“WE GIVE OUR HEART AND SOUL INTO THEE, AZARITH, MY GOD. THROUGH OUR SACRIFICE, MAY YOU WALK THE EARTH ONCE MORE!” The preacher screamed at the top of his lungs at his altar. The deer skull on top started to shake and glow red as hooded figures behind the man began to choke and crumple to the ground. One after the other, the worshippers had their very souls sucked out into the altar ahead. All the while, the priest’s grin slowly grew bigger and bigger, knowing his turn was coming.

Off to the side, in a darkened corner of the cave, sat three figures. Crouched behind a stalagmite, they watched the slow progression of the bloody ritual.

“My god, they're killing themselves,” a feminine voice said.

“Yes, and it seems they are summoning something, whatever or whoever that may be,” a deep masculine voice added.

“That man up there said something about Azarith. If I remember correctly, that is the name of the concept of the underworld, so whatever they are doing can't be good,” another voice stated, though it is debatable whether it belonged to a woman or not.

Murmurs of agreement could be heard from the other two as they looked back at the ever-growing pile of bodies this ritual was creating.

“Look there!” one of them said, pointing towards the front of the altar. Following their finger, they saw a podium with an open book lying on top.

“What is it?” the deep voice asked.

“I don’t know, but it sure does look important.”

“Agreed… say, here, I think I have a plan.”

Looking back at the ritual, something can be noticed; they are beginning to run out of people. Now, all that's left is the ‘priest’ and three other followers, one of which is currently writhing on the ground.

The priest looks back at the book in front of him and reads off a passage: “With this, your concept shall become conceptualized, your being shall move from fiction to reality, and your judgment shall be placed unto this untamed world.” He looked from the book back at the altar. “For now, you shall be-”

“Hey, Jackass!” A voice coming from the edge of the cave interrupted him, drawing the full attention of the now less imposing group of worshippers. Standing in the corner was a girl in a green and blue dress, also wearing one of those large witch hats that symbolized her worship of the concept of magic. Before any of them had the chance to say or do anything, from a different part of the cave, an arrow cut through the air, landing in one of the worshippers' heads. Now only two people remained, the last worshiper and the priest.

“Gaah! No! Get them both, now! They will replace our lost brother as his sacrifice!” After the man’s brazen declaration that he would kill the two, he sprinted full speed towards the little witch girl, pulling a small ceremonial blade as he did so.

The girl, in return, pulled out a mighty staff with a surprisingly large crystal on its tip. Keeping the bottom of the staff on the ground, she leaned the top towards the priest. Soon, a mighty fireball erupted from its tip, shooting at the charging man.

As the two fought, the last worshiper started chanting, and a large circle big enough to encircle a person appeared on the ground in front of the man. Soon enough, the circle became opaque, filling in with a deathly red. A second later, the man finished his chanting and yelled out a command; “OH, AZARITH, LEND ME ONE OF THY FOLLOWERS AND LET THEM TRAMPLE OUR ENEMIES!”

As he said the last word, a rumble could be heard throughout the cave. When out of nowhere, a meaty red arm came shooting out of the circle and braced itself on the ground beside the circle, seemingly to pull out the rest of the nasty creature from the underworld.

The archer who shot the other worshiper watched as the demon slowly came into view, revealing a mighty pair of horns and ghastly red skin.

“Well, this could be a problem,” the elf said, lowering his longbow. He decided to join up with this adventuring party for one specific reason: to get the book away from this group of worshippers using any means necessary. A few days ago, this group stole the book from an ancient elven ruin, and his people tasked him with destroying the book by any means necessary. No one wanted that book around anymore; it was simply too powerful. So when he joined up with the two others, he asked them to join him for this but did not specifically state why, just that it was important that their plans do not come to fruition.

The elf looked at the demon for a few seconds, weighing his options. He could try to shoot it with his mana-piercing arrow, but then it would get destroyed, and he only has one. A normal arrow wouldn’t work because of its demon status; the arrow would hit the magic barrier that surrounds it, as all demons have.

“Well, guess there’s no choice.”

He slung the bow back behind his back and unsheathed the elven sword hanging by his side. ‘I won’t be able to do much, but I should be able to hold out long enough to give Sir Issach time to destroy the book.”

As the four fought, off on the opposite side of the cave, a third and final figure stepped out of what was seemingly thin air just a few moments ago. He is revealed to be a very well-built middle-aged man with dark skin and white hair. He was dressed in an elaborate getup of ropes and cloth, all seemingly different colors and a massive hammer strung to his side. His hair is pulled into a single bun that sits at the very top of his head, giving him that sort of granny hairstyle, though unlike a grandma, all the hair that isn’t in the bun is in several dreadlocks that stretch back behind his head.

Rubbing his white beard thoughtfully, he thinks about how he shall destroy the book. The elf said that it was just as sturdy as any other book, so he could try just brute force to break the book’s spine. He thought about it for a moment more before deciding that it was the correct course of action.

Before anyone had the chance to see him, he took his hammer with both hands and set course for the book; sprinting at full speed.

...

“ALEZ TOK!” The woman mage shouted. A second later, the ground around the priest began to liquify and engulf him. He looked down for no more than a second before using a surprising amount of lower body strength to jump up and out of the trap. He spun around a few times in the air before launching the ceremonial dagger at the woman.

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“Huh?” She said in surprise before quickly dodging the flying blade by ducking to the right.

“Was that all you got?” She asked the priest, a smirk forming on her face. He landed on the ground and simply looked at her, he stood up straight and responded.

“You’re right. I think it’s time to end this.” His voice was deep and raspy, likely from all the screaming he was doing earlier.

He raised his right hand high to the ceiling of the cave, reaching up as if trying to grab something on the ceiling. His hand suddenly erupted into giant streaks of red lightning. The lightning struck anything and everything around his hand, including the man himself until it formed into a small ball, about the size of a baseball. He reached even higher, and his hand disappeared into the lightning. When he pulled his hand out, he was holding an object as well.

He appeared to be holding the hilt of a weapon, when a few seconds later it revealed to be a sword.

He finished pulling the thing out of the lightning and swung the blade down by his side. The ball flickered once before going out completely, leaving only the materialized sword with a very demonic design.

Laden on the crossguard of the sword was an eye that appeared to be closed, indicating the sword was of demonic descent and most likely had a cursed blade.

“Do you know what this is?” The man asked in a sinister tone.

All she could do was shake her head. She knew it was a demonic blade, but she didn’t know the exact properties, as every demonic blade is different. So, all she could do was feign ignorance, hoping to throw the man off and keep him busy.

“Good, then perhaps you will learn of it in the underworld. But for now, you shall die ignorant.” As he finished the last word, he swung the blade up to his face and turned it sideways so the eye was facing her.

He closed his eyes, and after a moment, he opened them up again to reveal his pupils had turned a sickly shade of red, as dark and deep as the underworld itself. But no more than a second later, the sword’s eye opened as well, revealing the same shade of red but with veins going all throughout the eye, making it more red than white.

Now this… This disturbed her. She was used to dealing with demonic entities, but a sword that was sentient was a bit much. Just the idea alone creeped her out.

she gripped her staff even tighter, thankful that it was not alive.

The man was about to attack it seemed, before something stopped him. He lowered the sword, and a confused look appeared on his face. He turned his attention away from her and started to slowly turn around to look at something.

Behind the man was the warrior that had snuck around them at the start of the fight, holding the stolen book with both hands, open to the page the exact page the priest had it at. Staring directly at the man, the warrior watched the priest with a stone-cold expression, as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

...

Millions of years ago, when the world was nothing but empty space, before anything existed, not even the concept of time or any concept for that matter, something happened. No one knows what happened or why it happened; all anyone knows is that it did. The first concept came into existence. The concept of life was the first to appear, followed by the concept of death. Now, it was not perfect, not yet. For the concept of death to exist, something had to happen to life for it to reach death, as well as something for the life to cling to. Thus the least known concept came into existence. Something that no one worships simply due to the fact that no one knows of its existence; that concept was the concept of REDACTED.

With this, a massive explosion of infinite proportions sent shards of this concept scattered throughout the newly created universe. Eventually, stars and planets were formed. Finally, life had something to cling to, creating the first life-bearing planet in the universe. No one knows exactly why, but the first species to become sentient on that little rock was a small group of Elves. These Elves stayed mostly on one continent, in one forest, and one community. They learned of magic and the different concepts that can be worshipped to gain magical abilities. They taught each other how to properly worship their concepts and how to live a life in accordance with these concepts. Eventually, though, for unknown reasons, they died out, leaving only a few stragglers of elves and some ruins. It was in these ruins that the book was found, a book that no one thought was possible. This book had the ability to turn any one concept into a reality, not just through thought, but with a physical form. The book would be consumed upon use, but many groups wished to get their hands on that book. One of these groups was the Klax, a clan who worshipped the concept of the perfect warrior. Them, like many others, knew of the book's existence but had no idea where the ruins were located. Until one of those in the clan found out from an elf that some worshippers of the underworld got their hands on a book and were very adamant about getting the book returned to some unspecified elf ruins.

...

The priest looked at the warrior with the first genuine fear that he had shown since the fight began.

“I sure hope you know what you are doing, boy.” the priest said drily. “What you do now will have infinite consequences for the future.”

The girl in the witch hat looked at the man with a different expression than before.

“Mongroy?” She said, “W-What are you doing?”

Mongroy switched his view from the priest to his colleague. The look in his eyes were cold, telling her that he was no longer the man she once knew. Or perhaps, she never knew him fully from the beginning.

“I can’t be the only one, can I?" he started, "To wonder exactly what my belief would manifest into? When I heard Orrian Elfiel talking about the book, it took me a second but I knew exactly what he was talking about. This book has the power to manifest the concept of the perfect warrior into reality. All I have to do is finish the chanting the old man started,” he finished, looking back down at the book in hand.

Throughout his speech, Ellyn Ville, and Orrian’s eyes slowly widened in horror at the realization. Though it seemed that the priest already knew his intentions as soon as he laid eyes on Mongroy carrying the book.

Orrian had just finished killing the demon when he looked at Mongroy with the book. And as soon as he did so, he knew he had to do something about it; he needed to act quickly.

Orrian slinked back into the shadows at the edge of the cave to conceal his motives. And after listening to his little speech, revealing his motives; Orrian already had his magical arrow trained on the man.

“OH GREAT GIDEON, I CALL UPON THEE, MANIFEST INTO REALITY AND SHOW THIS UNTAMED WORLD YOUR MIGHT.”

The second before he finished his sentence, Orrian let loose his arrow; Pointed directly at the book.

The book began to glow a brilliant white light, the moment Mongroy finished his sentence. But, at the same time, a magically infused arrow shot through the air, striking the book.

Mongroy looked up, following where the arrow came from; he saw Orrian holding the bow that ended it all. He felt it in that moment, his dreams slip away, his visions of a perfect future.

The white light suddenly turned green, then blue, then red, then back to white. It was becoming unstable, the magic of the arrow piercing through, antagonized the magic of the book, and it was a dangerous mix.

“W-What have you done?” He said with a wobbly voice. But before he could say or do anything more though, his hands began to get sucked into the now ball of colorful light. And the colors changed faster and faster.

The man screamed as his arms pulled him into the colorful vortex. Eventually, his head followed, and the screaming stopped, not because he died, no, his legs were still spasming with incredible vigor. But it didn’t last. A moment later, nothing could be seen about the man, and he was pulled fully inside the vortex; presumably dead.

The priest seemed to have seen enough as he decided to sprint full speed, up, and out of the cave.

The ball of light started to blur as the colors sped up exponentially, and the ball slowly turned into more of a ring, creating a hole in the middle.

Orrian ran over to Ellyn in a panic.

“We need to get out of here,” he said plainly, covering the two of them with his cloak. “This thing is unstable; we have no idea what or who it will summon, but whatever it will be it can’t be good.” He paused before continuing. “And I am like… 40% sure it will explode.”

Ellyn’s eyes widened in horror.

“Why didn’t you say that sooner; let's get out of here!” She yelled at the elf.

They started to make their way to the exit and were about halfway there when suddenly, like the demon summoned before, the ring became opaque, this time filling in with a dark gray. When out of nowhere, the two heard something, something unexpected. It sounded like music but with a strange tone to it, like some strange metal sound that was higher pitched and more rhythmic than normal. Neither of them could describe it; it was a completely foreign sound to the two.

They looked back at the portal, almost terrified of what concept would come out of the thing. One thing they weren’t expecting, though, was to see a gray arm reach out. It wasn’t reaching for the ground; it only reached for the sky. It never went into a fist, nor did it look like it was reaching for anything in particular. It was simply a raised arm that was, with closer inspection, incredibly veiny and the most well-defined and muscular arm that either of them had ever seen.