Walking on air, flying through the sky: The Saint level!
After my awakening, I have finally reached it. Ohh, were my former self here, how ecstatic he would have been, jumping up and down, flying to his sister and protecting her for ever and ever.
Hugging her bones after years and years, slowly descending into insanity as she died before him, for he attained an ageless body. Falling towards a fiery death of his mind, like the poor sod worshipping the cruel unknown of chaos.
Oh how he looked when I threw him…
Watching the guards of the gate, looking nothing like humans, seeping puss and blood from their bodies, not fitting of any evolutionary process, I suddenly spot that guard I thought of.
“He escaped his death!?”
Rushing to him in a blink of any eye, I hug him, shocking anyone around me. Some fall to their knees immediately, others stare daggers at him, while most just stare on, oblivious of anything going on around them as their senses were completely destroyed by those they worshipped.
“You! You live! Hahaha, ohh, to deceive me like this, what cruel tricks you are playing.”
Truly happy, I pat him on his shoulders, as he cocks his head, visibly shaken and scared.
“Mi- Milord?”
“Again with the stutter? Ha! How reminisced! You remember the first time we met? You said the exact thing…”
What a touching reunion. Things like that just have to happen at times… ah yes.
Having satisfied the slow tugging feeling deep within me, I make my way over the inner courtyards
Faint mutters made their way into my ears. My hearing was now even more acute after having reached the Saint level.
“What did the chosen one mean? “
“He has heard the voices of the Ancients! Is he not like our own leader?”
“Maybe he liked your face? Weren’t you initiated along with the guards that were dispatched to his tomb?”
Hmm, their voices were like a tingling warm sensation spreading down my ears. Even the moans of pain from the blobs of floating flesh, especially the moans of pain coming from the blobs of floating flesh.
As the warmth spread throughout me, I put my hand forward, touching the huge inner gate, leading inside the castle. As it rotted and decayed beneath my touch, wood splintering and twisting into an unrecognizable chunk of waste, I can spot a friendly face ways down the hall I could see in.
“HAHAHAHA! You awoke, you awoke! You have heard the calling and awoke! Four long years and you awoke! Ohh how we waited… what, with you storming down our holy site, invading our most sacred grounds, robbing us of the ancient treasure given to us be the Ancients? How I LOVED IT! HAHAHA! Come, come and let me hug you, strangle you, mush you to paste and revel in this glee!”
“SILENCE!”
Irrational anger and paranoia gripping me, I summoned my battle-qi, transmitting my voice with it. The guards next to me fainted and slumped down, one even beginning to fall towards me, blood coming from his ears.
Disgusting creatures!
Kicking that guard away, he flies to the left, crashing through the walls and lying liveless in the rubble.
“Now that wasn’t nice of you!
… Falling at our guest like that! If he hadn’t been so lenient, your soul might have made a great toy for my new creations! HAHAHAHA! Aaah, but chosen one, we have much to discuss. So much to do, so little time, you have not even begun to make me dance! HA!”
I liked that guy. He somehow reminded me of the puppy my father never let me have, always yapping on how normal peasants couldn’t tame a magical beast as if it were nothing, hmpf! Wasn't a tiny windwolf just a weak magical beast of the 6th rank? So stingy...
In a sense I would have to kill this jester, a pity, really. I couldn’t let my puppy distract me from my true purpose, after all! These sick, corrupted creatures were only following along a shared path, they were not truly my comrades in carrying out this conquest!
“SoooooO! What happened to our beloved Belial? He brought you here, chosen one, in a human body no less! Directly to the centre of our power, our chaos shard that was feeding upon this delicious spot of nature. Killed so many in gleeful combat, oh how I enjoyed the feast, slaughtering, feeding the soil with much needed nutrition, no regards of friend and foe, just slaughter!
After the Ancients chose you. YOU! NOT ME! … you absorbed the shard in a desperate attempt to stay alive, when you returned and Belial lost his mind, even forgetting his name! HA! The instrument of destruction giving you life? UTTER MADNESS! It worked, too.”
Belial? I couldn’t quite place that name… ah, wait. I know. My former demon self…
Hardening my face, hatred returning from the depth of my soul, I focus my mind, remembering my path.
“He died. As will you, jester, if you will not obey my command.”
“Ahh, but who would disobey? Me? Certainly me, but not them! HAHAHA!
They will heed your commands, chosen one, for you are the voice of the ancients. I’ll even tag along too!”
Damned jester, mocking me with his maniacal laughter! We had a brother to kill and a north to get to and yet here he stood laughing! Ridiculous!
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“Fool! Head south and destroy the fallen kingdom of the south. The so called “Lord of Decay”, my brother resides there, hunting and killing anything he could get his hands on. He wasn’t even undead himself! I wonder how he would look when I told him I was the rightful Lord of Decay! HA! I shall end my journey to the north. How I would hate to leave things unfinished…”
“Indeed, indeed! We protected the shard so much, we had not the time and mind to deal with the spawn of the hated thief, the dark, mangled robber. The hateful, disgusting, EVIL cancer defying our gods! Buuuut, there might be a problem.”
“SPEAK!”
“Dragon.”
“Dragon?”
“Indeed”
I would kill this dragon! No matter what he did, I would kill him. No problem would stand in our way…
“Then lead the way out. We will find and destroy him, my treasured pet.”
“Ohh, no problem. He guards the exit anyhow! I even placed him there as a wyrm thousands of years ago! AHAHAHAH!
Maybe shouldn’t have done that… he sort of became a hydra of the peak-stage saint level, you’ll manage though. You’ll manage.”
As the bloody room somehow began to spin, I turned around, almost falling thanks to my befuddled head. My luck treated me well, as always.
Why was nothing ever simple for me?
“Lead on.”
……
Walking through the confusing labyrinth of corridors and shifting walls, my mind wanders back, reminiscing on these hallways. I was here, once. Long, long ago, it seemed, I walked on the brink of destruction through here, hoping to salvage this situation ‘caused by my own carelessness and folly.
I remember a hope deep within these caverns, a chaotic source of power capable of restoring the shattered qi-channels and loss of life-force I had suffered.
I remember… Abraxas voice.
“I had nothing to do with this! Do you not see how the Ancients lead you here, killing you whilst you were unaware?”
“Vanish, fiend! I don’t care what I have to do to sever our ties completely! Disappear, shadow of my past! If you weren’t here, if I had not remembered your damned voice, I could have prevented this! Now I have no other choice than to quckly destroy the seals, no matter the cost, I cannot die twice!”
My former voice echoed in my head, rebuking the dark figure in my head.
“SO! Tell me, tell me! How come Belial invaded your genius mind? What happened, dear master?”
A mocking, loud and obnoxious voice ripped me of my faint memories.
“Jester… just lead on. Belial didn’t invade my mind. I am Belial, or was… I was tricked and in my desperation, the Ancients helped my for their own darker greed. The theft seems to still irk you, doesn’t it Czterzheral?”
“HAHAHA! Ohh, you wouldn’t believe how much it irks the beloved gods! They’re creating worlds of peace, right this instance, twisting, reforming them after aeons to witness the shock and agony of the despairing survivors!”
Looking around me, we had twenty elite guards, all saint-level creatures, touched by the insanity and robbed out of their minds. The jester seemed to control them with his staff, a red, arm-length staff with jiggling bells on velvet strings tied to the end. Waving it in a rhythmic pattern, they march with us in unison. This jester himself seemed much more powerful than me, when looking at him closely
“Oh myyy, I am ashamed, dear master! For your cruel, piercing eyes to look at me sooo! AHAHAHA! But I am strong, aren’t I!? I understand, master. Worry not, given the time you will also gain true wisdom and power!”
Flexing his arm, no muscle at all bulged out. A tiny stick, compared to my own, thick, well-toned arm.
To think this was an arm of another peak-stage saint combatant, was mind boggling.
“My magic has elevated me, chosen one! I have no need for these, you see?”
Cackling, he began to do a small dance, as we advanced further out of these ruins. Droll, this little fool. My fondness grew even more, ‘he was just so jolly!’ ,while a part of me somehow just wanted to kill him where he stood. His look, somehow revealing a dangerous light, I had this uncomfortable feeling of being read like a book.
“AAAAH! Here we are, here we are, just beyond these halls! Better be quite now, or else he’ll hear us! Stay low, hehehe, he won’t sense a thing when we supress our presence! HA!”
“WHO DARES!? Who has entered my domain? Show yourself, before I come and find you!”
Looking at the jester with an amused glance, I couldn’t help but say:
“Too late for that, my friend.”
It’s time to dance.
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Thank you for reading! Lot of people seemed to misunderstand the change in the MC, he is both Owen and Belial right now, while being unstable from the botched merging of minds, a drastic mix of polar opposites.
Please leave me feedback and any mistakes you have spotted.