We continued drifting for a while...
I eventually passed out as Isabella tried desperately to heal me.
When I woke up, I was still in terrible pain...
The air here felt so dense...like I was being crushed alive by an unseen force...
The entire time, Isabella held onto me tightly and never let go...
Where are we...? Am I dead?
I opened my mouth to speak, but as soon as I did, I didn't hear any sound.
It felt incredibly hard to breathe... Like my lungs were being crushed by something other than Isabella.
I looked around and saw stars in the distance.
We passed a few of them and simply kept moving...
Were we moving?
The way things were out here...it certainly felt like we were moving...
Things looked to be moving past us...
But the entire time I was thinking about these things...it felt like I was ignoring something important.
My mind was in an uproar at the moment. I couldn't think hardly at all. My emotions seemed to be in chaos and I could feel nothing except overwhelming fear and rage.
Fear for our current situation... And rage because of what had just happened...among other things...
The phrase kept repeating in my head...
{Kill them all.
Burn it down.}
That bastard Difar was way out of my league.
This Corruption was a force that threatened every world in existence.
It had to be stopped no matter the cost.
I tried my best to think about something...anything at all.
Anything except the haunting words in my head.
{Kill them all.
Burn it down.}
Where are we? What's going on!?
I asked myself the same question from earlier...
But I couldn't think straight.
The stars kept passing us by.
Another star in the distance...
A star here, a star there...
Where were we?
What was this horrible place?
{Kill them all.}
Why did I feel like I was being crushed alive?
Why did I feel so afraid? So angry?
{Burn it down.}
Why...
Kill who!? Burn what!?
I stopped as we came particularly close to another star...
It glowed brightly with a white light.
It was like a snow globe. I could even see...
A world.
There was a world inside that star. Which meant that it wasn't a star at all.
They weren't stars.
They were worlds.
Is this...the space between worlds...? The Firmament...?
This wasn't good... We were stranded out here in the Firmament...
How long had we actually been out here?
I was having trouble grasping the situation again...
My mind was still in chaos...
{Kill them all.
Burn it down.}
I felt something leave me...
Something basic that I had always taken for granted.
I felt my happiness disappear...if that were possible...
The ability to laugh...to smile...to feel love...to feel anything positive.
My emotions were being locked away...
I opened my mouth to scream but heard nothing.
I still felt like my entire body was slowly being crushed into dust. Like the atmosphere itself was grinding my bones into nothingness.
My very soul...
An invisible force pulled us onward...
{Kill them all...}
I felt my love for Isabella begin to fade...
{Burn it down...}
I screamed and cried out...to no avail...
I could no longer feel love...
No more happiness...
The romantic moments we had shared were all meaningless...
No...they weren't meaningless...
THOSE ARE PRECIOUS MEMORIES!!!
I WON'T LET THAT BASTARD HAVE THEM!!! I CAN'T LET HER GO!!! NEVER!!! SHE SAVED MY LIFE AND I LOVE HER!!!
My emotions were going numb out here...
We passed another world...
I couldn't tell what happened on the surface of these worlds...just that I could see the worlds themselves.
But that was irrelevant.
Because out here, nothing mattered at all anymore.
* * *
Haha...hahaha haha...
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN!?
HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN OUT HERE!?
I feel like I'm starving to death...like I'm dehydrated...
Ha...kill them all! Burn it down!!!
KILL THEM ALL!!! BURN IT DOWN!!!
I'LL KILL THEM ALL!!! KILL...who...?
What am I burning?
I can't go on like this...!
Is Isabella still alive? I still feel the adoring resonance... It keeps fading in and out...why!?
She's still holding onto me...
I can't tell what's going on...the pressure is too great...
My mind feels like it's still in chaos...
We continued drifting for quite some time...
At least I thought it was quite some time...
It felt like a long time.
Days...maybe longer...weeks even?
How were we not dead?
* * *
I understand! Yes! Kill my enemies! My enemies...
Who is my enemy?
Difar, of course!
Who else? His minions? Yes!
And...?
Someone I'm missing... Someone I have to kill no matter what. The name is on the tip of my tongue!
What do I burn? In the flames of my rage?
My agony...who caused my pain?
Difar...but he isn't the one. It isn't who I should burn...but what.
Burn IT down.
Ah...everything hurts... Isabellaaaaaa! Can you heal me...? Please hurry... I'm so hungry...so thirsty... The pain is killing me...
I can't die yet!
I have to kill them all.
I have to burn it down.
As we drifted, I still noticed worlds and I still felt Isabella holding onto me.
I felt myself going mad out here...
{Kill them all.
Burn it down.}
Shut up! I know! I heard it the first thousand times!
And as I talked with the voice in my head, I began to lose my ability to process everything around me.
At one point, I got bored with that and tried to contact Isabella with my telepathy.
Unfortunately...magic didn't seem to work at all in this horrible place...
Maybe that was why she hadn't healed my broken body yet?
Luckily, I could still heal naturally. As an Enforcer, I wasn't likely to die from broken bones and internal bleeding unless it was incredibly severe...
It certainly felt like Difar broke most of my bones, though...
My body still aches...the pain is driving me mad...
I want to go home!!! I want to see Zack and Emily! I want to hear more of Michael's jokes! I want to talk with Jallah and Leiso!!! IRIS!!! HELP ME!!! PLEASE HELP US!!! WE NEED YOU!!!
I MISS MY LIFE ON IGNITUS!!! I MISS THE PEOPLE WE SERVED AND PROTECTED!!! I...
I can't...feel anything for them, anymore...
Isabella is all I have left...
If I can't love anyone but her, I'll still love her. No matter what.
We're all alone in this horrible place.
Iris...please...
No...the Oracle imprisoned her...
No, she escaped! Remember? You have to remember!
I missed something. Who imprisoned Iris?
The...Oracle...?
Kill...the Oracle...
Kill them all. The Oracle and all her allies.
All her friends...her loved ones. Kill them all.
Where is the Oracle...?
Excelsis...?
Excelsis.
Burn it down.
Burn it to the fucking ground.
Ha...hahahahahah...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I UNDERSTAND!!! I FINALLY GET IT!!!
KILL THEM ALL!!!
BURN IT DOWN!!!
As I began to lose myself in the mad ramblings, I felt adoring resonance appear and disappear again. Isabella adjusted herself once more and held me tightly.
It was like she was cuddling my chest.
Oh well...she must have been bored.
After all...
We were just stuck drifting...
Endlessly...
* * *
Much later...at least I believe it was much later...
I felt my mind settling somehow.
The voices stopped. Seeming to be satisfied that I now understood.
I stored those thoughts. I would retrieve them later when it was necessary.
Unfortunately, I still felt incredible pain...and my mind felt utterly exhausted as a result of everything.
I was finally starting to become functional. I couldn't stay awake much longer, though...
Meanwhile, it felt like we were slowing down... I saw as we moved that the place around us began to shift slightly.
I turned my head and my heart sank in my chest.
We were about to collide with another world...
It was directly in our path.
I hope the people are nice...not that I care... If they're mean, I can just kill them and be done with it...
Kill them all...burn it down...
Will I be forced to kill these people...? How deep does my madness go?
Do I have any mercy left in me?
I feel so angry... I want to destroy everything... I want to kill Difar.
I MUST KILL DIFAR!!! I HAVE TO DESTROY HIM!!! I WILL MAKE HIM SUFFER!!!
THE ORACLE TOO! I'LL MAKE HER SUFFER!!!
I felt Isabella shift herself on me as she saw the world we were colliding with.
Then we passed through the barrier.
As soon as we were through, several things hit me.
The pressure was instantly gone. I felt like I could breathe again. I felt a vast amount of magic flowing in this world, as well.
Also...
Gravity.
We immediately started falling at an extremely fast pace.
Isabella clutched me tightly against her and I felt a powerful barrier envelop us both.
I felt her healing power run through me. My pain disappeared and I could breathe again.
We fell for quite some time...
The barrier began to heat up as well...
From what I could tell, we were falling into an ocean...
That was only after we passed the clouds, however.
Regardless...
Even if I was broken, I knew I could probably still trust Isabella. After all, she was healing my body and protecting me as we fell. I could trust her. I would protect her as she protected me.
Isabella...my love...
My heart.
Even if it was hard to grasp... I still felt love for her. She was my wife, after all.
As we quickly approached the sea below...I closed my eyes and lost consciousness.
END OF PART 2: WARS OF IGNITUS