An odd sensation started to tickle the back of Abraxis’ mind. Unsure of what the feeling meant, he only let a small fraction of the energy through. His mind reeled as his body shifted down and the world around him discombobulated into hazy hues that reformed into a world he knew well: the Trenches.

But he inhabited a body that was very much not his own. A gross, subpar thing dares try trapping me!

Before he broke the connection, a boy he recognized, one of the bigs, the one that stood up to him, swearing loyalty to Dax? A whole ritual and everything that Abraxis barely paid attention to as he tried to figure out why and where and how and why.

Because being in this place was not part of his plans and most certainly not appreciated! Whoever pulled the joke, not funny! Let me out of here—oh, what’s this?

The world shifted to a meeting with Max, recounted the events leading up to Dax stealing the amulet, and then being killed by something. The Amulet of Despair appeared to activate by itself—then the memory ended.

Eh? The power still tickled at the edge of his mind, but he noticed some of it had already started to fade. Rushing to recapture the events to maybe get some insight into what the Amulet of Despair did, Abraxis was swept away the next moment without much issue. Oh, this is weird.

The next memory, one that skipped parts of dialogue and shifted through time oddly as if pieces were missing, recounted the… same events? The ritual, Max, theft, death. Then again, but less of the memories carried over.

On the fifth time, Dax became privy to a something killing him, taking his time to really pay attention with the security he’d be able to try things again. And he did, just long enough to see Abraxis stab a hand through his chest. But no matter how many times the amulet activated, one thing was certain. There was minor deviation in the time that was reversed.

It was always a fixed return of a half-day.

Dax always went back to a similar moment before Max showed up. Dax started getting wiser, learned, and fought to understand the power of the Amulet of Despair, using it to his advantage.

But it never mattered.

Ten times, twenty, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand. No matter how Dax tried to escape with the amulet, Abraxis always killed him. He’d been too afraid of Abraxis killing him if he didn’t steal the amulet and continued to do so, learning and adapting and struggling but never winning.

Once he’d recapped as much of things as he could, Abraxis looked at the amulet. “Then why didn’t it work this time?” If what he’d seen was true, Dax should’ve been sent twelve hours back to try again and leave no memory of this ever happening. But Abraxis had the amulet now. “This hurts my head. Understanding is overrated anyway. Does it work?”

He thought to test it and immediately dismissed the idea. As fun as it would be to hunt Dax again, Abraxis wasn’t keen on going back and dealing with Lucifer and Andariel and Albagoroth and Uncle a second time. He’d pat himself on the back for surviving the one time, a second time? Now that was a real death wish, one he didn’t fancy.

Nope. He shoved it in his trashy pocket that he could barely fit his hand into and turned around. Oh yeah, these people.

The mercenaries. Many looked at him with wide eyes, pointing with agape mouths, horror and despair creating a dense fog of gloom and doom. “Looks like all of you saw a monster,” he said, waving nonchalantly towards them and watching as they flinched. His eye twitched. Were they mocking him? Then he saw his ripped sleeve and transformed arm. “Ah, Hell.” Then he remembered he wanted to kill them anyway and their fear amused him, reminding him of his greatness. “Okay, then let’s play a game. Anybody who goes into the Wastelands can live, and anybody else dies!”

“D-D-Demon!”

“Get the Anti-Demon mage squads here, now!”

“Contact the guilds and ready your arms!”

“We need to run, now!”

“This is way above my pay grade. I’m out. Good luck everyone.”

Abraxis shook his hand, and the partial transformation ended. He waited for the self-repair enchantment to stitch his shirt back together, but it didn’t. This was the mortal realm, and he wasn’t wearing his beautiful, carefully crafted suit of perfection with all its glorious charms and enchants.

Oh, now I’m upset. The torn sleeve reminded him of this body’s weakness and its importance, since the damned Anti-Demon mages would be a giant pain in the ass if they were to come back to the Trenches. Sure, they’d help to manage the chaos swarms from the rift. Those were nasty, a real dampener on all of Abraxis’ plans, since they ignored fundamental laws of the world like him…

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

But the assumption the mages would stick around long enough for the merchants to depart from the Steelway and open up that bag of worms… Not very probable and an occurrence he’d be stingy to gamble on.

But hey!

They were a pain in the ass otherwise! Discrimination, even if deserved, was totally not cool… unless you were Abraxis. Then the peons beneath him deserved to be stomped beneath him! I need sleep.

He wouldn’t admit he was tired, never that, but he found focusing far harder than before he’d crossed over. He didn’t need sleep, but it sure did make things like the night before far more manageable. The amount of growth he’d experienced, even if enhancing his utter greatness for everyone to see, required energy. Lots of it. And he’d been battered and tossed about by that energy he’d used to refine himself enough to make his mind feel groggy. Kind of like how he’d barely managed to detect Max’s smoke-invasion and the illusion.

Definitely need rest, or… a massacre. Seeing as none of the mercenaries ran towards the Wastelands, he took their actions as a decision and grinned. Similar to how he’d definitely, not-failed to restrain Uncle, tendrils of darkness rose from the mercenaries’ shadows and wrapped around their ankles.

But he experimented further with his control and capabilities, bringing each up with less-smooth and more barbed ribs at the top. If the cries of pain and terror were anything to go by, they were effective.

And yes, his Sin was applied. His bloodline made short work of them too, as many of the humans had energy within them but didn’t use it. Its natural resistance met Abraxis’ refusal to be stopped, crumpled, got munched and absorbed, and let him into the minds of the unprepared and unaware.

He rummaged around there, watching as one mercenary turned and cut the throat of another. The other, well of course it was time for them to see a knife… very, very closely. Finding the power quite interesting, he stopped using it. No, this was too active and far below him. These peons required far less of his attention, such was his greatness and their relation to insects.

Rather than actively pervade the minds of the mercenaries with his prideful Sin to subdue them, take control of their being, and entirely overhaul their existence, he instead applied a bit more of his bloodline. The Talent, applied to the tendrils, would consume a corpse once it was subdued, convert that into more energy, and then spread to those nearby.

Like that, he could casually disdain the mercenaries, do nothing and rejoice in his greatness—all while on the verge of collapsing from utter fatigue. But of course not because he was truly tired. He felt like collapsing because the power brewing inside of him raged in a way he hadn’t adjusted to.

The amount he needed to bring to bear his attack felt paltry in comparison to what he’d have expended prior, and now, it was as easy as taking a breath. The extreme growth didn’t quite catch up to his mind, and that created this strange disconnect between what he could do and what he’d done. Or what he perceived his capabilities as, rather, and piecing all of that together felt like a mental gymnastics course fit for twelve people in the pits of purgatory, strapped to the back of a primordial, and cast into the deeper pits of void.

Impossible, pretty much. Completely, utterly impossible. And he didn’t have the ability to fight himself, convince himself of anything besides empty-brain and push forward into kick-ass mode, eat stuff mode, or go-home, go-bed mode.

Those all sounded great, but he couldn’t let his image suffer. Back ramrod straight, he walked amongst the dead and absorbed the energy converted by his ability. It hadn’t been able to infinitely perpetuate as he’d hoped—yet—but twelve tendrils, all brimming with that odd mortal energy, jumped into his own shadow and filled him with a further exhausting rejuvenation.

He buzzed with so much energy, he felt tired. The conundrum was something puzzling. Maybe this is why Lilith naps so much. Could I be hitting some current limit of power that I need to take time to process, because if that’s what this is, it’s really gross. Do not like!

Letting the moment pass and the tantrum fade, Abraxis refortified his mind in an attempt to stave off that insidious tiredness that seemed to pervade—Is this Yugmuswa’s doing?

The thought irked him, so he ignored it. That made him feel better. Seeing the gangly skeletons, Abraxis nodded to himself. A test gone well, an Amulet received, and a growth spurt complete. The night had been survived, though he dismayed at not experiencing a second growth spurt. That would’ve been the most optimal ending to the night, but he wasn’t sure if he could handle any more power.

Unless… Could this be the start of an Awakening? He grabbed the Amulet of Despair from his pocket and idly made his way back towards the merchant city, crossing the Steelway wreathed in a coalescence of darkness even the sentinels couldn’t pierce, and stopped after crossing over.

“Is it supposed to do that?” The Amulet buzzed in a way he wasn’t sure he should allow to continue, but he didn’t know what to do. His mind wasn’t quite fast enough on the uptake to cancel the effect and, with a swoosh, Abraxis found himself somewhere not where he’d been headed. “Can’t I catch a break?” he groaned, looking around.

“What’s this?” a cloaked figure, one of twelve, said in a deep and grainy voice. He needed to smoke less disha herbs and see a doctor—or just die. That worked too. Gravely voice man turned towards one of the other hooded figures and crossed his arms, speaking in a way that made Abraxis want to pick his bones clean of any marrow… while the man still lived. “You should have been careful and made sure to target the Amulet of Awakening! Now look what you’ve done,” the man waved towards Abraxis, “and take accountability for your actions!”

“What are you talking about?” Abraxis asked, trying to take a step forward. He tried to step off the summoning table he found himself lying on, and the air around him started to hiss and scream.

A door somewhere nearby slammed open, and Abraxis craned his head to see another dozen cloaked figures rush into the room with various magical armaments raised, all pointing at him.

Abraxis pointed at himself and looked around at the others. “Me? What’d I do?”