"Cry, cry."
"The demons run free."
"Cry, cry."
"There's no reason for living."
"Cry, cry."
"Let the world fall silent in a sea of neverending black."
"Cry, cry."
"When did I die, cradling the death of hope in my arms?"
Chapter 0 (Despair): The Thread of Fate at my Neck
Auris stood alone, against the puppeteered bodies of the Ten Sages, now poisoned with disgrace.
They were weaker than before…but so was she. And the demon saw that, and grinned.
No body was wasted, the demon launched them all erratically along strands of black goop.
Auris raised her shield high and shoved off a few of the bodies, only for others to pile on top of them and put cracks onto her guard.
And then this tidal wave of corpses toppled her off her feet.
Auris made a soft landing and then jumped over the bodies to stab the demon with her sword blazing with aura.
The demon morphed around the impact zone of the blade and chuckled.
Auris gasped as a column of blades stabbed up her spine, attached now to the arms of Nimus' corpse.
The corpse flailed her overhead into the piling on efforts of the other corpses.
Auris slammed her sword against her shield to blow them off with a Shockwave. And then, surrounded by their draping forms, took a deep breath and started leaping back and forth to stab them away until she could force an opening.
But her freedom was forced by the demon, who thrust a series of many shaped limbs into her body, dragging her up off the floor and above the entrance.
And many of the corpses pursued.
She kept herself pinned down and called upon crystal blades to impale through the corpses and drag them to the ground.
They shivered with unmoving faces, writhing wildly to break free.
The remainder of the corpses were guided with care and piled onto her arms to hold them down.
She pulled them right off and pressed her feet against the wall, only for Vermilion's corpse to stab her through the gut, the halves of her blades now fused into where her hands used to be.
Auris grit her teeth through the burning acidic pain and growled, "Out of my damn way…!"
She locked onto the demon and aimed her leap a few inches beside him, dragging the scorpion's corpse to be squashed under her feet.
Then Auris slid forward and whipped her sword around to cut the demon through the back.
"KHHH…!" It reacted, immediately tugging itself away along one of the puppet strings.
As Auris pulled back and dared to pursue, Borealis corpse was hung in front of her, his hollowed chest now beating with a plaguesome rose colored mass.
Auris shuddered at his preserved smile contrasting his perverted body.
And then Vermilion's corpses stabbed her through the lungs and hoisted her up, letting the rest of the bodies pile on her and drag her down against the throne.
"D." pumped darkness into their bodies until their cracks and eyes filled with crimson, upon which they exploded into a howling mass of spectral energy that pierced through the roof of the city.
In the end the tiny veins of black stitched the corpses back together and the demon chuckled, watching Auris' heal off the black smoke tainted scars.
"Oh that's right, you're more troublesome than the rest…" He muttered with little worry, "These bodies still need time to grow into my power, but…"
He spread them out and had their hands out to funnel their darkened auras into their palms, "This should suffice in making you suffer…"
His laughter followed the blasts searing through the air in a twisted, curvy arrangement such that even with her reflexes she couldn't fend them all off.
At worst, her right foot was burnt through, but her sword acted as able support until she could move again.
…Except that's not what happened. She fumbled the first step and looked down to see that her foot was healing slower.
She turned her head harshly to find "D." beaming his grin directly in her face.
"Well how about that…"
Auris leaped away with her other foot and started slashing wildly in wide swathes to deflect the incoming dark aura.
Once the darkness faded she could rest easy and mount a counterattack.
Anticipating his chaos, she sprang away from the diving corpses to the right, then hastily cut off her path with a wall as more bodies dove to where she would've landed.
She then bounced in the other direction and performed a twirling slash through a few corpses before landing on another wall.
She then lunged straight at the demon to stab him through his smiling face.
The grin split and pulled back together above the blade, "You should learn a little patie-…"
Auris grabbed her sword in both hands and with her aura blazing, dragged it up like a cleaver through the rest of his head.
She then gasped for breath and flipped over the demon as the corpses scrambled around above them.
She plunged her sword into his back and hoisted him up as a shield to block the majority of the dark aura blasts.
Until the demon's malleability opened holes to let them through. It then combined this with a thrashing of tendrils to weaken her recovery.
She could still keep up with weakened muscles but throwing off the corpse's thrashing showed they were steadily growing in strength.
It was overwhelming, and the tension, grief and rage had distracted her from what was important…
"Zeno…!" The brief show of worry invited the demon's attention.
"Oh? What's on your mind…?" He grinned.
Auris widened her eyes and then looked at her surroundings.
The palace was a wreck. There was nothing worth salvaging…
She flared her eyes open and then brandished her sword high, raising a sharp plume of aura that repelled the corpses and scorched the demon's eyes.
She then slammed the blade down on top of him, forcing him to rally the corpses to hold it back.
He would likely boast, but by the time his slimy mouth opened she had already jumped high into the sky.
She scraped her burning blade across her shield to add red and then pure white to her aura as she delivered another slash to cross the energies.
And in turn, bringing the whole palace crumbling down on top of the demon and its puppets.
The energy splashed out in all four directions and brought the shambled barrier down as well.
On the outside at that moment, the likes of Tina and Acai had finally run their little hearts to exhaustion to get here.
Thus the sudden light display stunned them more than expected.
"Ah…!" Peeped Acai, alerting Tina to her presence.
"A-Acai…?" Tina ran up to her with half a smile.
"Huh huh! What's happening?!" Acai wondered back.
The fragment of Ividae on her shoulder started to shiver profusely, but she only gave it a glance before noticing something else.
The city was surrounded by white cloaked people of various ages staring around like they just got out of a daze.
A pile of broken masks laid at their feet.
Tina was keeping calm throughout this, her eyes closed in the middle of sensing something, "Lady Auris is…fighting something really bad."
Acai was starting to feel goosebumps all over her really badly, "M-Maybe this wasn't the best time to come here…"
Yet Tina rose from the ground on a small wave towards the city.
"Why?!" Acai cried.
"Lady Auris needs help, I can feel it!" Tina replied in confidence.
Acai shivered, then pouted at her bold display of courage. She ran out with hand outstretched, "D-Don't leave without me!"
Tina scooped her up and glided towards the city, "Excuse us!"
Meanwhile, Auris landed atop the pyramid and surveyed the ruins of the palace. Taking a deep breath, she knew she didn't have long to spare.
She dashed off the side and leaped straight for her home, barreling through the upper window to land in front of a bewildered Gabriel and Zeno.
"L-Lady Auris…I felt the commotion, what is-"
With a hint of fear in her ferocity, she turned sharply to pick up her son and throw him into Gabriel's hands, "No time. Get him out of here!"
"But-"
"It's that demon parasite! He has-"
"Ha ha ha…!" His haunting laugh surrounded the house and penetrated it cold.
One look back and she and Gabriel found one of the corpses filled the window frame with their blank-eyed face.
It floated away, revealing the other corpses were swarming the house, and beyond that, the demon stood on the shadows cast down the pyramid.
"Oh look, it's your heart…!"
Auris turned to Gabriel and shoved him through the door with her shield, "RUN!"
Then Glade's sickles sliced the upper floor apart as they tangled around her and dragged her out, grinding her against the ground towards the pyramid as half the other corpses blasted her with dark aura to warm her up for their master.
The remaining corpses vault over the house and pursue Gabriel and the panicking boy in his arms.
"Wait! We can't leave mom behind!" Zeno shouted.
"This isn't a fight we can do anything about!" Gabriel warned, struggling to keep his cool as the failure of his duty once more came to light in the face of these deteriorating monstrosities.
The corpses dove at the ground and smashed it up to the mere cost of their bodies. Vermilion's corpse tried to impale Gabriel through the shoulders only to miss as he narrowly drew his blade out and deflected the attack.
He then performed a series of hops back while swinging his sword through the corpses, only failing upon Stonestein's shield, now fused into his body as protruding chunks.
The other corpses scrambled around his and penetrated through Gabriel's drive with their dark claws, managing to slice through his armor with ease.
Yet he held himself over the boy to keep him safe, weathering their attacks long enough to gracefully slice them away.
With deep breaths he held the boy against him tighter and turned to keep running. But then he felt the boy resist, squirming to try and break free.
"Young Zeno, please don't…!" He pleaded, on the verge of tears, "I cannot bear to fail another today…"
"T-Then don't…!" Zeno managed to grab onto his sword and pull it free as he kicked out of Gabriel's grasp, using a mighty slash of fire fueled by his fear and desperation to briefly burn down the corpses into a state of stasis.
Zeno kept running on a heart of fire as he turned and yelled at Gabriel, "If you're going to protect me, then do it! But we're not leaving mom behind! Dad's not here to help, so I have to do it!"
"Zeno…" Gabriel looked up towards the darkness writhing across these lands once sacred, and the efforts Auris put into fighting, and let out a deep sigh.
He then raised his blade and clinged it against Zeno's own, "Then lead the way."
They ran to save the one closest to their hearts, pursued by the corpses rising from their own ashes.
Meanwhile, Auris wound up overwhelmed by the corpses' onslaught in combination with the demon's own frightening mastery over darkness.
Losing her strength to his tricks, she found herself strung up by his darkness and dragged up the pyramid to meet him in the shadows, dangling helplessly with half her face off.
And that made her bony scowl something worthy of his delight.
For extra measure, he commanded the corpses to grab onto her arms and legs and start tugging slowly and painfully.
He then morphed his body to protrude his head directly in front of hers and spread his sides out like an extra pair of wings wrapping around her back.
"Why keep struggling against the inevitable?"
"B-Because I will never die to a monster like you!" Auris roared defiantly.
"And that's what I mean. You'll never die, WE…will never die."
"You're still in the prime of your youth still…tied to a mortal clock. The first century won't feel so rough. A few loved ones will die around you. A few descendants will outgrow you."
"Then you'll pass a few more centuries. A relative will share the same face as someone from your past. The line begins to blur…"
"Millenia pass, you will start to grow apathetic. Pain will be as dull as the taste of water. You will want something to make you feel again."
"You will laugh and laugh as civilizations rise and turn to dust around you but you still stand in their ashes."
"You will suffocate as you become a stranger to a society that no longer resembles humanity, it left you behind eons ago…"
"Gasping for air, never sane…until you CHOOSE to be."
"Yesssssss. Become so insane that you wrap back around to being sane. It's a beautiful moment of clarity amidst the dreadful crawl of eternity…"
"Nothing in this world really matters, haven't you noticed? Anything lost will be replaced eventually, traditions once buried will be recaptured."
"Everything is a cycle. We are all…toys, being played around with by men and women clattering away at…keys."
"Nothing truly ends unless there's nothing at all. That is why I am here. To wipe the slate clean…permanently."
Auris had no patience for his ramblings anymore, "G-Get to the point you damn monster…!"
"There is no point," The demon grinned, "And that…is 'God's' greatest joke."
"So may as well enjoy eternity as a festival of bloodshed and screams."
Auris glared at him dead to rights and said, "I am nothing like you."
"You would have lived to see otherwise…but you chose to hasten to your death."
He had let himself become so hyper-focused on tormenting her that by the time Gabriel and Zeno came running up the pyramid and slashed the corpses off Auris' body it caused him to react with genuine surprise.
"What…?!"
And then Auris grabbed hold of her sword and slashed out in fury to repel him towards the top of the pyramid.
He lurched to a standstill and dragged the corpses back to his side.
Auris then turned to her saviors as they slid down to the bottom of the pyramid, "I told you to run…!"
Zeno shook his head, "I-I'm not going anywhere!"
She faced Gabriel, who sighed and shrugged.
Then the demon left them no time to talk this out, as it sent the corpses flying towards them, their auras now growing faintly around their bodies.
"BRING THEM TO ME…MORE BODIES TO THE PILE…!"
Auris gave her command while preparing her blade with a twirl, "Hold off the corpses!"
She then narrowed her eyes forward and murmured, "I'll handle HIM."
Auris ran up the pyramid while dashing around the bodies slicing and lunging towards her. The pyramid received a lot of piercing damage from their blasts, but was holding up under pressure.
Zeno and Gabriel had more experience to hold off the corpses' chaotic movements, though Gabriel's blade hesitated to cut the bodies he was once supposed to protect.
A few corpses were dangled back to get in Auris' way, Borealis included.
Auris once more found her blade struggling to advance forward so long as he barred her path, and the demon used this opportunity to flood her with lashing waves of dark aura from the corpses.
He then personally rose from atop the pyramid, growing bug-like wings from his bubbling mass and allowing sharp claws to explore from his sides.
"Yes…yesss…! I can feel my true essence returning…! Your hate, your fear…feed it all to me…!"
Auris narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth as the pressure from the corpses expanded exponentially in one short burst, slamming her feet against the ground and dragging her through dozens of houses as she tried to resist.
She eventually managed to stab her sword into the ground and hunch over, using repeated short bursts of speed to make her way back to the pyramid.
"D." sent a claw down the shadows of the pyramid to rise and slice through her legs, tripping her up the side of the pyramid.
Nevertheless she barreled out of this predicament and threw herself straight at him, evading the other corpses to plunge her blade deep into the top of his head.
She slammed him down through the glass roof of the pyramid and then its many floors, leaving him laughing all the while.
She pressed the blade deeper and deeper into his body, until she found her back stabbed through by none other than her father's corpse.
The sight of her face was like if the real deal had betrayed her like this, pale and mortified.
"D." gathered darkness between his claws and then blasted it directly into her open wound, spiraling outward to spread the dark mixture until she was dragged out of the pyramid.
Now with a slowly healing gaping wound in the center of her body, Auris went tumbling down the side of the pyramid in a near comatose state, landing at the feet of the two other warriors.
Twitching and her eyes vacant, Auris muttered in a fit of fright, "W-We can't beat him…"
"And even if we did…" She remembered Solomon still out there, and the uncertain state of her husband's mind…
She began to cry. Every betrayal suffered today was piling on top of her, making her physically and mentally frail.
Her body was going to heal up, but what was even the point of standing up…?
The corpses fell towards them all like a tidal wave, with the demon rallying behind them with glee, "TAKE THEM ALL! LEAVE NO FLESH UNCHURNED!"
But as all hope seems lost, another tidal wave came rushing over the crestfallen warriors and clashed with the darkness, sweeping them up in a whirlpool mere seconds later.
Then some seeds were thrown inside, blossoming into massive oaks that stabbed through the corpses and scattered them to the far corners of the city.
Auris' eyes widened as the young Tina and Acai jumped to her rescue, with Tina holding her father's trident and shouting in surprise, "W-Wow, I didn't know I had it in me! Go me!"
Acai turned back and blushed at the sight of Zeno standing here looking heroic before facing straight up at the darkness towering over the land.
Auris froze and looked at these bright young spirits standing bravely in spite of their bodies shaking.
In their silhouettes, she saw the reflection of those who came before them standing at their side.
And in her eyes reflected a glimmer of hope that would soon rapidly grow, igniting the fire in her heart and making her curse herself for the fool she was behaving like…
She put her sword to the ground and pushed herself up, throwing her head back in a fit of rapturous laughter.
It left a chill down her fellow comrades' spines, and made the demon pause to relish in the moment.
"My my, this has come faster than I could have guessed…!"
Auris then swung her head back with a cocky smile and her demeanor more regal and defined, "You're wrong, demon! You have failed to break me, no…You've rebuilt me, stronger than ever before!"
"D." gritted his teeth and muttered, "What are you babbling about…?"
She took the lead, leaving her back to shield the two young girls from this demon's paralyzing malice, "This world may go through its cycles, but that is not necessarily a terrible thing…"
"The ability to live, and pass on our kindness and hope to future generations…Is a battle worth fighting!"
"Look all around you! See these young faces shining brilliantly around me? They're proof that there's a future worth preserving!"
"So even if eternity might become painful, the evanescence of life giving way to dullness and apathy…As long as I can breathe, so long as I can walk, it will mark the proof that the future is still coming…that the past will never be forgotten!"
"I choose to walk this path, in defiance of your pitiful nihilism, parasite!"
"So break me, bleed me…I will STILL stand until you fall! That is the promise I make to myself…and the hope I carry alongside the love of my life!"
And as she roared triumphantly, it washed off the fears of those at her back, making the demon shiver and scowl in anguish.
"I was wrong…yes…" He pulled the corpses back to his side and levitated over the pyramid, "Why waste a perfectly good body now…WHEN I CAN KILL YOU OVER AND OVER AS MANY TIMES AS I WANT…!"
Auris raised her sword at the incoming onslaught and shouted, "Everyone…strike together!"
Even with how much of a novice the girls were at battle, they knew how to follow her lead, and funneled their energies into a single combined blast that pierced through the corpses and drilled into "D." directly.
"Ghh ghh ghh…!" The demon was launched off the pyramid and arched through the sky far back, dragging the corpses with him.
And then Auris swung her sword down and turned to Gabriel, "We need a way to deal with this demon permanently."
"Without Lord Borealis…I fear there's no one with powerful enough sealing techniques on hand."
Auris glanced down to her right with a flash of sorrow and then murmured, "And the demon is possessing Xiark's body. This does not bode well…"
Her cursory glances led to her catching Tina shivering a bit, clutching her trident with a downtrodden expression.
Auris puckered her lips and waited for the girl to air her thoughts, "O-One of those bodies…was my mom…"
Auris reached out to her head and murmured, "There's no shame in leaving and…I'm sorry I could not save her."
Tina shook her head and rose with a smile, "No…no. I want to help as much as I can, Lady Auris!"
Acai chimed in with her panic coming back into the fold, "T-This is crazy…! That demon, all those white cloaked people…"
"White cloaks?" Caught Auris' eye.
"Y-Yeah, they were standing outside the city." Acai murmured.
Auris closed her eyes and murmured with intrigue, "Caimanabel's citizens…?"
"Lilith…Hmm, perhaps your schemes will be useful to us after all." Auris then brandished her sword out and declared, "I need all four of you to split up and rally those white cloaked men and women to fight alongside us! Have them extend the power of Light towards me and I shall channel it into my blade."
Gabriel nodded, "That will give us an advantage over the beast, but it's not a solution."
The vine on Acai's shoulder was acting up quite a bit, with her struggling through her panic to communicate its behavior, "W-What Ividae…?"
"Hmmm?" Auris commented.
Acai raised her head and remarked, "Ividae says 'This has become our fight too'."
Auris raised a brow and then put all her faith into the next nod, "Then do what you must, oh motherly spirit of the forest. I will buy as much time as I can."
The darkness was erupting across the city in dangerous plumes, signaling the demon's rampage back towards their location.
"GO!" Auris shouted, and the four split off in different directions.
Though Zeno lingered behind, leading her to say with a smile, "Your father's ok. He's fighting his own battle."
"And he'll win?" Zeno said.
Auris smiled and nodded, "Of course."
With that lifting his spirits, he ran and she rose to defend their efforts as best she could.
"D." was getting increasingly more erratic, violently lashing out multiple limbs while forcing the corpses to activate a portion of their Drives against her.
This demon was an enigma for sure, it shouldn't have been able to force Aurians to do these things after death, but perhaps some questions were better left unanswered…
This battle, and thus the safety of this world, was now this warrior's sole focus.
And despite the gap between demon and warrior widening per seconds, Auris was keeping up the pace, throwing attack after attack to counter the demon's onslaught and managing to break ground to land a couple deadly blows to its mass.
The four other warriors rallied their bodies to run as fast as they could.
This was a lot to handle for Acai more than anyone, and Ividae's odd behavior wasn't helping her.
But the Titan was simply preparing.
Silence could no longer be allowed.
It was time for action. A time to…
"R I S E…!" Echoed mother nature across the entire planet.
In sync, the other Titan's eyes glowed and they rose from their lands, save for Tremorterra, who brought forth its children to represent itself.
The skies darkened with storm clouds swirling towards Sancturia.
Magmankey reached the peak of his domain beside his brother Chillo and pulled out the Wellspring like a basketball.
"Heh…!" His voice echoed with divinity, "Leave it to Xiark to get into trouble…"
Chillo's voice got deeper with anger, "Let's show that demon what he gets for messing with our family!"
"Ooooh ho ho! I like the sound of your voice there, brother! Yeah! LETS GO WILD!"
Every single Titan channeled the power of the Wellspring to create towering effigies outlined by veins of their respective elements.
With divine forms representing celestial constellations, they captured the speechless awe of all their people as they began the long march towards Sancturia.
The four warriors meanwhile, had gotten to their destination and began trying to gain the aid of the citizens of Caimanabel.
Gabriel had the easiest time of it, given his age, in combination with his group assuming "D." was the demon their holy Mother was referring to.
For the kids, their personalities got in the way a little, with plenty of fumbling words to go around.
But in the end, they succeeded due in part to their youthful innocence convincing the citizens to help.
The people needed time to gather up their small fragments of Light elemental energy to give to Auris.
As for her, she was continuing to succeed in holding the demon down in the center of the city, much to his annoyance.
"Where did you find this strength…?!" He shrieked.
"You will never comprehend what I am capable of, demon!" She roared.
For the first time, the demon retreated, vaulting off the top of the pyramid to take to the skies.
And from there it looked around to finally notice the people gathering around the city, shining bright for everyone.
"You think a little light show will frighten me…?" He uttered in cold delight.
He froze upright as the whole planet trembled around them.
Shining brighter against the backdrop of the storm clouds, the Titans soon brought their rumbling footsteps to Sancturia's surroundings, towering miles high with their voices echoing together as one.
"REVILED DEMON…YOU HAVE PERVERTED THE NATURAL ORDER OF THIS WORLD BY LAYING CLAIM TO OUR BROTHER'S BODY."
"YOU HAVE NOW FORCED OUR HAND…AND OUR WRATH…!"
"FACE JUDGMENT UNDER OUR MERCILESS SHADOWS…! WE SENTENCE YOU TO ETERNAL OBLIVION!"
From the Wellsprings burned divine beams of light that filled the skies with a marvelous array of wavy colors.
Yet as they threatened to collide upon the demon together, he threw the corpses of the respective elements in their path and in combination with their dark auras…managed to draw a stalemate.
This sudden burst of animosity made the demon's mass continue to morph, forcing more wings to drape out his back covered in puss, and what appeared to be his own face poking one eye out in the open.
"Bring all the forces of this world against me…! There's nothing you can do! I AM ENDLESS…!"
The four cardinal directions of Sancturia exploded into pillars of light that arched upon Auris' location.
She held her blade high and collected all that energy with a minor struggle, ending on the creation of a giant crystal blade that she wielded with the weight of a feather.
She hunched down at the base of the pyramid and set her sights on the demon, telling him in a cold and brutal fashion, "You WERE endless…then you met me."
"Let's finish this…demon!"
"D." went dead silent, hovering over the lands with the corpses of Lilith, Atrax and Borealis guarding him from the front.
It was a battle on all fronts, for the sake of this world, and to stop the evil that cared nothing for it…
Next Time: Weight of the World