Chapter 8 Activation
The world was born from Darkness…..
Unending Darkness, a crucible of chaos…….
But even to that primordial existence there came a ray of light
The universe was eventually split into two. The darkness became the realm of demons and the light became the domain of mortals. These two worlds existed for what seemed like an eternity….
Then one day, the Lord of the demon world, Mundus, decided that since the two worlds were once one, they shall be so again
From that era forward, the dark fought to control the light, and the light struggled to defy the dark
But the nature of man is weak and fragile. There was no way they could hope to oppose the demonic powers of those from the world of shadows.
Light was overwhelmed by the impenetrable Darkness, and humanity prepared to meet its end.
And then He appeared…..
This is His story. This is his Legend…
An era of fear. There was once a time when the light was able to suppress the darkness, however, it could not hope now to fight the unseen for long. Those humans who were weak in virtue and filled with doubt were manipulated by those formless beings of the Underworld. During the darkest hours of the night, those evil spirits crawled and flowed throughout of the homes of unsuspecting humans, subduing their minds with their twisted machinations. And in the darkness, while the children slept and the night lay still, those humans erected the ziggurat of sin.
Temen-Ni-Gru……….
The building, more than five times larger than any structure ever seen by man, towered over not only the small town, but, some said, its apex overlooked the entire world. Thick solid stone and marble had formed its amazing architecture. Lining its entire surface was a series of slender archways which, from a distance, looked like the faces of tortured souls trapped in an eternal prison. Bright phosphorous lights incased in the mouths of gargoyle statues on its offshoots made the edifice itself come alive. And at its highest point, led to by an ascending spiral path, was a circular platform surrounded by sacrilegious effigies to nameless gods. It took almost a millennium to build. Centuries of deception and manipulation passed as the humans built the very monument that would become the instrument of their destruction.
After its completion, the skies had grown darker and more humans became possessed by and drawn to its foreboding majesty. The base of the Temen-ni-Gru pulsed with a dark aura as hundreds of men and women, clad in dark, hooded robes, began to swarm up the walls of the massive tower with their bare hands. Contorting their bodies into blasphemous mockeries of the human form, they hauled their bodies thousands of feet to the apex of the tower. Their hands and feet bled profusely, creating streaks of dark paint along the rough stone of the tower. Their will to fulfill their evil desires, alone, kept them from turning back.
Humans, consumed by the lust for darkness, wrought havoc throughout the surrounding villages where the Temen-ni-Gru rose high into the night. The markets where fresh fish were hung and carpets were knitted were set ablaze. Weaker demon spirits, those able to slither through the boundaries of the two worlds, consumed the minds and bodies of humans, further adding to the ever-growing chaos.
For miles, flames danced wildly on the ground, crawling up the sides of small huts, consuming those humans unable to escape its fury. Cries of women being raped and watching their children being burned alive overlapped the yelps of men, unwilling to follow the darkness, being tortured and killed.
Deep within the foundations of the tower, possessed humans, mutilated and scarred by demonic energy coursing through their veins, dragged innocents into the fortress. Both those possessed by evil spirits and those wishing for their dark hopes to come true danced ecstatically, trampling through the blood and entrails of both men and women. Some used the bones pulled from dead humans to beat along the walls monotonously, providing an ominous ambience for the atrocities being committed.
However, through all this chaos and madness, an even more menacing ritual was being conducted near the apex of the tower….
A man stood in the center of an expansive lair lined with dark winged statues in the middle of which was circular platform filled with geometric lines, that pulsed with bright light. His dark robe hung past his feet and was gently being tugged upon by a woman, whose eyes only read terror. Ten other cloaked individuals stood inside the lair, two of which were holding down a screaming girl who violently tried to break away from their grip.
The woman that lay at the feet of the cloaked man spoke, as the light gleaned off the tip of the long dagger in his right hand,
"Please, no, don't do this!! I-I loved you, how could you do this to our family!!! To our daughter!!!"
The woman's words seemed to at least strike a minor chord in the man as his dark eyes moved under his black hood and he peered into the eyes of the girl, his daughter. She looked back into his eyes, and began to tremble.
"Father, No!"
The man, The Architect of the Temen-ni-Gru, did not say a word and looked down upon the woman, his beloved wife. His expression was that of a soulless husk. All signs of human emotion seemed to have left his body and all that was left was a cold dark shell of a being. Echoes of the violent acts occurring outside the gigantic doors of the Lair could be heard from within. The Architect began to speak to the woman,
"I need you."
At first the woman thought those words to be benign but quickly realized the cynical overtones in her former husband's voice.
"You are pure, untouched by the malice of this wasteland. This tower cannot be completed without you….."
Suddenly, he raised the dagger above his head with both hands and stood, poised to make a fatal blow. The woman let out a horrible scream just before the dagger planted itself deep into her abdomen. The man fell to one knee, driving the dagger even deeper into the belly of the woman as his eyes began to glow a sinister red.
Seeing her mother stabbed right in front of her eyes, the girl fought to escape from the grasp of her captors.
Her eyes flowing with tears, she screamed at her father, "WHY!!!! WHY!!!"
Ignoring his daughter's screams, the man slowly pulled the now blood soaked dagger out of his wife and raised it over a circular opening in the middle of the platform. As the life began to slowly leave the woman, she looked over at her daughter and tried to say something.
"…R-run …" But her final words were lost as the daughter continued to cry.
Her captors released her and she fell to the ground, exhausted from the tears and traumatized by the events of the day. She uncurled from a fetal position and slowly lifted her head to stare into the eyes of her dead mother; murdered at the hands of her own father, all for her lifeblood, the final key in the Temen-ni-Gru's activation.
Her father let the blood run off the dagger and into the circular crevice. The blood slowly combined with the demonic fluids in the crevice and the entire platform began to glow bright red. Suddenly, thunderous booms filled the tower and the very structure began to shake.
Outside the tower, people stopped in their tracks and gazed upon the spire as it began to twist and rise upwards, small pieces of its plated walls falling to the ground.
Inside the Lair of Judgment, the large platform started to shake and rise upwards. Some of the cloaked figures struggled to maintain their balance while the Architect stood steadfast and peered upward at the ceiling which was now opening, revealing the rest of the inner workings of the high reaching tower.
As the platform reached the apex of the tower it came to a sudden halt. The rain beat upon the platform creating a steady rhythm that sent chills down the spines of observers. Seven giant bells surrounding the platform hung from their yokes by large chains. Decorated in skeletons pulled from the living victims and stone demon wings, the bells fell into their positions. Deep grinding noises echoed throughout the sky as the chains tightened and pulled the bells upward.
The man, the Architect of the Temen-ni-Gru, raised his head, his hood falling to his back as he looked up into the sky. Dark, brooding clouds began to swirl high in the sky, the center point directly above the platform.
A sanguine aurora descended and enveloped the tower as those formless demons began to come into the Light and swirl around the zenith of iniquity . Through her sobs, the girl heard her father's deep voice,
"He plucks the threads that make us dance, finger and toe.
We surrender, in joy, the lowest of the foul and rank.
We submerge through darkness, rancid filth, and claw through living Earth.
Hour by hour, we move downward, ever closer to Hell, in a slow…..steady…. gait.
Now…let the world resonate…"
"Sloth…"
The bell to his far left began slowly swinging.
"Gluttony…"
The bell to his far right swung.
"Greed…"
The bells begin to swing, one by one, with each Deadly Sin, switching back and forth, left and right, making their way toward the middle.
"Envy…"
The Architect began to speak louder, almost screaming.
"Lust…
Wrath…
And…PRIDE!"
The bells began to swing in full force, pulsing with a deep timbre. Through the ever-growing intensity of the swirling clouds, a faint knell was heard by all. The Architect gazed at the bells with an evil grimace,
"The bell of chaos that tolls human desires… the Once Great World, separated for over a millennia shall be whole again…"
The clouds churned with ferocious intensity. Red lightning crackled across the sky and scampered down the walls of the Temen-ni-Gru. Winds whipped through the sky. The Architect's robe danced around his body as he finished his incantation.
"Destruction! Carnage and Despair! Let your instincts drive you!" With a deafening clap of thunder and blinding flash of red lightning, a beam of energy discharged from center of the swirling clouds down to the tower.
"Entrap this world in fear! As its very name Temen-ni-Gru strikes terror into the heart of mankind. And I……shall become more than just a man. The Devil Gods shall grant me the demonic power I have longed for…"
"And the Demons, once broken and torn away from this world….shall return again and encompass the Universe in utter DARKNESS!!!"
His words bled out through his insane laughter, laughter of a mortal peering into the face of terrible power.
The beam expanded in the sky, opening the portal. An orange halo of light opened in the dark sky, like a window looking into the world of demons.
The jaws to the heart of Darkness were opening….
The Demon World shook violently, as if colliding with the Human World. Sparda and the other generals tried to hold their footing as they stood inside Mundus' pristine white hall.
"Ah…I see the humans have activated it…"
"IT?! Whatever this "it" is, it's destroying…" Sparda's almost anxious comment is cut off by Mundus.
"It is not destroying. It is creating the Once Great World over which I will reign supreme….."
In one of the most remote corners of the Underworld, the red beam of energy coming from the Temen-ni-Gru burst through the demonic stone ground. The red energy mixed with the white light of the Demon World, giving off on orange glow visible throughout its vast landscape. A thick gust of wind swirled and filled the Underworld, scattering pieces of rock and debris everywhere. Every demon ceased in their activity and pondered the new ambivalent ambience overtaking them.
Over time, the trembling died down to mere rumbles and slowly faded away. The door to the demon world lay open and a hollow whistle now flowed steadily from the portal throughout the Demon World.
"Is it over, Master?" Griffon pondered aloud.
"Yes….. the portal has been opened…"
"What do we do now?" asked Cerberus
Mundus paused for a second then glanced at Sparda. Sparda did not look at Mundus but instead fixed his gaze in the direction of the steady trembling. He did not seem very pleased with what had just transpired, however he kept his feelings to himself.
Mundus then looked over the rest of his generals and grinned as his three eyes smoldered with red flame. "Now…..we unleash Hell…."
The booming thunder had stopped and the heavy rain came to a slow drizzle in the human world. Atop the Temen-ni-Gru the Architect held up his hands as if awaiting a gift of some kind to fall into them. Everything lay still and a chilling calm flowed over the surface of the tower. The only sound was the hollow wind swirling around the gaping portal.
The Architect stood very still and smiled but the other cloaked figures around him looked at each other in puzzlement and confusion. Even those conducting the violent acts below had ceased in their maliciousness to bear witness to the dark clouds that now surrounded the tower.
The calm held for what seemed like an eternity. Then suddenly, the portal to the demon world began to pulse again and white light began to emanate from the darkness. The eyes of The Architect burned a bright red as a hideous shriek belted from within the portal and a swarm of devilish birds soaked in blood escaped its maw.
These devilish Bloodgoyles descended upon the humans at the top of the Temen-ni-Gru and below without mercy. The first blow fell upon a man fleeing trying to save his wife. He was literally snatched up into the air and ripped to shreds by a number of these creatures. Hundreds more seized humans and carried them back into the demon realm to unleash unspeakable torture.
The surrounding humans and some of the cloaked figures began to scatter in fear but the Architect remained as chaos enveloped the tower. His daughter trembled on the ground in so much fear that she was unable to scream.
"YES!!!!! Bring your WRATH DOWN UPON THIS WORLD!!!!!"
Suddenly, his daughter was attacked by a Goyle and carried off the Temen-ni-Gru into the night. Her faint screams could be heard as she fell out of sight.
The portal shook violently as multitudes of Bloodgoyles broke through and behind them suddenly came the seven Hells, this time different in their form; they no longer had their menacing demonic prescience seen in hell but instead a more tangible and material façade constructed of sand.
The portal became wider and suddenly demons began to appear from the very atmosphere. Hells materialized from thin air, wielding scythes and sharp blades, piercing the bodies of weak humans.
And atop all this madness stood The Architect, now covered in the blood of his dead wife.
"At last…..CHAOS!!!"