Chapter 36: A world of suffering
The world screamed.
The planet had been screaming in pain for a century, it was not a scream that could be perceived with any senses but the clues where there if you know where to look. How the sky was eternally filled with black clouds that spat out endless thunder and filthy rain. How the ground was dead and lifeless, only insects capable to live in such an environment, How the lakes were no longer teeming with life, but filled with death and disease. But most of all…
The fact that this was the best place on Earth.
This was paradise; this was Elysium, simply because it still retained any vestiges of normality. This barren place, capable of shifting between numbing cold and sweltering heat in mere seconds, endlessly plagued by storms and utterly dead, was the best place on Earth simply because it was not like the forests where even the trees were out for blood, forests where countless demons prowled and where creeks of blood flowed endlessly forwards, eternally refilled by those demons who was slain by their kin. Nor was it like the great seas, oceans filled with blood, eternally ravaged by storms and filled with titanic beings capable of devouring an entire city. Nor the fortress-cities where endless hordes of demons eternally waited, doing their exercises and drills in a horrid travesty of the armies of humanity, gleefully decimating entire armies against each other to perfect their murderous arts. Nor was it like the great rolling plains, endless wide open plains where the grass, which was supposed to be soft and lush, instead was like razors, razors that cut through even steel, inhabited by endless swarms of demonic creatures wandering forwards, throngs of roaming monsters reaching the horizon.
The absence of these things made it a paradise to the ragged figures who hurried through the storm. Filthy rain whipped against them and made their capes flutter wildly in the wind. The two figures were exhausted but knew that they couldn't stop. They had already been out in the open for far too long, even in this place they knew that they were the prey. Soon the monsters that soared above their heads would spot them. The taller of the two figures looked upwards and gasped.
"Get down!" The figure screamed towards its companion. The shorter figure instinctively threw itself to the ground, barely avoiding being decapitated by a flying demon. The taller figure drew a sword from under its cape and the demon, which was dashing against it, was decapitated before it had any chance of avoiding the sword. As the headless body fell to the ground the taller of the two figures looked up again and blanched.
The figure's scream had alerted several of the demons to their presence. The thin, winged creatures were circling above them; their shrill shrieks could be heard even over the storm. The shorter figure had gotten to its feet and looked skywards too just in time to see them all dive against them.
The demonic birds of prey were terrible opponents, their speed was greater than any normal bird, their fangs could rip through flesh and bone with ease and even a small scratch would infect their victims with virulent poison. The shorter figure got out of the way of the first demon just in time and managed to hit the second with a blast of fire. The third didn't even reach the ground before the taller of the two cut it down.
The storm seemed to pick up as the two figures fought for their lives on the plain. The demonic birds of prey dived and climbed time and time again, trying to make full use of their speed against their prey. The taller figure barely avoided being gutted by one of the demons as it dodged to the side and cut another out of the air. These creatures weren't so tough… the figures didn't fear them. It was what would come within minutes they feared. What these demons would attract.
As the final demon fell to the ground they suddenly heard a deafening roar. A huge gust of wind suddenly made the rain shift direction for a second and the figures felt the cold hand of fear clutch around their hearts. The already dark sky was further eclipsed as a titanic being descended against them.
It was huge… titanic… unnatural in its size. Vaguely similar to a dragon in shape but nothing more than a writhing collection of rotten flesh and sharp bones and with a huge head consisting sorely of a giant mouth where rows of jagged teeth writhed, seemingly alive, at the prospect of blood. And it was heading straight at them. The monstrous leviathan of an entity roared; a thundering sound that made the ground shake. The smell of the dead demons had attracted it and the presence of warm flesh was enough to whip it into frenzy.
The two figures stared in horror at it fir a second before they started to run. They both dashed across the barren wasteland, desperation giving them new strength as they moved with impossible speed. Normally they would never move so fast, it made them shine like a beacon and would draw the attention of every demon in the vicinity. But with the titanic monster that hunted them now nothing mattered but getting away.
The monstrous being had landed behind them and was now hounding them on foot, crawling as much as it ran after them, its misshapen legs incapable of anything else but pushing it forward in a horrid parody of running, completely without any from of grace and even normality. Its wet mouth was squelching and snapping as it opened and closed it, clearly eager to taste them.
Neither of the two hunted could later on recall how long they ran. Only that even reaching the cliffs was no aid against the monster. As they both dashed in between the rocky outcroppings they tuned around only to see the monster twist and bend. The wings folded in, the shapeless body elongated and narrowed and soon the monster was after them again, this time transformed into a giant worm.
Twilight was approaching as the two figured hid behind a large rock, the giant worm only a few meters from them. The monster's vile breath pushed out seemingly endless amounts of stinking air. The stench was enough to make anyone empty their stomach but the two hunted gritted their teeth; the slightest noise now would damn them.
The shorter figure was currently looking down into the ground and after a few seconds looked up at the other.
"Be prepared to run…" the figure spoke before it punched the other in the gut and leaped up to land on the top of the rock. This immediately caught the worm's attention and it roared as it started to slither against it. The figure dropped the cape and revealed a young girl, perhaps only fourteen years old, with black slanted eyes, her black hair put up in two buns and with strange clothes, equal parts clothes and armour. The girl raised her hands and begun to rapidly chant. The way her ands shook and her voice wavered betrayed her exhaustion, but as the chant progressed glowing patterns of energy started to appear all over her body. Brightly glowing patterns of energy that forcefully pulled out the magic, wreaking havoc on her body but giving her the strength she needed.
"Last Tale My Magic Scir Magister." The girl chanted, "Heed the pact and serve me, O Tyrant of Flame. Come, flame of purification, fiery broadsword." The worm was only a few dozen meters away now. "Fire and brimstone surging forth, Sodom was burning, turning the sinners into the dust of death." The demonic worm lunged at her, its giant jaw open, and it had already reached her when the last words were spoken. "Blazing heat in the sky!"
The blast was powerful enough to sear the skin of even the giant worm. The fire shot straight into its maw, the vile fumes it exhaled taking fire too, severely worsening the damage. The explosion shook the very ground and the worm shrieked in pain, its simple mind reeling under the agony of having its intestines on fire. The girl was almost inside the creature's mouth when she suddenly was jerked backwards by her companion who had managed to recover and was now desperately trying to get the girl out of there.
The young girl has been rendered unconscious by the spell, the glowing patterns had left trails of burnt flesh on her body and her breathing was laboured. The sick smell of burned flesh filled her companion's nostrils as he hurried between the cliffs, the titanic worm no longer pursuing them; it was too concerned with howling in pain. Only the storm witnessed the path the figure took into the mountains.
After the fateful day during which the world became hell itself the few scattered remains of humanity had fled. Some would say retreat but those were a naïve minority, growing ever fewer for each passing day. The truth was that mankind had fled in wild panic. Despite all the strength it could muster it had stood no chance against the endless legions of the nether realm. What little remained of the human race now hid in the darkest holes it could find where it desperately prayed for a miracle to come.
Deep within one of these holes a beeping sound could be heard, a short, shrill noise cut through the silence, only to cease after just a heartbeat's time. Soon it came again only to disappear just as quickly. It came and disappeared over and over again, the rhythmic dancing of a single green line accompanying it.
The beeping sound and the dancing line currently held a single figure's attention. On a rickety chair only a few meters from the source of these things a young man sat and stared at it. The black, straight hair, that covered his head and spilled down his forehead, and the steady eyes, also black as coal, would make many call him fair. But the three scars that rested diagonally across his face, one right above the right eye and below the left, one going right under his nose and across his mouth and the third across the end of his cheek, had destroyed and tainted that beauty. However the large muscles and the heavy sword that hung from his side showed that loss for beauty was nothing he was concerned with.
The young man looked from the beeping monitor where the line danced and looked on the thing that made the monitor sound. On a small bed just beside the monitor lay a young girl, seemingly unscarred but with terrible burn marks covering her body, and this girl was what now held the young man's full attention.
The young man knew that she had done the only thing that could have saved them when she used that spell. The mutilated dragon-creature was impossible to kill; even that spell had only stunned it, and any other attempt to get away would have ended with their death. But he just couldn't stand watching her like this. He hated this, this feeling of helplessness watching her fight for her life without him being able to do anything. He hated it so much. He hated the old men for what they had done to her, he hated the old woman for allowing them to do it, he hated the Dark One for making the world a place where they had to do these things… he hated so much… Sometimes he hated the entire world. She was the only thing he didn't want to kill when he felt like this.
As the young girl stirred he immediately got up and took her hand, hours of exhaustion pouring off him in an instant. Her black eyes opened and slowly focused on him. The girl managed a weak smile as she saw her protector trembling like a child. He never changed.
"Hi Isamu…" she said weakly.
"Hi…" The young man answered desperately trying to stop his voice from quivering.
"We made it huh?" She whispered. "I didn't really expect that…"
"You did." A voice said behind them, the you ng man turned around and saw a figure standing in the doorway. Standing only five feet tall, hunched and wizened, and needing a stick to support herself, she was nonetheless the most imposing human he knew. The ancient woman hobbled into the room and came up to the bedside. Isamu stepped aside, no matter what he personally though of the woman he would never stand in her way.
"Hi granny…" The young girl said softly, "Did it work?"
"Yes it did sweetie…" The ancient woman's face was graced by a smile as she petted her great-grandchild's head. "Even better than we expected. Within a week it will be ready." At this statement Isamu's head snapped up to stare at the old woman. The young girl, however, only smiled again.
"Good…" She shut her eyes again, "I'll better heal up then…" She closed her eyes and faded back into unconsciousness. The old woman patted her head again before hobbling out. After a few seconds the young man hurried after her.
"Asuna-sama!" He yelled; the old woman turned around to look at him after hearing his outburst. The young man ran up to her and stopped in front of the old woman, his large frame easily over a foot taller than hers but still somehow being dwarfed by the woman.
"Did you mean that?" He asked her, "Is it really ready within a week?"
The woman smiled again.
"See for yourself…" She said and pushed open the door she had reached. Within was a large control room where several of people were sitting in front of large terminals; all of them fully focused on the large window in front of them. The on the other window was a giant, spherical chamber, easily a hundred meters across, in which a giant orb of energy were hovering. Despite the window being heavily shaded the light was bright enough to hurt the eyes. Isamu quickly averted his eyes. One of the men looked up at them and quickly hurried to the old woman's side.
"How is it going?" Asuna asked the man, a bald man in his sixties with a nervous twitch in the right eyelid. The man bowed to her and held out a hand towards the console.
"Let me show you Asuna-sama." He said before punching a few buttons. One of the small screens on the console started to display a wide series of number, "One of the unintended benefits that came with the high quality gems were the energy spikes…" the man continued, "At regular intervals the gems "flare up" and the output increases tenfold for a second. We can't harvest or store these spikes but we can do this." Suddenly the orb flared and everyone averted their eyes. When the flare was over the scientist looked through the glass.
"Look…" He said quietly, "A world without demons…" Asuna and Isamu looked up at the giant orb and when they saw what had happened Asuna gasped. The orb was now like a window, clearly showing another place and, even more amazing, another time.
The people in the control room now had a perfect view of the world as it was over a hundred years ago.
Asuna stood quiet as she watched the image in front of her. The sky was blue… the ground was green… the trees were alive… she could see a bird in the sky."Unfortunately this gate cannot be used," The scientist said in the background, "The gate is only open for a hundredth part of a second, all we can do is to let the residue from the spike be shaped by the light that comes in from the other place, much like the old cameras of that time. But still…"
Everyone understood what he meant. Isamu looked quietly at the scene in front of him. Was that how the world had looked back then? Of course he had heard the stories but still… he never expected to see it.
"How long until it's done?" Asuna asked after a while, the old woman's voice was choked.
"Five days, seven hours, thirteen minutes and fifty-six seconds." The scientist replied as he looked on the screen, "That is how long until we can safely let them make the jump."
"Okay…" The woman closed her eyes as the image begun to fade. Within a few seconds the orb was yet again a brightly glowing ball of energy. After a while she turned around and looked at the gathered scientists.
"Display that image on all screens…" She said, "We finally have hope, let everyone feel it."
Hope.
A commodity all to precious in this dark age, rarer and more precious than diamonds and growing more and more rare with every passing year. And now it flowed freely, like water from a wellspring it flowed freely throughout the catacombs. Even the most jaded survivor couldn't help but feel something at the image of the green and blue world that now was shown on every screen of the hideout.
For the first time they were hopeful. For the first time they were happy.
But then none of then knew of their approaching doom.
In what had once been a school devoted to the arts of magic, in what had once been known as Wales, a lone man stood on the giant balcony of a titanic, black tower, seemingly made out of glass and obsidian, and looked out into the sky. A pale hand was resting on a railing; smooth and unmarked it trailed a path along the grooves in the banister as its owner looked out across the landscape.
Despite the raging storm the air around the man was calm and quiet. His black robes didn't flutter at all and his red hair lay still despite the raging wind that howled around the tower. This figure, seemingly normal but for his unnaturally smooth skin and his eyes, eyes that were like two windows towards the void, was deep in thought.
One of his servants had told him that, on the other side of the world, one of his servant's finest creations, the Ravager, had been found with severe burn wounds; even this mighty behemoth had been badly wounded and had in blind pain torn down an entire city. The loss had been negligible if not for the fact that his master's finest had been in the city when the beast came crashing through the giant iron walls. Even the blackguards known as the Crimson Fangs, elite demonic warriors that served as his master's personal elite forces; had been defenceless against it and in only a few hours the city had been destroyed completely. The man only waited for the moment his master contacted him and demanded an explanation.
A small, frog-like, hunched over, being with arms that dragged after it came hobbling out from the building. It stopped a few meters from him and bowed.
"The great one demands your presence in the Hall of Eternal Torments, Exalted One." The creature snivelled with a whiny voice. The man didn't even dignify the creature with a look at he spun around and walked into the building, his footsteps not making a sound.
The journey through the castle was like a journey through hell. All throughout the building screams of pain echoed and blood seemed to run everywhere. The tower was a miniature hell in itself. The high tower where the balcony sat was filled with writhing flesh, torn-off chunks of humans, demons and animals, and all of it was being stitched together, torn apart again and reshaped into new twisted designs by thousands of small creatures, seemingly all arms and fingers. Above it all, a lone figure sat and watched it all with wicked glee. Female and seemingly human, but for the glowing eyes and the black pulsating mark on her forehead, the figure flew down from the ceiling when the man approached, sitting sideways on a large staff made out of bone, and landed beside him. She tugged at the man's sleeve, gaining his attention by this.
"What have they done?" the figure's female voice asked, "What have they done to my baby?" Genuine concern seemed written across the face that had only seconds before been twisted in sadistic glee at the spectacle taking place in the chamber. However they were interrupted when a large body came flying through the air and was impaled upon a giant shard of bone.
The body was that of a human, but it's muscles were too large, the plates of bone that covered the skin, the large balls of steel that sat on the end of his arms instead of hands, and most of all, the mien of terror etched on it's face made it all clear that it wasn't a normal human. The creature's chest had been torn open and the place where the heart should have sat was empty. The female figure's head snapped to the side and saw the one responsible.
A giant, hulking monster stood in the doorway. As much wolf-like as humanoid, with black fur covering the entire body, large hands with giant claws, an oversized mouth filled with savage fangs and eyes that was crimson red from edge to edge. Just as crimson were the fluids running through the fur, the figure was covered in blood. This creature bore a rune on its forehead identical to the woman's.
"You gave me a bad toy Chaos." It snarled, seemingly on the verge of exploding with fury. "It's weak! Weak and useless!"
"Rage…" The woman's eyes narrowed, "You filthy thing. I give you my babies for you to play with and have to stitch them back together daily, how about I create your next plaything out of your intestines?!" Chaos's face was twisted in a grimace of anger and her hands seemed to bubble as the flesh started to boil on it. Rage hunched together, ready to leap at her, before the man held out his hand between them.
"Enough…" His voice was soft, barely audible, but it stopped the two demons in their tracks. "Chaos, leave the tower and find the Ravager, repair it before it destroys another city. Rage, if you need blood, head for the Great Plains, there are too many roamers there anyway. Now leave." The two beings backed off and bowed to the man before they quickly left.
After leaving the chamber of blood and flesh the man came to the core of the tower, a giant chamber, over a thousand feet high. Throughout the chambers endless stairs ran between the walls, twisting, bending and turning in a terrifying, non-Euclidian nightmare.
"Madness." The man spoke and in a second a man had appeared beside him. Unlike the two others this man seemed completely normal. Slightly pale skin, light blonde hair and pale grey eyes, all in all he immediately gave the impression of a good guy, the neighbour that pitched in to give you a hand with the heavy lifting or who would offer to drive the kids to the games. The only thing that broke through his pleasant appearance what the black mark on his forehead, identical to the other two
"Master." Even his voice was calming, soothing, something that instantly made you feel how the tensions went away.
"Bring me to the Hall of Eternal Torments." The man told Madness.
"The Great One was told of the clash between the Ravager and the remnant agents I presume." Madness lifted his hands and clapped. The stairs seemed to twist and bend, reshaping themselves in impossible ways, before finally stopping. A single stair now reached between the chamber walls, one of the ends being right in front of them. "Good luck master." Madness bowed, "If you can, please come to the dungeons when you are done, I've made an intriguing discovery."
"I will." The man started the descent, despite the stair being seemingly hundreds of steps long he had descended it in only a few steps. At the end of his descent was a large iron door, covered in frost. Howling could be heard inside. Whether it was from the wind or the screams of the suffering was impossible to say, the victims in this chamber had been tormented for so long that they had lost any semblance of humanity.
The doors slowly opened and the man stepped inside, the sudden cold, far colder than what any human could ever endure, didn't affect him at all, his breath didn't even mist up. Inside was a giant cathedral of ice. Pillars of ice stood in several rows, flanked by stalactites and stalagmites, and throughout the clear ice human bodies were visible. Hundreds, thousands, of humans were frozen inside the ice, their faces twisted in fear at horror. They were eternally condemned to live on inside this frozen hell, magic keeping them alive by eternally sustaining them just enough to keep the cold fingers of blissful death from claiming them and filling their lungs with air. This air was the reason they could scream. Despite their frozen state pitiful whines and moans, barely audible, escaped their lips and together these noises produced a choir of pain that drifted on the sharp winds that blew through the chamber and echoed through this travesty of holy ground.
"Despair." The word made the wind pick up even more and blow up a swirl of snow that formed a small tornado in front of him. After a few seconds the tornado subsided to reveal a woman made out of ice. A being with regal and proud bearing, wearing the black mark on her forehead like a crown, with skin like powdered snow, hair like mist and clothes like woven out of frosts, her beauty was only overshadowed by the coldness in her eyes, eyes that promised nothing more than pain. Upon seeing who had entered the woman fell to her knees, her pride seemingly melting away faster than the snow she was made of in the sun.
"Master." The voice should be a haughty and superior one, but it was the voice of a woman enslaved in both mind and body, a simple marionette that begged for its master to command it. "The great one is awaiting you. Please, follow me." She turned around and begun to walk deeper into the chamber. The man followed, ignoring both the wails echoing through the chamber and the biting cold, as the woman headed deeper into the chamber.
In the end they reached the centre of the chamber where several giant crystals of ice rose out of the ground, forming a crescent around a raised part of the floor. In the middle of this gathering a large mirror made out of ice stood. The woman fell to her knees again by the stair that led up to the small mound, obediently waiting for her master to finish. The man headed past her and walked up the stairs to the mirror. When he had gotten up to it he stopped about three meters from it and looked inside.
What he saw was hell, the hell of war. He saw a giant city that once must have been fair beyond understanding but now was devastated and ruined by war. Countless bodies, very few of them demonic, were scattered throughout the streets and the few survivors screamed in pain and fear as the infernal monsters hunted them down and slaughtered them.
"Beautiful, is it not?" A thundering voice that seemed to rend the soul itself said. "The great City of Light, capitol of the first of the high realms; is now tainted and ruined. The taint will never disappear. This world will forever be dark and bereft of hope."
"My congratulations great one." The man's voice was impassive. "I take it things went as planned?"
"That they did, the seraphim didn't stand a chance." The burning city disappeared and a red light started to shine out of the mirror. "However it appears things aren't going as they should where you are. Care to explain how my secret weapon for the attack on the second heaven was nearly killed?"
"Your agents were mistaken," the man said, "It was only wounded and as we speak Chaos is on her way to repair it."
"And the fifty-eight citadel?" The voice continued, "An entire city of my best legions, gone. How is that?"
"The ravager was blinded with pain and went berserk." The man calmly said, he knew better than to lie. "And it proved its worth. Breaching that citadel was an epic feat; the Ravager showed that it is ready, as soon as Chaos has repaired it I will send it to you. The attack can be launched ahead of schedule; the cherubim won't know what hit them."
"And how do you suggest that I do this without the Crimson Fangs? I needed those troops as you well know." The voice was filled with deceptive calm.
"My Malebranche can take their place; Malecoda has personally promised that he'll have ten thousand warriors, all of them on the Progenitor Thirteen's level, ready when you…"
"Enough!" The force in the scream made both the mirror and the ice around them crack. "I'm tired of your stalling! Those insects have been allowed to survive long enough! Within two turnings of your world humanity will be gone! Otherwise I'll grind your soul into dust!"
"By your will Great One…" If he had been affected by the thunderous yelling the man didn't show it. "They will be destroyed."
"And that includes the insects you keep chained in the dungeons." The voice hissed, "I want the very memory of humanity to disappear."
"Whit all due respects Great One, we'd be wasting an irreplaceable resource if we…"
"Are you questioning me?!" the mirror seemed to bleed as it groaned under the sheer power in the demon-king's will. "I want them dead!" the last word made even more of the ice crack, in several places. It was now coloured red as the fragmented ice pushed, in many places, jagged shards into the humans frozen into it.
"It shall be done then lord Malfeas." The man bowed. "Before two days has passed they will be dead, all of them."
"Remember your place Thanatos…" Malfeas hissed, "You are nothing but my pawn, fail me like this again and I'll destroy you." With this, the light faded until it was completely gone and the man was staring at his reflection. The chamber had fallen silent, the wind had died and the prisoners in the ice were quiet, their fears of the voice overshadowing even their suffering.
Despair looked up at her master and got to her feet. She hurried up to his side and moved to support him but a small gesture from him froze her in her tracks. Thanatos sighed before he turned around and left the chamber, not sparing Despair a single look.
The dungeons of the black tower were, if possible, an even more horrifying place than the rest of the tower. In this dank hell screams echoed constantly, not the pitiable howls of the victims of the frozen cathedral but desperate, shrill screams of agony of those humans who had fallen into the demons' hands. In this inferno of pain and screaming Thanatos walked through the bloodstained corridors. The blood flowed freely, despite the central part of the corridor being lowered and a grating put over it to give the blood space it still flowed over and spilled out across the floor.
Thanatos made his way to one of the chambers, the source of the screaming, and entered it only to bear witness to a gruesome scene. Within the chamber at least a hundred humans were being tortured in horrific ways. The first sight that met those who entered was the men strapped to large iron chairs with black iron helmets covering their heads. Despite no apparent source of pain the victims screamed. The helmets were enchanted things that continually blasted deafening, high-pitched sounds into their ears and blinding light into their eyes. The noise and light continually changed and had done so for years, their victims not even being granted the boon of insanity.
Further in a row of bodies hung suspended by their arms, their legs torn off and their throats slit. These mutilated persons didn't scream thanks to the iron rods that pierced the throat and had ripped out the vocal cords. Instead they were futilely struggling against the shackles that held them, their pointless struggling only increasing the torrent of blood that ran from their bodies and down into the giant jars under them. Every now and then a sharp light engulfed those bodes who had ceased to yield blood and renewed the process.
Halfway into the chamber Thanatos found what he searched for. In front of a lone man cuffed to a chair Madness stood.
"It's over…" His soft voice said to the delirious man, "The world has ended, all is gone, your entire life you have fought a fool's battle."
"No…" The man groaned. "Justi…Agh!" He was interrupted by a blast of energy that coruscated through his body.
"There is no justice, how could it be in a world the gods gave to darkness? They abandoned this world, not caring for it. You served beings only concerned with their own survival. Your servitude has meant nothing. They abandoned you."
"M-Mari… Agh!" The man's attempts to remember his wife was punished with another blast of energy.
"Your wife is gone, she has forgotten you, abandoned you. Your vows meant nothing. All she cared about was her own survival. How do you think we got to you? She sold you out, begged for us to spare her in exchange for her family." Madness conjured an image of a blonde woman bound to a chair who was crying openly.
"Please… please!" The woman begged. "No more, no more. Please… I'll do anything… Anything! M… my hideout! It's in the lower parts of the Alps… We're many there! Hundreds! Just please stop!"
"No…no…" The man couldn't turn his eyes away from the image. "No!" he screamed and started to trash. "Why!"
"She valued her own life higher than yours. She betrayed you. You have nothing other than suffering ahead. Your life, your soul, all is forfeit, condemned, eternally lost."
The man now broke down and started to sob. The large muscular man sobbed like a child.
"Unless…" Madness said, sounding as if he had remembered something. The voice, soft and caring, reached the man immediately, like the voice of a concerned friend. The victim's tear-stained face snapped up and looked at him. Madness begun to speak, his voice almost chanting, a hypnotic sound, "You are strong; you killed nearly a hundred of the attackers before you were captured. Strength will always demand respect, and as the sole surviving wielder of the Liechtenauer fencing school you have skill beyond all but the most powerful. You could become a warrior, a leader, a champion. You could escape this dungeon." Then madness chuckled, "No… that is no option, you don't want that… you want to suffer, you want to feel pain, you want to wither away as a sad remnant of a human. See that body over there?" He pointed at one of the maimed corpses dripping blood. "That's where you'll end up." Madness smiled, a friendly, trusting smile.
"Thanks to your determination and your strength you'll become a milking-cow for us. First we'll drive iron rods through your throat, you see that they aren't pushed in all the way but only as much as needed? That's so that they will become leverage on your head. Then, Rage, the demon that was in the forefront of the attack on your home will come, he only eats human flesh. He'll eat your lower body, all the way up to here," He pointed at the waist. "He prefers those parts. Sometimes he begins with tearing off the genitalia, he can't stand that taste. Then… we'll hang you over those cauldrons. Human blood is a powerful magical ingredient, and there is always a great demand for it. And whenever your blood is running low…" Madness waited until a flash appeared. "That will happen, we'll force your body to produce more blood, and you'll be filled up in an instant. The pain is incredible… beyond anything in this castle. And that is how you will spend eternity. Good luck… You are a strong man." With that, Madness rose and turned to walk away.
"No!" The man suddenly screamed.
"What?" Madness looked back and raised an eyebrow.
"Don't… don't put me there… I'll do what you say… I'll obey you!"
"You really mean that?" Madness asked as he put a hand on the key to the lock. "Will you serve us, become our warrior?"
"Yes… yes!" The despair in the man's voice was slowly being replaced with anger. "I served other humans all my life, they threw me away… my… my wife threw me away! Forget it then! I don't want to be human!"
"Are you sure?" Madness had something playful in his voice, "Becoming a demon isn't especially nice after all. I mean… you are a demon. A bringer of death and evil."
"I don't care… I dont care!" The man was frothing by now, "I'll kill anyone, I'll defile their bodies, and I'll eat their remains! I will become a demon and kill everyone who turned their backs on me!"
"So be it…" Madness turned the key and the man leapt out of the chair. Before he could take two steps, however, Madness had planted a fist in his gut, the flesh of the man started to bubble and twist as it slowly started to change. The man fell to the ground, writhing in pain and screaming wildly. Madness snapped his fingers and two demons came scurrying out of the shadows, lifted the man up and carried him away.
"Creation of Malebranche member number five-thousand three-hundred eighty-two complete. Name from now on will be Blutfresser." Madness said impassively as he turned towards Thanatos. "I apologise for the delay. The latest subject was a tough one."
"You are forgiven," Thanatos said, "what were you planning to show me?"
"This way please." Madness gestured and walked deeper into the chamber, "During a foray into the lands around the site of the great one's entry into this world my agents captured something interesting. Apparently the remnants around there are more organised and developed than we thought."
"What did you capture?" Thanatos asked.
"I'll show you…" Madness opened a door and pointed inside. The only visible thing in the room they both looked into was a pair of empty manacles. Madness paused when he saw this, "What in…?" he didn't have time for anything more before a black shape came flying out of the door, heading straight towards Thanatos.
"Die you murderer!" A voice yelled in Japanese. Thanatos reacted immediately by clenching his hand, a shadowy chain having appeared in it and yanking it upwards. The light in the room came from behind him, casting his shadow in front of him, the shadow that now seemed to burst. In a sickening cascade of ephemeral gore a shadowy wraith dove out of Thanatos's shadow and before his assailant could react it was impaled upon two indistinct blades. The attacker turned out to be a young man, perhaps only fifteen, in black clothes and with eastern features, who stared in disbelief at his killer.
In front of Thanatos a vaguely humanoid figure stood. More shadow than corporeal, it stood lowered into a combat stance, with two short swords buried in the attacker's chest. In the gloom of the torture chamber it was impossible to see any clear features of the wraith, other than the eyes, two glowing pools of light reminiscent of the moon, and the rune on its forehead, somehow darker than even the insubstantial body of the defender.
"Finish it, Emptiness." Thanatos commanded and the wraith moved in a blur as it cut the black-clothed man to pieces. When the chunks of flesh had all hit the floor Thanatos yanked the chain again. "Now go back." He commanded and the wraith sunk back into his shadow, disappearing within a second.
"That… was unexpected." Madness said, "I have no excuse master. I should have ensured he was properly detained..."
"Look at his wrists…" Thanatos interrupted, "He disjointed them in order to escape and re-fixed them when he had done so. You could have covered him in chains from head to toe and ensorcelled them, he would still have escaped. This is a ninja technique." Madness blinked and looked at the body. "It appears that there are still humans left there. I'll personally deal with them."
"Pardon?" Madness looked at his master. "I thought you had decided to let a few holdouts remain?"
"Not anymore." Thanatos said, "The master has ordered us to wipe them all out. Even the prisoners must die. Send the swarmers to the remains of the magic world, and let those Malebranche you are done with accompany them, Malecoda will command the attack." He turned around and started to walk, gesturing for Madness to follow him. "Let Rage and Despair deal with the ones hiding in the Himalayas; tell them to take the Hellraiser packs with them. You and Chaos go for Antarctica, and make use of the Deep Ones; they will probably be deployed in the higher realms soon and will need to be tested. I will personally deal with the remnant base in Japan." They both left the torture chamber and Thanatos shut the door behind him. It closed with a deafening slam. "Within two days not a trace of humanity can remain."
A/N: My most sincere apologies for the delay with the update. I've suffered from about every writers-block possible and haven't been able to make any real progress in weeks. However I can inform you of this, this story WILL be finished, we're only about three chapters away from the end anyway. But I can not, however, give any more weekly updates (as you miught have noticed...) from now on the updating will be whenever I'm able to put it up.
Stay tuned though, this is a fic that will wear the "Complete" tag one day, I swear.