As Ashton traversed inside the cave system, Is'kai's parting words echoed in his ears.
"Watch your back..." Ashton sighed. "The meaning is straightforward: someone will betray me, but who?"
As he thought about it, Ashton realised his father had told him something along the same lines by telling him not to trust anyone. Besides that, Astaroth's silence was awkward.
After all, he had a habit of talking shit and making fun of him in these situations. But ever since Ashton stepped inside the tomb or laboratory, whatever it was, the resident Xyran had been super quiet.
So much so that Ashton wondered if Astaroth was the one his father and Is'kai were trying to warn him about. After all, he was the closest to him in a sense. Hence, betrayal from him would be the most unexpected.
"Besides, we live in the same body; harming me would also kill him..." Ashton tried to shake the thought out of his head but couldn't. "Until it doesn't. He tried to take over my body once and could do it again."
Initially, Ashton had managed to throw Astaroth into a corner in his brain with his willpower. But since then, they had come to an agreement, and hence, there hadn't been any reason for Ashton to lock Astaroth out of his 'mind'.
Ashton was confident in his ability to push back Astaroth if the need arose. But he was sure the need would never come in the first place. At least, he hoped so.
But his fate wasn't the only thing he got to know from the meeting with Is'kai. Once Ashton was all suited up in his father's relic of a battlesuit, Is'kai dropped another bomb on him, stating that he wasn't the last surviving Precursor as she had imagined.
Although she did not tell him about the other precursors wandering the galaxy, she warned him not to reveal his identity to any of them.
Is'kai also told him that giving up on their lives to stop the war wasn't a unanimous decision made by the Precursor council. A relatively small group was deadset on destroying the Xyrans for their 'crimes'.
Seeing no other way, Jo'Han, Ashton's father and then-council leader, trapped those who weren't in favour of the decision in an 'Infinite' prison with the help of the guardians.
Is'kai explained the concept of 'Infinite' prison in detail, but the gist was that it was a parallel plane to reality, where time wasn't a construct. In other words, it was like a black hole where time didn't exist.
Since time was also something a select few Precursors had control over, Jo'Han decided to imprison the rebels in a timeless space as he was afraid someone might reverse the time and wreak havoc in the universe.
While Ashton wanted to know about the location of these 'prisons', Is'kai said they could be anywhere as the system Jo'Han had set up to execute those commands had been destroyed during the Xyran invasion.
"For someone who the Xyrans killed, she was being too protective over them," Ashton mumbled as she came across the spot where his masters Vimur and Laihud were stuck. "I can feel like she wanted to tell me more about the Xyrans, but for some reason, she couldn't."
That was why Ashton wanted to chat with Astaroth, but it felt like that fucker had gone into hibernation or something.
"Mah, whatever, I'll think about it later..." Ashton sighed as he crossed an area littered with cultist corpses. "First, gotta deal with the problem at hand and get that Medallion before the cultists- what are these? Claw marks?"
He knelt to get a better look at the marks, but the inbuilt AI of his suit was much more proficient in recognising the patterns than he was, and it identified the claw marks as belonging to creatures known as 'Tigorans.'
Before Ashton could even ask what these so-called Tigorans were, the stillness of the cave was interrupted. Penetrating the cave's darkness, the Tigorans appeared—six of them.
The majestic-looking creatures reminded Ashton of the tigers his mother used to talk about. However, as the Tigorans locked their feral gaze on Ashton, the feeling of nostalgia faded.
One creature, eager to display its ferocity, lunged at Ashton. The creature's attack was backed by its primal urge to kill the prey before itself.
As the creature got closer, Ashton recoiled his fist. His muscles bulged, and his armour quickly adjusted to strengthen Ashton's attack. As the Tigoran got closer, Ashton unleashed a punch that shook the cave in its entirety.
As for the Tigoran, its splattered blood and mangled bones were the only things left behind on the cave's wall.
"Never mind," he mused aloud, addressing the AI within his armour. "I found the kitties."
***
In the depths of the cave system, a group of hooded cultists gathered around a massive, ancient door carved into the rugged rock. The door was the final obstruction standing between them and the Medallion.
The only problem was, no matter what trick they tried, the door didn't even budge. At one time, they contemplated blowing open the door but quickly realised that doing so might lead to a roof collapse, trapping them inside the cave forever.
The Archbishop, distinguished by his ornate attire and a brooding aura, stood behind a group of engineers tasked with opening the door.
The engineers were hunched over in front of the door, trying various methods from arcane to scientific to open the doors, but were failing time and time again.
As the Archbishop was about to reprimand them again, something took his attention away from the engineers. The roof and the ground trembled beneath their feet, and the torches lining the cave walls flickered wildly as if an earthquake was approaching.
But it was soon apparent that the violent shaking wasn't the result of an earthquake but man-made chaos.
"Hurry, decipher the incantations! Something is amiss; the cave should not be shaking like this!" The Archbishop's eyes widened with alarm as he realised the possibility of Ashton's arrival. "The rest of you, go and check what's happening above!"
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