Re: Level 100 Farmer

Chapter 266 - Broken

Li stepped back as he felt the cloying darkness of the broken dwarven civilization return around him. He blinked his eyes. The change was intensely jarring. This throne room, this broken space filled with broken things and a broken man, was once something that hummed and whirred with life and magic and light. 

He felt Tia squeeze his hand as she too returned to the world from within Tyr's heart, finding the shift just as jarring. Feeling her hand returned Li fully to his senses – he had to be strong, unaffected like an oak in the wind for her, after all.

He stepped in front of Tia while keeping hold of her hand, letting her have some comfort as she adjusted. The shift was jarring not only purely from a visual aspect, but also emotionally and spiritually. Diving into hearts as deeply as Tia did was something far more intimate than any kind of artificial dive Li had experienced in virtual reality or even when he saw into his head priest Ivo's past.

Artificial reality made him know that he was in something fake. A game. And in Ivo's case, Li felt more like an outward spectator looking into something else, something that was not his. But in Tia's case, her soul essentially resonated on the same frequency with whoever she was diving into, and that meant when she peered into their memories, she felt everything. 

All the senses. All the emotions. All of it. 

And Li could tell that the emotions he felt were not exactly pleasant. An overwhelming sense of anxiety. Nervousness. Fear. A need to suppress those emotions, only for that whole bottling process to keep those negative emotions festering.

Then despair. Despair so thick and dark that it was many shades darker than the ruins around him. 

"Tyr," said Li finally, his voice projecting loud and clear through the broken throne room. "I know you can hear me. I know you are still in there."

Tyr lifted his helmed head from his knees, peering the dark spot where his eyes should have been at to Li. 

"You have drawn me from my slumber," said Tyr. "I know you have seen within my soul. But I have nothing to give you. Nothing to talk to you about. I am nothing."

"The great king Tyr speaks once more," said Asala quietly, more to herself than anyone else. She scribbled on her tablet, awed that she was in the presence of living history. 

"Great?" Tyr's voice wavered and echoed in entirely unnatural way, as if there was a second, more guttural voice underlining his own. He laughed dejectedly, as if the mere mention of the word 'great' was so offensive as to elicit nothing but snorting scorn from him. 

"You were great. That is undeniable," said Li. "All your people believed in you."

Tyr shuddered. "They believed in a lie. The lie that was me. The lie that I was anything but worthless. And now, that lie has killed them."

"This darkness…" Li waved his hand around to the immense mass of black slime, to the huge complex of tendrils that pulsated all throughout the dwarven city. "Was it this that ended them?"

"No, it was me," said Tyr, shaking his head. "It was me. My failure. My lack of ability and worth. They said I was worthy of the ritual, but no, I was not, and now, everyone is fallen."

"Hm." Li looked to Tyr, at the huge dwarf's motionless, listless form, and he knew that the dwarven king was broken beyond repair. The kind of depressive depth that was nigh impossible to crawl out of, and he could not blame the monarch, for after all, that depth was carved by the life of his entire kingdom, all that he had known and loved. 

But at the same time, Li needed to know if the black slime – the reason he came down here in the first place – was under control.

"This darkness. I know it is tethered to you. Anchored to your being." Li's eyes shone green, analyzing the king. The slime was alive on its own, yes, but it seemed to have some sort of intricate connection with Tyr. Two lives bound into one. 

"And not in a malicious way. It is not taking from you. You are not taking from it. Almost like a symbiotic relationship. No, now I see. You have control over it."

Tyr glanced at Li. "Now, I do. But what use? What of it? I held no control over it when it mattered the most. When I needed to protect my people. Only after it devoured them whole could I reign it in, and now, it leaves me unable to die for an eternity."

Tyr sighed and flicked his hand, bidding Li to go away. "Go. Leave me to slumber. I wish not to be here, reminded of my own disgusting self."

Li shook his head and prepared to leave, for he could now piece together what had happened, even if the king himself was unwilling to let his painful past out entirely.

It was evident that the black slime was some foreign entity that Tyr had called using the Source. The original ritual was meant to forge a path to Valhul, where the gods were, but this slime was nothing at all like anything related to the gods. The closest the slime could have been related to would have been Khonsu, the sinister masked god of agility, but Li could tell quite well that the slime was of alien origin in the same way the heroes were. 

Thus, the ritual had failed, bringing in this destructive ooze instead of divine might, and Tyr, as the anchor and root for it, essentially devoured his own people. The Helgat must have slowed down the ooze's spread, but all the dwarves above the gate would have fallen quickly to demons once cut off from the main body of dwarven civilization.

It was curious that the demons had not passed the Helgat, but it was also understandable. Likely, they would have sensed the slime's presence beneath and the complete lack of power from the Veinheld, and that was what the demons had been here for in the first place. 

Without the Veinheld active and unwilling to wade through the slime, the demons left, leaving Tyr alone in the ruins of his kingdom. 

Li could understand the kind of hopelessness that Tyr wallowed in. After all, he himself felt something similar when he was younger, when he felt like he had dreams he could never reach and that his whole life was just a compromise with what he wanted but could never have. 

And he knew that when hopelessness reached this deep, it was hard for almost anything to penetrate it. 

But Li could try, if just a little. "Tyr, your people may have fallen, and nothing will bring them back, but the reason you wielded your sword still remains. The demons have brought forth another Darkening, and this ritual has not entirely failed."

He motioned to the slime. "You wield this power. I know you may loathe it. That it may remind you of everything you wish to forget. But there are new lives out there that you can save. At the least, you can help others from facing the same horrors you and your people did."

Tyr put his head between knees and sighed. "No. No, I cannot fight."

"Cannot?" Li narrowed his eyes. "Or do you not wish to?"

"Does it matter? I will not fight. I am unworthy of it. If I fight, nothing good will come of it. I will only bring ruin." Tyr looked up briefly, flitting his gaze around himself to the ruin scattered everywhere. "And all that I fight for is gone. I have only ever lifted my blade for my people and those I loved. All of those are gone. I am left with nothing. I fight for nothing. I am nothing."

"I cannot convince you further, then," said Li as he turned back to his party. "This is not the Tyr of myth. No warrior king. He is broken, and I cannot help him."

He stepped towards his party, fully intending to leave, but he realized Tia was staying behind. She remained standing there, looking to Tyr.