The day was beautiful and vibrant. The sunlight shone on the leaves of the trees. The sounds of the forest mixed into a majestic cacophony of natural sounds, filling the atmosphere with great peace and tranquility. The air felt humid and warm.
The grass crunched under my bare feet with each step I took. My long robe brushed the ground, gathering dirt. Normally, I would be bothered to be here, but today my heart beats fast. An ineffable joy fills my whole being. Among chants and choruses, I was chosen by Umbra Mors and the Dark Saints to be the sacrifice that will allow the Great Lord to rule over this corrupted land again.
For almost two hours we walked without stopping until we reached a clearing that seemed out of reality, contrasting the landscape that was shown a while ago.
The place emitted a sinister atmosphere. The air felt dry and hot, decomposed animal bodies had turned the once vibrant place into a soulless one.
The grass, once green, was now a dark brown heap, devoid of vitality. The large and majestic trees were now nothing but splinters of black rotting wood, and the skies were covered in black clouds like oil, occasionally illuminated by intermittent lightning bolts.
Around it, six tall and thin black wooden stakes rose above the dead brush like fingers, forming a perfect hexagon. Ancient symbols were delicately carved into the wood of the stakes.
In its center, a white stone table carved from a single piece of limestone. The table had an ancient and neglected appearance, with symbols carved into its edges and dark rust stains on its smooth surface.
The air was impregnated with an oppressive stillness, as if any movement or sound could break the spell that surrounded the place, like the calm before a storm at sea.
Around the six stakes, all the members of Umbra Mors, dressed in elegant black robes, positioned themselves and began to give slow footstomps on the ground. Then they started a chant in a language as old as time itself, that would make any mortal's eyes bleed and incite them to rip their ears off.
As if the world itself was listening to the heretical and profane words coming out of their mouths, lightning bolts began to fall from the sky, being intercepted by the black wooden stakes, forming a pentagram with the symbol of Bael.
Each member made a deep cut on their right hand with a ceremonial knife made of gold and bronze, covered in esoteric engravings of an ancient language. Without any pause, they poured their blood onto the stakes at the same time, causing the lightning to take on a crimson color like the spilled blood. In front of the sacrifice table, one of the Dark Saints, the oldest of them all, whose name was almost impossible to pronounce in any current language, "πΈπ΄πΉπ³π°ππΉπΊ", had been one of the first followers of the Great Lord during his conquest.
"Valamir of the seventh Mortiferum house". His voice was clear and deep. The mere fact that his voice had pronounced my name sent a chill down my spine and cold sweat began to fall from my forehead. The longer his eyes stayed on me, the more my primal instincts screamed for me to run and not look back, but I stood firm. "Come closer."
With slow but steady steps, making sure to show a posture unworthy of his presence, I approached the Dark Saint.
"Lie down on the stone and fulfill your purpose," he said. In the next moment, as if the world wanted to prevent it, he sent another lightning bolt, one much more powerful than the previous ones. But I was not afraid. All my life I have been preparing for this, and there is no greater honor than to serve as a sacrifice for our Great Lord. So I just followed the Dark Saint's orders.
His nails lengthened and his already sharp teeth became fangs as large as bear claws. A malevolent and ancient energy that no one but the Great Lord could possess covered his left hand, and without any compassion, he brought his left hand to my chest and slowly buried his claws until they grazed my heart.
With great pain, I felt the large nails cut upwards from my chest to my stomach, exposing all my internal organs and irradiating my interior with that energy.
My vision became blurry, but despite the pain I still felt, my face never stopped smiling. I raised my last gaze to the face of the Dark Saint, looking inside me with satisfaction, and with my last breath, I only uttered a silent prayer: "For the Great Lord."
When Valamir gave his last breath, there was an explosion of jade-colored light and the skies opened up. The six stakes rose like dark pillars, refracting all the light in the environment and impaling the heavens like spears.
Six irregular beings shot out from them like arrows towards the members of Umbra Mors. Before they had a chance to react, the creatures clung to the shadows of some, rendering any chance they might have had to escape useless, killing them in unimaginable ways while their screams and calls for their Great Lord for salvation fell on deaf ears.
A cultist who still had a chance to escape turned to see his brothers, but most had already fallen into the clutches of the creatures, while others had quickly reacted and only curved swords could be seen shining in the twilight, moving at great speed.
The cultist closed his eyes, allowing his instincts to surface and releasing his power in the form of an energy shot.
The shot hit the back of one of the creatures, tearing it to the bones. The creature moved to look at him slightly, tilting its head in a gesture of amusement.
Then, it disappeared, and the desperate screams of its brothers, who were still around protecting each other's backs, began. With his eyes, he watched as one by one fell dead in such grotesque and horrible ways that he could not help but spill his bile on the ground.
But before he could try to help one of his brothers, they were all already lying on the ground, dead, with their souls about to be absorbed by the spiral of jade-colored skies.
Reacting quickly, he managed to jump back, dodging a sword made of the same abyss. In front of him, a hideous creature rose, half spider half worm, with the head of a man whose eyes showed an unspeakable evil.
The cultist quickly accumulated his power and fired another energy attack that hit its face, but found himself being dragged by the legs, suspended upside down by the pincers of that thing.
The cultist tried to accumulate the last of his power in a desperate attack, but before he could do anything, the creature sent one of its legs to the cultist's mouth and, with a simple spell, inflated his body until it exploded in a blast of blood and guts.
The Dark Saints looked on with depraved satisfaction and sadistic pleasure as the members loyal to them and their lord died in indescribable ways, screaming in agony.
When all the cultists were dead and their souls absorbed by the spiral, the creatures dissolved into a black slime that crawled along the floor towards the center of the hexagon where Valamir's body was still lying.
The black slime covered every inch of his body, and a few seconds later, a pillar of crimson energy, like blood itself, fell from the spiral, hitting Valamir's body and ascending to the sky as he underwent a metamorphosis, going from a young man of 25 to an attractive 30-year-old man dressed in a crimson tunic.
The unconscious man was carefully placed on the stone table as if he were a child, and with an explosion of colors, the light disappeared.
The three Dark Saints looked with admiration and fanaticism at the man on the stone table who was starting to wake up.
As they watched him slowly rise, they could not take it anymore and fell to their knees, looking at the man in front of them as if he were a kind of God.
The man put his feet on the ground and took a few steps before falling to the ground, still very weak.
The Three Dark Saints quickly approached to help their lord, but he stopped them, rising on his own. "My lord," said the oldest Dark with great devotion in his words. "It's been over a thousand years, but I always trusted that you would return," he said, kneeling.
"I remember you, you were πΈπ΄πΉπ³π°ππΉπΊ," he said the name of the Dark One as if it were nothing, pronouncing it with such perfection that it made the soul of the Dark One tremble with joy. "What era are we in?" asked the Great Lord to his faithful servants, almost as a whisper. "It is 2006 in the Gregorian calendar, my lord," said one of the Dark Ones, a woman.
The Great Lord laughed lightly for a few seconds before falling silent and gazing contemplatively at the sky. "It is time for me to reclaim what is rightfully mine and rule once again as I once did, I, Cain, the first son and progenitor of π π°πΌ πΉπ·πΉπ·, decree to the world," as if the very universe were listening to his words, reality trembled accepting his words as a promise.
If he were unable to fulfill it, he would be forced to return to the flames of hell to be tortured for eternity.
The Three Holy Dark Ones listened to his words with great devotion and knelt before their lord.
"It's time for us to go. It's been over a thousand years since I tasted human blood," said one of the Dark Ones, nodding in agreement and snapping his fingers, causing the four of them to transform into shadows and disappear from the clearing in a few seconds.