20XX
17th of January.
Mountains of Denos
City of Auxim
The dark skies above trembled with thunder as lightning flashed, illuminating a murky forest below. The rain was heavy, pouring down through the canopy.
But down in the forest, along its hills, a single silhouette staggered, walking unevenly, favoring his right leg.
As the sky flashed again, he appeared—a middle-aged man draped in white, rugged robes. His face was bruised and bleeding. He clutched his left shoulder tightly, muttering under his breath. Pleading.
"Oh, Sol!"
"S-save me..."
Behind him, as lightning split the sky once more, shadows emerged from between the trees.
They were laughing. Maniacal. Hysterical. Like a pack of hyenas chasing prey already at the edge of its death.
The middle-aged man never turned his head. Instead, a tense expression of disgust and annoyance settled across his face.
"Tch... Grim Rippers." he grumbled.
He pushed himself toward a massive acacia tree and pressed his back against its rough bark. He sat there, hiding momentarily, reclaiming what little energy his body still had left.
But something felt off. His energy wouldn't restore. If anything, he felt weaker. And weaker. And weaker. And weaker with every passing second.
A gut feeling cut through the haze.
His wound. A bullet wound, buried in his left shoulder, numbing his entire left arm, rendering it immobilized and useless.
There was a sensation coming from it that he couldn't explain. As if the wound itself was feeding on him. Quietly. Deliberately. Sucking the strength from his body one second at a time.
Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong. But he had no time to find out. The threat was close.
In a single, gritting decision, he made his choice.
A heavy breath.
Then-
"AGHHKKKKKKURGHGJKKKK!!
He grunted through clenched teeth as pain seized his entire body. Using nothing but the steady fingers of his right hand, he forced the bullet out of his own shoulder.
His body convulsed with every dig, every push, every brutal second of it.
Then it was out.
He gasped, hunched forward, chest heaving. Slowly, the color crept back into his face.
Then, he noticed something.
"Huh?"
The bullet pinched between his index finger and thumb was slicked in a dark, writhing essence.
His expression hardened.
"Dark Idra." He groaned, eyes narrowing.
Without a second thought, he crushed the bullet between his fingers, crumbling it to pieces.
"Tch... No wonder I've been feeling weak. No wonder I couldn't use my power." he muttered.
He let himself settle after that. Eyes closing. Breathing slowing. The rain drummed steadily across his body.
And then, something shifted.
Steam began to rise from his skin, thin at first, then thicker, curling upward as the raindrops vaporized on contact. His body was radiating heat.
The bruises across his face faded, one by one. The wound in his left shoulder knitted itself shut, flesh stitching back together as if time itself were running in reverse.
He finally recoverd.
When suddenly-
TUGHCKK!
A bullet struck the trunk he was resting against, jolting him back to his senses. It had landed mere inches above his head, leaving a fresh hole splintered into the bark.
A ululation followed—a high, wavering howl that cut through the rain like an arrow.
"YALALALALA—!"
"You think you can hide from us, PRIEST?"
"I can sense your blood—it makes my heart pump faster!"
"YALALALAAAA—!"
Then another bullet followed. And another. Punching hole after hole into the bark of the acacia tree, each shot closer than the last.
All the middle-aged man could do was duck and cover, pressing himself flat, making himself small. He knew exactly what would happen if even one of those bullets found him again.
He could not afford that.
Until—
CREAK!
A groan tore through the wood—
The massive acacia tree split at its base and began to lean, slowly at first, then surrendering entirely to gravity.
He had no choice.
He threw himself out from cover, rolling across the muddy ground as the great tree crashed behind him in a explosion of bark and rain-soaked earth.
He scrambled to his feet. And found himself in the open.
No cover. No shelter. No tree between him and the dark.
Just Exposed.
'This is bad.' The words settled grimly in his gut as his eyes swept left to right.
And he was right.
Before him, a shadow suddenly emerged—rushing forward, fast steps splashing and rustling across the wet ground.
Seconds passed. The shadow became a figure. The figure became a form.
A man appeared, almost tribal in appearance. Smaller than him. Rushing forward like a lunatic—wide smile, tongue out, a bolo knife clutched in each hand.
He howled as he closed the distance.
"YALALALAAAA—!"
Then he leaped, swinging both blades upward with a savage growl.
"You're mine, PRIEST!"
SWHHHCK!
The blades cut clean through.
But to his surprise, there was no resistance. No impact. No flesh.
The tribal man staggered forward from his own momentum, stumbling past where the priest had been standing, blinking—confused, wild-eyed, chest still heaving with the thrill of a kill that never came.
He turned.
The middle-aged man stood where he was. Unmoving. Completely unharmed. Unbothered.
A warm light bled through his skin. Soft at first.
Then, all at once. His body lost its solidity entirely. Because in that moment—
He became light.
FLASSSH!!
The next second hadn't even passed.
Like light itself, he moved—so fast the tribal man never saw him coming.
Never saw the fist. Never saw anything at all.
BAM!
The impact was absolute.
The tribal man flew, straight and hard, crashing into a massive boulder not far off.
The rock didn't hold. It shattered on contact, exploding into broken chunks as a cloud of dust swallowed him whole.
Then the dust cleared.
The tribal man stood upright. Face bleeding. Breathing ragged. And still wearing that same expression.
Lunatic. Maniac.
The look of someone who genuinely believed death was just a minor inconvenience.
He glanced at the middle-aged man, who had already morphed back into his human form, solid and still.
The tribal man grinned.
"Not bad."
Then he moved. The blades of his bolo began to darken. Then, at the tip of his blade, a flame sparked.
Then caught.
Then crawled hungrily across the entire length of the blade.
FWOOOOSH!
He gripped it tight.
Then—
"Take... THIS!"
He hurled the flaming bolo forward, the blade whirring through the rain in a tight, helical shriek.
The middle-aged man sidestepped it.
One foot. Effortless.
But the blade didn't continue forward. It curved. Looped back. Spinning like a boomerang out of the dark. And before he could react, it kissed his shoulder.
A shallow cut.
But he felt it immediately.
That same feeling. That same quiet drain—as if something had reached inside him and taken something it had no right to take.
The bolo spun back into the tribal man's waiting hand. He caught it without looking.
"Did'ya feel that, Priest?" he said, grinning wide. "That's my Idra!"
The middle-aged man said nothing.
His jaw tightened.
A long, weary exhale left him. Not fear, not pain. But from something heavier. Like a man who had hoped, just once, it wouldn't come to this.
But he had no other choice.
His lips parted. Words spilled out, low and murmured, in a tongue no living person would recognize.
"Lei bruin ija e-mes"
Alien. Foreign. Old.
Then—
FWOOM!
A pair of fiery wings erupted from his back, massive, blazing, stretching nearly four feet long and three feet wide, beating the rain into steam where they touched.
His hair rose, strand by strand, burning gold. But what was most striking was the stone on his forehead.
A redstone.
Gleaming. Pulsing with a deep, living light. Like a rare ruby pulled from the heart of the earth, awakened after a long and patient sleep.
The middle-aged man's gaze settled on the tribal man.
And something made him pause.
'Huh? Why is he smiling like that?'
He knew the tribal man was a lunatic. Smiling like a maniac was nothing new.
But this smile was different.
Something behind it that didn't sit right.
The rain suddenly stopped.
No wind. No sound.
Everything stilled.
Then the tribal man scoffed—almost laughing, excitement bleeding into his voice.
"YAALALALALALALAAAAAAA!!!!!"
"Ah... Finally you've shown yourself..."
His face darkened.
"LUMEN."
The moment the name left his lips, a magical circle erupted beneath the priest.
Before he could react, chains came rushing out, iron and dark, shackling his hands and feet in an instant.
Then the voices came.
"Ah-simr ïblis-àjhin ēlal!"
"Ah-simr ïblis-àjhin ēlal!"
"Ah-simr ïblis-àjhin ēlal..."
Six figures materialized from the dark. All draped in identical black robes, chanting in an unfamiliar tongue, their voices layered and rhythmic like a ritual that had been rehearsed a thousand times.
The middle-aged man strained against the chains. His power was simply gone, stripped from him as if it had never existed. He was completely immobilized.
'What is this?'
The tribal man stepped forward, leisurely, hands clasped behind his back. That same expression on his face—loose, unbothered, gleeful.
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk..."
"You've let your guard down, Priest."
More figures emerged behind him. Crimson eyes cutting through the dark. Menacing, patient, fixed entirely on the priest like wolves waiting for a signal.
Then something shifted. A strange essence rolled in.
Heavy. Suffocating. Absolute.
Like the parting of an ocean. Every figure stepped aside without a word, without hesitation, clearing a path down the center.
And at the end of that path, something moved.
A figure.
Draped in dark robes from head to toe. Not a thread of skin visible.
Upon its shoulder, a snake rested, coiled and still, watching with quiet, ancient eyes.
Every figure dropped to their knees. The tribal man included, head bowed, smile finally gone.
"SUPREMO" They all greeted in unison.
The robed figure said nothing.
The snake uncoiled from its shoulder and descended to the ground. Then it moved toward the immobilized middle-aged man. And as it moved, it grew. Slowly at first. Then faster. Its body thickening, lengthening, swelling until it blotted out the space around it.
Then the robed figure spoke. His voice was rasp. Masculine.
"D E V O U R."
The snake lunged.
The sky tore open—lightning after lightning, thunder crashing over thunder, the forest strobing white in broken, frantic flashes.
Each burst of light revealing a snapshot. A sequence. An execution told in cluttering images.
Then darkness.
It happened in a blink.
One moment the priest was there.
The next, he was gone.
Swallowed whole.
As if nothing had happened at all.
The snake stilled. Then convulsed.
Then began to vomit.
WSkulls first, then bones, clattering against the muddy ground one after another.
Then, finally.
The redstone.
The dark figure crouched and lifted it from the earth. He held it up, turning it slowly between his fingers, studying it the way a collector studies something long hunted.
He gripped it.
"Just a few more..." he whispered.
Then his dark essence surged, spilling outward like something that had been held back far too long.
Then he declared:
"THE DARK KING SHALL RISE!"
TBC...