95 Hell Built Upon Heaven (2/2)
Infested.
”Do you know what that stench is? Smells positively atrocious.”
A grimace formed on Lu'um's face and she said, ”I'm sure you already know what that stench is, Ka'an. It seems that they were unable to remove the smell, even after decontaminating this place…”
”Ugh, how bad did things get down here that they couldn't remove the stench from the walls?” said Reed.
It makes no sense. This place looks so damn clean and spotless, you'd think it'd never been used in the first place. You'd think a couple thousand years would be enough for the stench to dissipate…
”You don't want to know, trust me. It's not the kind of thing that you can just forget once you've learned about it.”
Reed scoffed and said, ”Who do you take me for, sweetcheeks? A coward who's scared of his own shadow? I think I can handle one horror story.”
Lu'um rolled her eyes and said, ”Don't say I didn't warn you, then. It's not my fault if you have nightmares about this later…”
She paused for a moment and then said, ”…They researching on how the Infested were capable of violating the laws of nature. Even with Anima, we were only capable of bending them to a certain degree before we encountered an impasse.”
”We could use Anima to cheat, so to speak, but we were never able to bypass the fundamental forces that governed the universe. They could. So what did the researchers do in order to learn how the Infestation's secrets, you ask?”
”They played with souls. Tied one soul in two bodies — perfect clones of each other — something heretical to even think about. An offense to nature itself and an unimaginably evil thing.”
”...What are you talking about?” said Reed. He was beginning to feel a vague sensation of dread…
”The soul and the body are tied to one another, Ka'an. They naturally pull on each other, much like gravity in a certain sense. A mysterious force keeps the two of them connected. …So what do you think will happen if you tie two bodies to one soul?”
Reed had a rough idea of what she was implying but didn't want to answer, so he kept quiet instead. He shrugged his shoulders and said, ”…I don't know.”
”The soul cannot handle the pull of two bodies. It is like having your arms tied to a horse and your legs tied to another horse… and both running away from each other. The soul will end up being torn apart at the seams until it breaks. The pain experienced by this double-body pull defies all description, Ka'an.”
”And those who have their souls shattered will experience a final death — never to reincarnate ever again.”
”But why?! Why do something so terrible, even when they knew what it'd cause?!” said Reed in abject disgust and anger.
”For knowledge, Ka'an. When one is tethered to two bodies, a spiritual connection is formed between them. A bridge. It was how they got the knowledge they wanted. One body would be given to Infested to take, and the other would be kept in a secure, detonation-triggered prison cell.”
”The soul, tied between two bodies, would become the bridge between the infected body and the non-infected one. Once connected to the Infested hivemind, the unwilling victim would have access to their information network and by extension, their knowledge... if only for a short period.”
Lu'um pointed at one of the many rows of doors and said, ”These are all prison cells that once held them. If the prisoners lost themselves to the Infested Hivemind or their souls shattered, the bomb collars on them would activate as planned, killing them instantaneously.”
She dragged Reed into one of the dark, abandoned prison cells and said, ”This where we obtained the knowledge to create the Guiding Pillars, the Altar system, and the Heavenly Barriers, Ka'an. By making an unknown number of innocents suffer unspeakable misery and torture on a level unprecedented.”
Reed lurched over and dry heaved as he did his best to reign himself in, to no avail. He retched out his stomach's contents and hurriedly stumbled out of the prison cell in disgust.
”T-This... is what you people did?! What in the FUCK is wrong with you people! …Oh my god. Astrid and Sebastian are probably in one of these cells, aren't they?!” said Reed.
Lu'um patted Reed's back and said, ”I will not defend what happened here, Ka'an, but I want you to understand that we just wanted to survive. When you're pushed to the brink, you'll do anything to live. Desperation sets in and you lose sight of everything you once held to be true.”
”What we did will never be forgiven, but we did what we had to do to gain back the advantage on the Infestation — The Divine Furnace. We swore that we would not lose to them, even if we became monsters ourselves.”
”We swore to protect our home — our universe — no matter the cost.”