After the chaotic energy subsided, Locke saw that the dark creature—the Star-Ring Level fiend—was dead. Yet it had left behind no usable spiritual essence. The instant it died, darkness had swallowed everything and returned it to the dark.
Locke looked toward the mountain where he had blasted a great hole. A shadow within it was slowly fading: the last of the fiend's power, slipping back into darkness.
Deep in the darkness, other presences seemed to be watching. Faint laughter drifted from them, as though what they had just witnessed had given them a moment's pleasure.
"Could something else be lurking in the deepest reaches of the Dark Great World?"
Locke could not help wondering.
His instincts told him that some more terrifying secret lay hidden there. According to what he knew, the spectators in the Dark Great World should have been dark creatures—the legions of fiends.
But what if they weren't?
At least, there was a chance they weren't all dark creatures.
Darkness blurred the watchers' faces, making it impossible to tell what they were.
Perhaps something had slipped in among the spectators, unnoticed even by the lords of the Dark Great World.
Locke shook his head. What am I thinking?
It was all speculation.
Besides, the Dark Great World had nothing to do with his current research.
Locke turned to the puddle of unidentified gray fluid the Star-Ring Beholder had left in a corner of the mountain. His corn cannon had reduced the creature to a churned-up mass of gray liquid.
He took out a Bronze Cauldron and tapped it lightly. It expanded at once, its mouth widening as it began drawing in the liquid.
Beholders were valuable materials for potions and magical artifacts. This one was admittedly beyond recognition, but Locke was no Alchemist, so that hardly mattered.