In an odd looking room, hidden deep underground was a woman, kneeling on the ground. In front of her was nothing but door. They looked sturdy but nothing a mortal couldn’t destroy. However, if a mage saw these doors, he would escape from fright. The amount of energy on them was incomprehensible to most. Even if one searched for another object of such power, they would be hard pressed to find any.

“My lord, I have failed you…” The woman weekly said, while kneeling.

“This might delay your return. But I will wait for you to come back, no matter the cost.”

The woman then got up and looked at the door. Even though her gaze was usually ice cold, this time there were emotions inside those cold eyes.

“We can still continue…”

With that said, she slowly left the room, the door remaining there without a slightest change.

…

Few years back, Temple of the Ninth Holy Lord

“How weird. What is this stone?” Aleir watched the stone that was brought in by of his servants brought him. Nor He, or his servant knew its origins. The servant talked about it falling from the skies but Aleir didn’t believe any of it, it seemed too surreal to him.

As he continued watching the stone, he saw something that was akin to to liquid in it. He didn’t know what it was but he couldn’t feel anything from it. It was far too weird since powerful substances or medicine was something one could analyze with enough strength. He was never in a situation where he couldn’t even detect the substance. Either the liquid was far above his comprehension or it was completely ordinary. The first possibility sounded more likely to Aleir, his senses were telling him that the liquid was anything but ordinary.

Aleir continued to watch the liquid, in the end he made a decision. “I need to take a closer look.”

He then tried to break the stone. His strength was far above mortals. However, he still couldn’t easily break it. He had to spend a significant amount of magical energy in order to break a part of the stone. Now he had an access to the liquid inside.

“That liquid can’t be normal!” He uttered as he was panting from the exhaustion of his magical energy

He took the stone and poured a bit on his finger. What was poured was only one drop of the liquid. It was completely black and it looked almost mesmerizing.

The drop of blood was laying on Aleir’s finger and he was observing it closely. However, he couldn’t see any real changes.

“What do I do with this no-”

At that moment, the drop of blood started invading Aleir’s body. The drop completely melted into his finger and started spreading throughout his whole body.

Aleir violently swayed but couldn’t do anything. He tried to move his magical energy to destroy the drop of blood but he wasn’t fast enough. The drop of blood already spread.

While Aleir swayed in pain, the remaining liquid in the stone moved. It got out of the stone and started moving in Aleir’s direction. To it, Aleir was like a magnet.

When the liquid got onto Aleir, it melted into his body, same as the drop of blood. It caused a change to Aleir. His magical energy was obliterated and submitted to the liquid, then the liquid started merging with the energy. The process was very painful and Aleir couldn’t hold back his screams. Even someone with the dignity of a Holy Lord couldn’t bear such suffering.

After a few minutes, Aleir’s body completely changed. His usual aura of holiness was completely gone. The only thing that could be felt from him was dread. The change was so drastic that it looked as if Aleir turned into a completely different person.

Aleir then got up from the ground and opened his eyes. His natural eye color was completely gone and it turned black instead.

“It hurts…” Aleir said as the liquid was still merging into him.

At that moment, one of the servants ran into the room, armed, prepared to defend his lord.

“My Lord! What happened?!” The servant asked nervously.

Aleir looked at the servant. However, the moment he did, his energy, which now turned dark, moved. It seeped out of his body and immediately covered the servant.

“W-Why?!” Was the last words the servant said, before being consumed by the dark energy.

Everything happened too fast, Aleir couldn’t react and he didn’t expect his own energy to go berserk like this.

As the energy consumed the servant, Aleir felt that the power coursing through him. It was an intoxicating feeling. He felt as if he could rival the whole world.

These thoughts started filling his mind. He didn’t really care about people to begin with. He had his own goals he wanted to fulfill but he lacked strength to do so. He was always searching for a way to get stronger. Now that this god-sent opportunity fell right into his hands, he couldn’t let it pass by!

Aleir then started to laugh. The laugh was resounding throughout the whole temple.

As he finished, a large amount of energy left his body. All of it was to devour every living thing in this temple. He hated this place, he hated these shackles this place was. He knew that Holy Lords were just puppets created by someone. However, none of them knew who that someone was, nor what their purpose was. But he could feel the shackles of this place. But this day, that will have come to an end!

“I will find you!” Aleir roared as the dark energy was filling the temple.

The servants were all dying one by one, consumed by the dark energy. They didn’t understand what was happening. To them, their Holy Lord was a god, protecting them from all evil. But this time, their god had left them.

“S-Save me”

“Lord-”

All their miserable screams felt on deaf ears. There was no one to listen to their prayers. The Holy Lord of Nine was never their savior nor god, despite them thinking that.

In a minute, the whole temple turned into a graveyard, all of the lives extinguished. The dark energy consumed everyone, leaving no one alive except for its host, Aleir.

He was intoxicated by the power that came into him. He couldn’t resist that feeling no matter how hard he tried. It felt as if the dark energy was exhausted before and now was slowly awakening, giving him more and more power.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“It’s time.” Aleir said and walked out of the temple.

…

Time was slowly passing. A year after year. Some emperors died and new ones emerged. Kingdoms and empires fell and rose. Time was something no one could control and flowed without care of anything.

As countless winters passed the forest where the fight took place changed beyond recognition. The land healed and once withered and dead forest was alive and brimming with life once again. Wildlife filled the forest, wolves hunted, birds sang and calm water creeks flowed.

However, one thing still remained after the fight. The dark crystal. It was still stuck in the ground, waiting…

More years have passed and the forest changed once again. The forest full of life was now being destroyed by the locals. From the trees they made their new homes. A lot of wooden cottages emerged near the forest and a village was created. However the price was that the forest and the wildlife in it suffered and grew thinner and thinner.

After more years, the forest was mostly gone, with only a small amount of trees left. The forest was merely a shadow of its former self. The wildlife was gone and as a source of food served the land the forest was once on. Now there were several big fields where crops were grown. The village was now a city bustling with life. It belonged to the Kingdom of Alura, one of the kingdoms on the continent. It had a lot of cities and this city was created during one of their expansions.

One day, a farmer sowed seeds when he suddenly noticed something strange. There was a small stone stuck in the ground. The farmer carefully looked at the stone. The stone had a dark color and seemed nothing like the usual minerals in the surrounding area.

After observing the stone, the farmer attempted to pull it out. The stone didn’t budge and it seemed that it was bigger than he had expected. The farmer spent quite some time to pull the stone out.

When he finally got it out, he looked at the dark stone. He had spent quite some time looking at it as if he was mesmerized by its unusual color.

“What a weird stone, it looks more like a crystal when I look at it now.” The man then put the dark crystal in his bag and went back to work on the field.

“Pacon, what took you so long?” one of his fellow farmers asked him.

Pacon looked at the man. “Nothing, just had to take a piss.” The men both laughed and went back to sowing the seeds for the crops.

As the night approached, all of the workers on the fields were already home with their families. However, Pacon didn’t have a family nor any relatives. He was an orphan who had been taken care of at one of the Orphanages that were built due to the wars. A lot of children were left without their parents or relatives and grew up alone. Pacon was one of them.

When Pacon got home he filled a bucket with water and cleaned himself. Then he took out the crystal and looked at it deeply once more. He was in a daze as if the crystal tried to suck his soul in.

However, after several moments he snapped out of it. “What am I doing?… What was I doing?” The man couldn’t remember what had happened.

The crystal suddenly started glowing purple “Wait, did the crystal change colors?” Pacon observed the stone but except for the color he didn’t see anything different. In his eyes it was still just a crystal.

He didn’t think much more of it, put the crystal back into his bag and went to sleep. When he laid in bed he couldn’t sleep. He tried to not think about the crystal but he couldn’t stop. His mind raced with thoughts regarding the crystal. “What was it and why did it change colors?”

The next day, Pacon made his way to the fields. He took the usual road with his fellow farmers.

Suddenly, he could feel a sharp pain in his chest, near his heart. “Ugh…” He fell to the ground, hugging his chest and swaying in pain.

“What’s happening to him?” Some of the farmers approached him and tried to help him but nothing worked. However suddenly he stopped. He then slowly started getting up. The other farmers stepped back to give him space. He then got up on his legs “I-I’m alright, don’t know what happened.”

“Maybe you should ditch for today and get some rest…” Said one of the farmers, clearly worried about him.

“No, I’m alright…” Pacon then picked up his bag from the ground and started walking towards the fields. The other farmers didn’t think much more of it and followed his suite.

After a bit, they finally arrived at the fields. “Alright everyone, let’s get to work.” Called out one of the farmers and everyone went to tend to the fields.

In an hour, Pacon suddenly felt a wave of fatigue wash over him. He fell on the ground with a loud thump sound.

Some of the farmers noticed it and immediately started making their way to him.

“Fuck, I knew he should’ve gone home.”

“Someone call help!”

They were coming to him. Pacon was on the ground, this time he wasn’t swaying, he was motionless and looked as if he had died. The farmers tried moving him but he wasn’t responding.

“What is this?”

“Is that magic?”

“Fuck…”

All of the farmers gasped at the sight. There was a purple glowing crystal levitating over their heads. Most of the farmers gathered around Pacon so they could all clearly see the crystal above them.

Then out of nowhere, the crystal suddenly thrust into Pacon’s body, burrowing deep inside. “Aaah..” Pacon suddenly let out a loud ear piercing scream that sounded more like animal than human. He swayed on the ground as if he had a seizure. The surrounding farmers stepped back, shocked at the sight. They could feel that something was wrong but they couldn’t tell exactly what. Pacon gave off a dark ominous feeling and they could clearly sense it.

Inside Pacon’s body, his consciousness tried to fight off the crystal. The crystal was consuming him. The crystal also already had a part of his soul stuck inside as if it had sucked in that part of the soul before. And now it tried to suck in the rest of the soul.

“Is this how I die?…” Thought Pacon as he desperately tried to resist the sucking force from the crystal.

After a short moment, his consciousness started to fade. His soul started to move into the crystal. However before he fully lost consciousness he could see a person covered in dark inside the crystal. That person had no facial features. But he could tell that the person wasn’t conscious but was in some state of hibernation.

“What did I do to deserve this…” Pacon thought and at that point Pacon’s consciousness completely disappeared and became a part of the crystal.

The farmers stood there in shock, watching Pacon’s body completely stiffen.

“Hey, I think we should leave... Something is wro-.” Before he even managed to finish the sentence a black tendril shot out of Pacon’s body. Then another, and another.

“Fuck! Run, everyone!”

All of the farmers started running away in different directions.

Pacon’s body got up. But there was no light in the eyes nor it seemed like Pacon was alive. He looked like an undead more than human. The black tendrils started burrowing into the ground and grabbing the nearest farmers. The farmers screamed in despair but couldn’t get away. The tendrils grabbed more and more farmers. Soon, all of the farmers were caught. They all screamed or cried.

“Please, I got a family…”

“D-Don’t do this..”

All of the begging noises couldn’t reach Pacon’s ears since he was a dead. His body was nothing but a husk used by the black crystal. It didn’t know mercy and its only thought was to consume more. The people held by the tendrils felt their visions fading. They struggled to not lose consciousness but to no avail. All the farmers were consumed by the tendrils. Now there were no more screams, only silence.

The tendrils then burrowed into the ground. Sucking out the life force of the land. After a while, all of the surrounding grass suddenly turned gray, so did the trees. The wildlife in the area suddenly fell on the ground, dead. Every single speck of life was sucked dry.

Suddenly, Pacon’s body fell on the ground. If one could look into the Dark crystal inside his body, they would see that it glowed much brighter. At this moment, the crystal suddenly started changing. It looked as if the crystal had grown branches, making it seem as if there was a small tree inside the body. It then continued to grow and tore apart all of the already dead organs. It now filled most of the body.

Pacon’s body then started slowly getting up, moving as if it really was undead.

After it got up, it started moving forward, in the direction the farmers came from. Their home. The crystal didn’t know exactly what lied there but it could feel that there was a lot of life force. A life. And its instincts told the crystal to go there and consume more. Now the person in the crystal slowly started changing. It now had some facial features and it looked more like a person than a silhouette. However, it was still very far from completion.

The tendrils in the ground started spreading. They started reaching beyond the already withered land like cancer, consuming all life it made contact with.

The body slowly moved and after a while, it could already see houses in the distance. It was not far away from them. Once it reached them it would consume all. The farmer houses were a bit further from the city itself so even though they were already in sight the city wasn’t.

After an hour, the body was almost at the houses. The black tendrils ate all the life force wherever the body was. However, the tendrils went all underground before he reached the houses to hide to maximize their efficiency. Finally,a villager could see the body moving.

“What… Who is that?” the villager murmured to himself. The body didn’t stop, it was still walking in a steady pace. When the body got closer, the villager could see more distinct features on it. It had blood all over it and looked more like a dead person. Even the eyes were white, meaning that the body was dead for a few hours already.

The villager then started yelling to alarm the other villagers.