Chapter 223 - Suffering

Boom!

Zwei flew backward from the shockwave as the vial exploded with a brilliant white light. The stage above him was ripped apart, revealing a flaming solar eclipse shone down from a broiling, blood red sky.

A cloud of smoke, dust and debris filled the air, blocking Zwei’s sight. The screams of the crowd felt distant behind the shrill ringing in his ears. He couldn’t see the monk or cleric anymore beyond the billowing white smoke that surrounded him.

He pushed himself to his feet, coughing as he looked toward the center of the smoke.

His eyes widened as the smoke slowly receded, revealing a shimmering veil of blood. Beyond the veil, the gnarled branches of a demonic tree shook and grasped toward the sky like hands. A massive bulk of black flesh was gushing out of the center of the tree.

The screaming from the crowd reached a peak as dozens of people liquified into blood, victims of the sacrificial ritual that was now coming into full effect.

As Zwei looked on in horror, the blood veil shimmered and broke, drizzling down to the debris-ridden floor, pouring into the still-intact dragon skull that sat directly beneath the tree.

Directly in front of the skull, a hooded monk with a blood red robe stood holding a shining white sword in front of him with its blade pointing straight to the earth.

Zwei’s eyes narrowed, “Yo-“

His spiritual intuition rang out too late as the monk switched the grip on his blade and slashed upward, blasting out a vertical wave of light directly at Zwei.

At that very moment a body came flying out of the smoke from his right, colliding with him and shoving him out of the way.

“Geukk!” A crystalline pair of spectacles went flying as a thick spray of blood erupted from the monk who had collided with him. He collapsed as the cleric of Yuima looked on from behind with a shocked expression on her face.

Zwei locked eyes with Asuna for a brief second before she instinctively dodged out of the way of another slash of light. As she dodged away he saw that she held her right arm tight to her body, her hand was limp and useless.

“Fumu!” She screamed.

A bellowing roar erupted through the air as a blood soaked bear leaped out from the collapsed part of the stage, barreling straight toward the blood monk.

A flying kick from the side sent the bear tumbling across the ground toward his companion as the Abbott’s bodyguard joined the fight.

Seeing that the cleric and the bear were occupied, the blood monk returned his attention toward Zwei - only to find the young man had disappeared from sight.

The old Abbott surveyed the area before him with a frown, stepping forward with his blade held steadily in front of him.

“You shall not disrupt this ritual.” He announced in a deep voice, “The energies of Life must return to this land!”

The scent of peaches wafted into his nose as illusory white strands of hair flowed softly at the edges of his vision. Hesitation flickered in his eyes as he quickly turned back and forth, looking for his adversary.

Zwei crept in the shadows of the stage, his hair matted with blood. He couldn’t believe his luck. Not once, but twice now he’d just narrowly avoided death. The thought of running from the scene passed through his head multiple times.

“That’s right” The voice of his brother echoed in his head, “Don’t be stupid, Zwei. Go back and become something respectable like a bank clerk.”

Zwei’s eyes smouldered, his teeth grinding together as he fully felt the sense of helplessness coursing through his body. A deep resentment welled up within his core as his eyes locked onto the dragon skull.

In the white world, Zwei’s silver string suddenly turned taut and snapped out of Yuzu’s grasp. Her lips pressed together in frustration, forming a thin line as she calmly reached over and deftly adjusted the threads nearby.

Zwei reached down, his fingers wrapping around a metal pole lying in the debris. He circled slowly, keeping an eye on the blood monk, who was still keeping any eye out for him. On the other side of the stage the bear was still in the midst of fierce combat.

Above the stage the black bulging mass of flesh had already grown around the entire tree, which groaned and creaked as the flesh lifted it into the air. The two main boughs splayed out, forming thick, gnarled antlers. A head began to form. An elongated muzzle extruded outwards, splitting to form lips that dripped with thick, white saliva.

A sudden, immense feeling of dread caused Zwei to jerk his gaze away from the reincarnating God. His spiritual intuition went into full alarm as he innately understood that laying his eyes on the God once He reached a certain point would result in instant death.

Massive long, glistening bones splurged out of the God’s body, extending over the broken edge of the stage, forming two long, equine legs with hoofed feet. The giant hooves hit the ground beneath the stage, kicking up dust. The naked bones trembled as the flesh from the main body rapidly caught up, engulfing the skeleton.

Zwei couldn’t see a good way to get close to the skull without being seen, nor did he have any delusions that he could outrun or fight the monk. But he did have one trick up his sleeve - a brute force, psychological attack to distract the monk. All he needed was a few seconds to run over and destroy the skull.

He smirked self-deprecatingly as he hesitated no longer, breaking toward the skull in a dead run. He stretched out his hand toward the Abbott, channeling his attack directly into the monk’s mind.

The monk’s spiritual intuition went off a moment too late as a discordant symphony of sound and shadows invaded his mind. The Abbott staggered back as strange, twisting creatures and coarse laughter whirled around him in a cyclone.

However the attack was only effective due to the surprise. It only took the Adept a few seconds to center his mind and break the illusion.

Those moments were enough for Zwei to reach the skull and smash the rod down on top of it!

The glowing green light inside the skull’s eye sockets suddenly flashed bright as a burst of energy blasted out at Zwei, sending him flying backwards. His shoulder crunched against the ground as he took the fall hard. The metal rod flew out in the opposite direction, clanging uselessly into the darkness.

“It’s too late!” The Abbott shouted, half surprised himself as he realized that the last ditch attempt had thoroughly failed. His body melted into the ground, reappearing in front of Zwei in a mist of blood with his blade raised high in the air. “Prince Deka has risen!”

Zwei looked up helplessly, his life flashing before his eyes as the Abbott swung his blade down. A split second before it struck Zwei the Abbott suddenly altered the angle of the cut, missing Zwei completely.

By doing so he barely avoided being sliced through by a tear in space that had spontaneously formed where he was about to swing!

A shot rang through the air and the Abbott was forced once more to dodge. He looked up to see an ash-haired officer staring him down from the stage above.

At that crucial moment of distraction a rift opened up beneath Zwei, swallowing him in a portal that quickly closed shut.

A blink of an eye later Finn too disappeared through a portal.

The Abbott grit his teeth as he quickly scanned the area, stepping back toward the skull. Moments later his bodyguard landed lightly on the ground beside him. A shared glance between them told the Abbott that the fight had ended in a draw, with the two clerics of Nature retreating.

“It is done.” The Abbott said, breathing in the thick smell of blood, “The ritual is beyond the point of disruption!”

He turned around to face the skull and the massive fleshy bulk of the reincarnating god. The flesh was becoming more defined and solid, forming the body of a demonic, monstrous stag with black gnarled antlers ending in twitching, grasping hands. The bulge of dozens of eyeballs pressed outward from within the skin, slits cut across the flesh forming eyelids on the verge of opening.

Finally, after decades of toil and planning, blood and tears and sacrifice, his life’s ambition was coming to fruition!

Once awakened, Prince Deka could wrest control of the black spire from Lord Noga and destroy it. The terrible damage that Lord Noga had done to the land and its people would finally be able to heal.

In the aetheric world, Yuzu looked upon the Abbott’s hopeful expression with a regretful frown. She had stopped every attempt of Lord Noga’s forces and his allies from disrupting the ritual, fully allowing the Abbott to succeed.

But even with these interventions, even with Yuzu fully supporting the Abbott in his mission, the ritual was doomed to fail.

She lowered her hands from the tapestry, her eyes filled with pity for the Abbott as she let fate run its course. Her body felt weak and strained, like it was about to unravel. She was at her limit.

In the physical world the Abbott’s elation of bringing Prince Deka back to life changed to dread as he noticed something happening with the dragon skull.

The sickly green light suddenly became tinged with black as a miasma began to cloud the rich, red blood. An inky darkness spread out through the blood, bubbling and forming thick, viscous lumps.

“What- what is this?” The Abbott’s eyes widened, “What is happening?!”

Above him, the giant monstrous stag let out a gut wrenching bellow as black blood began to seep from its myriad closed eyelids. The black flesh that was looking firm and defined began to decay with terrible, festering wounds.

Within the Abbott’s mind, a voice that was not his own chuckled dryly, “How unexpected… To think it had to come to this… That I had to use my final resort…”

“Gantt!” The Abbott roared as he clutched at his head, “What have you done?!”

The voice only laughed coarsely in response. As he laughed a searing pain erupted from inside the Abbott’s brain. Blood began to stream out of his ears and nose and eyes as he felt a mass within his brain try to bore its way out of his skull. He screamed in pain as his eyes fixated on the oozing, crumbling dragon skull.

The Abbott’s bodyguard beside him shot a startled glance at the Abbott, before accidentally looking up at the mutating God above him. His eyes bulged out of his head only for a moment before he liquified into blood.

The skull was the focus of the ritual. It was the missing piece that Gantt had presented to him that had made all of this possible. But now it was the piece that sealed his doom. The Abbott screamed in rage as the terrible realization that he had been betrayed sunk into his searing mind.

Lord Deka’s reincarnation was doomed from the start.

He was never meant to come back as the God of Life, but instead, become a god-level corrupted one and be the harbinger of destruction to all of NianXing.

Calamity had come, and all the world would suffer.

~

In the white world, Yuzu closed her eyes and exhaled softly.

Her hands trembled as she raised them once more over the tapestry of fate.