Jack continued to hold onto Emily's hand while everything fell out of sight, and then begin to swirl about. Jack watched as the swirling matter within the abyss began to take shape. Finally, the mists and broken shards combined, reconfigured and conjured a new dreamscape. One in which Emily touched down with Jack.
"This place will lead us directly to my Core. Come on." Emily smiled brightly. Jack slightly silenced by the brightness of that smile nodded his golden head, as he was tugged along.
Walking to the Only door in this small new room that was formed, Emily turned the knob and walked outside.
Outside of the newly formed room, was an ancient ebon monolith stood at the center of an ever-shifting and changing mechanical maze. The Monolith breathed as if it was alive. It was, in fact, alive. The maze was alive with sound, as the paths that changed, folded, and appeared came accompanied by the sound of shifting stone and metal clanks. Also, unnerving was the amount of monstrous sounding roars and cries from deep within the maze.
Emily pointed to the Monolith, "That's my core. See that head bobbing along there. That's the Spider Goddess. She's almost there."
Jack looked on to see the Spider Goddess quickly navigating this master maze. He also saw where the maze shifted, as the Spider Goddess dodged to the side, and went a different path to get to the monolith.
"An Elder Goddess just can't like... Zip and be at the Soul Core???" Jack asked.
Emily shook her head, "Only I can do that... because it's my soul. She just found the maze's difficulty raised a hundredfold... Mostly because I'm now controlling it. The nightmares of this place can only slow her down so much."
"Then just... Shut all the entrances to your Soul Core, and we ambush the Spider whore!" Jack's flaming eyes crackled with a bit of malice.
Again Emily shook her head, "Mmmmm, that's not how Soul Core's work. They must always have an entrance and an exit that leads to and from. I can only change those locations, but they always exist."
"Then... Can't you just open the entrance here, and then like... Just straight line it to the Core." Jack asked, while looking at Emily's regal profile, and tracing the shape of her horns.
Emily tilted her head slightly in thought, before speaking, "Well... Yes. I can exactly do that. Let's do that then."
As Emily finished her words, the wall of the maze that was in front of Jack and Emily split open showing an entrance, and a straight path to the Core.
Jack this time grabbed Emily's hand, and they began to run to the center of the Maze, with the Monolith insight.
While running to the Core, Emily's voice rose about the sound of their sprint, "There is a downside to this."
"What's that?" Jack replied as he found that the Monolith was getting taller and taller as he approached.
"It paralyzes the whole maze... So the Spider Goddess is going to arrive at my Core just after we do."
"...Wut..."
Jack's reply came just after Jack and Emily made it before the massive Monolith. With a quick glance up Jack could see the countless etches of runes and voidic among the entire surface, along with smears of black blood that also stained the mighty monolith. If Jack wasn't so close, he would have never seen this detail...
"Little god... I am impressed, to say the least!" The Spider Goddess' voice hissed, as the clicking of her legs against stone issued forth, as her frame emerged from the side of another entrance.
"...Wait, I thought she couldn't get in here if there are one entrance and one exit!" Jack looked at Emily.
Emily shook her head, "As easy as that would be, there must always be an entrance and an exit, but that doesn't mean there is only one. Let's just deal with her now that's she's here."
"That goes without saying." Jack nodded, looking back to his profound arachnid foe.
"I see that you have freed your lit... Why is she whole?!" The Spider Goddess pointed to Emily with a surprised voice that suppressed some horror, but she quickly calmed herself. It seemed that the Spider Goddess had reached some conclusion within her mind.
"I found her and put her together." Jack shrugged, as he materialized a new Femur Ferula.
Emily let go of Jack's hand, and stepped forward, "Spider Goddess, Neith."
"...Yes, child?" The Spider Goddess unexpectedly answered softly compared to her haughty way of speaking to Jack.
"Are you sure you can't leave my soul and body. I do not wish to rid you. I, too, am a follower of yours but compared to my body and soul... These are my husband, Jack's. While it may hurt to a degree, I can't allow you to take me from him. Again, I ask... Can't you just leave?" Emily asked sincerely, and without negativity.
The Spider Goddess sighed, before speaking, "Little princess vessel... It was always meant for you to be my vessel. Your Spider Prophet transferred my essence to your soul shortly after birth. You can thank your current Spider Prophet later for never telling you. He was indeed loyal. I rooted inside here to nurture myself... Ragnarok isn't... Nevermind... I'm sorry, but for me to return to the land of the unliving then you must pass on. I'm sorry, my perfect little vessel. If you were someone else, I would bless your union with this little god, but I can't. But... But, now I guess that doesn't really matter does it." The Spider Goddess sighed again, seeming defeated.
Emily nodded, "I'm sorry my goddess. You're right. Now that I'm whole... I control this place completely." Emily as some unknown time had placed her hand upon the Monolith.
"Yes. I figured that out, after seeing you are whole. Can you tell me one thing before... I'm... made dead?" The Spider Goddess no longer had any amusement in her voice.
"Only if you answer something of mine." Emily countered.
"Then what is it that you want to ask?"
Jack wondered as well, as he seemed to be the backseat now... Wasn't he suppose to be saving Emily? Then again, now that he thought about it... Making her whole... Was that what saved her?
"Spider Goddess Neith, why does Neolith hate zombies so much and revere skeletons so much?" Emily asked this question that was at the bottom of her soul.
"Just this? Alright... It's really simple... Alucard's first lover was the Goddess of Ghouls. She favored zombies... I used that to divide her followers and gained a cult among the skeletons... I one day used this cult to topple that then Empire of Xoyee, with the sunken ruins, we build the underground cities of the Grand Tomb. Weakening the Goddess of Ghouls. I appealed to Alucard. Alucard... He was always a man that loved the survival of the fittest. He didn't mind what I was doing. In truth, he even encouraged what I was doing, while he helped his little lover. But I still enjoyed the day that I made the Goddess of Ghouls dead. I snuck into Alucard's temple... Stole her heart. Found her, and made her eat it. Hahahahahahaha! I forced it down her throat. The look in her eyes, as she passed. It gives me pleasure even today. I became the next lover of Alucard, but I didn't give me heart. I'm not so foolish as to produce a phylactery to give to him, for another slut to do me in as I did in the Goddess of Ghouls, ha! As for the Zombies... To hell with them... every time I saw a Zombie, Giest, or Ghoul... They remind me of that sickening slore. It wasn't hard to set up the family I named after myself and cast down the zombies. Let the sins of their goddess forever damn them."
Emily nodded, after ingesting this information, then replied, "Alright, your question?"
"How did you become whole... Or should I say, how did you become whole so quickly?" The Spider Goddess finally asked.
Emily looked over her shoulder to see Jack standing by with his golden form, femur ferula in one hand and his flaming eyes dancing about between her and the Spider Goddess.
"If I was to tell you that... My only goal is my husband, and my one purpose is him... Would you understand?" Emily spoke, as she turned back to look at Neith.
"...Would you give your heart to him?" The Spider Goddess now snarled.
"He already has it... Goodbye, Neith."
Emily's hand upon the black monolith radiated strange light. An otherworldly color that didn't have a representation in the real world. It was teal green, but it was blue in essence, but dark light as it shined. Jack would only find out later that this was the color between spaces.
The Spider Goddess did not struggle, as the maze and all of the surroundings trembled. Black lightning ran currents down the monolith that arcs off and impacted the Spider Goddess.
"STOP!"
Both, Emily and Neith looked to Jack slightly startled.
"Do not kill her. I want her soul... Give it to me." If one looked closely, they may think that Jack's golden skull... Smiled.