Isle fell through the dark section of the realm, He held out the cutlass manifested by his quantum to test if mana would be disrupted here, Nothing really changed so he put the cutlass away and held Rene instead.
There were large chains raising from the ground to the ceiling of the prison, It was a similar scene to when Isle fought Cassius and the same happened.
Though the difference between the two times was easily perceivable. While the cloudy section was darkened when Cassius showed up, This entire district was almost pitch black, If it was completely black, He wouldn't have been able to see anything at all even with the light glow of Rene.
Eventually he hit the floor, The ground rumbled but it didn't break at all. He used mana to heavily soften his landing.
He looked around the prison then down at the floor, There was a weird silk like material covering the ground, It was covering the ground just about everywhere he could see.
He kneeled down to feel it, Off the top of his head he couldn't make a guess but he'd have plenty of time to think about what it was anyways.
Far off in the distance was a column of chains that had coalesced to form a gigantic pillar, It wasn't a perfect tower, There were several holes and pockets in it.
Isle had a feeling that the crow was chained up at that nest of chains. There was an abnormal lack of mana in that area. Isle had no idea what could deprive a deity of mana but he didn't want to ever find out.
He began to walk towards the pillar, Avoiding hitting any chains as he walked.
Isle had found out that Cassius was a deity of sorts, Yet he decided to deny Vermilion's help in the upcoming fight. For whatever reason, Isle felt as if something would happen to Vermilion if he came with him.
Vermilion himself was a deity but he never went into depth on which one he was. Isle guessed that he was the Deity of Dragons, His draconic characteristics much exceeded those of any other dragon Isle had ever met plus what other one would he be.
He had no basis for his claim but he also guessed that Caeruleus was a deity, He didn't have any guess of what he might've been a deity of, But he still firmly believed that Caeruleus was one.
It likely would've taken Isle a month or two to reach the pillar but that wouldn't be doable for Isle currently, While hunger and thirst were weirdly absent in this realm, Isle still had a shattered mana core and had to ask Vermilion for mana just to live.
With the rate of how fast he lost his mana, He only had roughly 2 weeks left before he would die.
He could insert mana into his legs and try to sprint over, If he did that he'd make it in 2 weeks, But his mana would already be done by the forth day of doing that with how much he currently had left.
His control of mana was to mediocre for him to only put the necessary amount of mana he needed into his muscles to move faster.
He could sprint normally but that would only cut down the time by a week. There weren't a whole lot of ideas Isle had on how to get there.
When he checked Rene, He didn't find anything that'd help him get there although he didn't expect to find much considering it was a lance.
The book was stuck in his mana core so he couldn't try anything regarding it, His last thought went to the mysterious flower, He started to form some theories about the roses when he met Sandrone.
He took the rose he picked up earlier out of his pocket then crushed it in his hand, The thorns of the flower's tangled stem cut into his skin and steeped the rose with his blood.
The stem grew and several other stems grew off of it, Forming a runic shape before Isle was suddenly much closer to the chain pillar.
Isle's head dropped as he held his stomach, He was getting queasy. Despite all the growth he had undergone in this prison, Isle still couldn't handle warping.
Atleast he'd slightly improved. He managed to hold it in this time, He thought back to Aklyne forest bounty, That was almost 2 months ago.
He looked back up and saw that he was much closer to the pillar. Close enough that he could sprint and make it there in a hour or two.
Like magic the rose was back in his pocket but Isle couldn't touch it, His hand would appear away from it every time it got close to touching the rose.
He figured there was a cooldown of sorts that he'd need to wait for, So he pulled his hand away.
His feet slammed into the ground repeatedly as he rushed towards the pillar with Rene in hand.
He didn't bother to hold the cutlass as it likely wouldn't be able to harm the deity anyways.
After awhile Isle stopped running and caught his breath while looking up at the gargantuan column with a newfound sense of awe.
From far away, The bunch of coalesced already looked obscenely large, But up close it looked to be the height of one of Hells rings widthwise, And the width of the entirety of Pandora.
He'd grown to hate the crow during his stay at the prison so he was happy to see him imprisoned like this. Isle was impressed by the work of whoever had chained Cassius up here.
He took one more step then he broke into a cold sweat and his legs felt weak, The rate of his mana draining had accelerated greatly, He would be dead meat in a few minutes.
The feeling was extremely familiar to Isle, It was the gaze of Cassius. After the first time he'd gone through it, Vermilion explained to him that Cassius would sleep a majority of the time and only open his eyes when he was interested in something.
Vermilion had also described in great detail how even the crow's gaze could kill you from the sheer amount of mana you'd lose. Isle had prepared for it but he didn't know it would be this bad.
He already felt his body start to shutdown, His eyes were slowly beginning to shut before they snapped open again, Isle had fell to his knees without noticing so he got back up and stood firmly.
He glared up at the pillar. It shouldn't have been possible for him to move his body even a little bit, Let alone stand up and stare at the column.
Cassius stopped looking at him and Isle's mana drain went back to normal, He had enough mana left to stay alive for one more hour.
Isle fell to the ground and panted. The lack of mana was staring to get to him, It was already crazy that he was still conscious with this much mana left.
He heard a silky smooth voice resonated around the chain tower.
"You're quite an odd human you know that…?" The crow questioned him in a new voice.
Isle didn't know why Cassius sounded so much different, He assumed it was a result of him not making the voice box of the puppet the same as his.
"I'm gonna kill you…" Isle propped himself up with Rene.
"Is that what you believe?" Cassius chuckled lightly.
Isle appeared in a hollow section of the tower high up in the air, His eyes widened slightly as he looked back slowly and saw how high up they were.
If Cassius was to push Isle from here, He'd fall down and die instantly as he hit the ground.
He turned back around then saw a lithe figure chained up, Suspended within the hollow pocket in the tower.
"Hello Isle Calamitas, We've already met but I suppose I haven't formally introduced myself yet. My name is Cassius Noctis Reus. I've gone by many titles but the most used one is False Crow God." He smiled with his eyes closed.