Athelei retrieved the memories he had momentarily lost, playing it out like watching a movie.
He watched as he was brought into a trance, mesmerised by the painting in front of him. His eyes were valiant and fawning—a look Athelei himself had never shown on his face.
'So that's what I look like if I was one of those Crusaders of the legends...'
Athelei's soft footsteps rang out as he approached the painting with an outstretched hand. A ripple occurred as skin made contact with painted stone. The entire area had a fluctuation in its rigid form, making the stone look akin to a mass of gelatin.
It was surreal.
Liquid darkness seeped out of the painting, squirming in the torchlight, yet surprisingly docile at the same time. Tendrils of black goop encircled Athelei's small wrist, prodding and seemingly having a taste of the flesh it had likely been deprived of for a long time.
A small current of Mystic Energy then swept through the liquid darkness, causing it to stiffen.
The tendrils then rushed into the angel's skin as an entire grand hall's worth of mass converged and formed a familiar tattoo. A giant-horned ram appeared, convulsing with malevolent energy.
And then the painting crumbled, allowing Athelei passage forward as he dazedly brought one foot in front of the other. He was akin to a zombie, but only if said undead could look so lively with the expression he currently had on his face.
Abundant Mystic Patterns lit up along his path, resonating with the tattoo on his wrist. After their initial glow, they then drifted into the ram meshing with whatever was in store. Slowly, the malevolent energy was soothed and brought into inanimacy.
The Mystic Patterns continued flowing even when the malevolence had dissipated, drifting like an endless river of light.
All the way until Athelei made it to the end of the hall.
When the final light was absorbed into his tattoo, all things stopped. The memory ended there, as the trance had been lifted.
'Curious,' Athelei rubbed the tattoo on his wrist. There was a slight itch that he was now incredibly conscious of as he recalled the squirming liquid darkness boring into his flesh.
It was not a phantom perception, but a very real, very subtle irritation.
But, there's still more to the tattoo than his own experience.
Athelei had completed recollecting his sealed memories, and with it he had already discovered the memories of the liquid darkness itself. That was what had elicited a laugh from him in the first place.
For in it, he was able to witness centuries of hunger, a millennia of insanity...
...And a pinch of genius.
'An attempt at resurrection... A step towards immortality.' Athelei found it endlessly intriguing as he watched Ai'sklr's routine of monster creation, birth, and proliferation. He saw how the liquid darkness started off as a single, harmless drop.
With tender love and care, it grew beyond what even Ai'sklr expected. With the mountains of flesh he had fed his work of art, it grew into a palpable ocean of shadows.
Truly a feat he praised himself endlessly for.
It had been brought about by a whim. He had simply taken a bit of the darkness beneath the earth and mixed it with whatever his heart said yes to... and now, he had delivered a wonder into the world.
As for how Ai'sklr could turn an abomination into what would now bring the artist a new chance at life? Athelei had yet to figure it out.
All that he had been allowed to see was that it was daring and complex practice.
'Perhaps if I had the perspective of the Oxhorian Spawn himself, I could have seen it all...' Athelei lamented the fact that he saw things through the senses of the liquid darkness.
Many a time had Ai'sklr turned his back on the monster to write things down. Away from the monster's line of sight would he draw upon the essence of different materials through beakers and rituals. There was no way for Athelei to truly get a grasp on the nitty-gritty details.
All he knew were the results, as he gazed at a slumbering concient inside his little cursed book. Ai'sklr had left a piece of his being. A part of his genius. A portion of his soul, his consciousness, that could be split apart whilst representing a perfect whole at the same time.
Then once all the vital conditions were met, the body upon which the tattoo was engraved would become his.
Conditions that the angel could only guess at as he scoured the pages of his cursed book and analysed the complex Mystic Pattern circles that dominated its content.
"Skin, blood, eyes, horns, and more..." A sigh left the angel's lips as he made vague deductions.
'Perhaps one day, the answers will reveal themselves to me as they did for Ai'sklr.' Athelei gave a resigned smile as his own complete consciousness slithered up to Ai'sklr's slumbering concient.
"Unfortunately for you, this body is mine and mine alone," Athelei spoke to the conscient as an immense pressure descended.
A beastly roar shook the angel's mental library as the surprisingly powerful slumbering conscient sensed the threat that now surrounded it. Perhaps it might have been sending a signal or perhaps it was trying to fight back...
Indeed it was its misfortune, for an Endbringer had already caged it in from all sides.
A predator of consciousness-based beings had found its prey.
Whatever came next was inevitable, and the conscient became the nutrients of Athelei's growing wings. The conscient was silenced after a final, horrified wail.
Despite all that though, the tattoo of a giant-horned ram showed no signs of being affected.
It made the angel smile. 'The mechanisms are indeed still functional as long as some kind of [mind] is laid at its centre.'
In the concient's place, Athelei left a bit of his own fog just as he devoured it. He wanted to make use of the tattoo's abilities without the underlying threat of his body suddenly being commandeered without him knowing it.
It had been a bet to do such a thing, but with how Athelei had witnessed the formation of the tattoo itself, he was confident in his educated guesses.
'Ai'sklr most likely included a memory-based technique because of how easy it is to crack the code.' Athelei took another glance at the cursed book in his library as well as all the Mystic Patterns that were written there, 'Something so complex turned into something so simple... Mortals are indeed astounding and tragic beings, for that simplicity was both his bane and boon.'
The entire array was akin to someone having to walk on a tightrope. The tightrope being the only path that Ai'sklr had seen throughout his entire journey. It was the only one that seemed feasible.
But it was also the most volatile path and he had no choice but to take it if he wished to advance.
Athelei was able to glean such a story from the memories he had seen and the results he was able to analyse.
'Every person is tested.' Athelei glanced at the hall behind him before walking through the door. He still had a place to be, so he walked and thought.
'If an entity is too strong, they would break the tattoo's influence before its secrets can be spread. Too weak, and they are slain.
If an entity is at an appropriate level, they are marked, with their memories and perception of the tattoo sealed and modified. Any and all onlookers of similar strengths are also affected.
And then compatible vessels are brought before even more trials, strengthening the essence of their tattoo...'
Each strengthening meant greater compatibility.