I don't even take the time to watch the portion of the artifact I sliced off dissolve; I just let the cluster of crystals fall into my item storage and swim forward with the extremely fast-flowing water under enormous pressure.
The jet of water floods inside the artifact, dispersing down into the hollow shell of the statue plunging into total darkness below the ocean floor.
It is hot and humid, but I airstep away from the water stream and hover in mid-air, deciding to take a breath while sending out a pulse of perception to get a reading on my surroundings.
The inside of this structure is filled with stale air.
I send a message through my telepathy link to Marcus through the small hole in the side of the artifact's wrist just as it completely heals itself.
"Understood, I've run into a small detour... this may take a moment."
The hole letting in massive amounts of ocean water seals itself, and the raining salt water all falls into the darkness below.
I can't see anything at all, but instead of sensing nothing as I did from the outside, now I can sense the energy particles in the air trapped within this massive structure and feel its exact shape.
I'm floating within the wrist, which leads upward to create the enormous hand that stretches up and out of the ocean, with the infrastructure of an enormous city built atop it.
By the time I reach the top of the enormous spiraling staircase, my mind is split between wondering what I'll find at the top and whether I'll be able to understand Originator text if I stay here long enough...
Just like when I entered this rising hallway, there is a single rectangular door to walk through when I exit it.
I find myself in another massive, wide-open dark room, hundreds of meters tall and wide, with even more Originator text printed all over the walls.
As my True Core's aura hits it, millions of letters shimmer yellow and white while I walk into the center of the room, gazing in awe at the main attraction here.
A floating yellow disk is visible in the center of the room, no larger than my palm.
It's a few centimeters thick at most, giving off a gravity well almost identical to my own.
The moment I blink, the disk shifts its form, shimmering white, then turning completely black and forming into a perfect cube.
No divine light comes off of it, and the gravity well present moments ago is no more. There is a faint amount of Qi still inside the black artifact.
I take another step forward, and it shifts again, growing in size and turning red, transforming into an elongated sphere.
As it turns, the coloring shifts to orange, then yellow, bending and stretching to become a long cylinder until its edges meet to create a spinning donut shape in the air.
Its gravity grows stronger as it becomes brighter yellow, and the hole in its center shrinks until it disappears and becomes a disk again.
It collapses into a small pyramid, completely black devoid of energy, then shifts to red, repeating a seemingly random yet similar cycle again and again.
I'm mesmerized by the phenomena and get extremely close to the floating object in the center of the room.
So close that the edges of my purple barrier begin to interact with the aura it creates when it's at its peak.
This, combined with my own perception reading millions of now-recognizable ancient Originator texts, causes a strange shift to occur in my mind.
For a moment, at the peak of the artifact's cycle when it reaches the strength of a True Core, I feel as if its emotions are rippling through my barrier, and a moment of clarity washes over me.
My eyes widen as I step closer again, and as the cycle repeats, the clarity hits me even harder this time.
"It... makes sense..." I whisper to myself as the words in my mind start to shift and come together in fractured, barely readable states.
Every time the cycle resets, the understanding I grasp fades from me as well, but I'm able to mutter out words each time it happens and look back on my memories.
"Not enough light on this world for all to ascend..."
"I will die here, but one day, I believe another wave will come."
I take steps closer to the oscillating artifact, and each time, I feel the tug on my core grow stronger.
"Left behind treasures for future generations..."
"The race will begin again, whether it is for light, or for ruling of the physical world."
"If you have found my tomb, please hear my words. I wish to follow you through the doors."
At these last words, I can't tell if I'm reading them off the walls anymore or hearing the words of the artifact itself.
I'm so close to it now that if I were to put out a hand, I could touch it.
It doesn't feel alive at all, but the afterimage, like an echo of desire, still emanates from it.
The moment I stop repeating its words and allow my aura to retract to ponder them more carefully, the artifact changes its movement patterns again.
Almost as if it is tired or scared I'll leave, the object stops mid-cycle while it's bright orange, shifts back into a black cube, but continues to slowly rotate a few meters off the floor.
No more divine energy radiates through the room, and it becomes eerily silent.
I stare at the palm-sized black cube. Curiosity is flowing through every cell of my body and becoming stronger with every rotation.
Almost a full minute passes, and nothing changes. No more divine light permeates from the artifact, and my knowledge of the runes and text all around me is cut off. However, the artifacts message is clear, and I know what I have to do if I want to learn more.