{Chapter: 68: Dex In The Wailing Forest}
The Bottomless Abyss — The Wailing Forest.
Even in the darkest corners of the Abyss, few places held as much fear and myth as this region. The Wailing Forest had earned its name from the countless voices — screams, roars, howls, and unintelligible whispers — that echoed day and night through its jagged trees and twisting paths. The atmosphere was always heavy, thick with the stench of rot, blood, and some unnameable corruption. Warped beasts and nightmarish abominations slithered, crawled, or stalked through the brush, feeding on anything unlucky enough to cross their path — or sometimes just each other.
In the midst of that chaos, a solitary rocky mountain rose like a jagged tooth stabbed into the forest floor.
Once, it was unremarkable — its surface barren, littered with crumbling gravel, spiderweb cracks, and sharp outcroppings. The native creatures avoided it out of instinct, for the very stone carried an ancient resonance — a low hum that stirred unease. But now, the mountain has changed.
Where once there was lifeless rock, now bloomed an unnatural beauty. Bright red flowers — delicate, elegant, and shaped in perfect symmetry — had spread like a plague across the terrain. Each one shimmered faintly, surrounded by a blood-hued mist that hung low and clung to the stems, as if protecting them from the crude, wild air of the Abyss. The flowers formed concentric patterns, almost like ritualistic circles, and exuded a fragrance that no sane creature would dare breathe deeply.
They were beautiful. Terrifyingly beautiful.
And the strangest part of all — the mountain was silent.
In a realm filled with relentless noise and slaughter, the absence of sound was deafening. The various poisonous insects that are scattered throughout the Wailing Forest cannot be found here, no hissing predators, no groaning of ancient trees. Even the wind that sometimes cut through the forest refused to pass through here. It was a place of perfect, haunting stillness. No demons dared approach. No animals stirred. It was as if death itself had claimed the mountain and now lay sleeping atop it.
At the center of this eerie hilltop garden of blood flowers stood Dex — or rather, he lay reclined, arms folded behind his head, amidst the field of death-flowers.
His eyes were half-lidded, lips slightly parted, and his body barely moved. For nearly ten days, he had not spoken, not stirred, not eaten. He had simply existed there in perfect silence, letting the oppressive peace soak into him. A thin trail of smoke drifted from his mouth every now and then, revealing the fire within him never truly faded.
He opened his eyes, pupils glowing faintly red, and gazed upward at the swirling abyssal clouds overhead. The sky above the Wailing Forest was always in turmoil — ash-gray clouds spun and clashed, revealing glimpses of stranger skies, crimson suns, or black stars in far-off dimensions.
Dex blinked slowly.
"The time is almost up," he whispered to no one.
He could feel it — faint and delicate, like a flickering ember in a freezing wind — the [Gift of Soul]. A thread of a presence. Somewhere in the world above, a new piece had moved. Someone had begun to awaken. Not yet a threat, but a spark. And sparks could become wildfires.
After roughly estimating the time, he closed his eyes again and began to adjust his state.
He is still feeling a little confused now.
It had been days since he was forcibly ejected from the mortal plane — exiled back into the Abyss after destroying the Principality of Marton's capital in a spectacular display of wrath and ruin. He didn't regret it. He felt no remorse. But the noise — oh, the noise. So many screams. So many begging for mercy or weeping like fragile glass.
The first thing he had done upon his return was to find a quiet place. Solitude. Reflection.
If he really can't find a quiet place, find a place to get rid of the noisy things and make it quiet.
So he dealt with the indigenous creatures on this mountain.
No matter what their original attitude was or what they thought.
Now they have all become beautiful — the same blood-colored, ghostly blooms that now adorned the once-barren rock and can no longer make noise or make any noise.
Up to now, he had been lying in bed for about ten days, during which time he had thought about many things and had a general idea in his mind.
After a few more days, feeling the chaotic power fluctuations in the distance, Dex touched his hair, stood up from the ground and took a deep breath.
He stood now at the mountain's summit, his expression calm, almost meditative.
A ripple in the distance.
The faintest disturbance. The tremor of a power struggle.
The smell of blood, lots of fresh blood.
He raised one hand and ran his fingers through his dark, silver-streaked hair. Then, with a sigh that carried an ember of delight, he muttered:
"Just thinking is really meaningless..."
This is the conclusion he came to after thinking for more than ten days: 'When you are in a bad mood, just thinking is useless, it is more practical to fight and vent my anger! '
His wings — leathery and majestic, lined with glowing runes — unfurled behind him with a rush of wind that shattered the stillness. The flowers near him were ripped from the soil, petals torn away in a crimson whirlwind.
With a single beat of his wings, the ground below cracked, and Dex launched into the air like a comet.
He didn't fly so much as he tore through the sky.
A crimson trail followed in his wake, the sheer force of his acceleration igniting the very air. The temperature soared wherever he passed, superheating the atmosphere until it ignited in short-lived flames. To any observer, he was a living meteor, a demon-shaped inferno blazing across the firmament.
The speed was beyond supersonic. The atmosphere couldn't keep up, forming a shockwave of burning wind around his frame. His scales glowed like molten rock. His breath grew hotter.
But Dex was not harmed. This was his element. Fire.
He was born in it. Forged by it. He was it.
Demons and monsters below who caught sight of him only had seconds — sometimes less — before he crashed into them, obliterating their bodies into ash and splinters. None were spared. The sky itself seemed to bend around his wrath.
Many were violently hit and disintegrated in mid-air. Even their blood was evaporated by the high temperature, leaving only a little residue scattered in the sky.
To those in the Abyss watching from afar, they might've thought the powerful had returned.
And Dex? He smiled, the heat dancing in his eyes.
Not because he was angry.
But because, after days of stillness and silence, he finally felt alive again.
---
Not long after, a few minutes later.
Dex soared through the scorched skies of the Wailing Forest, his wings slicing through the burning air as he gazed upon the blood-soaked battlefield below. In every direction, the chaotic landscape churned with frenzied violence.
Monsters clashed with demons, demons devoured other demons, and the very earth itself seemed to tremble beneath the weight of their madness. From the sky to the blood-drenched ground, and even within the earth's cracked and corrupted veins, the forest was alive with the savage revelry of combat.
To the untrained eye, it may have seemed like mindless slaughter—but for those who truly understood the Abyss, this was ritual. This was nature. This was the celebration of chaos. The Wailing Forest honored its legacy with violence, day after day, age after age.
No ruler. No peace. No mercy. Only one law endured: kill or be killed.
Dex's smile grew darker with every heartbeat. His crimson eyes glowed like twin embers. As he surveyed the carnage, there was no hesitation in his thoughts, only hunger—an unquenchable thirst to be part of it all.
He had changed since the last time he'd been here.
Then, he had hidden his power, moved cautiously, kept his legs folded and his rage in check. He had veiled his strength under a layer of restraint, a necessity at the time.
Now?
*****
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