Hero's Bane

Chapter 57: Vanquish

The white-eyed man stared up at the Nertherbrick ceiling with frustration and even with a little apprehension, it took pure power from a strong entity to shake the foundations of his great fortress. Herobrine could shake the place himself if he wanted to; though it would take quite some power, but for absolutely nothing for that small orb to? There was a great force at work here and he knew what it was, it was that beast calling him and he needed to answer it for not keeping up with his debt. That had to be the reason for this disturbance, he hadn't collected enough souls recently and that miner had distracted him from doing so. He really didn't know what to expect up in that tower, prepared or not he had to go up there.

If by chance that the End lord had shown up in his castle, then things could go from bad to worse. Not only would his hide be at stake for failing to keep his payments, but if the beast caught a whiff of the human then things could get real ugly. Punishment he could handle, but loosing his new friend to a monster that hated humans as much as him? Not so much.

The stronghold continued to tremble violently and he had to stop the power from shaking the place apart for the miner's sake, for that reason and because it was the being's only shelter that he spent years building in the hot Nether realm. The Nether construction was structurally supportive and seemed very sturdy after it's creation, especially when the being often threw fits of rage and tore down pillars and walls with ease in frustration to release tension, but this tremor was strong enough to rock the entire fortress which made some individual bricks crack and slide out of place in some spots.

It was startling enough to find a long fine crack along the end of one of the arches above, but with these rough shakes it was going to bring the stronghold down if he didn't do something about it quick. The miner would be crushed alive at this rate so he made sure that the human wouldn't leave his spot under the safety of the strong solid arch. After getting a signal from Steve that he wasn't going to move; Herobrine then focused his attention purely on the ceiling above and appeared in a dark, long, and narrow room of the first tower.

From this lengthy corridor he approached the room connected to it with one huge barred Nertherbrick door blocking the entrance. Herobrine quickly sprinted over to the door after a strong unexpected tremor, he grabbed it by one of it's bars and ripped the whole thing right off of it's hinges in one swift yank and threw it behind him without care. Not even the loud echoing clang from smacking the ground could remove his attention from the small spherical item that caused so much trouble. The first thing his eyes landed on was a small orb that had a lustrous shine from the flickering flames of burning Netherrack that had been neatly placed near the pedestal that the object rested upon.

Herobrine slowed his stride as he got closer to the large dark green pearl that was perfectly situated in the center of the dark red room, it looked like one of the pearls that human souls were transformed into, this one however; was slightly bigger and darker. He scanned the object carefully for any changes but could not find any sign that indicated that it was active. In fact; it hadn't been active in a very long time. It only shined a few times and that was many years ago when he first received it.

The being let out a sigh of relief. At least the End lord was not in the Nether. -So this is a warning?- He surmised.

The strong quakes abruptly began again and the powerful shifts caused the being to stumble forward and grab onto the edge of the platform for balance, as he did this his hand accidentally bumped into the glassy object and a low lime glow filled the center of the rocking pearl.

As soon as he touched the sphere the strong quakes died down in magnitude, Herobrine could feel the floor beneath his feet now only rumble slightly. With the orb now glowing he wrapped his hand around it and held it before him, the deep lime color grew into a brighter hue and a small black sphere formed deep within it. The circular black core stretched up and warped into an oval then the oval ends narrowed into a sharp point, it expanded in size and the slit widened like an eye of a demon. He could feel power from the sphere pulse in his hand and it shook his arm, Herobrine absorbed the powerful pulses and waited for the sphere to settle in his palm. The energy boost he absorbed from it was really needed after his sleep was disrupted, so he wondered if the End lord minded if he helped himself to some of that power. The eye focused intently on Herobrine and quietly stared up at him, it pulsed more wildly as a deep guttural snarl soon filled his ears. The being deeply frowned as the low feral snarl turned into a loud growl, this deep-throated sound grew louder as the slit of the eye narrowed. Herobrine lightened his grasp and let the energy flow.