin fairer as if to lock him even further, making his voice, just for this special moment, seem utterly seductive and very attractive, deep and, well, kind of absurd for the person uttering the voice actually.
"Please do!" Karan replied, laughing and clearly not taking it all that serious as Avere was suddenly all ears to the possibility of figuring out what it took to become a god.
"What is it you need to truly learn?" Cades said, having thought about the riddle for quite a bit before truly uttering it, having them endure silence for a good quarter minute, which, to Karan and Avere, felt like a quarter of infinity.
"... knowledge?" Avere asked, almost instinctively, but already realizing he was wrong about that one.
"You need knowledge to progress with magic, as well as everything else, no doubt about that, but you also need something else, and that something is not something you will understand right now, Avere." Cades said, calmly this time, out of character for someone that had previously seemed akin to some kind of apocalyptic jester bearing secrets greater than many could ever imagine.
But Karan remained silent, holding his fingers at his eyes, thinking not with power, not with focus, but with something else, feeling as if he was starting to smile all over again, nodding over and over again, and going through various ideas that Avere might never have thought up, including the idea of a notebook to take notes, of a good memory to remember what one tried to learn, of experiences, to truly understand it all, but then, after some time, perhaps having decided on one of the ideas he had already thought off, he gestured for Cades to come closer to him, not that he wouldn't have been able to both block Avere from hearing and talk to Cades within their very minds, but still, it seemed like he wanted to test his answer the old-fashioned way.
After Cades had stretched his neck to ridiculous lengths, a foot bigger than before, but still humanly possible if one had a mutation, Karan whispered directly into the Sekaria's head, which resulted in the subconsciousness as it had called itself nodding and laughing.
A few seconds later, the hero, also wildly laughing, was quick to utter a statement towards his, seemingly correct, answer, trying to talk through deep laughter filled with great pride.
"So that's what I need? That's all it takes? So simple, yet so impossible..."
He paused.
"I began my journey as a normal person, I became apex after a single day and received praise for my mana, I became lord after a week and gained even greater praise, I became a transcribe by escaping from my first real threat and truly understanding that I was utterly afraid, I became a scribe through understanding intent of myself and someone else, I became a titan through becoming a legend and realizing I did no truly care, I became a formless after great trauma I don't really want to talk up, I became a tyrant after... actually... I am not entirely sure about that part... and now it is seemingly to easy to take the next step?" he hesitated a bit, picking up a sword from the ground, made freshly by his own power, and holding some kind of white flame, having been formed out of the very stick Avere had used to poke the fire just a bit ago, throwing it at Cades's feet who bowed down to pick it up and reached it towards Avere who already knew what this was.
"I have to take the next step, though it might take me actual millennia from here, being dead already, so please, for now, let me be in peace, I have waited long enough to meet a Sekaria and get the rumoured riddle after all." he said, taking a seat in the lotus position atop a few swords he had summoned just now, dull and taking the form of a bench, actually looking quite comfortable from what Avere was able to tell.
"So others did the same? I feel kind of relieved..." Cades joked as Avere finally picked up the sword, having heard more than enough of this and knowing he would not learn any more from the hero now lost deep in his thoughts, only hearing a faint drum that might as well have been his own heart struggling to keep his blood flowing in this world, though, he wasn't even sure he had either a heart or blood here.
Still, Avere looked at Cades, wanting to ask many questions, but, for some reason, not finding himself able to do so, feeling as if that would be answered soon enough if he was just patient.