Zac gazed at the Fall of Night. The spectral water, the very interface of his damnation, displayed the numbers of his failure.
[Fall of Night]
[Tears of Regret: 1382]
[Coward's Stealth: 0/1000]
[Healing Stagnation: 0/1000]
[Forge of Brutality: 0/1000]
[Echo of Ungoliant: 9,999,999,999]
[Echo Distillation: 700%]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,000,983 / 999,999,999]
A few months ago, a few cycles of suffering earlier, the sight of these billions of Echoes would have filled him with a rush of power. Today, he felt only profound disgust, a bitter bile rising in his throat. This was his reward. The wages of his servitude. Proof he had been a docile and effective instrument.
He stared at the Distillation figure, fixed at 700%, and felt himself drawn in.
A voice. Distant, insidious, sweet as poison, a whisper not his own, but born of the hunger planted within.
'And if…?'
Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe there are other secrets, other powers beyond the 800% barrier. And 1000%? The reward would have to be incredible. True liberation. The more you become, the more you belong to these shadows, and the less you feel weaknesses, regrets, guilt… all those things that led you here.
'Embrace it. Become it.'
His eyes grew hazy. His hand reached, almost of its own accord, toward the cascade, ready to commit the irreparable, ready to let himself sink into the gentle promise of oblivion.
But then, in a surge of will, a spasm of rebellion born of newfound lucidity, he hurled himself into the water. The biting cold of the cascade was an electric shock, a sharp pain that drove away the whispers. 'The Entity is toying with me.' It offered him the simplest, most obvious, most tempting choice.
He emerged from the water and focused all his strength on the lone glimmer of hope left to him: the Song of the Ainur, the music of creation, absolute antithesis of this prison. He mentally poured his billions of Echoes into it. He would purge this poison, all at once.
[Song of the Ainur: 5,000,983 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,000,984 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,000,985 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,000,986 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,000,987 / 999,999,999]
…
[Song of the Ainur: 5,001,002 / 999,999,999]
He realized with chilling horror that he could allocate only a single Echo at a time.
The first transfer completed. Only one. He tried again, attempting to force the flow. Another. Only one. Cold, familiar panic gripped his throat. This was not a bug. It was a new rule. A new torture, subtler and crueler than all the rest.
Rage won out. He struck the water with his fist, the flat sound echoing in the cavern. This was the only solution he saw, and it had been twisted into an endless torment.
He wandered the cave for a long while, caged animal-like. He muttered, cursing the cascade, the System, the Entity. He paced aimlessly, his mind turning in circles. He had no goal left, he was eating himself from within, devoured by frustration.
And then he stopped cold.
'Frustration. Rage. Despair.'
That was it. Another form of suffering. Another source of nourishment for his jailer. He couldn't even suffer freely.
There could be no true victory. Only a choice of his own agony.
So he resigned himself. He returned to the waterfall, sat cross-legged, back straight, his face a mask of empty determination. And he began again.
[Song of the Ainur: 5,001,003 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,001,004 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,001,005 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,001,006 / 999,999,999]
[Song of the Ainur: 5,001,007 / 999,999,999]
…
He continued. The Echoes advanced so slowly. Perhaps one every two seconds. A steady, obsessive mental click. One by one, like grains of sand through an hourglass the size of a desert.
He poured out his echoes for what seemed like eternity, unmoving. Time felt all the longer because he had to watch each Echo transfer, each number change, confirming the slowness of his task. It was the perfect torture: the promise of redemption at the end of a journey so long and monotonous it was designed to break him long before he saw its end.
This was his new war. A war against time, against madness, fought one second at a time.