"So tell me, what are you afraid of?"
And now we are briefly going to stop our story for the sake of asking you a question. What would be, in your opinion, a human's reaction to seeing a demon? Obviously one of the answers would be fear of the unknown. That is pretty much mandatory. But is it only fear? Seeing a demon with one's own eyes would truly be a life-changing experience and we are not talking about a change for the best. To see something that would defy or confirm your view of the universe would bring more problems than it would solve. Unless the individual tries to deny the reality of the situation, it would most likely end up tragically.
We know from Braylon's experience that seeing a demon, no matter how many times, will always feel like seeing it for the first time. A human mind struggles with what it cannot,will not, possibly fathom. Especially when said things are eye-openers.
I'm sure we all remember the early-mentioned spherical shadow that opened its eye. The moonlight revealed the thing that was hidden beneath, a silvery floating sphere crowned with a pair of black horns and four, approximately human-sized, arms and a bloody, teeth-lacking mouth so large that it looked like it's body was split in two. Why it had no teeth? Because they were torn out, hence the blood, replaced by an iron chain that probably served to stitch the mouth together, but failed miserably as it was slightly opened. What was strange was a faint light coming from the insides of the mouth. It was a shade of cyan that deceptively looked like a very light green.*
Braylon took a step back, unsure of how to react. The giant eye staring at him was rather unsettling. He could feel profound hatred behind that seemingly stoic stare. His instincts ran wild, the mind urging him to make a move.
"Perhaps you are afraid of snakes and spiders," The deep voice echoed in his mind as the demon stood still. "tiny pests that can poison you with a bite, gifting you with a slow death in the middle of nowhere?"
His eyes briefly left the demon to check the surroundings. There was nothing else alive besides them.
"Or perhaps you're afraid of big heights," Its voice, while deep, suddenly felt like that of a human. "knowing that if you fall, your exsitence could end in an instant or, worse, every bone in your body could be broken beyond repair, leaving you to rot in a wheelchair for the rest of your short life?"
While he didn't saw it, he could hear it taking a deep, raspy breath before bellowing from what he assumed to be its throat. "Or, maybe, you fear infected wounds caused by pieces of steel that crawl all over your body, splitting apart your skin and letting your blood to fall free from your veins?"
Braylon became more paranoid with each question, fidgeting in place from time to time. And while the demon continued to remain motionless, he could swear that it enjoyed his unpleasantness and fear. On a body where body language was practically nonexistent, the eyes were the ultimate betrayers.
"I'm not afraid!" He exclaimed. How much he sounded convincing was questionable to both parties.
"Is that so?" The black slit that was its pupil suddenly became larger. Braylon was confused for a second before he felt unbearable pain in his chest that made him fall on his knees and clutch his chest. "I commanded your heart to stop beating for just a second. Do you understand now, little mortal, what are you going up against?"
"If you wish a fight, then fight without dirty tricks!" He managed to speak through his teeth.
"Fight? Oh-oh, you misunderstood. This is not a fight, this is a one-sided massacre." His pain stopped abruptly. "But far be it from me to simply end your life like that. It would be... boring. After all, you are the only mortal who successfuly escaped from my torture chambers. So come, mortal! Entertain me."
"How can I do anything against that thing?! It's too strong!"
Braylon took the energy pistol and aimed at the expressionless demon. His fingers were unable to pull the trigger and his hands were shaking.
"Am... am I scared?" His eyes briefly went down on his hands. "I'm... shaking... I'm terrified... absolutely terrified." The demon, meanwhile, was as still as a statue. He screamed with all his might and forced himself to pull the trigger. Out of all shots that he fired, not one of them made it move even for an inch. He kept firing over and over until he calmed down and realized that it was completely pointless.
"My turn." The black pupil expanded again. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. That was, until Braylon noticed that something below him started glowing. When he looked down, he noticed a purple glowing circle with strange symbols written below his feet. He had no idea when, or how, it appeared, but he knew he had to move. Throwing himself out of the circle, he landed on the dirt as the circle began glowing brighter with each passing second. All of a sudden, a strange red mist shot out from the ground and upwards, never leaving the boundary that was the circle.
"When did that appear?!" His eyes shot back to the floating monster and widened as its mouth started expanding, even more so than he thought possible, flaring up in that strange bluish color. He was sure that he saw a silhouette deep iniside that furnace of a mouth. It turns out he was right, for two flaming skulls shot out of the mouth and towards him. Before he moved away from their line of attack, he noticed how one skull was that of a human while the other not so much. Despite that, they both shared the same trait; their flames and eye-dots were of the same color as the demon's mouth. And while they reminded him of the ones he saw in the town, these ones weren't shrieking, but moaning and crying.**
Braylon ran around the cemetery, dodging several tombstones in his way. The fiery duo followed close behind. Realizing that further running would lead nowhere, he decided to jump down, turn in mid-air and shoot the chasers. They were weak enough to break apart with few shots.
A crimson flash to the corner of his eyes warned him to turn around. The demon's gigantic eye was glowing with the brightness that rivaled that of the moon above their heads. Such brightness made him shield his eyes from the fear of being blinded during a crucial moment. It was then when he was hit by a beam and sent across the cemetery and into a wall. The pain he felt was exactly the same as the one he felt when that goat-legged demon tried to kill him, only multiplied by several times. He fell down after the beam dissapeared. A circular shadow quickly plunged his vision into darkness.
"Do you wish to know why you, a mortal, may destroy the body but never kill me?" Braylon didn't respond. He was barely able to breathe through the amount of pain he felt. Instead, his eyes only darted upwards, meeting the demonic eye. "It is not your call. How could you be worthy of such a thing, a creature that lives on borrowed time, in a borrowed meat shell? Oh yes, we know everything about mortals, each and every individual. Their fears, their doubts, their worries, their weaknesses... all of them, simple products caused by a cunning hand. Our hand."
His body stopped responding to his commands as it slowly flew above the ground only to be set back on his feet. He knew that this move was supposed to insult him. And it did. His hateful stare did nothing to scare the being in front of him.
"Look at you, pathetic and weak, just like your predecessors. So easy to manipulate, so easy to break, so easy..." The pupil expanded. "...to torture."
Braylon sprinted forward with with surprising speed, materializing his Holo Sabre and attacking. He crouch-landed behind the demon, changing his weapon back to the revolver and pistol combination. Something squishy could be heard falling on the dirt, which muffled the sound. Both opponents turned around at the same time, staring each other in utter silence. The demonic eye moved towards its right pair of arms. One of them was missing. In fact, it lay below it.
It kept staring at its wound without showing even the slightest hint of pain. Then, the eye quickly turned its focus back to Braylon.
"Congratulations, mortal. Forcing you to leave this valley of tears has became much more interesting."
Braylon growled. "He didn't even feel that."
(Bloodborne – The One Reborn)
The demon raised his remaining three arms into the air for a few seconds. During the same amount of time, some strange orange symbols appeared in its hands and vanished soon after.
Then something grabbed him by the leg.
He looked down and there was a rotting hand rising from the ground.
Kicking the hand away with his other leg, he retreated for few steps back before looking around himself. Dozens of Possessed Corpses started rising from tombs. Some Tainted jumped on the walls and stared down at him. Something also rose from the ground at the demon's right. It was a pale-skinned hunchback with its flesh so twisted that the only facial features visible were the human teeth between a pair of twisted lips. It had dozens of glowing lumps on its back and chest, just like the Tainted, but slightly more expressed. Everything from below the chest was so thin that he was able to see bones hidden under the skin. The right arm, apart from having orangle blisters had three short but fat, purplish fingers that resembled claws. The left one was morphed into a bludgeon, with thin and sharp orange crystals sticking out from the surface, thus giving it more lethal power. Braylon's nose, despite being at a considerable distance, was able to strongly feel the smell of decay coming out of that abomination.***
It was a coordinated attack, Braylon thought. While the mooks would earn his attention, the demon that summoned them would be free to attack with anything it desired. For the strategy to work, it would need an endless stream of disposable grunts, where one fallen could easily be replaced by two. It had that and much more. With the endless supply of corpses for possession, the Tainted and the warped monstrosity, the plan could be executed without anything going wrong.
The first batch of undead proved to be no match for his Holo Ripper, which hacked through the Corpses with a single swing. But then he noticed another pair of blue-fire skulls quickly approaching. While one stayed and fought, only to be "killed", the other took a dive into the dirt. He would observe its further movements, but one Tainted dog was very close to bite him, so he had to concentrate on other matters. After he killed the Tainted, by grabbing it from behind and opening its throat with the chainsaw, he felt a hand grabbing his shoulder, followed by extreme pain. He set himself free and jumped away from the attacker; a skeleton inside a cyan, emaciated, ghost-like, human figure with two, barely-noticeable pinpricks of the same color deep inside the eye sockets. ****
"Avoid contact with it if you wish to stay alive." Braylon used the Holo Ripper to try and cut the new addition to the small army he had to face. While it failed to hit the figure, as it passed right through, it did more than enough against the skeleton, which broke into pieces. The human figure let out a ghastly moan before being consumed by a bluish light, leaving behind scattered bones and the fiery human skull. He destroyed it before it could repeat its trick once again.
"Crouch." Without questioning the voice's intentions, the Vault Hunter did as he heard. Not even a minute later, he heard wind blowing above his head, like when someone swings something massive. Turning his head slightly, he saw the deformed monster inches away from him, growling with killing intent. His Holo Ripper was swapped for Holo Sabre, which made quick work of its legs. The creature fell down with a loud thud before Braylon curb stomped its head, using a broken tombstone as a substitute.
"There is no point in fighting them." Braylon frowned as he looked at yet another horde of monsters coming towards him. The demonic eye became bright once more. Knowing what that meant, he rolled sideways, barely dodging the beam. He looked at the demon. "He has built a good defence. If I try to approach him, the zombies will just form a wall hard enough to keep me busy. Even the energy pistol proved to be useless... damn it!" He dodged another beam while also swapping his current arsenal for the Striker. The demon, as if it knew his intention, lifted its arms and formed an energy barrier around itself, leaving Braylon surprised.
"It is of no use, mortal. You are too weak to pose any kind of a threat to the likes of me."
As soon as it spoke, it was shielded by a group of Corpses and Tainted. Another warped monstrosity rose out from the ground. This one had the arm shaped into a cleaver.
"We'll see about that!" He boasted. "Right after I make a hole in your army!"
"Then come. Come, towards your death."
The closest Corpse's head was crushed with a buttstroke. He blasted away the other Corpse, revealing putrid innards. Third and fourth were sliced in half, one horizontally and one vertically. As soon as the fourth's body split apart, he saw a Tainted racoon jumping at him. He crouched and grabbed the animal by the tail as it flew above him, smashed it to the ground and crushed it with his leg. Next was a skeleton with a woman's ghostly frame. He materialized the Holo Ripper and cut off its hands before crushing its skull.
There was nothing that could have stop him now. With a mighty battle cry he charged forward at the spherical demon. The holographic chainsaw reached the surface of the barrier. It screeched loudly as sparks started flying everywhere around them. He stashed the Striker so that his free hand could hold the other. The one-sided struggle went on for some time, as his hand threatened to bounce off the protective energy shield. Then, when all hope seemed lost, his eyes caught a glimpse of a crack right where his Ripper had connected. His right hand pushed down his left as the Ripper kept dealing further damage.
It suddenly broke with a loud crash, like shattered glass. The demon calmly remained in its position as the fingers of his right hand dug into its eye socket, leaving the eye intact.
Everything stopped. All noise around them dissapeared instantly. It was just the two of them. Two of them in a lonely world.
The eye was fixed on the mortal in front of it. Braylon replied in kind. But unlike the demon, he was unsure whether he had done a good thing, ending the fight, or a bad thing, where his situation went downhill more than he thought possible. He could feel the warm crimson blood coming in contact with his hand and dripping from it.
And yet... nothing.
It had done nothing to stop him.
But why?
"This is not a victory, little mortal." It boomed calmly. "This is a loss, for whatever you do, you will ultimately accomplish nothing." The black slit expanded. Even if he was unable to see it, he was sure that it was enjoying this moment, thus pouring salt on his wounds. "Your actions are irrelevant. Nothing you do can stop us now."
"Shut up!" Braylon screamed furiously while changing the Ripper to Sabre. With quick and unrefined moves he began stabbing all around the eye, letting blood fall freely from the demon, who cackled in amusement. Falling completely under the provocations, Braylon stopped stabbing and pulled the eye out with his right hand. It fell to the floor, popping like a water ballon and forming a pool of blood and ichor under his feet.
"Soon... very soon..."
He then reached one of the horns and kept cutting it until he was able to tear it off with his hands. With the newly acquired horn he stabbed the eye cavity, freeing even more blood than before. He did it again and again until the tip of the horn got stuck somwhere inside and he was unable to pull it out.
The demon crushed down like a sack, half deflated and covered in its own blood. Everything else that was brought back to life or was corrupted died with it. He coughed and walked backwards until he fell on his bottom. Braylon took a moment to take a deep breath. He lost his composure as soon as he regained it. Those cursed words rang in his mind.
"This is not a victory... nothing you do can stop us... you will ultimately accomplish nothing..."
"Damn it!" He cursed loudly as one of his fists smashed into the dirt. "All of this... is for nothing! Nothing!"
Not only did he feel rage, he also felt humiliation. Despite his victory, he couldn't help but feel as if the demon let him win, rather than achieving it on his own. A final spit on his soul before it fled back to Hell.
His tantrum stopped abruptly when he swore he heard a noise coming from the corpse. Like a hiss of a snake. He looked up, and noticed that the corpse began shaking and inflating.
His eyes widened as he quickly got up on his feet and began running as far away as he could. A loud explosion sent him on the ground. Although technically, the explosion played a minor role. What actually threw him off-balance was a wave of energy, spreading in all directions. Red chunks of meat began falling from the sky as well. He spun around and noticed a huge red stain where the demonic corpse should have been.
"Is it finally over?"
"Not even close."
"Okay, are you trying to make me angry right now?!"
"That is only half-true. Tell me, do you know how he got here?"
"...Oh."
"You fool. He could have reached this pitiful reality in many ways. And you now destroyed your only chance of finding out how."
"...Crap." He lowered his head. His foot stepped on something strange. "What the..."
He crouched and touched the thing. It was red and smelled of decay. A tendril of sorts. And a giant one at that. He followed the trail and noticed how it was connected to dozens of others, spreading all over the cemetery. Still, all of them seemed to follow a pattern, just like a plant; many leaves, one branch.
And that branch lead to a chapel on the very end of the cemetery.
PDA Biopedia:
*Entry #12: Har'Ga'Nesh, Eternal Jailor of Souls
Type: Demon
Faction: Legions of Hell
Description: "Easily one of the most disturbing individuals down here. Har'Ga'Nesh used to be one of the most graceful and magnificent of my brothers. After the fall, he used his charm to fool mortals into various... questionable acts, thus aiding us in creating monsters for our cause. It didn't last long, as Anathema punished him with a specific curse. From then on, whenever he appeared to a mortal, it would be in the form of a hideous abomination so disgusting, that even the most foolish of mortals would flee from him. When we were thrown down here, the curse transformed him into what you saw. He changed his name to Har'Ga'Nesh and decided to torture mortal souls in his chambers for all eternity. Some brothers even joined his cause..."
**Entry #13: Condemned
Type: Aetherial – Demon
Faction: Legions of Hell
Description: "Do not be fooled. Mortals aren't born equal. Even down here we live in a hierarchy because none is equally powerful. What makes you think mortals are any different? Reinventing the wheel and rediscovering fire ad infinitum? In any case, the Condemned are mortal souls forever trapped down here, as a punishment for their actions. While most of their time is spent on blaming everyone and everything for the actions they did on their own, they can and will attack every living being on sight. A word of warning, mortals created by other mortals through synthetic means have no souls of their own. When they die, they stop existing. Serves you right for trying to act like Anathema."
***Entry #14: Abomination
Type: Demonic Corruption
Faction: Legions of Hell
Description: "Sometimes the Lost Souls have refined tastes, refusing to possess corpses. Sometimes there are so many bodies to choose from, but not enough brothers to take control of them. Sometimes... some brothers find the idea of molding flesh as if it were clay to be a form of art or entertainment (or both), eventually forming beings known as Ghouls. While they may vary in purpose and strenght, they all have one thing in common; they definitely used to be mortals, before my brothers decided to unleash their creativity to make (disposable) slaves."
****Entry #15: Returner
Type: Demonic Corruption – Aetherial
Faction: Forces of Hell
Description: "Some Condemned will feel the need for a physical body. Because Condemned are mortal souls, they lack the power necessary to possess the living, so they settle for dead bodies instead. The aetherial energy the Condemned have in abundance will project an apparition of their former bodies on the possessed corpses, similar to what you mortals call "hologram". You can dispose of them quickly by destroying the bodies they possessed. Doing so, you will scatter their energy, forcing them to return to their original state."