The tearing of his soul proved far more destructive than he had imagined.
The agony that came from the very core of his soul, and the sense of incompleteness after its division, could not be masked by any emotion.
The seven fragments did not remain well on their own as he had wished. Instead, their inability to become whole left them frenzied and ravenous.
Like seven magnets with a deadly attraction, they drew one another in. Eventually, guided by some unknown force, they defied his design and gathered once more in this tomb, where the ritual had begun.
The tomb's trials were not meant to keep grave robbers out.
They had never been intended for outsiders at all.
This was the code Ankh-Ka had left himself for his reassembly.
He had to find a whole soul that understood his entire life to serve as a guide, using that understanding as an adhesive, before the seven frenzied fragments could return to harmony and finally become one.
Slowly, as though burdened by endless exhaustion, the shadow turned and pointed toward the pile of black basalt fragments and gray-black bones in the corner.
"This is the eighth vessel, the Vessel of Reunification."
"And... my failed self."
The eighth vessel had been intended as a container in which he would reassemble his soul and gain new life.
It was the final resting place he had prepared for himself after completing all his arrangements.
But tragedy struck when those seven frenzied soul fragments, filled with conflicting emotions, were forcibly poured into the Vessel of Reunification.
The container could not withstand that torn, conflicting power of chaos.
Like a glass bottle filled with seven kinds of boiling acid, it shattered in an instant.
The main body of Ankh-Ka's soul was annihilated on the spot in that