Surrounded by a silent and cold darkness, Kalen opened his eyes drowsily.
'What...?'
His body felt strangely light, as if he were lying on a bed of absorbent cotton. But he was frozen, his limbs stiff and he could barely move.
He had no energy for anything, he didn't even care about his condition, for his mind was lethargic. Thoughts came and went but did not stay.
At that moment, Kalen heard a voice echo through the darkness that had been completely silent until then.
"Young human...look at me"
Kalen looked to where he had heard the voice and noticed something in front of him, something so small it would have been hard to see if not for the great light that surrounded it.
Soon, the light emitted by this being began to slowly fade until a small insect floated in the darkness.
'A firefly...'
Kalen had actually never seen a firefly before, but its light-emitting organ was hard to miss among the vast amount of insects that existed.
"Young human... let me tell you a story"
Still without the strength to answer, Kalen remained silent as he listened to the voice.
"Long ago... an ancient divine being roamed the world in search of a worthy place to be his tomb, where he would die and rest for all eternity. This being had the power of light... but, ironically, preferred to live in a dark environment"
Kalen blinked several times in disbelief but continued to listen to the story.
"Eventually he found some great mountains hidden by a sea of gray clouds... he liked the place so much that he decided to die there"
"With his great power he pierced the earth, creating an immense hole that reached into the depths of the earth, and traveling to the bottom of the hole he found a perfect cave to rest in...and that's what he did"
"This being settled down and closed his eyes on his deathbed... his long life was coming to an end, and he had no grudges stored in his heart. So, after a while... it died peacefully"
Kalen felt his eyes close again from sleep, as if the voice was telling him a bedtime story.
But at some point, he felt the urge to see and hear the end of the story, so he forced himself to stay awake even as his body fought to rest.
"After that creature died... its nest was transformed by the energy it possessed, spreading all over the place. Several beings were attracted by such pure energy and began to make the caves their home"
"As the years passed, the nest began to spread like a great network of tunnels that ran through the valley, underneath the great mountains that stretched for thousands of kilometers in all directions"
"Due to the harsh environment of the mountains, very few beings were able to reach there, but those who did benefited from the energy hidden in the depths of the caves.
"Several centuries passed, and the place became a natural sanctuary for the creatures that lived there. And with the remaining power of the divine beast left in the nest... I was born"
Kalen opened his eyes again to look at the golden firefly.
"My birth was an accident... the place the being chose as its eternal resting place wasn't supposed to become a sanctuary of nature itself"
"But something happened...an event that would change everything"
"The energy of that being died with my birth... but gradually a new energy began to accumulate within me. It was not a divine energy like that being possessed...but it was an energy pure enough to be desired"
"At some point... something began to corrupt the core energy, and with it, the entire sanctuary. And what was once a peaceful and tranquil place... became a hell"
The voice paused for a few seconds, as if considering how to continue.
"With the corruption of the energy... those beings who lived in the sanctuary were also affected and succumbed soon after. Even I... was corrupted"
"Over the course of several hundred years, the sanctuary slowly began to decay, and what was once a place of eternal rest... became a factory of corrupted creatures"
"With all the strength I had left, I tried to stop the progress of corruption... I did not succeed, but it was not in vain. I somehow managed to interrupt the cycle of corruption so that it only occurred every 16 days, which slowed down the rate of corruption considerably"
Suddenly his voice changed, and he said in a sad and lonely tone.
"At that moment, having used up all the power I had left... I lost myself, I became a monster, wandering aimlessly, looking for beings to devour. And so, it went for another few hundred years... until now"
"At some point, I felt my consciousness awaken slightly. So many years after I had been asleep, I realized that for the first time since it had been created the sanctuary... a group of humans had mysteriously arrived."
"I didn't understand it at first, I only watched them for a very short time, but I came to several conclusions. They were weak... too weak to have come here on their own, without any energy in their bodies that distinguished them from the beings born in this world... they were from another world"
"Thanks to the sacrifice of an older elemental who had somehow survived the corruption, you were able to defeat the monster... the being I had become"
"The cave's core was absorbed by one of you, giving him control of my corrupted body until we were defeated"
The firefly fell silent, and Kalen understood that the story was over. It was too many years to summarize in such a short story, but the firefly did his best to explain it in the best way...enough for Kalen, who was almost asleep, to understand.
After hearing the story, Kalen related it to most of the things he had seen in the firefly's cave.
How the hole that reached to the surface was created... or whose skeleton the older elemental guarded.
He had not understood what he meant by one of them having absorbed the energy from the core, but when he heard that he had controlled that monster, he deduced that it was Zayne and how he had obtained that demonic energy.
Kalen missed many things as his mind wandered too much due to his tiredness, but there was one last thought that came to his mind.
'Why is he telling me all this?'
The firefly somehow seemed to hear him as he spoke next.
"For the remnants of history... someone must remember the past and fight the future"
Kalen looked at the firefly in silence.
"Am I not dead?"
The glowworm was silent for a few seconds.
"Normally you would be by now... but I have delayed your death for a few minutes"
Kalen scoffed lightly.
"What's the point of me listening to your story if I'm going to die?"
The firefly was silent for a few seconds
"I will heal you... but on one condition"
Kalen fell silent again.
The firefly gave him a second chance at life... But did he deserve it?
There were many other people who were worth much more than him, an assassin whose job it was to take the lives of others... How could someone like him get a second chance when he hadn't given it to others?
Taking Kalen's silence as agreement, the firefly suggested.
"Live and remember...don't let the memory be lost"
Kalen felt the conditions were simply silly. Would he get another chance to live so long as he remembered an old story he had been told by a strange talking firefly?
"Just that?"
As a Nox Caelum, he was used to equal treatment from each side. He would give him something and the other person would give it back. But this deal seemed too unbalanced.
"Only that... You may not know it, but knowledge of the past is power. One day you will understand... Do you accept?"
Kalen didn't feel like talking anymore, he was bored with himself... he was disappointed. He was still wondering if he could really get a second chance, or if it really mattered.
But after a couple of minutes of thought, he simply closed his eyes and grumbled.
"Do whatever you want"
The firefly fell silent and sighed so lightly that Kalen wasn't able to hear it.
"Fine then"
The firefly approached Kalen and hovered above him. Then it began to descend and as if it were ethereal, it entered Kalen's body.
He only felt something warm in his chest and opened his eyes to see what the firefly was doing, only to see that there was nothing in front of him.
Feeling the warmth in his chest begin to increase, he took off his shirt, which was in tatters, and saw that in the center of his chest, a small golden crystal with a diamond shape had appeared.
'What is this?'
Kalen was about to touch the crystal, but before he made contact, his eyes closed, and his mind clouded over... falling back into the realm of dreams.