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Expedition Day 24 — Return to Greece
It has been two years since I opened the cage in London and let him walk by my side. Two years of journeys, battles, and cursed fragments unearthed from caves and ruins. Two years in which the monster called Aeon ceased to be a specimen and became my constant shadow.
Today we have arrived in Greece: the place where his corruption began, where the sect of Fygul Cestemus stripped him of his humanity. This soil still exhales the ashes of that crime.
Our mission remains clear. Soul Edge spreads its poison in fragments, each capable of spawning new devotions. The remnants of that cult still persist: weak cells, but clinging to fanaticism. Our purpose is to eradicate them, to root out every sprout of corruption, and along the way to find the only sword that could tip the balance: Soul Calibur.
Aeon has shown no resistance. He moves among the ruined temples with a slow, almost solemn gait, as if the stones speak to him in a forgotten language. His claws brush against the fallen walls as if trying to recognize them. I watch him in silence, and I cannot deny what my eyes record: I no longer see him as a monster, but as someone carrying a past he cannot speak aloud. Here, among ruins and shadows, Aeon’s silence weighs heavier than any word.
Expedition Day 25 — Abandoned Sanctuary
The trail led us to a forgotten sanctuary, half-collapsed upon itself, overgrown with weeds and ash. Its walls barely held, but beneath the surface we found what we were truly seeking: a hidden passage descending to an underground laboratory.
The air was thick, heavy with humidity and rust. The stone oozed dark droplets, as if corruption still dripped from its very foundations. As we moved forward, we came across rusted cages, scattered bones on the floor, abandoned dissection instruments. Nothing alive remained here, only the memory of suffering.
Aeon stopped upon seeing the cages. He did not growl, he did not stir: he simply stood still, his gaze fixed, as if petrified. His shoulders, always tense, seemed to sink under an invisible weight. For a moment I saw him as human, more human than ever, as he remembered what was done here.
This place once belonged to the successors of Fygul Cestemus. They are nothing more than a weakened echo of the original organization, yet still willing to sacrifice lives for a fragment of Soul Edge. Their power is no longer what it once was, but their fanaticism remains just as fierce. And while it persists, every fallen altar can rise again elsewhere.
Expedition Day 27 — Discovery of Ritual Records
The records of this sanctuary have proven more fruitful than I anticipated. Among the rubble, I found deteriorated chests, protected from moisture by layers of moldy cloth. Inside, a collection of scrolls and fragments of codices. The handwriting is uneven, as if copied in haste, perhaps during the final days of the sect.
I examined the first folios with familiar skepticism: transmutation formulas already known, minor variations of the experiments that shaped the reptilian warriors. No real innovation, just repetitions of the same degraded procedure. I expected as much.
Yet, amidst these repetitions, something different appeared. Isolated, disconnected references to a reverse procedure. The scribes called it the “ritual of return.” The passages are incomplete, riddled with omissions and obscure symbols, yet they are not meaningless. The text does not aim at creating new beasts, but at undoing what was done.
I will not record premature interpretations. I can only note that among these pages a possibility pulses. A crack in the condemnation. But every crack can turn into a fissure.
Expedition Day 28 — Worries and Decision
I have decided to remain silent. Not out of ignorance or disinterest, but out of calculation. The knowledge found in those scrolls can remain in my possession without the need to be shared.
Aeon has proven to be a valuable instrument. His strength far exceeds that of any man; his endurance keeps him standing when I would already be exhausted; his speed and ferocity make him a lethal ally in combat. If he were to become a man again, what would remain of all that? A soldier worn down by years? A clumsy, vulnerable body, incapable of enduring what he now faces with ease? Would he remember how to wield that form that has been foreign to him for so many years?
But there is another possibility that unsettles me even more, though I barely dare write it down. What if what emerged was not a useless soldier, but something worse for me? A companion too close?
Until now, his bestial nature has drawn an unbreachable line, a distance that shields me from what I cannot afford. As long as he remains what he is, I can maintain my role as guide, as commander, without fear that this boundary will blur. If one day I were to cross it… I am not sure who I would be on the other side.
That is why the silence. That is why the delay. Silence keeps me safe, at least for now.
Expedition Day 30 — Ambush
Today we were attacked. It was no surprise to find resistance: the seeds of the sect still germinate on this land. Three of their acolytes awaited us among the fallen columns of a minor temple, armed with poisoned daggers and the hollow fervor of those who give their lives to a fragment.
The first barely had time to raise his weapon before Aeon struck him down with a swipe of his claw. The second grazed my arm with a light thrust, but was immediately repelled: Aeon interposed himself, his body a wall between steel and my skin. The third tried to flee upon seeing the imbalance, but my whip caught him before he could escape. The fight was over in moments.
I could attribute it to his strength, to his predatory instincts, to the momentum of the creature that still dwells within him. But it was more than that. I saw in his reaction something beyond blind obedience: an absolute, immediate loyalty, without calculation. He did not protect only his commander, but me.
And this is where my fear arises. I do not fear his strength; I fear what it could mean if one day he looks at me not as his commander, but as his equal. That gaze has not yet come, but the possibility hangs over me like a shadow.
As I watch him now, sitting a short distance away, patiently cleaning the blood from his claws, I feel that my silence about what I have discovered is not only a strategic decision. It is, also, a wall. A wall that separates me from something I do not know if I could withstand.
Expedition Day 31 — Imaginations
Today there were no ambushes, no discoveries. Only silence. The ruined temple holds an ancient echo, and in that emptiness I have found something more unsettling than any sectary.
I caught myself imagining him. Aeon. Not in his present form, but in the one he lost. I tried to glimpse the face he might have had before the sect corrupted him. What would his hands have been like, without scales or claws? How would his voice sound, freed from the harsh roar that now confines him? What gaze might eyes not bestial, but human, have held?
I do not know at all. I have no reference. Yet still, I dared to picture him in my mind. And that act of imagination already leaves me vulnerable.
I chastise myself for it. These thoughts do not strengthen my mission; they hinder it. They give me no clarity, only weakness. Each time I let my mind trace a human outline over his monstrous silhouette, I risk forgetting what he is: a being marked by the same curse I must eradicate.
And yet, I continue doing it. As if, amid the chaos of this war against corruption, I sought a glimpse of humanity not in myself, but in him.
I should not write this. But here it remains, so that my memory cannot deny it later.
Expedition Day 33 — Consequences of the Secret
The silence is beginning to wear on me more than I anticipated. It is not the noise outside that overwhelms me, but the stillness between us, growing denser, more unbearable. I wonder if he senses the weight of what I keep silent. Does he suspect that among my notes and thoughts I guard something that could change everything?
Keeping the existence of the ritual a secret has become a form of control. If he knew that there is a crack in the condemnation, that there is a path—incomplete, dangerous, but real—toward his humanity, would he still follow me? Or would he see me as another jailer, different in appearance but identical in essence to those who first chained him?
This risk is not trivial. Until now, Aeon has given me more than his strength: he has given me obedience, immediate loyalty, even a mute form of trust. If he were ever to discover that I hid something so decisive… how would he regard my orders, my voice, my presence at his side? Would he still see me as his guide, or as the worst of traitors?
Silence preserves me in the present, but it puts me at risk in the future. I have built this bond on a fragile equilibrium, and I know it could break with a single blow. It would not be his violence that would trouble me, but his distrust.
Today I recognize that this is the true edge that hangs over me: not losing his usefulness, but losing the certainty that he still walks by my side because he chooses to.
Expedition Day 34 — Thoughts on Aeon’s and My Future
I could fill entire scrolls with hypotheses, listing possibilities as if they were chess pieces on a board, but in the end, all that remains is this open crack within me. The ritual exists. It is real. It is neither complete nor certain, but it exists. It could return to him what he once was: a man. And in the same gesture, it could condemn me to become something worse than his executioner: his traitor.
I do not know what resolution I will take. I do not know if I will have the courage to keep him ignorant, nor if I could bear the weight of revealing it. Keeping him like this is holding his loyalty at the cost of his freedom; telling him my findings risks losing the only thing that keeps him at my side.
If I am to be honest with myself, another truth seeps through this dilemma, one more unbearable than all the others. My fears are not directed at his monstrous form. I do not fear his claws or his curse. What unsettles me is losing him: losing his companionship if the ritual fails, or his loyalty if he were to discover my silence.
But even more, I am terrified of what could awaken in me if one day he became a man again, if I could no longer take refuge in the distance that now protects me. Perhaps I fear the woman I could become at his side more than the monster that already lives with me.