Grog dragged his shattered legs, step by step, away from the inferno that was once a house. Every movement sent electric shocks of pain through his nerves, yet he welcomed it. The pain was real. The pain was honest.
Perhaps, if he called out, Danica would come. Perhaps the daughter would drip her black blood again, stitching his torn flesh, and forcing him to stand as a guard dog once more.
Grog:
"No..."
His voice was hoarse, mixed with charcoal dust.
Grog:
"I do not want that..."
His devotion to Danica had ended tonight. He had carried out the heaviest, most brutal, and most sickening execution he could conceive. He had given everything, and now, he just wanted to stop. He wanted to rest... forever.
Grog stepped fully out of the fire's shadow. The pale, sickly moonlight illuminated his ruined face, while the fire behind him licked at his broad back, creating a giant, pathetic silhouette.
However, what greeted him was not the peace of the night, but a silent mass grave.
Grog:
"What... what is this?"
His remaining eye widened in horror. Before him lay a nightmarish scene. The corpses of cult members were scattered on the muddy ground, in ditches, and behind wagons. They hadn't died from bullets or slashes. They had died in a way far more terrible. Their eyes had burst, their ears oozed black blood, and their bodies were twisted in painful spasms. They died like insects getting too close to a spiritual pesticide.
"Agh!! Where are you all?! Come here! It's all over!! The sacrificial execution is finished!!"
His shout echoed through the empty village streets, answered only by the wind and the crackling fire. No answer. Silence. An absolute, oppressive silence. Not only those around the house had died like flies. But it was as if the village itself had gone nearly extinct in a single night. The scent of death was so thick it masked the smell of smoke. There was almost no one left, whether they died exploding inside their own homes due to the pressure of that aura, or died in the streets trying to crawl closer.
Grog:
"Danica! I need you!!"
His cry was desperate, a reflexive call from a servant who had lost his master. Where was Danica? Where was that woman when he, and her people, needed her? If Danica were here, maybe... maybe her black blood could resurrect them. Maybe she could save the remnants of this village.
But he knew it was a lie. Nothing could be saved anymore.
Grog's knees went weak. He fell to his knees in the mud, right in front of the corpses. His broken steel hammer fell from his hand. If he had fought to the death to prevent the deaths of the villagers in the future... if he killed to protect the future... then why did he end up wiping them out now?
"This is a disaster..." he whispered. The death and destruction brought by Oldred and their insane battle were indeed devastating, but the current death toll—caused by the Sin Aura radiating from that monster—far exceeded his worst nightmares. He had failed. Totally.
Grog looked down, staring at his own hands, then touched his face. Blood was still seeping from his own pores, from his eye sockets, nose, and mouth. He was affected too. He was dying, eaten from the inside by that terror's presence.
Krrkk... srrrt...
The sound of dragging footsteps broke the silence.
Grog looked up slowly. From inside the house that was now a skeleton of fire, a shadow emerged. Oldred. The man walked weakly, staggering like a corpse refusing its grave. His clothes were burnt away, his skin charred and smoking, his mask dented inward.
Oldred stepped out, and instantly his legs gave way.
THUD.
He collapsed to the ground. Kneeling, trying to crawl forward with his steel hand clawing the earth, but a violent, uncontrollable cough shook his body. Black smoke poured from the vents of his respirator. He rolled over, and finally lay still on the muddy ground, staring at the night sky with his single empty eye.
Grog stared at his enemy. He saw a reflection of himself. Broken, bloody, and alone under the moon.
Grog:
"Haha....HAHAHAHA!!!"
The laugh exploded from his chest, painful and mad.
Grog:
"How is it possible... Hah... how is it possible?! You're still alive like a cockroach?! What kind of creature are you?!"
Oldred didn't answer. He just lay there, his chest heaving roughly. He didn't care about the insult. Why answer a strange question from a burning deer monster? He himself was strange. This world was strange. None of it made sense.
After Grog's laughter subsided into a wet, painful cough, silence returned. Grog stared at the cracked moon behind the distorted sky.
Grog:
"Ahh... come to think of it. This place... was almost prosperous like it used to be."
His voice softened, drifting into a bitter nostalgia.
Grog:
"Before the terrible and arrogant ambition ignited... Before sin peaked... Before the war of magic and steel happened out there, before the creatures of sin tore the earth from the underworld, and before the sky dwellers—those damn Lunarians—descended and punished the surface world with their spears of light."
Grog:
"Originally, this place was ordinary. A simple logging village. There was no 'Forest God'. No blood rituals. Just a Village Head... a father who loved his land. However, with his strong ambition to protect us from the apocalypse outside, he created that mark on his back... creating a barrier that locked us all in here. A golden cage. Locked, except by his daughter's will."
Grog took a deep breath, the cold air mixed with ash filling his damaged lungs.
Grog:
"At first, we were peaceful again. We were safe. We just closed ourselves off from the burning outside world. But... fate does not like to be caged. When the barrier weakened with age, the Village Head began to fall ill. His body rotted under the burden of that magic. We panicked like rats in a burning sack. We used every means to save him... because if he died, the Dome died, and we died. Local doctors, shamans, the best food supplies... but nothing worked."
Grog stared at the moon again, his eyes glassy, not from sadness, but from the memory of that madness.
Grog:
"Ahh, that girl. Danica. The girl who loved her Father so much. All night she stayed by his side. She cried, terrified, and frustrated... She saw her guardian god wither into a living corpse."
Grog:
"However, one night... I saw it. The girl rolled her Father inside a giant bark, wrapping him like a cursed cocoon. And that's when I saw that mark... The same Sin Mark, now pulsing on the girl's back too. She took the burden. Since then, the Dome began to improve... but the price was blood. Since Danica demanded a 'holy' sacrifice to feed the tree."
Grog looked down, staring at his blood-soaked hands.
Grog:
"Danica is a hypocrite. I know that. She says it's for the village, but it's for her Father. And me? I knew it, but I followed her anyway. Because I am too. I hesitated because I thought I was better than her. But the moment I awakened this power... the moment I accepted this Horse Mark... I only ended up killing as many as she did."
He turned his head toward Oldred, who was still lying there.
Grog:
"Whether it destroyed, or I caused your Mark to awaken... just to kill you, I ended up killing everyone. For the sake of a foolish Ambition I wrapped in the holy word 'protect'. Funny, isn't it?"
Grog tried to rise. His body trembled violently, rejecting his brain's commands. Oldred across from him moved too, his steel fingers gripping the soil, trying to pull his body into a sitting position. Two monsters refusing to die.
Grog then assumed a crawling position. Suddenly, a dark and final thought crossed his mind. Redemption. Not through prayer, but through self-destruction.
He clenched both hands, encased in the hard black exoskeleton layer. Without warning, he slammed his own fists into his face.
THWACK!
His nose broke. Blood sprayed.
THWACK! THWACK!
He battered his own face repeatedly, shattering cheekbones, knocking out teeth, erasing his identity as Grog the Deer. When his face was smashed into a shapeless red pulp, he didn't stop. He struck his chest.
CRACK!
His ribs shattered inward.
CRACK!
His shoulders crushed. He destroyed every area of his body he could reach, punishing his own flesh for the sins he had committed. The loud sound of crushing bone rang out rhythmically along with blood splashing everywhere, painting the ground around him dark red.
Grog:
"I have lived too long as a hypocritical loser..." his voice was now wet and gurgling from his ruined throat. "Now I choose to die redeeming that fact."
With a final, sphincter-like movement, Grog thrust his sharp exoskeleton fingers into the hole in his shattered chest. He gripped his own flesh and muscle.
Grog:
"AAAAGH!!!"
He pulled them in opposite directions. The tear spread, the sound of skin and muscle separating sounded like wet cloth being ripped apart by force. He tore the entire skin off his upper body, peeling himself away from his remaining humanity.
Under the moonlight, the figure now appeared glowing red—pulsing raw muscle and flesh. However, it didn't last long. The red flesh quickly darkened. Pitch black spread like an infection, hardening the surface of his body, turning him into a living statue made of material far harder, colder, and darker than steel.
Grog, or whatever was left of him, lifted his now faceless head to the sky.
Grog:
"Ahhh, everyone... listen to me!"
His voice was no longer human, but the echo of clashing metal.
Grog:
"If only hypocrisy can save me from this ocean of arrogant sin towards my delusional and my own arrogant heaven, then..."
He stood tall, towering in his horrific new form.
Grog:
"I WILL REJECT THAT BOAT!!"
....
.....
Silence, unmoved. He is dead, Grog is dead. as a black iron monument in the moonlight. He Died reject the Delusion and then punish his Sins and failure...
Oldred:
"Hah...hah...hah"
feels weak, Oldred tried to leave. but...
Brak!!
he fall and so is his Consciousness....