Domison's bare soles sunk into the ground slightly as he landed, keeping his knees soft to absorb the high-speed landing. He felt like the impact should have been harder on his body but he felt so light and nimble; the ground also seemed too squishy, for what had once been hard-packed dirt just days before. A cacophony of noise enveloped him as soon as he hit the ground, muffled before by the tightly packed branches looping around each other endlessly and massive crimson leaves sprouting.

Mel was screaming curses, stopping only to rip sobbing breaths from the air. He could hear Mike, at least he assumed that was who the moaning and wheezing belonged to. There was something else too, and he plunged through the packed underbrush, running towards the commotion as quickly as his newly empowered body could take him. He pushed himself as hard as he could, not understanding how the couple had gotten so far away from the hollow in the tree he had scaled.

After rushing haphazardly through twenty feet of now suffocating bloody plantlife, Domison broke through to a clearing. The sight in front of him immediately made his blood run cold. Mel was standing above Mike, swinging a large branch back and forth in front of her in a panicked defense. The thing that she was fending off was grotesque, though it seemed to once be an objectively beautiful creature. It had long, powerful legs that ended in opaque hooves, a lithe body, and a long neck. Its entire form was covered in shaggy but glossy fur, the only exception being its humanoid face. It was a feminine face, with the upper half akin to a deer causing its nose to widen and protrude slightly. Deep glossy black eyes full of malice shimmered from beneath a wide brow.

The features of the once majestic creature had been deformed, however. Its once beautiful white mane was yellowed with what looked like mange, and fungus was growing all over its body. A quiver was running through the thing's body at irregular intervals and periodically it would twitch its feminine head in an anomalous fashion. This twitching would cause the yellowed and gore-soaked horns on its head to jitter about, spraying blood through the air. The thing seemed to be toying with the pair, dancing in and out of range of the random swinging by Mel. She was injured as well, sporting a large gash across the top of her arm; her sun dress was torn in several places across her back and stomach. Through the tears in her dress fresh, painful-looking bruising could be seen and she seemed to be favoring her left side, wincing every time she overextended with the branch.

Mike was in much worse shape, however. He was lying on his back with his feet towards Domison, a large, weeping puncture wound pulsing from underneath his ribs. Several gashes covered his arms and his face was bruised and battered. Domison thought he could even make out a dent in the shape of a hoof on the man's left temple. With every breath, blood bubbled from Mike's mouth and the lips of the creature only stretched wider with every wheeze. The monster, Domison realized that's what the thing was now, had been toying with them, and it was enjoying it.

A cold hate unfurled through Domison's body, like ice spreading through his veins and he stepped out of the underbrush. As he walked forward an imposing sword appeared in his hand mid-stride, it was not imposing in size but its presence in the world felt vast. Black veins started to worm their way up his sword arm as his eyes took in the devastation caused to those who he promised protection. He knew that there was no way he could keep them safe from everything, not in this new and alien world, yet there was something deeply wrong with the current situation. He had been only several dozen feet above them and he heard nothing, he saw nothing. Had he been too focused on the image of the city? He still should have heard something. He was careless and this is the damage that reality caused.

A deep and yearning hunger began to build in Domison. While the pangs of emptiness needing to be filled emanated from his stomach region, he knew that it wasn't his grumbling stomach, it was his inner core. His sword had begun to resonate with the Abyssal energies lying there and it craved to add to its collection. Domison instinctively reached into his core and following those instincts, he began to spin the energies within, allowing them to naturally spread throughout his body. The energy spreading under his skin made him feel as though he had been overheating his entire life and for the first time walking into a refrigeration unit. It was a blissful cool that radiated throughout his entire being.

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Domison felt the trickle that had been slowly adding to his core increase tenfold as the spinning energy became a whirlpool. Wispy black tendrils began to stretch from his form, snatching at the air as though it was trying to eat away at the light permeating the surroundings. At the crescendo of Domison's anger, right as he was about to dash forwards, the creature noticed him and cocked its head at an odd angle. Its feminine mouth opened wide, displaying needle teeth as it distended its jaw and a horrible voice began to drone out from the back of the thing's throat.

"Ahh… Another hominid to spread my lord's scripture unto," The voice scraping out of the thing's mouth was grating, "But wait… You feel different from the others I have converted…" The deer-like creature squinted its beady black eyes at the man for a moment. "I feel the darkness in you child, you seem to be only masquerading in a cloak of humanity... You smell of-" Before it finished its last sentence, the creature leaped back several yards in a single bound, eyes going wide in sudden alarm. "Which God has sponsored you?! You must tell me!" Before Domison even had the chance to respond the creature hurled one last accusation, "This is not your territory, ape!"

Confusion spread through Domison at the monster’s words and the whirlwind of energies spinning within his core began to slow. He searched for the guide in his mind, immediately feeling the presence at the back of his head that had been watching passively the entire time.

'Raze, what is that thing talking about? Which God is sponsoring me? Didn't you mention something about your master deciding to sponsor me? What exactly does this all mean?' In a mix of his confusion and sense of urgency, he inundated the shadowling without pause. As it took several moments for a response, Domison had started to feel slightly guilty.

Finally, Raze answered Domison's questions, allowing his anxiety to drop, 'Firstly, you should know about sponsorships. The deities of this plane, or the beings that you may refer to as Gods, get bored. There is something that satiates that boredom for some of these immensely powerful beings though. That thing is, planets with intelligent life.' Raze paused for a moment, letting the information sink home before continuing, 'Hundreds of thousands of planets are integrated into the Omnicrux system every year, and those Gods offer ''Sponsorships'' to the beings on those planets that catch their eye. You can conceptualize it as how a man would hedge his bet on the largest dog in a fighting pit.'

Domison's fury began to build as all the implications of what Raze was telling him but before he could explode in rage, the guide continued, 'What the Master offered you however, was a true sponsorship. He gave you his full support along with a pathway to true inheritance. You can think of it as comparing a courtier to a peasant if that helps at all.'

Domison's full attention returned to the world then, only milliseconds having passed during the internal conversation. The final words of Raze did, in fact, make Domison feel a bit better, cooling the anxiety building in his mind that he could just be a cheap piece of entertainment to a mind bendingly ancient being. While his rage had been growing to volatile levels, he did his best to keep himself level-headed when he responded to the creature.

Domison didn't deign to answer the questions, "You mean to tell me that attacking and hurting these people is a way of spreading God's scripture? What do you mean you're going to convert them afterward?"

The mask of faded beauty on the monster's face fell away then as its form contorted in barely contained violence, "The screams of my victims spread the true faith of my God, ape. Once his cravings have been satiated, I convert them to my fungal brood and as my new family grows, so can we spread the gospel to further corners of this celestial body. Until all are screaming praise to the almighty Myacept, lord of altered mind and body, and shepherd of the brood!"

Domison could tell that he wouldn't be able to get any coherent information from this zealot. He at least made a mental note of the name Myacept, to question Raze about, but that was going to be after he released the building icey rage inside him, "You say that this wanton torture and depravity is the way of spreading your God's scripture?” Domison began marching forward again as he spoke, “ What you don't realize is that while you may be a man of your God, I am a man of something much Older, and hungrier." He said, frost starting to plume from his nostrils as the light in the forest began to dim. "If you want a massacre, I will show you a massacre."