Inside the gate was a bright room. It dropped with golden light, except for one place. A single corner, far from the gate and at the corner of anyone's vision. A faintly moving shadow stained the light. It didn't spread and Michael couldn't see what was creating the shadow. The room was silent, and it stayed that way. He saw the light slowly wiggling and slowly it started to attack the shadow but it didn't dissapear, even when the light covered it, there was still the small flickers of shadows moving underneath or just out of reach of the light.
Like a parasite the shadow started to infect the light, it was slow and started with the cocoon that had formed around it. It didn't take long for the faint movements to become whips of darkness that shot out towards a spot filled with and leave behind a blob of darkness.
The back and forth of light purifying darkness and the shadow infecting darkness continued but finally, it stopped. They seemed to have come to an understanding. One part was filled with the brightest light, and the other was a deep darkness akin to an abyss.
In the middle of the two extremes was a a grey zone. From it small flashes of light appeared.
"What is your goal? Why do you keep on moving? What is your reason for life?"
A thundering filled the room. The extremes shook a little and looked as of they would mix again but the shaking stopped. A pregnant silence filled the room but it was broken by the voice once more. "You are allowed entrance." A large gate opened in the grey zone.
Michael approached it and saw the there were two key holes in it. On the door and in bold words, written in cursive was a poem.
"In the silence of the night we yearn
So let them forget, let them ignore,
As shadows creep and memories fade,
For justice waits beneath the sky
In unity, we stand, strong and true."
He read, read and re-read the poem until it stuck in his brain. He stared for minutes and at the sixtieth minute he heard the ticking of a clock. It rang out slowly, and in the tenth tick he heard the same voice. " Your trait is 'Warden of the stars' and as you can't rejected the opportunity of being gifted a blessing due to it existed in your blood I name you the Seventh and last knight of Ruination."
The two sides, light and shadow tore themselves from the walls and started funneling themselves into him. The light went into his eyes and the shadow was absorbed by an emblem that had branded itself onto his left arm. A sword and a snake. The snake like creature was hugging the sword closely and it had six eyes. On its body were marks, like battle wounds that left scars behind. In that moment Michael felt pain like he had never felt before. His whole body was on fire, especially his eyes and left arm. He felt like clawing the eyes from his body but something held him in place. It didn't even allow him the respite of rolling on the ground or to blink away the pain.
He was trapped in a standing position, staring at the poem. He repeated it in his mind to try and distract himself from the pain and it worked. Every time he repeated the poem he felt relaxed. Like a weight had been removed from his shoulders. Like he was free. That feeling came crashing down onto him when he started hearing a voice in his mind.
It spoke in a raspy voice, like it had been denied water or any liquid for so long that it's throat had warped. "You are our warden, our guardian and a parasite we have to get rid of. We shall watch and we shall judge." The voice dissapeared as abruptly as it came but it did leave him something. Knowledge. It was about the few abilities he had gained due to his new trait.
Trait: Warden of the Stars.
Abilities: You can imprison the monsters that you defeat but they gave to meet the requirements set by the trait. This will allow you to use their abilities as if they were yours but if your state can't handle the full blunt of their abilities, then the ability will be scaled down to the level that you can handle.
Current: Telekinesis, Fire manipulation.
The strange information was inputted inside his mind and whatever he did, he couldn't forget it. He looked back at the door and found that parts of the shadows and light had broken off and had entered the key holes.
Pushing the door open he looked at the other side and saw a deep darkness that pulled him towards it. Michael fell inside the door and as he fell the room and bright gate in the spirit world dissapeared.
Looking at this was a giant man. He was taller than a normal man at ten feet tall but compared to some of the spirits he was tiny. He had scaly and dry skin with four human like arms and six deep red eyes. His body was filled with muscles that made him look strong but not to the point that he looked like an abomination.
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He brushed his dark hair aside to reveal elf like ears and a very handsome face. It looked awkward for a face like that -only comparable to a boy- to be connected to the body of a large monstrosity of muscles that it was connected to. He smiled as he saw the fog devour the pulsating light. "Make us proud soul." He seemed to be in thought for a moment before he spoke again. "That doesn't seem right, you are Michael and I am.. I am. I am Eulises." Eulises let out a loud laugh that shook the surrounding fog a little bit before he looked at the opposite direction of the devoured light.
Fog danced in his arms before a weapon formed in every hand. A shield, a spear, a sword and a short sword. It's eyes saw different things compared to what Michael saw when he was inside the fog, thus he didn't miss the floating fish like spirit. "Isolation." His voice rang out like a law in the foggy landscape. It was only the fish like being and Eulises in this world.
In a small island in an empty part of a deep dark sea, on its beach a group of fishermen returning home from a day of semi-successful fishing found a body. It seemed to have washed up from the sea, prompting them to stay away from it. They were debating whether to call the shaman so he can send it along it's way at least with a blessing from the wooden one when it's chest started rising.
Small amounts of water started escaping from it's mouth and nose as the breath forced it out. The fishermen stood there, fear rooting them to the ground. They watched as the reddened blue eyes opened, filled with confusion the man tried to talk but this only caused the water in the stomach to cause a violent fit of coughs as it tried to escape.
The man kneeled down and stayed like that for a few minutes. One of the fishermen, Milton, finally found his strength and rushed to the village that was a ways away but close enough to reach while running. He didn't stop on the way, even when his feet were scratched by sticks and weirdly he tripped on a root that had seemed to grow in the middle of the road. No Milton wasn't calm enough to notice this abnormality, he just continued to run towards the village. When he had finally reached it, he rushed inside the shaman's home to find him and the chief talking about something.
"Talk boy, what is it that you saw important enough to barge in like this." The shaman's usual rude tone rang out. He looked at the six foot six man at his door. The shaman seemed especially annoyed today but Milton didn't care. He just saw something they thought to be impossible, something the sacred text said to be impossible. All he needed to do was catch his breath and he would explain to the two impatient men. However, they didn't seem like they would wait so Milton spoke taking a breath between two or three words.
"My lord, we have found a man that seemed to have washed up from the sea."
"Why the hurry for a dead body?" The cold voice of the chief cut him off. He didn't seem pleased at the reason but paused afterwards giving Milton a chance to explain himself further. "We also thought that he was dead chief, but he shot up with eyes looking like a chaos beast and started coughing up sea water. I left the others with him and came to inform you." After he was done and the situation sunk in. Milton looked back at the shaman and couldn't help but add. "The sacred texts told us that no one can survive in the sea." His voice was quite, but in the silence the two men heard it. The chief also looked at the shaman.
"Take me to the man." The shaman spoke after sometime. He stood up and grabbed his staff, the chief also stood up and motioned for Milton to lead them.
It took them a few minutes before they were back at the beach once more. They now found the man seated some distance from the group and staring at the sea. The sea was calm with a few waves lapping at the man's feet like a dog to it's master.
He looked handsome now that he wasn't coughing water. Dark hair framing a round face that was ornamented by a clean shaven beard. The man wore only a pair of pants. His upper body caused Milton to grow a jealous of him, it was packed with muscles and they melded in a way that left him looking lean but burly. He saw how his chest had a line of hair that diverged into some hairs here and there along his body.
Milton couldn't miss the branding on his arm. An alien snake curving along a sword. Its tail was at the pommel while the closed mouth was at the end. As if sensing that new people gad arrived, he opened his eyes at them. They were beautiful. Deep blue with splashes of white inside them. Surrounding the eyes was a darkness. One that he had never seen and it made his skin crawl just at the sight of them.
This sharp contrast of calm and eerie, left the three if them with a feeling of being drawn closer to his eyes and at the same time something inside them told them not to look at them.
"Do you know where I am?" His voice broke them out of their internal struggles. Milton looked at his friends and saw that they were filled with terror. He saw how the shaman and the chief had slowly inched closer to the stranger so he went towards them.
"What happened? Why are you so scared l that you are shaking like kids before the great darkness." He asked his question, curiosity filling his mind even if he knew the answer. He looked at his brother. "Shaw, what had gotten you so scared?" He knew his brother to be one of the bravest men in the village and he was larger than him also.
"That man, he isn't normal. He is like the chaos beasts." He was about to ask how a man could be like a beast when he heard a scream. The two men looked back at the source of sound to find the shaman standing before the unnaturally tall man and the chief a distance away. He was on the ground groaning. "He can throw things without touching them." His brother's voice came from behind him. "We had first thought he was an apostle of the hooded one but roots came from the ground and stoped him from approaching us. Praise the one who sees all."
As the two were talking, the shaman was standing before the man filled with joy. He had seen the chief get tossed away like a child. He didn't care about the strange power the man had since he was blessed. He felt inside him, the energy that eluded even a fellow blessed like the chief started to show itself. He knew that the might of the great god would humble this heretic thus, to show the greatness of the Hooded One he used every bit of power he could muster.
He felt the ground tremble as nature obeyed him and thick roots shot up from the ground and to the heretic. He saw as he tried to push them away, the shaman added a bit of power to them and watched in delight as the man froze and the roots entangled him. They then swallowed him into the ground and he knew that they would deposit the man in the dungeon where all the heretics were.
Milton and his friends all kneeled when they watched the man get swallowed but the roots. The shaman walked towards the chief and placing his hand on his back the chief started to wake up.
Inside the village, underneath the temple of the Hooded One Michael was tied to a wall by roots. However, his mind wasn't on the roots but at the feeling or more like the call he had felt. Something had passed the recommendation of the trait he had just been given. That is what had distracted him from snapping the necks of the two old men that had attacked him instead of answering him.