Transience

A flash of light and a tooth shattering earthquake cut my eternal slumber short.

I tried to move my new body, the same way as I moved my human body, and it followed my commands- this new form whatever it was, was awfully familiar. I sat up, the sound of rocks and dust shuffling as I did so. I spun my head around gauging my surroundings in pure darkness.

There was an object glowing faintly not far from me. I struggled to stand, like a child learning to walk, my new sluggish form was difficult to manipulate efficiently. After a few stumbles I managed to reach the object.

'This is… Python?'

Picking up my trusty magnum, I was speechless. I was standing in the remnants of the blue lake.

'How much time has passed…? My body… must be around here somewhere.', I quivered at the thought.

'Wrong. You are currently in the same body, Master.'

A robotic voice resounded in my consciousness. I wanted to cry out,'who's there' but found that I had lost the ability to speak.

'I am in your hand, Master.', the omnipresent voice directly entered my head.

I looked at the glowing magnum in my hand with disbelief. Then I noticed it. My hand wasn't a human hand. The blue glow illuminated the black contours of a bony construct. There was no skin covering my hand, no flesh, no fat, no fingernails. Just bone, as black as coal.

I stood blankly staring at my hand. I suppose I was lucky, after dying and my consciousness living on I grew accustomed to things beyond my comprehension.

My mind raced, 'What am I? What are you? Where are we?', I crouched down in the dirt, my hand feeling out my bony face.

'You are my Master, a being of great power refined by the essence of the world itself. I am a Magic Construct which has gained consciousness through the absorption of magical essence. As for where we are… the lowest floor of a Demon God's labyrinth.'

'Fuck.', three of my questions were answered, but countless more just sprang up.

'As far as my memory goes, my consciousness was born alongside you in the lake of magic essence.

From the time I gained consciousness to the time the lake was entirely absorbed by you roughly ten

thousand years passed. In that time, I learned many things about this world. The magic essence

itself whispered many secrets, many truths of this world to my ever-eavesdropping ears.'

'Okay. Just give me a fucking minute here, alright?'

I stood up from my crouched position, raising my skull to the sky and took a deep, metaphorical breath. Clearly, wherever I am, it isn't Earth.

'Alright, first of all, tell me how to get out of this 'Demon God's labyrinth'. In the meantime, I want to know everything you know about this world.'

Using Python as a makeshift lantern to light the path ahead, I clawed my way out of the remnants of the magical essence lake. The constant droning of a robotic voice in my mind was hard to bear but allowed me to get a much better grasp on my situation.

The world I was quite literally flung into is one of Angels and Demons, heroes and magic. And despite these differences, there was at least one similarity with Earth, the powerful dominated the powerless.

The bluish light from Python painted the outlines of a rocky underground world. I strolled through this subterranean land, meandering around large mounds of perfectly smooth rocks, or what looked like rocks.

*CRUNCH*, accidentally stepping on one of these rocks I look down, only to find it crushed to dust beneath my foot. It was then I realised, they weren't rocks. Skulls. Human skulls. I glance back as far as I could see, mound after mound of skulls staring back at me. If I had skin, it would be crawling.

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I had seen massacres in my life, too many to count, but this is genocide. Thousands, no maybe hundreds of thousands of dead lay here.

'We are nearing the exit.'

'Good.'

I had never considered myself a holy man, but perhaps death had changed me. I muttered a few words for the dead which lay here, ones I had remembered from my occasional visit to Christian churches.

*Rumble*

'Master, that is the Demon I spoke of.'

A flash of light resonated through the cavern as the mounds of bones clattered from an earthquake.

I strode forth quickly towards the light, as if the souls of the dead were cheering for me, I felt like the champion of the dead. I knew they had died due to this 'Demon'.

I soon arrived before a titanic doorway flooded with white light. I could finally make out my body.

'Hahaha, what a surprise.'

My Armani three-piece suit had been perfectly preserved. I couldn't stop myself from laughing, it was only now that I realised how much I cared about it. This suit, which was once a dime a dozen to me, is now the only sliver of Earth I have left. The only proof of my past life. Of course, there's Python, but that's different.

'What is a surprise, Master?'

'This suit. It's comforting.'

'Ah, I thought you'd like it.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'It is an armour formed from magic which your body emits naturally, I merely changed it's form to one that most suits you, after all, I have access to your memories.'

'Right, magic huh. Alright then, if I'm rocking Armani in this world, best not to do it half-heartedly.'

The sensation from magic was strange but comforting. It was like billions of strands were attached to my mind and body, like a spider's web and if something or someone tugged on these strands, I could sense it. I had also figured that manipulating these strands was called 'casting', as Python had explained.

There was this nagging feeling at the back of my mind ever since I had awoken. The feeling that I had forgotten something. Only now did I understand. It was my affinity with magic.

I thought of my silk gloves and black fedora, the fibres formed hugging my hands and skull, slowly constructing them just the way I like.

'This is amazing.'

This reminded me of when my sister dressed me up as a kid. It was nice having a family. But like all things, it was taken from me.

'Hey, Python. I can't use my old name here. It brings up too many bad memories, you think of one for me.'

'I think Master is the best name for Master.'

'No, I mean an alias, something like- oh! I know, the fedora tipping bone-man- hahahaha!'

'…'

'Oh, come on... Don't be such a bore.'

'Emotions are not something I have comprehended.'

'…'

'Perhaps another time then.'

'Indeed.'

Running the tip of my bony finger around the rim of my fedora I clenched python in my other hand and swaggered into the light. If I could smile, then I would be doing so jubilantly.

The light embraced my being. Through the affinity I had with magic, I could tell I had been teleported to a distant place, much deeper underground.

My empty sockets adjusted to the light and a scene which would flabbergast any Earthling appeared before me.

Hundreds of cloaked figures surrounded what looked like a flaming Minotaur with golden armour and a flaming axe.

What shocked me was not the situation, but the insignia embroidered on the figures' cloaks.

An eye above the clouds, a tear of blood falling from it.

It was The Order.

It wasn't a coincidence.

I was sent to this planet by The Order and their mysterious artefact. But I'm glad, I have no regrets. In my past life, I was strong but not powerful. Now, however, my power is tangible, overwhelming almost, although I don't know how powerful I really am. Deep down I knew, a great power lurked inside this undead body.

Sensing my arrival, the Minotaur swivelled to face me. It had long curved horns, not of a bull but more like a buffalo, long and thick. I could sense a wave of heat brush past me with my magic, one capable of reducing a normal person to cinders.

*ROAR*

The hulking creature sent a wave of golden flames in my direction, any Order members hit by this wave of inferno were killed instantly. I felt the magic in the air ignite, these golden flames contained the secrets of magic.

Facing something which even I could not survive, I felt something in my soul snap. My subconscious took over and my mind took a back seat. I watched as a black aura dyed the magic in the surrounding air. An aura of death. The black aura flooded from my bones causing them to gain a crystalline transparency. The strands of magic were manipulated on a vast scale, the entire area being sapped of these fibres, they wove around one another condensing more and more.

"It's the Black Saint! The Black Saint has come to our rescue!"

Paying no attention to the joyous cries of relief from the cloaked figures, my subconscious popped out Python's cylinder as the black aura of death was refined into a long 357. Calibre black bullet.

Engraved on it read 'Death Incarnate'.

From here, even I knew what to do.

I slotted it into the chamber naturally and flicked Python to the side.

Hearing the satisfying click I pulled the hammer back with my bony thumb and slowly pulled the trigger.

*Pah*

The expected bang never came.

Like death itself it was silent, it whistled through the air into the golden blaze staining the air black.

In less than a second the golden inferno's momentum was extinguished. My body acted by itself once more, it launched itself into the dying flames which seemed to be losing their pigment, slowly blackening.

My body flung itself through the pitiful flames only to find a puddle of black sludge. The Minotaur was nowhere to be seen and the people from The Order had backed off and begun prostrating towards me. I was very confused, but my instincts were screaming with delight, I got the same sensation from the black puddle as a brown envelope packed with cash in my past life.

My suit trousers were submerged up to the knee in this sludge. As if sentient, the sludge began to shift and swirl, crawling up my body. It felt like a hot wax massage, covering me entirely, it wrapped

me up like a cocoon.

In the blackness of the cocoon I could still sense The Order members prostrating themselves outside. Feeling safe, an endless fatigue struck my mind, in an indescribable comfort I fell into a deep slumber…