"Karkosa... Polaris Star System Lake Hally... The dark sun is high in the sky..."
A deep feminine voice echoed in the darkness, as she looked up at the stars and felt a vague response.
She thought that perhaps this ancient being truly was unique, the call came from an unknown source, possibly awakening within her own heart, just as before.
The Ancient One, clothed in her mage's robe, let her thoughts settle as she traced the dark cosmic sound to the depths of her own heart. Before the mist scattered, she took a step into the deepest part of the psychic battlefield, arriving above a vast city.
Is this Karkosa?
The Ancient One stood at the edge of the Sky Island, looking down at the ghostly image of a vast city below, majestic yet imbued with an abyssal terror. The countless spires protruding from the city reminded her of the ruins she had seen on a planet in the Polaris Star System.
Strange patterns emerged from the rolling fog, carrying an element of Gothic beauty, yet not entirely the same. The Ancient One didn't sense any darkness, sadness, or contradictions from them. There was no mystical Gothic core, only tranquillity and harmony.
As the fog thickened, The Ancient One, sensing something, turned around to see a black sun guarded by countless mists. It hung quietly in the sky, wordless, the delicate patterns and swirling particles revealing all answers to her.
The Ancient One brought her hands together and bowed, saying, "I know you won't respond, but as the Supreme Magician, I must thank you for your warning to Earth. Thank you, Ancient One. Humanity has taken action, the old days will not return."
She knew that the black sun would never respond, perhaps it wasn't a life form, but more akin to a machine according to human understanding, operating on fixed logic. However, she firmly believed it had abundant emotions, understanding order, and possessing love.
In her long life, she had encountered many such gods. Not all demon gods were chaotic and mad; many orderly existences genuinely loved their creations, nurturing them like parents, taking joy in their progress.
From The Ancient One's years of experience, the more understanding and the creation of order, the more ancient and powerful the being. Defending the order they created came at a cost. If they weren't capable of crushing all invaders, making self-protection a non-issue, they would have no spare capacity to love their creations.
"We should talk about you," The Ancient One maintained her prayer-like posture, raising her head. "Your call to me is unlikely to be a coincidence, do you want to make a deal with me?"
The black sun didn't respond, hanging silently in the sky like the only darkness condensed from the endless grey. When it was dark enough, the other lighter areas appeared brighter. It seemed paradoxical, but remarkably beautiful upon closer observation.
"What do you want?" The Ancient One asked again, patiently listing what she could offer, "Energy, soul, a portal to the real world, pain and blood, willpower, good character..."
She was familiar with this process. When she placed her bargaining chips on the table, she could judge the nature of the beings based on their choices.
Neutral deities preferred things related to the soul - not soul energy, but the existence's purpose and the truth of cosmic life. They wished for the contractee to offer their soul upon the completion of the contract. They wouldn't absorb souls but desired their company, which allowed them to listen to the pulse of the cosmos.
Benevolent deities enjoyed the peace and tranquillity born from long tests. They often challenged the contractee, perhaps seeking certain fragments or exploring certain knowledge. They favoured the calm strength generated by the contractee's focus, their tranquilizer.
In contrast, chaotic and evil deities often demanded blood, pain, and screams. They drove believers to destroy or simply demanded powerful lives to open the gate for them to invade the real world, so they could massacre freely.
As long as the gods put forward conditions, The Ancient One could see through them, deciding how to handle them. Of course, she wouldn't solely base her decision to annihilate them on their benevolence, everything depended on her needs.
The black sun remained silent, seemingly rejecting her request for a trade outright, yet The Ancient One didn't lose patience. She just stood there, like a statue which could stand through millennia.
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, making the fog denser. The Ancient One looked up, squinting her eyes, focusing on the great black sun. There was no light or sound, only a slight change in the flow of sun particles.
The black sun revealed a different pattern to The Ancient One, with various knowledge flooding her mind. After gradually understanding these obscure pieces of information, she showed an expression of confusion.
Emotions?
The Ancient One took a shallow breath, then looked up at the black sun with steady eyes, asking, "You want emotions? What kind of emotions? Joy, pain, calmness, confusion... You want them all? You are too greedy."
It seemed that even she hadn't heard such requests, but she sighed and spoke to the black sun, "In my youth, impassioned emotions left me long ago. After reaching completeness in my state of mind, my emotional fluctuations have been minimal."
"But your timing is perfect, or perhaps my timing is perfect. Not long ago, I indeed felt regret for some of my habitual behaviors. Will this suffice to meet your needs?"
The black sun didn't respond, the solar particles still silently moving according to the previous pattern, but The Ancient One knew this was a posture accepting everything. However, she still had one more question to discuss.
"So, what can you give me?"
The answer sprang into the Ancient One's mind, still without sound or image but a concept, like a sudden thought of the Ancient One herself, yet she knew it was a response.
Knowledge and truth.
"What kind of knowledge? And what kind of truth?"
Then the Ancient One received another answer, she furrowed her brow and softly stated the answer, "…Everything?"
The Ancient One's expression was troubled, the other party didn't seem like a crazy, self-aggrandized, demon god on a mental rampage. Yet, the Ancient One genuinely didn't know how to provide all knowledge and truth.
The Ancient One made the risky decision to give it a try. This was because the black sun was unlike any life form she had met before. It just hovered silently in the sky, grandiose, terrifying, yet magnificent, reminiscent of another layer of nature.
"I will tell my story first, and then I want to hear your own. I will fully open my heart to express my joys, pains, and confusion. I don't ask much in return, just for you to clarify my doubts and let me know what you are, what could possibly be in the depths of the stars..."
After the Ancient One finished speaking, her eyebrows gathered in a slight frown and she drifted into her memories, beginning to tell her story with Jennifer.
"After arriving in that cosmos, I began to roam, until I saw a little girl who was entirely different from the other monsters in the backyard of a house..."
"...then, Jennifer began to shudder incessantly. I realized what a grave mistake I had made; my pragmatism was killing her…"
"This was an accident, but I'd rather consider it a man-made error, an error of my making. I took away the girl as a savior, but failed to genuinely perform the duty of one…"
"Every Supreme Magician must unwaveringly believe in their invincibility. The moment they start doubting, they may potentially bring catastrophe upon the Earth…"
"Yes, you're right. This extreme egocentrism is constantly taming our spirit and personality, but I don't feel it's a torture. Responsibility is the greatest meaning of existence mankind can find…"
"No, I don't think it has anything to do with redeemability. Many uncorrectable mistakes I've made didn't make me as disheartened as this one…"
The Ancient One stared at the changing patterns on the black sun, feeling thoughts continuously welling up inside her. To her surprise, this ancient god was interpreting her feelings and explaining their origins in such a way.
He was providing another type of knowledge, one the Ancient One had rarely paid attention to, knowledge that operates abstractly on sentient beings.
The Ancient One began to vocalize the knowledge provided by the black sun, so as to better understand them in an orderly manner.
"I've always been balancing my humanity and divinity. When I was the Supreme Magician, my divinity was dominant due to my responsibility for the entire human race, which forced me to become a god, making choices that benefit the majority time and time again."
"Perhaps the change occurred when I found a competent successor. The responsibility upon my shoulders was no longer so heavy, hence my humanity gradually returned. I no longer became tangled in profit and loss or troubled about who to protect. Eventually, I became greedy, desiring every little rescue operation to go without a hitch."
"I used to always have a high tolerance for sacrifice, willing to not only sacrifice myself but also a portion of my people without feeling guilt or despair. This was because my divinity suppressed everything, I spared no effort to save what I could and thus bore no guilt."
"But when humanity took over, I hoped there would be no more sacrifices, not Jenny, not the entire human race. If I failed to do so, I would experience the sadness I rarely felt when sacrificing my own kind...the pursuit of perfection originates from the sympathy in humanity, as well as the greed within."
After the Ancient One finished speaking, she fell silent for a long while. Then she gently put her hands together, her robe floating lightly as she spoke, "I have always regarded human emotions as mystical. Sometimes I even think that demon gods are easier to understand than humans."
"But I would say, yes, High One, this is indeed a marvelous type of knowledge, another way of observing the world. If this is your reward to me, I can accept it without requiring additional knowledge. I think this is enough."
Soon, the Ancient One could feel more knowledge forming into pages of a book fluttering into her heart. Focusing her mind on them, she realized that recorded on them were secrets of the stars.
"Asathos, The Nameless Fog, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu..."
The Ancient One pronounced the names on each page and was astounded by the vastness and horror of this mysterious deity system hidden in the depths of the stars.
She looked down at the gradually forming cover of the notebook, on it was a black sun and the phrase written in Arabic script—"Necronomicon".
And finally, on the enormous black sun, she saw a very clear piece of information or perhaps it was a warning—"Not to be circulated".