Project Prometheus Ch. 84 - Teaser (Patreon)

“This was the homeworld of the Saint,” Qadira said. “And of the disciple he failed to kill.”

The image shifted again, and two figures appeared, one wreathed in silver-white energy, while the other was darkened by the mark of the Black One.

“They were siblings,” Qadira said quietly. “Brother and sister, according to the most consistent accounts. The brother became the Saint, while the sister was touched by the Black One. Not fully consumed at first, and not wholly changed in the earliest days, but enough. The texts indicate that had she survived unchanged and corruption fully matured, she would have become something akin to what later generations would understand as Xuul’khan.”

“His own sister,” Korsa breathed, her face tightening.

“Yes,” Qadira acknowledged as she went on. “It is said the Saint came here as soon as he learned what had happened. Many expected him to destroy her, as they believed he had no choice. She carried a fragment of the Black One’s power, so she was too dangerous to live. Every moment she remained free, the corruption spread.”

The silver-white figure moved toward the darkened one in the hologram.

“But he could not do it,” Qadira said. “For all his power, clarity, and the terrible necessity laid before him, he could not bring himself to kill her.”

Alex looked at the image and felt something deeply human twist beneath all the ancient myth. Not cosmic war, prophecy, or even the Aether, but family, that was what had broken the clean logic of history. A brother who could not kill his own sister.

“He did the only thing he could bear to do,” Qadira continued. “He drove her from the material realm.”

The chamber’s hologram changed, as the planet remained, but now a tear opened above it, rendered as a wound in light and shadow. They watched as the silver-white figure forced the blackened one through it, into a shifting realm of impossible shapes and living currents.

“The Immaterium,” Gloria said softly.

“Yes,” Qadira nodded as she looked at the human woman. “The wild between realms. The place between material reality and the higher Aetheric domains where guides and greater aspects may be reached. Those of sufficient power could traverse it, such as the Saint and his sister, empowered as she was.”

“So the fight continued there,” Matthias said as he swallowed.

“It did,” Qadira said. “The legends say they battled in the Immaterium itself, where thought, will, memory, and power could be made almost physical. Eventually, the Saint won, but he still could not kill her.”

The image shifted once more as the dark figure was cast down, bound in chains of silver-white light.

“So he imprisoned her,” Valessa said, her voice low.

“Yes. He sealed her away within the Immaterium and returned to this world through the wound he had opened. Once back in the material realm, he attempted to seal the passage behind him. But that is where the tragedy became something worse,” Qadira continued as her face darkened.

The holographic tear narrowed, but did not close. The silver-white light wrapped around it, forming a containment lattice, yet at the center remained a hairline fracture of pulsing black.

“When the Saint destroyed other disciples of the Black One, their deaths allowed the wounds they had opened to be sealed cleanly. Their bodies were destroyed or entombed, and the corruption that spread from them was burned out. The damage remained terrible, but finite. Here, the disciple still lived,” Qadira stated, gesturing at the broken script.

“So the seal never fully closed,” Alex growled.

“No,” Qadira said. “It was tightened enough so it would hold, but it was not clean or complete. Something remained between this world and the place where she was bound. A wound that could not heal because the source of the corruption still existed on the other side.”