Chapter 4: Body
Plains of Vabos
"Kakarai… we should go now."
Vabon's voice cut through the lingering echoes of the blood-rain, low and urgent. He returned once again extending a cautious hand toward the priest, fingers trembling despite his effort to appear composed.
"He!"
Kakarai's response was a guttural bark of ecstasy. His bulging eyes gleamed with manic, unholy delight. He reached back but the instant their hands were about to connect, Vabon recoiled as though burned by invisible fire, leaping several paces away.
"You dare?" Vabon's voice cracked with raw outrage, face paling. "What is wrong with you?"
The word thundered through the space between them, unspoken yet deafening:
Condemnation.
Vabon froze, the realization crashing over him like ice water.
So that's it… His mind reeled.
He knelt. He knelt to that monster. And now… he has been abandoned by god, even tho it was not of hi volition.
Slowly, dread washed over him, Vabon's gaze drifted back toward the epicenter of the terror the figure hovering amid the clearing storm.
His soul seemed to collapse inward.
"D–Demon God…" The whisper escaped him, barely audible, body shaking uncontrollably. "This guy… this thing… he can only be a Demon."
Before his horrified eyes, Dax's human flesh began to slough away in wet, glistening sheets, melting like wax beneath the relentless crimson downpour. Skin dissolved into rivulets of red even the muscles unraveled thread by thread and his blood washed clean, revealing the horror beneath.
an abomination of dark majesty:
A skeleton forged from absolute blackness, glistening with impossible vitality, as though death itself had been inverted into something fiercely alive. above the hollow skull floated two halos one radiant drench in unity, and the other shadowed in a constant state of devouring, it was blasphemous giving of the image of something divine, defying every thing this world knows.
It was a sight that would make gods avert their gaze. Dax drifted in an endless ocean boundless and familiar, yet strangely alien.
"what is this place…. have I been here before?" his image was evident in the waters, looking at his refection he saw something above his head,averting his gaze. Far above the horizon hovered two infants one cloaked in deepest black, the other covered in eternal silver.
Their tiny forms radiated conflicting light: one pulsing with raw, primal hunger; the other with cold, analytical clarity. My traits, how interesting? This should be the trait emperor realm.
Dax lowered himself to the ocean's surface, legs crossing as he sank into profound meditation. The water responded, rippling gently at first, then it lifted him higher wave upon wave buoying him upward until he towered over the twin infants like a colossus.
Darkness swallowed everything.
The tranquil sea churned into violence. Towering waves rose like mountains, crashing with fury.
It was a battle.
A war ha broken out for supremacy, body against soul.
In the physical world, Dax's skeletal form inhaled sharply though no lungs filled and no breath stirred.
The world convulsed in answer.
Air howled inward. Dirt, stones, roots everything was torn from the earth and pullled toward him. The forest floor collapsed, spiraling into a towering vortex of debris that wrapped around the black skeleton like a living cocoon.
Flesh began to birth itself anew tendons slithered across bone like eager serpents. Muscles braided together in thick, pulsing cords. Veins formed, and blood surged through them like crimson rivers finding their course.
"Ahhhhh…"
Dax exhaled—a long, serene sound of profound satisfaction.
As if in obedience, the blood-rain ceased instantly. Clouds parted like curtains. Sunlight pierced through the clouds once more, bathing the ravaged plain in golden warmth.
Ding.
System notifications rang clear and triumphant, like bells heralding the descent of the divine. Within himself, the storm had ended.
Dax now floated beneath the twin infants. The ocean lay perfectly still, mirror-calm.
Trinity.
The word reverberated through his mind sacred, terrifying in its implications, terrible memories from the past that weighed on his heart the image of him as a child, his mouth stained with blood.
Will you do it again? Now you have a second chance, you can not save her you will always fall short to your flaw. Demonic whispers filled his heart.
".… why do you bother me, in my path to freedom I accept what I've done and now I still accept and I feel no guilt. The havens has given me a second chance. In the pat I lacked control I followed my heart. My heart is my path."
His entire being quivered with ecstatic realization.
"my mind srvedmy body my body all my life. That I a life of a slave I shall not be shackled in this life.
Desire, Greed, Hunger.
These are not my flaws but my nature… it is the truth… and I gladly accept it."
His laughter intensified, shattering the ocean's surface creating a crack in his inner realm, hurling him violently back into waking reality.
Dax opened his eyes just to see a different world. An insurmountable number of treads crisscrossed the land and sky in a vast, shimmering web. Each strand pulsed with ethereal energy, alive and humming.
Mana.
He reached out, but they easily passed through his fingers.
"Fascinating…" this world is truly beautiful in it's own essence, "but what is truly wrong with my sight? Could this be how emperors perceive the world?"
Kyaaa! A deranged echo resounded with the sound of clashing metal.
His gaze shifted toward the spot where the cultists had been but it was empty. But not to far away in the distance, figures darted frantically between the trees desperation driving their every step.
Dax did not pursue. Instead, he summoned a simple black robe from his storage ring and wrapped it around his waist with casual grace. Then, with a single step, he flickered out of existence reappearing instants later in a distant pool of shadow.
"They're fighting."
Deeper in the forest, Vabon dominated the clash, his movements precise and lethal he used is insane earth manipulation to overpower him. Yet Kakarai move he had uterly lost it , even though he a condemned he refused to die.
Disgust and grim purpose twisted Vabon's features. "Book Two of the Wretched Grimoire… Tongue of the Damned."
He licked the fresh blood from his fingers Kakarai's blood savoring the metallic tang.
"I will end your suffering, stupid bastard you should have killed yourself when you had the chance"
"Now don't waste my time and kill yourself."
Vabon bit on his tongue mixing his blood with kakara's.
"Vooooos!"
Kakarai's body jerked as though struck by lightning his eyes rolled to the back of his head as his demonic arm trembled upward unwilling yet it plunged into his chest with wet finality as he collapsed to the floor lifeless.
Or so Vabon believed.
Thum.
A heartbeat later, Kakarai materialized behind him—the whole n his chest had coagulated, his presence utterly monstrous, radiating corruption.
"Damn!" Fucking bastard. Vabon spun, blocking the strike just in time but expression darkened to grim resolve.
"You truly deserve you tittle… Psychopathic troll of blood I am ready for you." ch I told then not to add this bastard to our group but this cult enforcers still did ant way. Some one st die.
He slammed his palm against the earth.
Corrupt the land and obey my call Petrified Soul Weaver who died under my hands heed my will with your blood I've tasted.
The forest floor tremored violently. A massive stone pillar erupted meters high, its surface writhing with t tons of agonized faces frozen eternally mid-scream.
From its base, three statues covered in blood stains stepped forward each bearing three tormented faces and wielding weapons of impossible size: one a bow that hummed with malice and the other two held swords longer than any man.
Threads of blood linked them back to the pillar then to Vabon himself.
The battle exploded it didn't take too long for the stench of blood to spread and blood to spill but still kakari could never best Vabon or even lay a finger on him.
Hidden in shadow, Dax observed in perfect silence every motion and ripple of intent his eyes narrowed, not in strain, but in profound discovery.
"My eyes… no." He lifted a hand to his temple, fingers tracing the skin as if touching something newly awakened.
"I am different." His voice was quiet, almost reverent laced with the awe of a scientist witnessing the birth of a new A reality.
"WHAT HAVE I BECOME?"