Eisen turned his head and looked at himself before averting his gaze.
"Fine. Then have it your way. Do you remember the children? My... our children?" The old man asked, and his former version of himself slowly looked forward as he continued to walk, "I do. Not as much as I would like to right now, since I myself am still just a fragmented version of what we once were, but I do remember them a bit. I don"t think we have enough time here for me to tell you about all of them in detail, but I can calm you for now, at least." He said, and then turned back toward the current Eisen with a calm smile on his face.
"There is no doubt that you will remember them in the future. And it"s not that long away either. I mean, you"re already ten memories along. If you really take a good look around Prototype or your country directly, you will gather them quite soon. Not to mention the memories you will gain in these heavens and in the underworld. And to top it off, you will soon get to 100 memories, and at that point, you will remember much, much more of yourself than you can imagine. Well, still not everything, but it"s enough to get you satisfied for the time being, I"m sure. Since from that point on, you will surely have the capabilities to get the rest of your memories back as well."
Eisen looked back at the former version of himself, actually feeling somewhat calmed down after this. He was right, Eisen shouldn"t worry. Of course, he still felt horrible for not remembering his own children, but he will without a doubt remember them quite soon. It was something to work toward, something to cling to.
If the memory-Eisen just started telling random stories about children that the current Eisen didn"t even remember, he would probably feel even worse. But it was good that the memory-Eisen brought it up. With a laugh, the old man continued down the tunnel, "Huh, who"d have thought that the one with the right words to cheer me up the best would be myself."
"Rather narcissistic, don"t you think?" The other Eisen laughed, before he slowed down in his step, "But I think it"s about time to make a choice. Do you want to keep speaking to me for now, or do you want to see what exactly is happening in this memory? You will remember it nonetheless, but this will bring you closer to it. It will be like you really experienced it again rather than having the mere knowledge of it."
"I think that would be a good idea." Eisen pointed out, and the memory-Eisen let out a deep sigh, "I figured you"d say that. Just don"t regret it. Because this is the memory of the first time you encountered a transcendent monster. And a rather brutal one at that... You"ll realize why this memory of all things. Meeting that transcendent monster isn"t your only "first time" you"ll experience today, if you catch my drift." The former Eisen said as he just stretched himself a little, and sadly, the current Eisen really did understand what the memory-Eisen was talking about.
And then, all of a sudden, the figure in front of Eisen continued to walk forward, his eyes turning away from him as well, as the memory continued as it was.
For a while now, Eisen had felt the s.p.a.ce around him heat up considerably, and at the end of the tunnel, he could see a faint light. The memory-Eisen turned around toward Trygan with a stern expression as he squatted down in front of him. He waved his hand around and pushed it into another s.p.a.ce, in a sub-s.p.a.ce created by a spatial gem seemingly.
And out of that sub-s.p.a.ce, the former Eisen pulled a collar that was just the perfect size for Trygan. He put it around the Dragon"s neck and then spoke to him, "This is going to protect you from the blasting heat, but it doesn"t protect you if you fall into the magma. So be careful with every step you take, alright?" He asked, and Trygan slowly nodded his small, cute draconic head as he continued to follow Eisen inside.
It seemed like in this state back then, Eisen had already gotten the ability to survive in extreme heat, so he himself didn"t need any sort of protective equipment in that environment. He stepped in there and took a deep breath.
"Urgh... Yeah, my lungs are about to catch fire..." He muttered to himself, and the current Eisen could feel exactly what the former one was talking about. It was kind of hard to breath, mostly because there was just generally bad air in there. And so, the young man pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small pill, one of which he fed to Trygan and one of which he ate himself.
Suddenly, the current Eisen as well could feel that the air he was breathing in was rather cool and pleasant now, and it didn"t feel like something was missing anymore. It seemed like this was some kind of potion that was made to allow breathing in low-air situations, that was then turned into a pill. And then, the memory-Eisen continued deeper into the cave, before it opened up around him. At this point, he packed the glowing orb that had been lighting the way until now away, considering that he simply didn"t need it anymore.
After all, the whole s.p.a.ce around him was being lit up by hot magma, as well as different crystals that were growing on the ceiling right above them.
"This seems like a pretty good haul, huh?" Eisen said with a smirk on his face. But instead of being focused on the crystals, which seemed to have some rather special properties to them, Eisen"s eyes were focused on something that seemed rather out of the place for a s.p.a.ce like this.
It was a simple tree that was growing at the very back of this room. It had gra.s.s and flowers around it, and somehow, there was no magma around it, but only directly around it. Instead, it just had rock and dirt, and the air even seemed rather pleasant right around it. At the very least, the air didn"t seem to have the same sort of visual heat-distortion as the air right around Eisen at the moment.
With a satisfied expression, the memory-Eisen looked at the tree before squatting down onto the ground, "Finally, I"ve been looking for that G.o.dd.a.m.n tree for a year... At least that guy"s gonna stop bugging me now." The old, young, man muttered to himself as he took a step further into this magma-filled cave. There wasn"t realy any ground to properly stand on, but the moment that Eisen pushed his foot forward and was about to press it down into the magma, it immediately cooled down and let off a fair amount of steam.
The current Eisen managed to see a light glow appear underneath his boots. These didn"t seem like something that Eisen would usually wear, not even in the past. Sure, they could just be some kind of weird fas.h.i.+on-trend that he wanted to try out somehow, but now that he saw the glow, it seemed more probable that these boots were simply enchanted to cool down the magma as quickly as possible, and they were the reason that Eisen was wearing them.
And so, the old man just followed the younger version of himself deeper into the cave. But it didn"t take long until something happened. They only reached about the halfway point in this cave when it actually happened, and the former Eisen could immediately feel that something was off. He snapped his head around and stared at Trygan, "Get back there, immediately!" He screamed out, and the young dragon followed the command without hesitation, running back into the cave that they entered through.
That was probably why the current Eisen couldn"t really remember this event all that well. He remembered a bit of it when he remembered Trygan, but only the bits where Trygan was actually involved. And now, the dragon wasn"t involved anymore, so Eisen didn"t know about this part just yet.
The magma around Eisen started to move around weirdly, as if waving around as it started to twist and turn around itself, causing small whirlpools to appear randomly. And then, out of each of those, in total eight, small magma-whirlpools came a single tentacle. Immediately, Eisen understood what sort of "transcendent" he was about to face.
It seemed like some kind of magma-based octopus monster that had somehow managed to reach the peak that it could reach. Slowly, the whirlpools stopped as the rest of the tentacles pulled out of the magma. They were glowing, and in their skin-texture, they were actually quite similar to Eisen"s skin while he was using his demonic transformation, with rock as a base and numerous glowing cracks inbetween those rock-parts.
Slowly, straight lines started to bulge up within the magma and in the center of those lines and whirlpools, a large magma-mountain started to grow.
And out of the magma, right in front of Eisen, came a humanoid male figure with large, disproportionately large, horns on its forehead. Once more, it"s skin was akin to what Eisen"s skin would look like in the demonic form, although there were clear differences still. Everything below the waist, including the tentacles of course, was a bit darker in color and a lot more cracked-up, as well as rougher in texture as if to rip enemies apart more easily.
On the other hand, the upper, human half of this monster was a lot smoother, and there were only a few cracks in the comparatively light-colored, smooth rock skin that Eisen could see at the moment.
"Urgh... a Magma Cecaelia..? Regular ones like you are hard to deal with already, but why does it have to be a Magma one?" The former Eisen groaned loudly, and the figure in front of him seemed rather surprised to hear the man speak.
"Oh?" It spoke, albeit in a rather unnatural voice. It was as if it wasn"t really speaking, but the voice came out of the walls and the magma itself, rather than the face on this figure, "Oh? You have fought my lesser kin before?"
"Yeah I have, and they were annoying as h.e.l.l. Let me guess, while regular Cecaelia can control water at will, you can control magma at will? And you seem pretty strong as well, so you have some minions as well, most likely."
"Hm... You are rather well-informed... But it matters not, as you seem to be here for my treasure... As I don"t enjoy the scent of burning flesh, I will give you a choice. Either you leave, or you die."