Star couldn't describe what he felt at that moment as Katerina's words lingered in his mind. A forced awakening wasn't a new term to him, but given how risky it was, he had every right to be afraid. His soul had not yet forged and taken shape, and two things could happen if he dared walk past that door.
The first would be that the Soul Essence lingering inside the room would flow into him in abnormal amounts, thereby speeding up the process of his awakening. Or it would flow into him and leech at what little essence he had, dimming his radiance and crumbling his soul—which meant death.
While he was still in mental turmoil, Katerina turned to him and, as if to tease him, said,
"I promise it won't kill you."
She clearly had a horrible sense of humor, and it wasn't helping Star at the moment.
He wanted to just close his eyes and wake up in a hospital the next time he opened them. Once again, his encounter with Katerina was changing the plot of the story, and in a very big way no less.
'Damnit. All I did was try to die.'
After a while, however, he was finally able to get a hold of himself and looked at Katerina with a visible frown on his face. Then his gaze shifted from the lady to the interior of the room they were standing before.
The first thing that caught his eye was the single pillar that stood in the center of the room, which, from the way it was structured, looked like it went far deeper into the floor.
The once golden pillar was now stained red, with a dried pool of blood sitting at its foot. On the base of the pillar, a relief of a ruler dressed in archaic armor, ripping out the heart of one of his subjects, was perfectly visible.
It was the first thing Star had seen when he set his sights on the room's interior, and coupled with the gory amount of blood that surrounded it, his mind hadn't been the same since.
The Lost King Enmer-kael had somehow devised a way to extract Soul Essence—which was basically the energy one's soul radiated—without feeding it to another soul. This meant that he had somehow gotten Soul Essence to remain tangible, or rather, to become tangible.
Soul Essence was also the medium for ascension. By absorbing enough of it, one could set their soul on the next path of evolution, and his was awakening. But evolution would be the wrong term to use in his case, as his soul was still dormant.
It was more like his soul was still taking shape, the dormant radiance he possessed coming together to form a single radiant core, and Katerina wanted to speed up that process.
He still couldn't discern her reasons, but as he gazed at the pillar, something else lingered in his mind. If the relief on the base of the blood-stained pillar held meaning, then he already had a good guess as to how the Lost King was able to turn the room he was looking at into a sea of Soul Essence.
He didn't use beasts' cores or some abstract method he had discovered during his time. Rather, he used people. He brought them to this very temple and had them kneel as he sank his palm into their chests.
He couldn't imagine it. What the people felt. What the king thought he was doing. Why he had done it. If there had been no other way. Maybe he was just reading too much into it, but he still couldn't help being bothered.
And as all these thoughts went through his mind, he gritted his teeth and took a cautious step forward. He tried to remain calm, tried to keep his mind as lucid as he could.
Katerina shifted slightly to the side, allowing him to pass. She gazed at the red-haired teenage boy without a particular expression on her face, then looked down at her palm where she had cut earlier.
The wound had already healed completely, with nothing but a faint stain of crimson lingering over the area. Then she raised her finger and made a cut once again on the same spot, and as drops of blood fell, suspended midair, Star took his last step into the final room.
*******
His heart was thumping as he took the final step, his gaze lingering on the blood-stained interior of the room. The walls were smeared with crimson and slightly curved, lined with torches illuminating the place with a pale blue glow.
The putrid stench of blood and decay worsened, prompting him to raise his hand to his nose. He didn't want to think about anything while going through his current ordeal, but it was hard not to, given the sight before him.
Still covering his nose, he turned around—and at that moment, the door to the room slid shut, and all he caught was a faint glimpse of Katerina.
Now all he could see was the other side of the door, the same vein-thin lines he had seen earlier branching across it. But the relief was quite different.
There were outstretched hands carved with grooves, cradling a hollowed chalice. On the other side, another hand reached out, taking the chalice.
The second hand was adorned with intricate pieces of jewelry, beautifully carved out of the stone door in a way that made it instantly clear it belonged to nobility. It was only the least of the wrong things he had seen so far.
Still trying to keep his mind as clear as he could, he looked up at the door and then stepped back slightly, his heart almost skipping a beat. At the top of the door was a relief of a familiar face with blood-stained cheeks and a scar on its left side—but it was different.
The eyes were open, carved out and hollow, and unlike the cold emptiness he had felt when he saw a similar face the first time, all he felt now was dread. The face was contorted, the lips twisted, and there were more scars present.
He had never seen fear depicted so precisely, and it struck fear into him.
His feet trembled as he took more involuntary steps back, moving farther away from the door, yet refusing to take his eyes off it.
His mind was slowly being clouded by a single thought. It was clear from every relief and artwork he had seen so far in this room... something was going to be taken from him, and he didn't know what.
Well... he had an idea of what it was. It was only a guess, but after seeing Katerina perform the blood ritual that unlocked the door he was now locked behind, his doubts lessened.
What he had to give was life... his blood and his deepest desires... for power.
And just as his lucidity began to wane, the lights flickered. A moment later, they burned once again, casting away the lingering shadows and illuminating the room with a pale blue glow.
But something was different now. An overbearing and imposing presence radiated through the room, and Star could feel it.
He turned around, and his hand helplessly fell from his nose as his face twisted. His heart thumped, and then his entire body trembled. He took a step back but slipped and fell to the ground.
Before him, a human figure was slowly approaching. Dressed in golden armor polished to a blinding sheen, his helmet curved like the jagged rays of the sun, with two crimson flames burning within the visor. A red cape draped over his shoulder, and in the firm grip of his right hand was a golden-tipped spear with a red shaft. In his left, he held a ruby shield.
Not allowing Star a moment to react, the knight rushed forward and thrust his spear straight into the boy's chest.
The boy yelped in agony as a searing pain tore through him. This was far worse than the chest wound the Archer of Light had inflicted.
He couldn't think of anything but the pain.
He quickly became dizzy, swaying as he weakly gripped the upper shaft of the spear. And then, just before he blacked out, a pleasant voice echoed in his head.
[Your soul is taking shape]
[Your awakening shall now commence]