The Dying Star
The star arrived, his bitter and sour face that was filled with scars and dirt told his emotions perfectly. He came to the island in a flimsy boat–The sail tattered and filled with dark green stains–He traveled far from the mainland to this isolated island for one reason and one reason only–
–To find —.
He rubbed his left eye, his other eye gone, and patched over with a grim eyepatch. He spat something out but his words were unrecognizable as if he spoke a different language from this world.
He hovered his slightly mutilated hand over his one eye, scouring the island that seemed so distantly far. His tattered cape fluttered slightly as the winds began to pick up. His poor excuse of an outfit consisted of a patched-up white, black, and orange tracksuit with a cape hinged on his shoulders.
He turned from the island and sat on a crate of supplies that lay in the middle of the flimsy boat.
Words came out as mutters, unrecognizable mutters. His attitude to this nightmarish world remained unchanged in the slightest.
Why would it?
This hellish world was nothing compared to his previous world. These monsters are children's play compared to the vile evils that sat cozily in that world, their rain of terror killing hundreds and giving nightmarish nightmares to thousands.
Yes, thousands have suffered.
A grin appeared on his face. Pride exuded from him.
For those evils titled, monsters, plagues, an antithesis to Od, held no ounce of superiority to him.
For he killed millions.
And died hundreds of thousands of times to achieve it.
For he is the vilest of evils that terrorized the world. Plagued it to ruin. Destroyed it and its worthless so-called hero, annihilated evils that even the sharpest of strategists and strongest of warriors could not defeat. Rose an army of delusional heretics that unapologetically dismantle the kingdom's forces.
No one could stop him, not the countries, not the kingdoms, not the archbishops, not the Divine Dragon, and certainly not the Hero–Reinhard Van Astrea!
He chuckled a foul laugh. The memories he made, the achievements he did, the crimes he committed, the horror he inflicted.
–All of it gave him a sense of superior Pride.
In the midst of his chuckle turned laughter, he coughed up meanly. Blood sported on his hand that he used to cover his mouth. An annoyed expression destroyed any joy that was created. He shook his hand–Not daring to use the water beneath his boat to clean his hand–And slowly, as if annoyed by an undying fact, brushed his side.
The pain from a hideous scorching wound coursed throughout his side. A wound that should have been avoided if he had not been so foolish in trusting his accursed ability. But it also wasn't entirely his fault.
After all, how would one who died enough times to fill a city, died by innumerable amounts of magical spells and divine protections, be privy to an attack that defies space and time itself to harm their opponents.
He grits his teeth just thinking about that eldritch monstrosity that disguised itself as a Boubou Squirrel. The audacity to hide oneself as a harmless delicious creature while being an absolute entity goes beyond any crookedness he has ever committed! And he has committed more crookedness than thought possible.
As he became preoccupied with his thoughts. The sound of unending, unforgiving, incomprehensible buzzing began to ring in his ears. He lifted up his head and gaze that was fixated on the blatant wound and stared at the island with a sinful gaze.
There, somewhere in that isolated demonic plagued island is a —.
BUMP!
Ah–The sound of adversity struck the underneath side of his boat.
He whispered something in a panic and stood up, his hands on the lid of the crate. He threw the lid back and scoured with his hands for a device. Quickly he found it, its metallic bronze coating a cylinder with two blunt noses on each side.
But it was far too late now.
Scales that curved inwards and held a miasma covered a colossal being, its building size jaws unhinged and sprouted out from the waters like a speeding train. It was covered in water that quickly began to fall on all sides. The mass of the monstrosity threw the boat in the sky–it reached the heavens that sat above the clouds–Destroying it in the process.
The last thing the Prideful entity saw was the unending depth of the abyss underneath him and the large moss-covered razors that hinged on the edges of the abyss.
And then nothing.
He made it to the coast of the island unharmed, His boat intact beneath his feet and his crate unharmed–With only one thing missing, or rather used. He let out a sigh of relief, his eyes showing a grateful expression of finality.
He wouldn't have to touch the waters now.
He docked his boat on the pink sands. He viewed it and muttered something out. His face showed an expression of absurdity, but conformed once more into a blank stare. He then went to open his crate and stuck his hands in. He heaved as he took out a metallic instrument, the barrel of the weapon coated in silvery black.
He prompted the instrument of defense up. Its spidery metallic legs hooked onto the boat tightly. With a vocal command, the machine came to life. A small cylinder with an orb at the end came out and scanned the surrounding area.
Then it scanned its master.
The Prideful one-eyed man spoke something unrecognizable but the machine understood every word. With a gleeful beep, the machine did what it was tasked to do: Defend the boat.
The Prideful one-eyed man turned around and walked into the island mainland. His steps seeping into the sand, He walked between the trees that sprouted on the edge of the grim ground that touched the pink sand. His form vanishes into them.
He huffed and heaved as he holstered his Defied Gun into a black and orange man-made holster. Its quality is brilliant, showing the expertise skill of its maker with ease. He wiped the black blood from his chin as he examined the demonic twisted monster that lay dead before him.
Its black skin was a leathery type, small wrinkles sprawled across its surface. It had needle-like scales that protruded outwards, similar to that of a cactus. White color coated the ends of each needle. It held no eyes but it did have sunken holes where eyes should have been. Its nose was a snub that went inwards like a pig's nose. Its fingers were claws that bent inwards at the end, as if to dig up the ground.
A hole that lay on the creature's chest, seeped out black blood, the hole glitched between reality and delusions.
He grumbled something out as he patted himself down. No injury laid upon him, only dirt and wooden splinters laid on his clothes.
Moments later the hideous mole-like creature swirled into a cyclone–Its edges deteriorating into blankness–Before vanishing into the abyss of delusions.
That was the nature of his trusty gun. The ability to defy other abilities and make its target vanish into another dimension.
–The dimension of Delusions.
A place where nothing made sense, where one's sense of the world becomes completely useless and harmful. A dimension where laws and order became defied and chaos being its true apogee ruler.
He knew this, for he had first-hand experience.
Although it never fazed him in the slightest.
He huffed out a haughty sigh as he laid his eyes upon the bushes. The monster–Demon–Was gone, ridden from this unforgiving, nightmarish world. He turned, facing what he thought was the center of the island and walked.
His right hand kept rubbing the holster that his gun resided in, readying itself if another fiend dared to leap out from the shadows. He knew nothing of this place, nearly all informatives that knew of this island seemingly–and suspiciously–Died a year ago. When he first got his mortal wound that had defied the rules of Return by Death.
It frustrated him, he knew someone was tracking him, his every move being pinpointed by someone–Or something–Stalking in the shadows of delusions. But he simply could not figure out who or what it was that was so obsessed with him.
A noise of cockyness escaped his lips. He had made enough enemies–And killed enough of them–That it would make even Adolf Hitler's legacy a child's play.
Yes, that's right, in this world. This horrific, nightmarish, searing hot world. He had made a name for himself as a terrorist, as a plague, as a incomprehensible being.
–His name, The Prideful Star.
Sweat ran through his body as it let out a horrible musty odor. He heaved as he climbed up on slanted ground. His face expressionless, sweat ran throughout there as well. Although his body was tired, he was not. He made a commitment to controlling his desires, that and he's an mentally unstable, so far in that he didn't even compute his tiredness.
And he took Pride in that fact.
He muttered something as he pulled himself up with a white tree branch. He did so with ease as his body became well toned and has developed well rounded muscles. Another thing he was Prideful of.
With his right hand, he wiped the sweat that had accumulated on his brow. From there on forth he trudged along the tree's waists. He grew slightly suspicious of the quiet activity that surrounded the area. Were there no monstorsites to battle? No demonic entities to conquer? No pitiful creatures to torment?
Those thoughts buzzed in his head as the unending buzzing from this world filled his ears simultaneously.
His expression changed to annoyance. He muttered something while simultaneously questioning the buzzing that plagued this island. Or so it seemed. He never in his live–And death–Heard this much unyielding buzzing with no apparent cause.
Maybe it was a signal that he neared the —-.
Heaps of blood soaked the grim floor, white intertwined with black and that intertwined with dark blue and that intertwined with dark orange, and so on and so forth. Deformed, hideous, demonic, monstrosities laid on the ground. A hole in each of their skulls.
He wobbled to a tree and leaned onto it as support. His rigid body heaved, his entity was covered in colorful blood and his own. Lacerations and tears stormed his body with searing pain–Which he promptly ignored with diligence.
He coughed, blood splattered onto the red coated tree–Some white bark poked out but was effortlessly smudged with his blood–A gash that was inflicted by a large percerlin axe nearly cut his chest in half. Although he was able to stop the bleeding with a trick he discovered, or rather stole.
With a sigh, he grimaced at the situation, his body was mortally wounded. His legs shaked uncontrollable from it, tiredness seeped in like a spreading disease. He had two options: Die now and rewind back to the mainland, or tough it out and try to see the —- before he inevitably dies a slow death due to blood loss.
He chose rather quickly and pridefully, he gritted his teeth and trudged to what he thought was the center of the island once more.
He held his bloodied stump with his gun in hand as he wobbled through the trees. He had lost his left hand in a surprise attack, he was careless, ignorant, thoughtless, he should have been far more prepared. He muttered something out in hate.
How was he supposed to know that the Tercoco Birds of this island had intelligence in that puny skull of theirs? No, he should have known. What?! How was he supposed to know when all the informatives died off?!
He could have–
Could have what?! Only a few knew of — and now all of them are dead and Return by Death didn't allow him to go further back to when they were alive! So how can he?! It's not his fault! Not even in the slightest! It was the world's fault!
Maybe he could have had a team with him.
A team! Bah! Anyone who followed him died off horribly or withered from Time Radiation; only a few left the Pandemonium with their lives intact, and even then, their minds were broken beyond repair. Even Re-Turnal wasn't able to rewind their broken state!
Even so–
–Even so? Even so! EVEN SO!
He died innumerable times that the number itself has reached heights that his previous count in his previous world couldn't imagine! He died because of his Prideful heart! A pity that his heart became a heart after all those deaths he faced in his previous world. Who would have wondered that the Archbishop of Pride cared for those fools.
…
Quiet now, are we?
…
Mmm, I thought so.
He awoke from his slumber, the grim ground beneath him sapped him of any heat he had on the front side of his body. He tried to stand up by pushing onto the ground but was quickly reminded of his peril as he fell back onto the ground.
He only held one arm now, the other gone, torn away from him from a demonic beast that specializes in stealth. Anger rose from him but quickly simmered down as his methodic mind tried to calculate the situation.
He was alive. Maybe he only had a bit more time before the end nears, but he was alive. His body was coated in dried blood and gashes that did not seep anymore. His gun was kept tightly in his right slightly mutilated hand.
With a groan and a will that far surpassed the Gods and Goddess–Maybe even the Eldritch beings–Of this world he stood up once more. Pain shackled his body but he persisted till he reached the epitome of his stance.
His Prideful, Lifeless, caring eye stared at the direction of where they thought was the center of the island. His trembling legs began to wobble on painfully but he ignored the wails of pain effortlessly.
He held his gun tighter than before as he wobbled forward, he passed his white porcelain trees and into black marble ones, their branches holding red leaves that simmered under the red searing hot rays of the sun.
He heaved tiredly as he ducked around low hanging branches. The scent of death began to become stronger than before, as if nearing its source. A smile composed itself onto his face, he was nearing, he was sure of it.
The scent and feeling was exactly what he was told about. Death mongering.
In minutes, he hobbled out of a bush and into an area that was shone brilliantly into. In the middle of the area was a stone slab that protruded out the grim ground haphazardly, the letterings were covered in mud and moss. Hideous worms creep onto the stone slab from the sides.
With wobbling feet and an enthusiastic eye, he went up to the slab and kneeled down before it. Pain continued to rack his body. He placed his valuable gun into its colorful holster and began to sweep the stone slab
Words began to appear, a smile began to stretch.
As he continued to clear the mess, a poem formed.
It was unrecognizable but all the more recognizable to him. A whiplash struck him in his gut. Just what does it mean by that? Why does it mean by — — — ?! He came all this way for nothing!
He yelled something out, curses maybe.
But that was all it was needed to awaken it from its slumber.
The ground began to shake and the stone slab exploded outwards to the sky and whipped around like a tongue. Sharp razor teeth protruded from the grim ground and quickly began to close.
He tried to stand and run away but his trembling legs collapsed on him. He shouted once more with full detestation in his voice. For the world that he harbored in and for the misleading information he was fed.
But those shouts soon came to a silence as the world around him grew into nothingness.
Here here, Oh Brave fool!
You had been deceived, like no other!
Your endeavors, meaningless and fruitless!
Here Here, Oh Brave fool!
You will be swallowed by the lands!
And join the — into Nothingness!
Here Here, Oh brave fool!
For here lies Nothingness.
