Speech = ``…..´´

Thoughts = [… …]

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...A few minutes earlier...

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For a common grunt barely above the meat-shields that were the thirds children life in the cult was pretty simple; obey orders, serve, get orders, serve and keep your mouth shut at all times unless your boss or squadron captain asked for your opinion whether it was actually necessary or just to nod your head mindlessly at whatever they were saying..

That way you would live a longer if simpler life, and who knew...perhaps you would not be considered mere muscle if you nodded your head hard enough.

He knew that those that were to unfocused or not well in the head who did not caught on the change of mood of their bosses when it mattered or just tripped on the wrong feet or just were around when they did not have to surely tended to not appear next morning. Not him…, he knew better.

And so, life was simple…

Then everything changed when the black storm attacked.

It was so sudden, so strange that he had no idea if he was actually awake or just inside a dream. Until he remembered that he had not dreams, not of the Cults children's had dreams.

That did not make it any better though, the sunny day had been replaced by the mother of all storms, his hood and his body were more often than not a second close to be sent flying or just reap out from the ground like a twig. His body was soaked to the bone thanks to the rainstorm, and he was tired of been forced to move through flooded streets filled with mud and cold water.

Then the knights came by…., and after them monsters brought out from a bad nightmare made quick work of them.

Cruel and terrifying, they were devoid of flesh and soul, their bodies rotting but not stopping their feasting on his own fellow members of the cult, adding their bodies to their tide.

And he had yet to see the actual, main cause of this catastrophe.

Did he wanted to? No...

Would he have to? More than probable...

Anyway, he had heard whispers here and there.

Some said it was an attack by the local monsters that had attacked the city walls and had push through.

Others an experiment of the Cult gone wrong that had break free and was now terrorizing the city and no one was able to stop their spread. Putting into jeopardy their secrecy in the process.

But either the most strange if not fucked up thing he had heard was the idea that a sole man had brought the capital to its knees. Clad in black and towering above any man that had ever existed or would ever came to be in this world.

Death given form..

He did not know what to think, so he didn't say anything…

It was better that way...

His black hair was glued to his face, sweat sliding down what little skin was not covered by the face mask he bore while each intake of air felt like he was swallowing needles..

He tried to walk though only managed to barely step forward with the numbness that was taking over his limbs and how his bones ached. The dampness of his clothes was only growing as the fabric became drenched by the rain alongside the blood slipping through some wounds over his left arm, wounds that even now ached. As if insects were now growing inside

it.

He tried to bit his lip, but failed in his attempt. He instead stumbled backwards and then to the side as if he was drunk. His head felt fuzzy…, his sight growing weaker. Adding a new layer of problems for him to deal with.

He would have tried to heal it, but his magic power was so pathetic that a newborn had more than him, nor his comrades had saw fit to waste any on him.

It was fine, tools did not need to be taken care of when they were defective. He had merely lasted longer than others.

So he let it be, expecting it to grow weaker and lower the pain he felt.

What he had not expected was for it to flared up and hurt more and more as if the cut was expanding.

He shook his head, no need…, he had to serve, he was meant to serve. Pain was meaningless.

There were suppose to be at least nine squads here, half of the amount of men that their captains had brought up from their barracks to deal with this mess in the name of their master. Having previously agreed to met in the Sun Plaza of the Kingdom in the upper levels of the city after an hour passed.

But he barely was able to count more than two that had managed to pull through that command…, and they were filled with casualties.

That was not good….

The earth shook visible with tremors, the sound of buildings breaking apart reaching even then through the full-blown out storm before another gush of wind came howling down, slapping right in the face as it did and pulling back his hood.

He tried to rose an arm to recover it, but the wind was too strong and threw him off balance. Landing loudly on the wet and humid ground.

He felt tired…, but he had to serve, he had to rise.

His eyes darted around weakly, noticing that no one was coming to help him. In fact, they had not even acknowledged it.

Huffing he rose from the ground, struggling to do so as the wind blew stronger and stronger and the ground shook under his feet, the noise growing stronger..

Closer...

But that did not stop him from fulfilling his duty, her had to serve and the only way to do so was to be standing.

And so he did, he remained he listened to the conversation between his captain of squadron and a named child, a man going by the name Axel.

He did not know him, not at all…, but like anyone else that was above him, he avoided him like the plague.

It was a poor idea to get the attention of those individuals. After all, he was meant to serve and obey.., nothing else.

And so, he would follow his commands from a distance.

``This is bad…, this is fucking bad´´

``Yeah, you are telling me. How the hell did this mess came to be? How did one guy managed to do that?´´

``Your guess is good as mine. Did you see what he did to second, fourth and ninth squadron? That was some fucked up shit! Not even smears of them remained!´´

``Those were the lucky ones..´´

``I know…, it unnerves me to think of the "unlucky" ones if you get what I mean...´´

He did not know what they meant for that, though he could guess. The thoughts making him shudder.

``There is no way that guy could have been a knight, they don't act like that, period..´´

The captain scoffed, clearly not believing the named child.

``But what if they were., you don't think they have people hidden away from the public eye, do you?´´

Axel said with a gruff. The captain shook his head, once more not agreeing with the statement though this time a bit more slowly..

``Is not their motto nor possible with the cults ample espionage network., we would have known long by now if they had anything as such´´

``But, then how did we reached this point?´´

He stopped listening by then when he found his body folding on itself as if someone had slammed a hot iron into his guts, kneeling down once more as he started to throw up into the ground..

Dark spots starting to cover the sides of his sight, leaving only a dim and poor lighted tunnel before him.

When he looked down at his hands he noticed the fresh, sticky blood covering them. Feeling the taste of iron strong in his mouth while it slipped down bloodied teeth and past his chin. Staining the cloth covering his mouth in red..

He tried to rise, but he could not…

His legs had given out, his lungs were on fire and something, something was crawling up his arm and deep into his body.

Once more, nobody took notice of his state.

They did however realized that something was wrong when at least half of them were sent flying when something heavy landed on the ground at the centre of the square, while the other half fell on their arses.

By the time the dust settled and they were able to take a better look at what the hell in the Cults name was that they were for a horrible surprise. Or at least…, that was what he gathered given the gasp of shock or surprise he heard as he remained fallen in the ground.

``Oh, god...the master, is that-..´´

``Fuck, everyone gather up..!´´

``Are you crazy? Look at that thing! He is gonna eat us alive!´´

``Fool! There is only one of them and dozens of us. Think what the master would do for us if they learned we saved them on their time of need´´

He closed his eyes shut, grinding his teeth fiercely as he felt his brain starting to melt. Dozens of hooks of molten starting to spread inside his skull and veins, burning everything in their way..

By the time he raised his head to see what was going everything was nothing but a blur of shadows and lights.

There stood the rest of the cult members, weapons in hand, fear in their eyes that they were unable to push down no matter how hard they tried while in the other side stood a shadow blacker than than the night.

Those sinful eyes of red being the only thing he could see from it, flaring with raw, unrelenting murder inside them.

They were...glorious.

``For the Cult...!´´

His fellow Children roared as they charged only to be met with a pair of wooden barrels filled with a black oozing substance that had appeared from thin air.

No…

Not from thin air, from the Shadow...

The Cults children could have tried to scramble, to move out of the way as fast as they could, but it would not matter if did as they were caught mid charge.

As soon as the barrels impacted on the first row of cultist, the resulting force ruptured through their bodies as if they were not even there, bones and guts flying everywhere like confetti while those behind them were sent on their arses, wounded by still alive.

He would eat his words when he saw the black ooze that had fallen on them thanks to the crash explode. The explosion enveloped his captain and anyone near him in a plume of searing flames, blanketing most of the area in a sea of black fire. Dozens of third and second children that were caught in the blast radius were killed instantly.

Those were the lucky ones..

Whatever had sparked the explosion seemed to react differently on those that had been dosed in the black oozing substance further away, their sticky appearance lighting up them aflame as if someone had thrown a torch into a stray pack of hay.

It adhered to their skin and burned through their cloths as they tried desperately to get the fires of hell off them, but all they accomplished was tear off their melting skin when they pulled of their uniforms. Those that were not burning were been...EATEN Alive by the same substance.

Biting, gnawing and chewing at them as if they were oversized black coloured slimes, some even slipping through his fellow children open mouths and noses between their screams of agony before they continued to eat them from the inside.

It was horrible, it was brutal.

It could not have gotten worse than that.

It did...

For the Shadow now charged, and there was nothing in this world that would stop it.

The strength he was mustering to hold himself from falling face first into the ground failed him, prompting him to land roughly onto the flooded terrain.

The pond tasted of dirt, of ashes and the coppery taste of blood.

He would have tried to spit it out, but he barely had any strength to do so. His body was burning up, a fever shaking him to his very foundations.

``Form up! Form up you idiots! FOR THE MASTERS WILL FORM UP..!´´

Someone shouted among the commotion of screams and wails of agony with a powerful shriek, a deed rather impressive given the situation that had robbed him off his voice by the sheer gruesomeness and the storm still blowing strong above their heads..

Every one that still drew breath and was not impaired with imminent, crippling death stopped what they were doing which was not much but soiling their pants and rushed towards their foe. Leaving behind their comrades who were dead, dying, or reduced to charred corpses.

Those that had been up in the rooftops of the buildings took position to shoot the man from the distance while the rest followed through to pierce the man with their steel..

Fools…, that was what he wanted to say, but the fact that his tongue remained dead inside his mouth kept him from voicing his thoughts out loud.

Then the music started to come out to fill the air with a symphony he had never heard and yet it felt so familiar. The sound of the dead and the dying, moans of pain and gurgles of lungs crushed inside their chest with the incessant sound of sprays of blood here and there.

Something so big had no right to move so damn fast…

It just hadn't..

It was like it moved at a different sphere of time than their own, and like a battering ram it tore, pushed and slammed its way into any cultist that stood in his way, never stopping of a single second to look back the aftermath of his work. His body more akin to a speedy train powered up by the sun while his kin were nothing but tiny marshmallows the size of his pinky trying to hold it in a very hot day.

Preposterous…

Futile..

Maddening..

The only thing they seemed to do was cake the ma-no, the creature in their blood. Bullets ran through the air, missing most of their target, some even hitting their own men by sheer incompetence, but those that hit dead on...shockingly went straight through it.

It was like they were shooting at a phantom, everything was hitting nothing but air while the thing continued to very well be able to Touch them as limbs flew through the air, followed by bone and fresh blood that became mixed with the water under reaching their knees.

Darkening it.

And then it disappeared in a blur of light.

Between the agony that coursing through his veins and gnawing at his soul and the sudden lost of one of his eyes as it grew misty and burned inside his eye socket like a burning he blinked once, then twice as he tried to understand what had just happened, where it had gone. He was not the only one trying to process it..

Luckily, they were alerted to a series of screams coming from above. Whoever was left looked up to one of the nearby buildings and saw to their horror the monster disendowing their shooters with a chainsaw stuck into his arm while the other carried a six barrelled shotgun that turned men into puff of smoked blood and tissue.

How….

How they thought they could fight that..? What in their heads had possessed them to go face such force of nature?

He should have gone to fight, he should have picked up his weapon and fight just like he was told to, like he had to.

His whole existence was only meant for it..

But he was not ashamed to remain still on the ground as everyone else that he knew was butchered so fast and with such efficiency that it could not be called a butchery. His body refused to move anyway…, pulling up his sleeve and looking down at his arm he realized why.

He was dying, rotting away at a rapid pace...black veins having appeared from the wound and extended all over his body like roots of a tree. Pulsating with the throbbing echoes of an unholy heart at the core of the open gash, puss and black ooze coming out slowly from it, yet crawling with a life of its own.

How…

How was this possible...?

Ah right…, those things, he remembered now. They had done something.., attacked him, cut him, bit him…

He had thought he had survived, mauled…, but alive..

He was wrong...

His attention was drawn back to the slaughter when blood spilled over him.

It had come to ground once more when no more souls remained in the heights. Now that he realized, it was even bigger than he had given him credit for.

Some men dropped their weapons into the ground, pleading for mercy but the creature was without mercy, heedless of their words as the massacred continued.

Axels head fell right next to him, stuck in an expression of deep horror, his mouth still opening and closing time and time again as if gasping for breath like a fish out of the water. His body mangled and mostly obliterated falling soon afterwards somewhere else.

The sound of the dead and the dying became a distant memory as he became engrossed with the still living head, watching how the life started to vanish from the named Child's eyes.

Astonishing.

They were not being defeated.

Not routed…

They were being destroyed by a single man…, so utterly and completely that it was still confusing.

His mind troubled and bogged by the mind melting cancer that was liquefying his thoughts. Leaving him a weak, pitiful husk that kept on struggling if not down right refusing to admit it.

To accept it...

He closed his eyes as he found it difficult to maintain them open, yet even there he found no relief as monsters plagued in the darkness, voices started to whisper and scream into his ears, a maelstrom of faces that stared at him with unblinking eyes. Grimacing in pain as they warped everywhere like thick fog.

He could not understand what they wanted, what they said, but he knew deep down that they were welcoming him.

His body was burning...and yet he had never felt so cold.

So...so cold..

By the time he opened his eyes he was met with utter darkness, a thick mantle that shrouded his vision in black..

Then he noticed the blood dripping down….

And a little higher those red orbs of Hell fire, staring down at him. Thick arms wrapped in chains that started to glow like molten iron revealed the way it was gripping the handle of a scythe bigger than him. The metal creaking and whining, yet holding on...

Death was before him.., and it was calling him home...

He tried to open his mouth, to speak out.., to ask this man, this god for his blessing.

To be made one with the Tide..

He had to serve, he was made to serve…

This was his purpose...

But even as his mouth hanged open only silence slipped through….

The revenant took a step forward, angling the scythe to the side, lightning sparkling through the air and illuminating its terrific visage.

``You are not yet worthy...´´

And then he was no more…

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A/N

Here comes another, I am sorry if you detect some errors here and there, feel free to comment.

...Delta plays tag you are it with Reaper wishing to win that promised dragon meat, she forgot that he can turn intangible. No meat for our poor doggo.

:(