Speech = ``…..´´
Thoughts = [… …]
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...Tock, tock..who is there? Surely not a dragon...
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A day had passed since the events in the capital city.
His duel with the young human and that woman was barely a distant memory despite the closeness and recency of the events, just another small drop into an already overfilled ocean of memories and thoughts..
Most filled with blood and screams, though if they were his or another's was sometimes hard to know...
At least this time…, he was no longer been pressed by the ever reaching and ever demanding need to kill as he had since he had first taken his first step in this world.
Pushing him, demanding on him, calling out its deserved tribute...
All those bandits and cultist dead in a single day…., without adding the structural damage incurred into the city itself he had tore through.
Though if one considered with the body count he used to do in the Abyss or in the great war it was not much.
Now, as improbable as it sounded he remained still…
Sitting over a rock
In the a dead forest covered with mist that he had found as he travelled through the air...
Truly, he did not know this world had this kind of place waiting just around the corner. Especially after the lack of true terror or corruption that he had wished for if only to find any semblance of familiarity with where he came from in this place...
It was gloomy, dark and grim as if a heavenly creature had used a massive brush of cold and dark palette of colours and spill it all over around him with neither control or desire to do so.
Robbing the soil of its colour and leaving his surrounding completely devoid of intelligent life. The air toxic and brimming with magic, clearly capable to bring down to its knees a grown man, unable to leave as the mist clouded its victims senses, stopping them from ever leaving.
But they did not affect him in the slightest….
There was no mist capable to confuse him and warp his sense of direction, nor there was poison strong enough to slow him down. Especially when the one he had been taking for centuries, meant to melt and corrode his very own body failed to do so and wound continue as such. Only making his regeneration been into overdrive, adapting, growing stronger and forcing him to take even bigger doses…, creating a strange loop in which he found himself at the end of it.
The silence mixed with that sorrowful breeze that came from the distant, secluded edges of the forest could be mistaken by the pained howls of souls in agony, trapped forever in these misty woods, that...and the seething sound of the negativity that emanated from the very ground beneath his heels from time to time really did the difference.
It was perfect...
And so, he had found this little spot to recluse himself for at least as long as he saw it fit. Though given the fact that he was incapable of standing still for too long in one place it would mean that his stay would not be that long...
It also seemed that the slime were attracted to him, the sound of their squishy bodies mounting over one another or just rolling down the grass field like dogs could be heard if not simply seen from where he stood.
The lack of brains or any other source of intelligence or sentience whatsoever added with their desire for magical energy had led for him to be given a rather strange company of a few hundred slimy blobs of mana.
The only reason they had not climbed all over him was because he had made his aura grow thicker around him and create an invisible wall between them and him with it.
The sheer weight of his scent was literally shielding him…, never thought he would use it with slime though.
Shaking his head from such uninteresting facts he felt the wind begin to move with greater speed, strong whips in the distance, growing in intensity and closeness.
His brows furrowed behind the metal mask, but pay it little heed as his attention was once more drawn to the pudgy multicoloured ponds of liquid that tried to rub against the invisible barrier, some climbing over the others and purring through non existent vocal cords at each other…
Curiously, they did not seem to be spilling acid or toxic energy through their bodies, or even tried to blow up like small sized bombs in an attempt to cover all over him with their digestive fluids like those back home would….
[Those merry suicide bombers….]
He grumbled to himself at that wayward memory before he focused on the matter at hand, albeit..with their presence still not too far gone from the edges of his mind. Truly a bother to the weakest of human beings, this however were mostly made out of albeit dirty and rather thick clay mixed with water than actual acid.
They did not have the intent to hunt down anything that moved like polymorph creatures they were, but rather acted like snails..
Big.., ugly, squishy snails...but snails all the same.
They were a small nuisance in comparison with what he had been wondering about though, especially about the truth or fragment of it he had fished out from both the Spirit of Aurora and that of the so called "Nightmare of Midgar".
The first one had been too incomplete and fractured to pierce through her mind and see for himself what she had said without damaging her or killing her, but the tone of her words were too honest to be a lie.
It was hard to lie to him anyway…
The latter had proven hard to do so given the damage he had incurred into his soul and mind at the end of their confrontation.
His eyes narrowed, annoyed by that reminder. Clenching his fist, talons digging deep into the rock beneath and cracking it with the same ease one would step over a small tree branch.
He should not have done that, he should have killed him and be done with it and then if he wished, brought him back only to put him back in the ground.
But no, he had to draw satisfaction of breaking him completely first.., to see him and everything he believed crumbled and turned to ash in his mouth, to see the courage and pride he wantonly showed died out while he could do nothing but watch..
To know in a second that lasted several lifetimes the weight of his failure.
``….´´
He sighed, lowering his head a bit, the tubes jangling with one another as he did.
It had been satisfying…., but sometimes pleasure did not made it worth it.
At least what he knew was a small confirmation of what he had gotten from the rest of the corpses he made along the way.
Faint brushes of the kingdoms of this world and the history that had led to their creation, the Heros, their spirits, the Sanctums and Diabolos. Then there was the lies.., the Cult and their less than altruistic goals.
The information gathered was there, it was just all convoluted and not quite clear, even for the likes of Fenrir he did not appear to know the whole truth, or at least...that was what he had come to believe.
He, like those lower cultist that were nothing more but meat-shields for their masters must have not been part of the initial cult, just a strong member who was recruited long afterwards and had reached a leadership role through their exploits and their rampant and unchecked ambitions. Like that red haired guy whose name he had forgotten already, just...a bit better at it.
``….´´
Yes, definitely a lot better than him...
He rose his head, red coal like eyes flaring to life as he slowly rose from his position.
Aurora, the cult, their goals, this world...they were dots in his mind, pushed by hooked threads as they were put in different locations neatly constructed form them in the chaos that was his head.
But now was time to speak about the elephant in the room
A rift between realities opened right next to him. Like a void of blackness and violent lights that seemed to be in a never ending quest to swallow the light around it. He stretched his hand through it, his fingers tapping into the power coursing through it as his hand was connected and separated from his shoulder at the same time.
Pulling out from the black portal a certain bag of living flesh that he had picked up the very first day he came.
Hooked fingers holding it tightly as he looked at it and-...
``…´´
``That is not good...´´
He muttered, cocking his head slightly to the left as he tried to scratch his head about what had happened to the creature that had found its way into his care, if only briefly before he decided to focus on the scent he had been drawn to.
He remembered its broken form, it was hard not to.
The way it squealed, that malformed, rotten flesh and ugliness that could not speak but wail in agony through malnourished and butchered vocal cords. The empty stare of a malformed blue eye and the cackling echoes of crude, elongated teeth grinding and biting empty air...
But now..? It was so much different, and yet all too similar...
Now it had grown three times his size, the flesh had grown scarlet red and black all around where the brown and dirty skin had been. Spikes of bone and glass having protrude from its body and created a small like carapace of thorns around it, stopping anyone foolish enough from trying to get close to it though its sharp edges were also digging deeply into its own flesh, no matter how hardened it was...
Sadly that was not the end of it, arms and legs had prop up all around it like fungus, yet they could not compare with the myriad of eyes, red and blue that looked back at him. Mindlessly, empty and yet judging him in silence….
And they should…, since he was the one at fault this time for this unexpected development..
It seemed that indeed, one was not meant to throw living beings at a magical pocket dimension brimming with dimensional energy. It made him think..what else had he thrown down there and he had forgotten about..?
Not that he cared much about that, but such lousy act was not one he was known for…
He was slipping..
As if to double down on his newfound answer it wailed in pain again, its screeching voice making some of the slime fly off from the ground while a small storm of energy swapped the rest aside, scorching the ground though only rattling over his body like a simple drizzle of rain. The energy that should have peeled up his skin and bone bouncing up, completely harmless….
He shook his head, tired even though his body was completely fine.
Too much even..
``You stupid little thing, you are a bloody sponge aren't you...?´´
He cursed out loud, though there was no animosity in his tone...just bleeding sympathy at what he knew was just a mirror of children's former existence. Those who were pure were always the first to go...
As expected, it did not answer with words..., it merely screamed once more, this time even more louder than before though if it even was possible, perhaps answering in kind. Perhaps not, it did not matter..
He had to fix it.
He had to fix her….
And then he could bury that slight thorn of gilt that was poking at him for throwing her literally over his shoulder to an even worse situation and go back to scowl at life itself..
For if he was not wrong, what he was holding between his bloodstained palms was not a demon spawn or the works of evil warlocks who had made someone's insides come out in the open and make furniture out of them while they still drew breath..
Perhaps someone could say that fin ding your body rotting from the inside out was perhaps an even crueller fate, but he knew a curse could barely scratch the cusp of agony that could be inflicted by the sadistic yet skilled hands of a mortician.
What he was holding was…, just a little girl.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment as an old thought came passing by.
Why it was the innocent that were given the worst fates...?
It was like a never ending paradox that they were never free of, luring them, pulling them in. into the vortex. Perhaps like the gears of a clock or the threads of a machine, intertwined and messy by the hands of an unskilled worker, and yet... never stopping in reaching their apparent and never ending void of misery.
He was sick of it..
That at least had survived from his old self. Good….
He shook his head, stretching his free hand forward, traces of energy flaring at the tip of his fingertips as he prepared to operate…, but just as he was about to start to work to mend his mistake he instinctively threw her away into the rift once more. The hole in reality vanishing in an instant at once when it went through.
A second later a beam of light as big and wide as the clearing that he was residing tore through the misty air above his head and hit the ground at full force.
The entire section of the forest blew up in smoke in a wild explosion. The ground was scorched to dust, the trees were tore from their roots and vaporised, even sections of the mist had been pushed away by the shock-wave of the explosion.
While he remained idle and untouched in the centre of the now desolated and slime free clearing….
He slapped away the dust settling down his shoulder pads before he looked with an irritated glare at the cause of the attack, his glowing eyes peering through the dirt and smoke covering the air in a thick column of black fumes...
The one he had heard coming miles away but had hoped it would have the decency to fear approaching any further.
Sadly he had put his hopes in a stupid, white scaled lizard with wings….
Clearly not the smartest of the bunch.
Its scales were glowing with a silver-white hue that under the light of the moon would have made them glow with an ethereal light. Its wings carried with them a blueish reflecting on the mainsails of his wings. Its head was sharp and elongated, four dynamic whispers two at each cheek while its skull was adorned with six horns.
Energy flaring through them, speaking out their purpose as conduits of the energy that was brewing inside its body.
It was big. It was strong…, perhaps just a tiny little bit than the mans whose heart he stole.
But he had seen worse…
Way worse..
He also did not need eyes to know those cerulean blue eyes were looking rather smug at the result of its own work.
He already knew how this was going to end...
``To think that you would survive my first and strongest attack without a scratch.., truly interesting. Indeed, this...is truly interesting´´
It said, amused by his continued survival as he started to descend in-front of him.
He scoffed.
``Don't you have anything to say to me, warrior? No word or curse..? Not even a gasp for breath of my presence..? Have I left you out so easily out of breath already..?´´
He scoffed again, this louder as his lips started turning into a scowl while his eyes glinted maliciously behind his mask.
He rose his scythe, pointing it at the creature.
He did have something indeed to tell him, something very interesting now that he paid more attention to the creature.
``Bitch, you ain't no legs…´´
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A/N
Bad timing, I suppose that when you are a several story sized lizard with thirst to die gloriusly you really don't know the time of day. Is it me or the misty dragon is a mix between European dragon and Asiatic ones?
...Delta-apocalypses...
Eta taking notes of Reapers own notes create a machine that can duplicate anything that gets inside. Delta chasing Zeta stumbles inside, mayhem ensues as an army of Deltas come out wanting to be pet by their master.