Waking up with a pounding headache, cracked lips, swollen eyes and the most uncomfortable feeling I have ever had, it really couldn’t compare to the agony of trying to sit up afterwards.

“mmmh…”

The tears welling up in the corners of eyes washed a bit of salt away, but still brought unbelievable stinging pain with them. My whole body cracking, as the now dried up salt water left a fine thin crust of salt all over me.

I better draw in the elemental energies and life, restoring some of my wounds...

The salt still stung and had me gagging from the taste in the back of my throat, but at least my condition was a lot more bearable now.

“At least I’m still alive… oy! Demon! You could have given me a hand back there, you know? “

…

“Hey! Say something, I know you’re still in there, the seals are still in place!”

….

“Demon? Hey! Come on Owen, say something, will you?”

Perfect… now not only the world, but even my other self hated my guts. Ever since I last saw him, he hasn’t said a thing. Was he angry at my display of will? I don’t get it…

This cave looks natural. A biiiig natural cave, packed full with stalagmites and stalactites, a salt lake taking most of the space. Not even one drop of freshwater in sight… *sigh*

Gathering my battle-qi I focus my power into my muscles, letting them vibrate, contracting and expanding at a fast pace, letting the last of the salt crust fall off. Now the only thing would be these torn, bloody trousers… well, might as well toss them, not that they’re doing a good job covering anything after the fights anyway.

Looking up, I can only sigh again at this damnable predicament. Either I was actually pretty lucky not to have been hit by the rocks, or the entire cave overhead collapsed after I fell asleep. The hole I fell torugh now was full of big, chunky boulders, the occasional small rock still falling from the blockage.

So the only way out, is deeper down, hm? If I would break the ceiling, I’d be buried alive... argh, I can't think clearly like this!

As I open myself to the now familiar insatiable hunger and the cold, unrelenting hatred, a dark calm comes over me. The elemental energies and life-forces in this cave seem relatively weak, as if something was consuming them at a rapid rate, or repulsing them away. The further in, the weaker they seemed to get.

Might as well make my way to the centre, I wonder what would cause such a thing to occur.

Heading deeper into the cave, with my previously gained night vision letting me see where I’m going. It was more and more evident that I couldn’t rely on sensing the life-force of nature around me, as it was more and more void of any.

Soon the rough, natural surroundings took a drastic turn into a smooth, man-made corridor.

The walls and the floor were made from a yellow, bone-like material, very smooth to the touch. It gave a sort of mysterious feeling, as if walking blindfolded over a plank, suspended over a gap hundreds of meters in the air.

I walked for quite a bit before finally reaching a doorway, leading to a big room. To my right the wall continued like the hallway before it, but to my left I could find a bone railing. Peering down I could see a kettle shaped room that had a fire pit in the middle of it. A ghostly blue flame was hovering on top of it, as if mocking the chilly and damp room. It looked like a normal camp fire, dyed in blue, but I knew what it truly was, it was somehow ingrained deeply into my mind.

“A fountain of souls…”

For a long time I stared at the source of this cold, a prison of tormented souls bound by the unique magic I now possessed. I could feel how they slowly drew in the life around them, hating all living creatures, wanting to share their pain and suffering. So… this was the cause for the lack of energy and life in this place. I'm guessing the centre of this ruin holds an enormous soulflame. That would make it an old ruin of our kind… of HIS kind!

Dammit! Since when have I started to think like that? I’m human. I may follow the dark road of demons, but I am still human! When I look at this ghastly scene it truly was for the better not to have used this magic before, even when I was really close to resorting to it when I faced that bear… Even though my current power was on par with an expert of the 6th rank, using the demonic magic I could easily compare to a Grand Magus Saint in exchange for my humanity, sanity and a whole bunch of unfortunate souls…

Walking forward I came to a balcony that had two stairs on either of its sides, leading down to the foreboding flames. Further ahead the corridor lead to a door. The first I have seen in this ruin. I couldn’t recognise the material it was made out of, it was a sort of wood, interwoven with bones. This whole place is so surreal.

Even though I could guess what awaited me in the centre, I still had to explore for a way out.

No other choice but to walk forward.

Getting closer to the door, my stomach suddenly grew heavy and my heart started to beat rapidly. Nervously I tried to push the door open and as if it knew my intentions it opened up without me touching it.

Not helping in making me calm down, it slowly opened up without any kind of noise. A dark hallway greeted me. A really DARK one. I couldn’t see anything, even with my night vision. The blueish glow from the flame behind me was being consumed by the mysterious dark.

Maybe I should just turn around and see if the lower floor had some way forward…

Taking a deep breath, I shake my head and run forward. Shaking off my unease and fear I enter a semi-trance to let the demonic meditation technique dampen my emotions and continue to briskly walk, after having run through the doorway.

A cold hand suddenly grasped my neck, immediately shocking me out of the trance, fear, loneliness and anger of this unfair situation returning to me almost like a storm. Whirling around in fright I lash out, using my battle-qi and shocking myself with the following sonic-boom from my punch that hit nothing but darkness behind me.

“GOD DAMMIT! Now I even scare myself! This damn demon doesn’t talk to me, when he was the one that got me into this stupid situation to begin with! F***! What the hell is with these ruins anyway!”

Not sensing any presence, no singly sign of danger in here, I am suddenly ashamed of myself, embarrassed and relieved at the same time, I continue onward.

...at least no one saw that...

With an almost hallow feeling in my chest I close my eyes in the absolute darkness, feeling slightly better by doing so. Letting my hand brush along the wall, when my hand suddenly grasps nothing!

Feeling around I realise that this is a doorway and as I open my eyes I finally see that I have hit the end of the corridor, facing a dead end ahead of me and a doorway to my right. Stepping inside the new room, considerably brighter as the previous corridor, as I could actually see, I scan the area.

“...”

Eyes wide and with a feeling of shock and hurt I stare at the countless amount of skulls in front of me. This was either a mass grave, or a very sick sense of decoration. I cannot shake of the dreading guess the architects of this twisted place had an abundant source of the latter. The walls had huge indentations filled with human skulls, massive piles of countless of kinds of skulls and other bones lying on the ground.

On the ceiling you could see paintings of pale beings, shackled and on their knees, bowing towards a skeleton on a throne. Another painting depicted a sort of holy crusader being impaled and burned on a pyre of bones… staring in amazement I took a another step into the room, when hushed cracking, clicking and faint footsteps immediately brought me back to my senses.

I was not alone here!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you for reading! Feedback is always welcome, would really appreciate some constructive advice. How about we talk religion of the Xurian continent, hm?

Spoiler :

There were a lot of religions in the beginnings of the Xurian continent, as many deities walked upon this realm. Over the ages four religions established their dominance and only one of them has been accepted by the general populace “The order of the All-seeing”. It’s considered to be the world religion and the only one that can be practiced everywhere out in the open.

The All-seeing is symbolised as a huge tree with countless of branches, each having hundreds of eyes on it. The order follows the will of the Holy Patriarch, the leader of the order and representative of the voice of their god. Each Holy Patriarch is directly chosen by the oracle, a holy site of the order deep in their sacred alcoves. In the entire 4000 some-such years of the order there were only five Patriarchs, each having reached at least the saint-level.

On the outside the order favours justice and valour. Standing for goodness and the light, they heavily pursue the eradication of all evil, including magical beasts.

The three other religions are mostly practiced in secret, one an ancient cult of demon worshippers, now generally found in the south, as they can come out of hiding without being pursued for their believes.

The next one favour balance and is more of a way of living than anything else. The “Way of Equality” believes there are no true gods, just powerful combatants. They do not worship anything as they think with enough time and conviction anyone could become as insightful and powerful as the so called “gods”. The followers of the Way of Equality are mostly found in the eastern Tural Empire.

The last one is mostly known as the “Covenant of Ancients” that wallows in chaos, both good and evil on an equal scale. They worship the Ancients, the mysterious gods of chaos rumoured to live in the chaotic planes. Most of followers of the covenant are insane combatants that have either come in touch with an artefact of the ancients, or were crazy to begin with.

There we go for religion on the Xurian continent!