It was hot, burning hot, he felt the heat of the countless flames that had devoured ehetria, dancing along the dirt, along the rubble form the collapsed ceiling of Cades's home that he was hiding in between, right next to a wall, sitting on it, hearing his own father, Cades's own father being ripped apart by a seven-armed black abomination with irregular muscles, and still not moving, knowing that the current Cades was probably still falling from the skies after the first, blinding explosions.
The house that he had once believed to have been completely destroyed had only been destroyed half-way, the fundamental layers remained, the kitchen and even parts of Cades own room had survived, miraculously having fallen through the weakened beams, extinguishing the fire underneath, though they were still being devoured by the dancing devils after they had survived that weird fall, as if made to be cinematic, still never to be seen by a living soul again, not even the father who was screaming after he had his head finally separated from his spine, it landing on the ground right after, dark blood coming from the opening and the grimace of pure anger and hatred, of despair and the realization he had achieved nothing, the body also just falling down, some smaller monsters, barely having been worth the time of the father that had held some power before it all happened, now eating his face, drinking their fill of his flowing blood, licking his bones, but disregarding the mother, perhaps because she had been burnt too much.
One interesting thing Cades had not noticed back then, but Avere, with a heavy but still apathetic heart, did now, was that the woman, that Lora, that the mother of Cades had still been alive after she had first ran through the collapsing home, tripping and ending up curled on the ground, the dancing devil along her entire body.
Lora had felt every second of the pain, and still, despite now having come to know this, the same as the previous two occurrences, but without real reason, staring at a monster that was now intent on devouring him, small and looking like a black wolf without skin but sharp teeth with a glowing red stone as the sole eye, he did not care nearly enough.
His face came face to face with one of the beings that had just eaten Cades father, and as such, reacting almost instinctively, though he was not sure where that instinct had come from, he pointed a certain blade at the black-skinned hound, and told the weapon to change form.
A instant later the wolf was impaled atop a long blade, two-sided, non-existent handguard, more like a lance than anything else, reflecting the dancing movements of the flames, and quickly returning to the original form, Avere not even batting an eye, but cracking a small sly smile at the pain the hound was now feeling, something that, at least, had not happened with Cades parents.
It struggled on the ground, the left foreleg and the right hindleg having been hit the hardest, the heart having been smashed from what Avere was able to tell, but still trying desperately to both kill Avere and survive, not that he minded that, opting to, still sitting there, but now feeling that Cades, the one that had just killed that three-armed monster, one that he in hindsight found to be very pathetic and forgettable, being easily killed using fire.
He quickly grabbed the small wolf, held it in his hands, and cut off the head of the creature, letting go of the body and seeing it run away as he felt the anger rising within the big part of him that was Cades, but also, to a great part, the satisfaction of what he had just witnessed Avere do, beheading a creature, but still not letting it die of the pain.
To be honest, this weapon could be used in two main ways that he could tell, the first one being operation and medicinal purposes, such as an amputation, such as escaping something special, or a lot more, or even just to not kill somebody during a duel.
But the second one was a lot more of something he might have to use very soon, though Avere had no way of knowing that, it being torture, killing somebody without killing them, permanently taking their head, such as the wolf's that was now, still bloody and partially destroyed by his previous attack, leaking blood but also biting for his body, although not able to reach it.
At that very moment, having spent much longer in that place atop his destroyed home than Cades had remembered after it was all over, though in some way it had never truly ended, the flying ehetrian, now completely broken, barely hanging on, and soon to break down even further, the genesis of both Avere and Leyk, of Rondel and Arges, of the Sekaria, and perhaps even some more beings, escaped, believing it all to be over, believing himself to be unable to do anything, and with that, Avere moved out.
There was no way he would be able to stay for long after it was over, but he should still be able to kill a few dozen, if not more, of the monsters surrounding this place now, and with a grin, he took out the blade he would one day use for the same thing he was using it for right now, for torture.
He used the warp step, almost instinctively, something else taking control of his body, perhaps the Sekaria that had seen many of the battles of Leyk, though Avere had no way to know of that, and neither did he know of Leyk's current, past, or future fate.
Stabbing a six-armed monster that looked like a hairless monkey with too many bones in weird places, barely covered by thin skin that seemed as if it was about to rip itself part with the slightest shift of the skeleton, he wiped some of the blood on the immobilized being whose spine he had just cut in half, teleporting right to the next being, a wolf, and another, the main beings that were now struggling to escape before all of the little ones had died, the last one being the luckiest by far after Avere had simply stepped on his head, turning to the seven-armed creature.
It looked like a man, with hair, with bones, with skin, just jet-black and oddly muscular, but the muscles being in all the wrong places, one arm being atop the head that seemed to be encased in another muscle, four by the side ordered irregularly, and two on the legs that were using them to stabilize each other.
Within an instant he had beheaded the creature, not really caring that this was but a dream of a past memory of another soul within him, but being glad to at least get some form of revenge already, feeling himself fade away now, being called to the last place, if there was something else.
Finally, it was time to meet the great pillar of experiences.