"You have to hold that position for the next twenty four hours. Should you fail, you'll have to do it for the next subsequent twenty four hours." The sight of Vhorren's figure holding onto a single piece of wood could be seen. His face sweating buckets as his hand shook faintly, his teeth grit.
"Yes father." He managed to grunt, his breathing reduced to a calming draw of air. With the death of Lirale, he felt obliged to grow stronger and avenge her. His father didn't bother as he turned around and left. His figure was left alone, the weariness getting to him after a couple of hours.
...
'I have to get stronger! For her!' He vowed in his heart as he felt his vision slowly darkening. He had been holding the posture for seven hours since the break of dawn and now his entire figure was drenched in sweat. His hand once calm was now vigorously shaking, his calm breathes had now broken into frantic breathes of air.
As much as he wanted to quit, he knew that it would be for the greater good thus he preserved.
*Four more hours*
The sun once over his head had now started to make it's descend and he had managed to hold his position though barely. 'I... just need to hold this for a few more hours...' His father didn't hold back during his training with him and he knew that for the best outcome that the easiest path would be the least effective.
*Two more hours*
By now darkness had started to crawl in, every inch of his body aching to be relieved from the purgatory he had began since morning. His sweat had already dried up and now the coldness of the night began to deep into his body. Still his steely determination allowed him to press on.
'Something's wrong...' He couldn't help but wonder. 'The compound has been too silent. But this could be one of father's tricks.' He added making him stay in his position.
*Five more hours*
The chirping of crickets in the grass had long died, coldness permeated his figure as his teeth jittered from the cold. His vision was on the verge of blacking out, his arm barely holding his figure as the scene was engulfed in a strange silence. It wasn't that spoke of concentration but that of something amiss.
'I... have to...check whether father's...okay.' An ominous aura had been lurking in his chest for quite some time but he brushed it off at the time as one of his father's tricks to get him off the pole but now it was clear that something was completely wrong. 'I'll wait for two more hours before I choose to investigate.'
*Two hours later*
By now it was way late into the night, the moon was tee only thing that gave him light, the candles had all been snuffed out by the wind and his urgency to check as to what was wrong only grew with each passing second till he couldn't take it anymore.
"Hup!" He hopped off the block of wood and subconsciously wrung his wrists to rid the acid. 'Damn it! Father won't be pleased with my performance.' He sighed in his head as he made his way into the house.
*Creak*
With the chilling silence of the night, it was hard for him to hear anything. 'Servants are usually asleep by this time.' He comforted himself as he kept on walking deeper into the house. "Pah! What is that appalling smell?!" Covering his nose, he crept closer to the source which left him speechless.
A servant had their head severed off, their face showing their shock and terror. A few more steps and the scene was the same. "Why didn't I hear anything if there was a skirmish?!" He wondered the deeper her went before coming to the main courtyard where he was met with a corpse hill of everyone in the manor.
"Who could have done this?!" His spine tingled realizing that Jarren o Callista could be in the area. He immediately charged to his father's office hoping that he hadn't experienced such a dreadful fate.
...
"What took you so long Vhorren? I'm so sorry that you took so long and I got hungry and well your dying man said that it would be fine if I made a stew out of him. I'm sorry if the serving is cold though." A man, his smile serpentine making Vhorren lose his breathe.
Jarren Velros, the man the world wanted dead for his crimes and here he was casually seated taking a sip of a stew. "Wait!? What?!" Looking to the floor where a pot was bubbling, he saw the lower torso of his father in a pot stewing away with a plate laid out for him. His fists clenched, his teeth gnashed in rage and yet he didn't bother making a move on him.
"Ah!" He exclaimed in satisfaction as he pushed the bowl to the side. "You know..." He began as he rose to his feet. "...there are those around me asking if I'm nothing more than a monster playing games. And to that I think they're right in every regard so I might as well show what the monster can do, right?"
He gave a chilling laughter that froze Vhorren in place. "What?! Aren't you going to have a sip of your man's soup?" He summoned a head from his realm and upon closer look Vhorren nearly vomited with what he saw. The head of his father carved out, the brain matter bobbing up and down like meat in a broth, his eyes and other organs still present as Jarren took a drink of it.
His manner that of high end wine, swirling the head around as he admired the contents before callously spilling them to the floor in an act of ridicule. "It was hard to get past his skin-" Vhorren had grown tired, his voice cutting his. "That's enough! Do you think that I'm just going to keep om watching you do all of these wrongs and fail to retaliate."
His answer was a slurp of his father's blood making Vhorren lose his composure. "At this point I don't care whether I live or not, I'm taking you down with me!!" With a loud yell, he charged at Jarren who kept on slurping the blood of his father's skull.
*Bam*
Vhorren's fist collided not with Jarren but his shadow summon. "I'm sorry but you'll have to wait till I'm done with this. Oh~ The flavors. Mmmhhh!" His theatrics of savoring the contents blinding Vhorren as he made advancements on the shadow.
*Bam-Bam-Bam*
Vhorren and his shadow exchanged blows, neither side yielding to the other while Jarren indulged away. "I didn't think that your father would be so delectable. It almost makes me wish that I should have done the same to Lirale." A taunt that Vhorren couldn't withstand.
*Boom*
His eyes flared gold, his muscles visibly bulging as he let out a primal cry of rage. The shadow merely watched with no reaction as the two parties kept going. Jarren watched with his hands busy with the skull before he was done.
*Crack*
He stepped on the skull of Vhorren's father smashing it to innumerable bits before looking back at Vhorren, his taunting smile asking. 'Did I do that?' Jarren had his hands in his pockets, his demeanor carefree as the manor he was in was getting ripped to pieces. Chunks sent away with the two parties fighting while he fished in his teeth for any stuck meat.
*Bam*
Vhorren's figure was sent flying to the side however Jarren wasn't thrilled at the slightest. "It would seem that you'll have to understand the loss of your father, delicious as he was definitely didn't go in vain." With this he let out a burp making him use his knees for support.
*Bam*
Vhorren's being flashed past his shadow and appeared right in front of Jarren. His face seething with unquenchable rage that yearned to see Jarren do more than just suffer. His eyes glowing golden as his fists gave an ominous golden hue. "Fuck you Jarren!" Vhorren cursed as he drilled hand into Jarren's heart.
*Bam*
He didn't stop there as he drove his other hand into his orbits digging his eyes out and with a zealous rage tore his face off his skull exposing his interior nose and mouth.
*Rip*
With his heart gone and his face ripped out, Jarren's smile wavering didn't come into Vhorren's sight. Instead he was shocked as he inched closer driving Vhorren's hand deeper into his heart. "Do you think that you can just kill me so easily?" His tone dripping with mockery as he broke into a maniacal laughter filling the night sky.
"Don't think you're above death Jarren. Even monsters have graves." Vhorren's tone still induced with rage spoke before ripping Jarren's heart out of his chest.
*Thud*
His collapse made his shadow wither away like a mirage in a desert. Vhorren glanced at his hands coated in Jarren's blood and yet the thirst of revenge didn't waver at the slightest. Raising his foot, he stomped on his head turning it into a pool of brain matter and blood.
His gaze drifted back to his father, his smashed skull and lower torso felt like a joke far too harsh to digest. "Father..." He murmured, collapsing to his knees as he held the remains of his skull. His eyes landed on the torso before pulling it would of the once boiling water.
The revolting stench of cold human flesh and stilled water hit his nose making him gag but he preserved through it and pulled it out. From his stomach all the way down he had remained intact while the upper half way laid out for him on the table.
His lungs on one end of the table, his arms skewed on the other while at the middle his ribcage had been smoked into a beefy brown piece. The more he thought about the pain his father went through, his blood boiled as he wished to kill Jarren far slower and way more painful.
"You do know that shadow specializes in illusions, right? Or did you forget?" A tone filled his ears, one he had thought he would never get to hear in his lifetime. Looking over his shoulder, he was shocked to see Jarren perfectly fine with his hands pocketed leaning over the edge of the table.
*Bam*
His fist met the air, the illusion withering into nothingness. "But how?! I felt your warm blood and heart pulse in my hands?!" His mind perplexed as to how he managed to pull it off. "Don't think about it too much is what I'd tell you." The tone playful as another figure came into his view.
*BAM*
Jarren instantly closed the distance between the two. "What the-" With a swift motion of his hands, he grabbed both his right and left arm and bent them in the opposite direction. His ulna and radius poking out in unnatural means but the man behind it had a devilish smile on his face as if it was normal.
However he didn't stop there...
*Crack*
He cracked Vhorren's elbows once more twisting them to the side and with a forceful grunt drove the two protruding bones into Vhorren's ribs. "Arghhh!!!!!" He cried out on pain as he felt his lungs pierced and his rib cage shattered.
*BAM*
With another force, Jarren drove the two bones deep into his spine eliciting a deep guttural groan of pain from Vhorren. "Did you think that it would be that easy to kill me?" His tone cynical as he let out a wolfish chuckle letting Vhorren's suspended figure unceremoniously crash to the ground.
"Arrghggghhhhh!!!!!!!!" The scene was unsightly. Vhorren with both his hands protruding into his ribs, a pool of blood coalescing around him as he felt his spine breached and prodded. He broke into a fervent gasps of air and cries while Jarren towered over him before crouching, his eyes roaming over his figure.
"Now you can't die, at the very least not yet. We still have a game to play." His words flat as his obsidian beads for eyes bore into his hazel nut caramel eyes. "And tell that Toren the person he's looking for is far closer than he thinks he is." And with that he rose to his feet and began his walk away. Behind him a tower of corpses and a broth of Vhorren's father. Truly the work of a monster.