The battle was fierce. The Faceless Wizard slowly turned his staff, sweeping the power of the Petrifying Gaze across the countless phantoms.
Every phantom struck by the gaze burst like a soap bubble, but as soon as one disappeared, another appeared somewhere else. Hidden among the illusions, Saruman constantly shifted positions while searching for an opening.
"The core of its power is that 'Eyeball'!" Saruman shouted to Kag through their mental link.
Kag understood immediately. The instant another wave of the Petrifying Gaze was drawn toward the phantoms, he moved. Like a leopard that had been waiting for the perfect moment, the warrior charged straight at the Faceless Wizard.
Thanks to the corruption being temporarily suppressed and the many precious potions he had drunk, his speed had recovered considerably. Shield raised before him, he became a whirlwind of steel.
'Crack... crack... crack...'
The Faceless Wizard seemed to sense the danger. Its staff swung toward Kag as the heavy petrification field descended once more. Kag's charge slowed abruptly, feeling as though his legs had sunk into invisible quicksand. Gray-white patches of stone even began spreading across his skin.
"Now!" Saruman seized the instant the wizard's attention shifted. Every phantom vanished at once, and his real body appeared behind and to the side of the Faceless Wizard.
At the tip of his wand, a tiny point of brilliant arcane light condensed. It wasn't a devastating attack; instead, it was an incredibly compressed Magic Power Disintegration Ray.
'Whoosh!'
The thin beam struck the amber 'Eyeball' atop the staff with perfect accuracy.
'Crack, '
The petrification field filling the chamber instantly receded like an ebbing tide. Saruman let out a weary breath as he lowered his wand. Kag shook his head, and the stone patches covering his skin gradually faded away. Once again... they had won.
As always, the battle had cost them dearly. Still... something was different this time.
"This place has definitely changed."
The corridor had returned to normal, as though the circular chamber had never existed. But the lingering invisible pressure, and Lina's increasingly agonized moans, reminded them that the danger was far from over.
"Do you think... the exit might be somewhere nearby?" Kag silently lifted Lina onto his back again. During the struggle against the petrification, the black markings on his arm had spread another finger's width.
Saruman noticed them, a deeper shadow settling over his heart. It was obvious Kag was being too optimistic.
Even Saruman hadn't expected that they would still be wandering endlessly through the Corridor. Their brief victory brought no hope; instead, it only made the Infinite Corridor seem even more sinister.
Lina's condition worsened. Her delirious muttering gradually became a broken, ancient melody, as though it were drifting up from the deepest ocean floor. Its tune was old... blasphemous...
Simply hearing it sent chills through the listener. The scales continued spreading across her body, and even the edges of her eyelids had begun turning an unnatural pearly white.
Kag carried her in silence as always, but his breathing had become noticeably heavier.
"So even with my current abilities, I still can't suppress your corruption for long..." Saruman clenched his teeth. "Damn it. The one who created this place... could they really have been beyond even the Legendary realm?"
He noticed flashes of suppressed pain crossing his companion's normally resolute face. The black markings had spread beyond Kag's arms and were now creeping up his neck like living creatures, their color deepening until they looked as though they had been soaked in ink. This wasn't simply exhaustion; it was corruption flowing from the depths of the Corridor itself. Or perhaps... from the source of the corruption consuming Lina.
"Kag... your condition, " Saruman began, his voice hoarse.
"I'm fine," Kag interrupted him without hesitation. "Save Lina first. We 'have' to save her." His voice remained as determined as ever, but the slight tremble in it didn't escape Saruman's ears.
At that moment, the corridor changed again. The grotesque carvings on the walls seemed to come alive, twisting and rotating to reshape the very structure of space. The floor beneath their feet softened and grew damp, and the salty stench of seawater grew so thick it made them nauseous.
The low humming that had accompanied them all this time gradually merged into something far grander. It sounded like billions of voices chanting together beneath the sea. Or perhaps... not a hymn, but a night song.
The passage ahead disappeared. In its place appeared a vast expanse of black water stretching endlessly into the distance. At the center of the dark pool sat a lone figure. His robe was stitched together from seaweed, coral, and the broken planks of shipwrecks.
His exposed skin was bloated and gray-blue, like that of someone long drowned. Instead of a wand, he held an enormous book bound in the scales of some gigantic creature. His lips moved silently, and that immense, maddening Night Song was coming from him.
"Singer of Tides..." Saruman's face turned pale as he recognized the being described in ancient records. This was an even more terrifying legend than the Faceless Wizard and all the foes they had faced before, a figure that should have existed only in fairy tales.
"Ahhhhhh... ahhh..."
The Night Song poured into their minds like icy tentacles stirring their sanity. "Damn it! It's become the herald of the unknowable being sleeping beneath this place!" A wave of dizziness washed over Saruman.
Countless visions flashed before his eyes, a sunken city, writhing tentacles, a colossal shadow slumbering beneath the Abyss. He had to focus every ounce of his will just to stay conscious.
Kag was affected even more directly.
"'Cough!'"
He let out a muffled groan and dropped to one knee, Lina nearly slipping from his back. The black markings covering his arms and neck suddenly began glowing with a dim, eerie light, pulsing in rhythm with the Night Song. Pain was written all over his face; his body and mind were being corrupted at the same time.
"Hold on to your mind, Kag!" Saruman roared, hoping his voice could bring his companion back. He struck the ground with his wand.
"Psychic Barrier!"
An invisible shield spread outward, trying to block the Night Song. But against such overwhelming psychic power, it was as fragile as a wooden plank caught in a hurricane.
At the center of the pool, the Singer of Tides slowly raised its head. It had no eyes, only two swirling black vortices filling its empty sockets. The Scale Book in its hands opened on its own.
As its pages turned, the black water began to boil, and several tentacles made of foul seawater erupted from the pool, each lined with writhing suckers, lashing toward Saruman and Kag.
Saruman swung his wand. Several Arcane Missiles shot forward, blasting apart the tentacles reaching for him. But more surged toward Kag and Lina.
"Get back!" Kag roared like a wounded beast. Ignoring the burning agony caused by the spreading corruption, he hacked apart several tentacles with his sword. Yet his movements had become noticeably slower, and every swing caused the black markings to glow even brighter.
Saruman knew they couldn't keep this up. Sooner or later, they would both descend into madness and be swallowed by the polluted waters. They had to stop the source of the Night Song. His eyes fell upon the Scale Book; without question, that was the source of its power.
"Kag! Cover me!" Saruman made his decision. He abandoned the failing Psychic Barrier and poured every last drop of magic into his wand, then began chanting a long, dangerous incantation. He was preparing an immensely powerful single-target disintegration spell.
The Singer of Tides seemed to sense the threat. The Night Song suddenly rose to an even higher pitch, becoming unbearably shrill as more tentacles burst from the water. At the same time, dense mist began rising from the pool, carrying a psychic toxin that clouded the mind.
Kag gritted his teeth. Standing before Saruman, he planted his great shield into the ground, turning himself into the final line of defense. Tentacles crashed against his shield and armor with heavy thuds.
The black markings had already spread to his jaw, and every block forced a pained grunt from his throat, but he never took a single step back.
Saruman's chant reached its climax. A terrifying concentration of magical energy gathered at the tip of his wand. Then, one enormous tentacle slipped around Kag's defense and lunged straight for Saruman's back.
At the last possible moment, Kag threw himself sideways. Using the shoulder that wasn't holding his shield, he slammed into the tentacle and knocked it off course. But another tentacle struck him squarely in the ribs.
The sound of shattered armor echoed through the chamber, and Kag spat out a mouthful of blood, which carried an ominous dark tint.
"Disintegration!"
A thin green beam shot forward like Death itself reaching out a finger. It pierced through the forest of tentacles and the poisonous mist before striking the Scale Book with perfect precision.
There was no explosion, only a faint hum as matter itself was completely broken down and returned to nothingness. The Scale Book instantly dissolved into its most fundamental particles and vanished.
The grand Night Song stopped abruptly. The Singer of Tides released a silent scream, its body melting like wax beneath a blazing sun.
The black pool disappeared with it, evaporating into nothing, and the corridor returned to its original form. Only the wreckage of the battle and the lingering stench of the sea remained.
The fight was over. Saruman staggered forward, his magic nearly exhausted. He immediately turned toward Kag.
The warrior was kneeling on one knee, his greatsword planted in the ground beside him to support his weight. Head lowered, he gasped for breath as blood dripped steadily from his shattered ribs and the corner of his mouth.
But the most horrifying sight was the web of black markings covering his body. They were no longer simply spreading; they writhed beneath his skin like living creatures. Their blackness had become almost glossy, as though they were connected to some endless abyss of darkness.
Kag's entire face was twisted with unbearable agony. Sweat mixed with blood as it dripped onto the cold stone floor.
The young Saruman rushed over and grabbed his companion by the shoulders, his eyes filled with shock, fear, and helplessness.
"Kag…!"
The memory froze at that moment. Then, like the fading colors of an old oil painting, it slowly dissolved into nothing. The faint blue glow of magic withdrew back into Blind Saruman's fingertips.
Dressed in robes as white as fresh snow, the old wizard stood quietly, gazing into the empty air, even though he could no longer see a single color. His weathered face remained expressionless, as though the harrowing memories they had just witnessed belonged to someone else.
Yet within the endless darkness that had become his world, there was only one thing he could still "see": Kag's face, twisted in agony as the corruption consumed him.
Those black markings writhed beneath the hero's skin like living creatures, devouring his life. And somewhere within that silent memory, a sigh, so faint it was almost impossible to hear, seemed to echo before fading into the dust of history.
---
A thousand years later, the Wizard's Tower was as silent as a tomb. The blue light at Blind Saruman's fingertips had faded away, leaving only the lingering weight of memory hanging in the still air. The tale of the Infinite Corridor, the battles, and the corruption felt so heavy that it seemed capable of stopping time itself.
The black-robed man stood motionless in the shadows, little more than a silent silhouette. Beneath his hood, his gaze, if he still had eyes, was fixed on his master, a wizard of unmatched power who had forever lost his sight. After a long silence, he finally spoke, his dry voice shattering the suffocating stillness.
"They... all died in those ruins, didn't they? The warrior Kag... and Lina, after the corruption consumed her."
The question struck at the heart of it all, like a dagger coated in ice. For just a moment, Saruman's heart, one that had long since learned to hide behind wisdom and strength, seemed to tighten. He remained silent, his wrinkled face betraying nothing, though the thin fingers resting upon his knee curled ever so slightly.
At last, he nodded. The movement was so faint it was as if he feared disturbing something sacred.
"Yes."
His voice was even hoarser than usual.
"They never escaped. But..." He paused. "It wasn't at the point where I ended the memory."
His empty eye sockets turned toward the black-robed man. Yet it felt as though his gaze passed straight through him, settling instead upon a far more distant past that existed only within Saruman's darkness.
"Give me... a moment."
For once, genuine exhaustion seeped into the old wizard's voice. It wasn't physical fatigue, but the weariness of a soul that had carried its burden for far too long. "I'll tell you everything. Everything that happened. At this point... there's no longer any reason to keep it hidden."
The black-robed man's body seemed to stiffen for an instant. The shadow of his hood concealed every trace of his expression, and only the faint tremor in his voice revealed his emotions. "Master... you already know?"
'You know why I've been asking these questions. You know what I've really been searching for. And you know why I'm no longer afraid of being corrupted by your memories.' Those were the thoughts running through the black-robed man's mind. There was no need for Legilimency; anyone could have sensed them.
Saruman gave no reply. Though blind, his gaze seemed capable of seeing through every illusion as he quietly faced the student hidden within the darkness. The tower fell silent once more, the silence of mutual understanding, a silence filled with unspoken truths. Past and present intertwined within it in a strangely unsettling way.
After a long while, Saruman slowly raised a hand. The gesture carried the quiet resolve of someone who had accepted the inevitable. A pale blue light appeared at his fingertips once more, dimmer than before, yet somehow more stubborn, like the last flicker of a candle refusing to go out before every final truth had been revealed.
"Keep watching..." he whispered.
The tapestry of memory unfolded once again. The young Saruman was kneeling on the cold stone floor, with Kag's heavy body leaning against him. The warrior's breathing was weak and burning hot, every breath coming with a wet, blood-filled rasp. But the most terrifying thing wasn't the wound in his side; it was the black markings that covered his torso, limbs, and neck.
They were no longer mere markings. They looked alive, like swarms of black worms writhing beneath his skin, burrowing deeper and deeper as they fed on both his life and his sanity.
"I... can't go on..." Kag's face was twisted with pain, his teeth clenched tightly together as sweat and blood soaked his disheveled hair. "...Looks like it's time for my soul to return home."
At that moment... the mighty warrior's life was little more than a candle flickering in the wind.
(End Of This Chapter)
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