Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 52: Torment

Chapter 52: Torment

"Primos the First Demon Lord?" Noroeth said in disbelief. "That was thousands of years ago. How come his name is mentioned in this parchment?"

"I don't know but I have a bad feeling about this. This paper has existed for a very long time yet the power emanating from it is still so strong. It looks like some kind of...pact? If this paper is here, then does it mean that there was some kind of pacts between Primos and the Artificier?

Anyway let's look around for more hidden chambers! This manor is not as simple as I think it is. There must be something else here." Lilith said.

The two decided to separate themselves with Lilith going to the second level, where the workshop of the old Artificer lied. Instead of just going through books like before, she decided to search every corner for hidden buttons and contraption. Being the one who has created so many weird machines, she should have expected him to have one or two secrets chambers in his house. And there it was. Under the table of his working place, a red button was sticking upside down on the edge. It would have been so easy to miss it as there were no window in this room so let the light in.

Upon pushing on it, the shelves on the side moved slightly to the right and revealed a hidden compartment. Inside Lilith found another stack of books but unlike the others which the subject was about machinery and golems, these were about magic and not just any magic: Oath magic. These ancient texts dated since the time the Six Gods and Eden were still in this world. So it was entirely possible that the author of these books wrote it after an audience with a God who could have very well taught them about it.

"Lilith!!! You have to come down here quick!" the voice of the old skeleton called the Goddess to abandon these books where she found them. She would not understand them right now anyway. Perhaps after this she would bring them back to the castle for translation and studies.

"What did you find?" asked Lilith.

"That scroll we found.....there wasn't just one of them. Come with me!"

Noroeth guided the girl through another hidden stair like the one he found earlier. However, the room it was leading too was much, much bigger than the other one.

"Oh my god!"

Inside this huge underground room were hundreds of long sets of cabinets containing what seemed to be hundreds thousands of scrolls like the one they found in the chamber with the creepy dolls. Along the shelves were names of the ones who signed it. Just taking a quick glance and Lilith recognized a few. They were all names of the past demon lords: Nyx, Belphegor, Beatrix, Sullivan and many more.

"Oath magic...so this is what all this is about. Primos was just the first one...He actually made an Oath with every single demon lord he could find and when the last one died, he would renew the Oath with the next generation. But for what purpose would you need all the demon lords?" Lilith contemplated. She was confused by the Artificer's actions. A man surrounded with mysteries, he once tried to destroy the world but then gave up after a certain event. Then he allied himself with the demons and has been helping them ever since. But there were many plot holes and enigmas in these stories.

The first one was if the demons had access to the weaponry from the Artificer, conquering the world even with their numbers would not be such a difficult task. So then why has never a demon lord made a conquest outside of Ragna but instead only stayed in their continent? Surely there must be at least a few who hated the world so much they wanted to destroy everything. So why didn't they do it?

The second point was about these pacts the Artificer has made with the demon lords. Oath magic could defy the logic of the universe, bending the laws of nature. That kind of power was not only difficult to obtain but also extremely dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. Yet there clearly wasn't just one pact here but hundreds of thousands of them. All these efforts...for what?