I continued to sink into the water I had filled my lair with as more apathetic words were whispered into my mind. The voice behind the words spoke almost annoyingly slowly as it continued to greet me.

"It is a pleasure to finally greet you. We... I, am pleased that you have finally become something I can... converse with." The voice said, its words clearly chosen with great care and conscious thought. There was a long pause between its words and my realization that for the time being it was done talking.

"Hello, Heart of Darkness... I am also delighted to converse with you. I have been aware that you are alive for some time now, even before I took my first steps into you." I said, returning the greeting to the odd, conscious dimension. The pause after my words and before its next utterances into my mind was shorter than when I was the one tasked with gauging whether or not it was done speaking.

"Oh, I am quite aware that you've known the truth about me. I can read the hearts and minds of all who step into me. Or at least all demons. I learned quite a bit about you when you became a demon lord. Not everything, as gods are resistant to some of my stranger powers, but I learned enough." The Heart remarked, cryptically. I could hear the smile in its voice, which made me smile warily.

"I was quite intrigued to learn about your life, and your popularity among mortals. It's rare for a god to be so young and to have the multitude of followers you do, especially ones who aren't undead, or otherwise enslaved to your will." The thing told me.

"That said as a sort of triune being, an elemental overlord, god, and demon-lord in one, it makes sense that your achievements dwarf those of your ancestors." The voice continued, speaking as though it knew everything. It certainly knew more than I would have preferred. However, after making its remarks about my ancestors it stopped talking altogether, giving me a chance to respond.

"Your knowledge is surely as vast as you are, Heart of Darkness. This dimension's, your, age must be in the billions of years correct? In that time I cannot even begin to imagine the uncountable number of secrets you must have and hold in your depths." I began, speaking respectfully to an "entity" for a lack of a better word whose age must have equaled the most ancient gods.

At the moment I was having an audience with perhaps the most spectacularly powerful and vast being I had ever met, the only being aside from the system itself that was beyond my power in such a way that I couldn't even begin to imagine how to challenge it. That said, this was an opportunity for me to gain valuable knowledge and to learn from the dimension. I was not in a verbal battle, I was actually beginning a relationship that if I handled this correctly would provide me with an opportunity to gain more unique and incredible powers than I currently had.

"I have a bit of experience with your powers, or rather Agustino did. His knowledge, skills, memories, thoughts, and secrets all lurk within me. Even now I am unraveling them, and the first bit of knowledge of his that I acquired was his knowledge of dimensional magic. Knowledge he was given by you." I told the dimension, speaking reverentially by the end of my declaration.

Dimensional magic, one of the three lost, supreme schools of magic. Agustino's greatest claim to fame was his self-described ability to draw entire mortal worlds into the Heart of Darkness, via an act of incredible, reality reshaping arcane prowess. His boast wasn't a lie, in strict theory.

The spell that Agustino knew was a potent one. With it, if the caster were to successfully attempt to cast the spell, which would take several days of nonstop concentration, they would successfully move an area from one dimension to another. It did have the astounding effects Agustino boasted about having, even if he would never have been able to successfully use it alone.

"Dimensional magic, yes now that was a fun little present to bestow upon the demon. It emboldened him so much that within years of getting it he had well and truly lost his mind." The Heart of Darkness revealed, before beginning to giggle as if it had performed some mischievous prank and not given a demon who wasn't even a demon-lord the power to affect entire planets at once in a way that was undeniably irreversible.

"All I had to do was whisper the tiniest aspects of dimensional magic to him in a voice that sounded like his own and give him time. It's easy to think that he was quite weak, but the truth was that for all of his insanity Agustino was actually quite smart and at times quite powerful. His skill over dimensional magic was at the level where he could repel enemy invasions of the layer you fought him on. Well... Not all enemy invasions, clearly." The Heart revealed, sounding almost proud of the demon.

"All I did was tell him the secrets behind a spell that could take a planet and transform it into a layer. Everything else he did on his own. Even his aquistion of the artifact left by Benico was all his doing. That said, now that you're here I certainly won't be as bored as I was before Agustino began to rise to power hundreds of millennia ago." The Heart declared, revealing to me the very unsurprising fact that it was bored. Boredom was apparently a very interesting motivator, in a way that was almost ironic.

"So you see me as a boredom breaker? That's an interesting view of a being as powerful as a god." I remarked, amused by the supreme confidence in the mental voice of the Heart. The voice struck me as desperate for some sort of stimulation, some sort of fun, and frankly I couldn't really say that I blamed it.

"Why yes, I do. And to be clear, I'm not going to try and hide my schemes from you or anything like that. I'm bored, not suicidal. Our goals are aligned Althos. I seek alleviation from boredom, and you seek control and power over everything. A multiverse ruled by you would be an interesting place. And to rule over the multiverse you need, among other things, the power given to you by the multiversal abyss." The voice whispered, speaking directly into my mind and using a strange expression that sent chills down my spine. The 'multiversal abyss'. 

While listening to the Heart I began to slowly explore the bottom of my sanctum. I was still in my "human" form, but that just meant that I had more maneuverability than I would have otherwise had. The water that surrounded me where I was currently was saltwater. I momentarily considered making new demons, aquatic ones, which was one of the many powers I had been given as a demon lord of water, but I decided against it. All the while the Heart of Darkness kept speaking to me.

"Though every dimension has different traits one of mine is that I cannot truly communicate with anyone but demon lords. I can do minor things, here and there, such as implant knowledge or transmit feelings, but for communication to be two way I need to speak to and sometimes through a demon lord." The dimension confessed, explaining at least some of its boredom. 

"I can see how that would be troublesome after the end of the mythic era." I replied, knowing that whatever happened that ended the mythic age brought with it the demise of every single higher being, a nebulous categorization of creatures such as gods, elemental overlords, demon lords, and other sorts of creatures such as archfey and archon queens. 

"I'm not opposed to entertaining you, provided you don't turn against me. I can only imagine that you've been alone for a very long time, from what I've gathered something like half a million years. I'm not so cruel that I would turn my back towards a living being that has been alone for half a million years and just wants to feel less alone." I remarked, somewhat honestly.

I was being honest in saying that I didn't mind entertaining the Heart of Darkness. I did have some reservations, as I knew that one shouldn't trust a creature that was chaotic evil, and there I assumed one shouldn't trust a chaotic evil dimension, but it was still quite interesting to be able to converse with an entire dimension. I wanted to befriend the Heart and learn its secrets, which were surely many.

"If you entertain me I have no problem rewarding you. I know you desire secrets and knowledge. I'll even reveal one valuable secret to you right now to show you my good faith." The voice whispered, intriguing me immensely. I continued to swim through the depths of my sanctum, and also began to extend my senses so that I could see how my servants were reacting to my sanctum. 

"Here's a secret that'll intrigue you. Your mortal enemy, the ancient nascent overgod named Morehammer found the secret to his multiversal empire in my depths. The secret that allowed him to safely travel from universe to universe despite his inability to become an overgod lurks deep within me." The Heart revealed, ominously. That information caused me to stop moving and spend a second processing what I had just been told. Among other things the words "nascent overgod" were worth thinking about.

I silently messaged the knowledge domain and I asked it for an explanation. When the domain receicved my message I felt it freeze in place and consider my words. The answer that it gave me was immensely annoying. 

"There is no reason to trust the source of this information, but if it's true then it means that Morehammer in life was a deity who had climbed as high as he could have given the existence of older gods like the infamous Dark Saint. Nascent overgods are gods who reach the zenith of power available to greater gods and who stand on the summit of greatness. If Morehammer was indeed a nascent overgod then it means that all he was waiting for was the death of an existing overgod." The domain revealed, reverence and fear audible in its voice. 

Terribly, that information checked out. Morehammer was and is lawful in alignment. Despite that there was at least one lawful overgod, the Dark Saint, which meant that the position of the lawful evil overgod was taken already. In life Morehammer was almost certainly lawful neutral, which meant that there was probably a lawful neutral overgod during the mythic age who stood between Morehammer and power equal to his achievements and religion. 

Shortly after learning the terrible answer to my question about nascent overgods I asked the knowledge domain another question. This time it was about the multiversal abyss. And the answer I received this time was far more intriguing, and not altogether negative. 

"The multiversal abyss refers to the rift of dimensional energy that connects the Heart of Darkness in our universe to the Hearts of Darkness' in other universes. If tapped by the right gods, demon lords, or other higher beings it could be used to safely travel from one universe to another, even if the travelers involved are not overgods. Morehammer must have figured out how to tap into it." The knowledge domain informed me, revealing the first of undoubtedly many secrets possessed by Morehammer during his life. 

This news was utterly incredible and even just having this knowledge allowed me to devote my thoughts to other universes for the first time. I had long known of other universes, after all I had heard of Earth and of Athena, a goddess native to Earth, but until now I had never truly devoted much thought to the existence of realities beyond the one I was currently in. If I figured out how to tap into the multiversal abyss then I could actually travel to and from other universes. While I was momentarily lost in thought the Heart of Darkness interrupted my thoughts once more. 

"That secret appears to have stunned you into speechlessness. You are still a quaint god. I think you should be bolder. In time you're going to begin to gain secrets of your own. If you want to experience true power, in my humble opinion, you should track down and kill vestiges. The rewards you'll gain for killing vestiges are truly extraordinary, even by my high standards." The heart told me, echoing the strange sentiments of the domain of death. 

As I mulled over its words I recalled the quest to become an archdevil, to track down and kill the vestige of the Technos. In the back of my mind I knew that now was the time to prepare for that quest. To begin to inch towards confronting the divine echoes of another god.