Seres and Uriel were currently sitting in the middle of the great hall under the statue of the goddess of storms.
"And how does this work?" asked Uriel, observing Princess Seres.
"It's a bit simple and complex. I will begin to organize the fragments as if they were a puzzle of different parts. If two fit, others will follow."
Uriel didn't understand what Seres said, but he grasped the essential part: what Seres would do is make him remember things.
However, he felt that doing so would bring him great sorrow and guilt.
"Alright... let's begin," said Uriel.
Seres placed her hands on Uriel's head and said in a calm tone, "Set aside any thoughts you have and just sleep."
Uriel closed his eyes, feeling something initially enter his head with some resistance. Knowing it was Seres, he relaxed his mental defenses, letting her into his mind.
Seres appeared in a space completely black, devoid of any color or meaning. It was emptiness, pure and hungry.
Seres shuddered. However, something appeared before her, becoming visible. It was a young man, incredibly handsome, about her age, with intense red eyes that seemed to see through her, gazing into her soul. His skin was smooth, fair, and perfect, with black hair falling over his face. A smile, playful and full of immeasurable madness, was drawn on his face.
"Well, I never thought that useless stone would let a cockroach like you into this place, Princess Seres of the Kingdom of Beasty. An oracle whose mission is to gather the seven fragments of a divine weapon left behind by a mere spirit," said the entity in a voice full of mockery.
"How do you know that?" asked Seres, looking at what she believed was the human.
The evil specter let out a contemptuous laugh and began to walk around the blonde girl.
"Foolish and deluded, you are doomed upon entering this cursed city. Your companions will die before your eyes, and you will follow shortly after."
Seres looked at the specter.
"Silence."
"Am I not right? Why don't you tell your brave knight, your loyal companions, the truth? That it's a useless quest? How corruption consumed their pathetic kingdom?"
"Shut up... You don't know what you're saying. You're just an illusion."
"Hahaha... poor wretched soul, you have deceived yourself so deeply that you mistake the truth for lies. But it's fine. Go ahead, try to reunite the useless stone's mind, and I will personally witness how you fail pathetically."
Seres watched as the evil specter disappeared as it had appeared. Before her floated hundreds and hundreds of scattered fragments, like broken glass. Some were larger pieces, others were smaller ones trying to unite into a coherent whole.
Seres looked at the first fragment and touched it. Instantly, the darkness was replaced. She stood before a beautiful city with five enormous rivers descending to the city's center, where an imposing and beautiful castle shone under the sunlight.
Seres looked around, observing the stone saint gazing intently at the city.
Seres left the memory.
She touched another, larger fragment. The world changed again. This time, the city was in ruins, with countless people screaming in agony, making her tremble uncontrollably.
She saw something, something enormous heading toward the castle. The scene changed to inside the castle. What she saw made her shudder. It was a creature of great size, a mass of flesh and eyes without form, extending fleshy tentacles to consume other people. Its words were...
Seres screamed. She couldn't hear it; she refused to listen to those words. She opened her eyes, seeing the stone saint charge at the creature, with two other people in armor and weapons by his side, facing the creature.
Seres returned to the darkness, taking deep breaths.
"That must be what guards the sixth fragment," she said between gasps. Slowly, she observed how small pieces of fragments began to unite perfectly.
Then she looked around. There were thousands and thousands of fragments—large, small, and truly enormous.
Seres sighed and began to use her essence, touching the fragments, but this time she refused to enter them. Her soul wasn't powerful enough to witness the horrors hidden in the stone saint's mind.
Little by little, the fragments began to join, one after another. As time passed, her essence drained, and she wasn't even close to making progress.
"I need to enter," she murmured.
"I see you're struggling, cockroach." The specter appeared again with a mocking smile on its face.
Seres didn't respond to the apparition, focused on her work.
"If you really want to repair the useless stone's mind, why don't you enter and experience the hell he lived?"
"Tsk. Shut up. I'm concentrating." The specter smiled, approached a fragment, looked at it for a moment, and then crushed it mercilessly, disintegrating it.
Seres opened her eyes.
"What did you do?" she asked.
"Me? Nothing. Simply, this place is crowded, and I need space, so I'll do some quick cleaning." The specter grabbed another fragment, destroyed it, then another, and then another.
"Stop! If you destroy them, his mind will be completely destroyed."
"That's good to hear." The specter smiled widely, its body changing into a dark creature with six white eyes. It opened its mouth, devouring a piece of fragments.
"So, cockroach, do you want to play a little game?"
"A game?"
"It's called Devourer. I'm going to destroy all the fragments in this space. In exchange, if you enter them, look, and come out, I won't touch them. It's a simple game, isn't it?"
"What happens if I'm in a memory?"
"Oh, who knows?" the specter smiled sinisterly.
"Well, let's begin." Opening its mouth, it eliminated a dozen fragments. Seres immediately jumped into one fragment, a second later into another, and then another, in rapid succession, starting a race against time against the hungry specter.
...
Outside the stone saint's mind, Lycor, Gaellum, and Gretel watched with tense faces as Seres began to tremble and the stone saint remained motionless like a statue.
"Do you think she's okay?" asked Lycor.
"The princess is strong," said Gaellum with absolute certainty.
"She will succeed. We just have to trust her."
...
Seres traversed countless fragments of shattered memories, faster and faster, seeing the life of the stone saint. Because the memories were scattered, it was difficult for her to assemble a chronological timeline, but somehow she was managing.
She had seen the stone saint arrive in the city of Ydrat, confused and wounded, saved by Princess Isis of the Kingdom of Ydrat. She remembered that the Kingdom of Ydrat had been destroyed a century ago, and the stone saint had lived for 100 years alone in this cursed city.
The stone saint and the princess embarked on adventures, fighting corrupt creatures.
Fighting and interacting, Seres saw how their bond of friendship and camaraderie only grew. After almost a year, the two were relaxing, watching the sunset.
"If I ever become corrupted, I hope you are the one who ends me." The stone saint didn't know how to respond at that moment, but he nodded.
"I don't know if I can do it, but I will. It's a promise," said the stone saint, and they continued watching the sunset.
Seres kept looking at the fragmented memories until she had another complete image.
A few days later, Princess Isis, after their talk, was chosen as the next priestess of the fragment to honor the ancient promise. However, something happened, and the princess was corrupted, along with everyone with her, turning into terrifying creatures that spread the corruption.
The stone saint, who was outside on a mission, upon returning saw the chaos, heard the screams, and headed to the castle, seeing the mass of flesh.
Letting out a cry of pain and rage, he charged to face the condemned one. The battle was intense, the battle was hard, but in the end, the stone saint failed.
Wounded and shattered, he took out an enchantment scroll created by a sacred being.
The stone saint stood up and said, "I'm sorry for not keeping the promise I made to you, but I can't kill you. Even now, I cannot bring rest to your corrupted being, so I can only make you sleep until I can die." True to his words, he used the enchantment, and the beast fell asleep. In exchange, the stone saint regressed to the beginning, starting a new loop.
No matter what he did, it always ended the same way, over and over.
The saint fought dozens, hundreds of times to change destiny, trying everything in his power, but it didn't happen.
Eventually, his mind broke under the burden and his countless failures, shattering itself in an attempt to forget and die in ignorance.
Leaving another fragment, she entered a larger one just as the specter was about to reach her. She entered the fragment.
In a destroyed kingdom where the sun and moon never changed, a stone saint and a specter were talking.
"Will you really do it?"
"Yes, this is my will, Shade."
"But..." the specter tried to reply.
"I know it's dangerous, but it's the only thing we have left. We will let our future selves do what we couldn't."
"Kill Isis."
"Yes."
Seres then saw how the stone saint and the specter destroyed their minds, abandoning their identity for new, shattered ones that existed in the present.
Seres left the memory. The last thing she saw was a sea of sparks that illuminated and fused one after another until she was thrown out of the mental space.
Seres opened her eyes back in the real world, looking at the stone saint.
"Princess, you're back already? So quickly?" asked Gaellum, surprised.
"H-how much time passed?"
"Less than a minute," replied Gaellum.
Seres opened her eyes.
"It was only a minute, but I spent decades in there."
"Decades?" asked Gretel.
"Yes. Now I know everything. About this city and how we can obtain the fragment," she expressed.
"Really?"
"Yes, but we have to wait for him to wake up. His shattered mind is beginning to heal. It might take a few hours."
The group lit the fireplace, gathering around the warmth of the fire.