The Empty Mirror
Chapter 65: Performance
At the zenith of the Hanging Gardens, after a journey plagued by shadows, Giselle finally reaches her long-awaited destination. There, standing above the mist like a celestial colossus, she feels transported to the heights, piercing through the fog enveloping the monument. She walks upon a bed of mist, as if defying the very clouds of the sky in an eternal dawn. This verdant paradise, saturated with greenery, emerges as an oasis in the desert of nightmare, a refuge for the wanderer navigating without compass amidst the mist. Beneath her feet, the ground fades into the mist, a pure and vivid blue canvas that stretches into infinity. Each step is a leap into the abyss, a surrender to altruism in this ethereal and eternal world, where every cloud is an endless dream. Despite the presence of aberrant insects, with their fatty proboscises and membranous wings, Giselle feels free, defying the poison lurking in the shadows. At the summit, where supposedly the enigmatic "Homo neanderthalensis" should await, the Marquise seeks an essence that transcends her understanding. However, amidst the clarity of dawn, the sky abruptly falls into an eternal night, a firmament black and devoid of constellations, plunged into the chaos of nothingness.
Upon an infernal throne, rises a deity of the profane, its twisted figure defying all reason. Its skin, marked by sores oozing a black and viscous liquid, is the feast of worms and larvae writhing upon its surface. Three vicious heads emerge from its neck, each with jaws full of sharp teeth and eyes gleaming with malice. Its membranous wings, covered in pustules and sores, flap with a repulsive snap. Its limbs, a twisted amalgamation of flesh and bone, bear sharp claws dripping with degeneration and corruption. A nauseating stench envelops it, a mixture of sulphur and death that makes even the most ruthless monsters recoil in disgust. The moans and lamentations of the damned souls resonate around it, a macabre symphony accompanying its infernal presence. The gaze of its incandescent eyes penetrates to the depths of the soul, filling spectators with primal fear and absolute despair. This lord of the abyss is a vision of indescribable terror, an incarnation of the darkest and most horrible nightmares. Its body, traversed by the fluids of depravity, emits an indescribable wickedness. A giant member hangs from its being, a symbol of pure lust, while virgin nipples crown its throne of sin, a grotesque manifestation of the deepest lechery.
The curse afflicting him is an affront to nature, a condemnation imposed by the very stars he defied with his sensuality. It begins as a slight discomfort, an itch beneath the skin that soon turns into a piercing and relentless pain. His flesh contorts and distorts as if consumed from within by infernal fire. His bones become fragile and brittle, while his muscles atrophy and entangle into twisted knots. Every movement is an indescribable agony, every breath a struggle for the poisoned air invading his lungs. His mind plunges into a whirlwind of madness and despair, besieged by visions of his own downfall and the eternal darkness that awaits beyond. As the curse progresses, his physical form slowly disintegrates, transforming into an amorphous mass of twisted flesh and bone. His cries of anguish and desperation fill the air, a symphony of suffering resonating through the infernal realms. In the end, he is reduced to a shadow of his former self, trapped in a state of eternal torment from which there is no escape. The curse of nature has fulfilled its purpose, condemning him to an existence of unimaginable suffering for all eternity, in a perpetual cycle of regeneration and torment.
The curse of unquenchable voracity afflicting him is a torture unparalleled, an insatiable hunger that devours every fiber of his being. It begins as a slight tingling in his stomach, a fleeting longing to satisfy a need that seems impossible to appease. But soon, that tingling transforms into a searing pain, a sensation of emptiness that ravages everything in its path. No matter how many condemned souls he feeds on and revels in misery and suffering, the hunger persists, growing with each bite. His throat becomes a bottomless pit, his mouth a voracious trap that devours everything it touches. The scent of fresh meat and warm blood becomes a sickening obsession, clouding his mind and consuming his thoughts. Every moment of starvation is an indescribable agony, a torment that knows no respite. His body withers and twists under the yoke of necessity, his bones protruding like sharp thorns through his taut skin. His eyes gleam with a feverish light, his mind tormented by visions of endless feasts that are always out of reach. Even in moments of apparent satiety, the hunger persists, lurking in the shadows like an invisible predator. He is doomed to wander for eternity, consumed by a hunger that will never find satisfaction, a curse that consumes him from within until there is nothing left but emptiness and darkness…
The deity's mental state is an abyss of madness and despair, a labyrinth of psychological torment from which there is no escape. His mind, once a bastion of cunning and malice, is now tainted by the deepest shadows of his being. His thoughts are entangled in paranoia and delirium, his memories distorted by the curse devouring him from within. The voices in his head are a constant clamour, sibilant whispers urging him to acts of violence and destruction. Each night is a feast of nightmares, grotesque visions haunting him even in his waking moments. Reality blurs around him, the walls of his mental prison closing in tighter and tighter, crushing his sanity beneath their relentless weight.
His emotions are a whirlwind of pain and despair, a cacophony of anguish threatening to engulf him entirely. Passion burns in his chest like a searing fire, fear paralyses him in place, and sadness plunges him into a sea of hopelessness. Every day is a desperate battle to hold onto sanity, to cling to the last thread of reason left in his torn mind. His body writhes with violent spasms, his hands turning into twisted claws grasping desperately at reality. Mental illness consumes him from within, devouring his identity and leaving only an empty, contorted shell in its place. He is a shadow of what he once was, a spectre tormented by the demons of his own creation, condemned to an existence of eternal suffering in the depths of the abyss.
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The deity lies chained by a twisted tangle of cables and circuits, a grotesque amalgamation of flesh and metal that keeps him imprisoned in a state of eternal suffering. The cables snake around his mutilated body, piercing his skin with rusted cybernetic implants and corroded connections. Each cable is an invisible chain binding him to the world of technology, an electronic prison holding him in an endless loop of pain and agony. The flesh around the cables is reddened and inflamed, marked by burns and scars where the connections have fused with his skin. Cybernetic implants twist and hum with a life of their own, emitting flashes of sickly light that illuminate his contorted figure in the darkness. The sound of cables twisting and snapping against his skin fills the air, a discordant symphony of suffering and despair.
The deity struggles against his copper bindings with every fibre of his being, but the cables are relentless, clinging to him with supernatural force. Every attempt to escape only increases his torment, triggering electric shocks that course through his body like a burning whip. His mind is connected to a network of distorted virtual reality, where his worst nightmares come to life again and again in an endless cycle of suffering. The line between man and machine blurs in his tortured state, with each beat of his mechanical heart resonating in his skull like a war drum. The deity is doomed to be a slave to technology, a cybernetic demon trapped in a limbo of pain and despair, condemned to exist at the intersection between the divine and the inhuman for all eternity.
Giselle found herself immersed in a reality alien to her senses, where she only perceived the presence of heads that gazed upon her with pity and carnal desire. She kept her head bowed towards the pit of her tomb, immobilised and with her mind plunged into a chaos of dark thoughts that nearly led her to complete madness. The most horrendous psychological disorders gripped her, blocking her senses: she could not speak, hear, or see. Her eyes shed desperate tears, unable even to swallow saliva. Her body felt inert, as if only the skin were the sole witness to her existence. The bones seemed to yield under pressure, while her tongue lay inert in her mouth. Her glassy eyes almost lost sight, and her legs trembled on the brink of collapse. The skin began to decompose more rapidly, the fingers and nails breaking like stone from a statue. Gangrene oozed from her lips, like tar from the stomach. Then, amidst the torment, only darkness reigned, with no sound but that of the infernal abyss. But something, her neck, was mutilated by the choker…
"Hunger on Trial" reacted to the threat and strived to protect the bearer as if facing its worst enemy. It unleashed the "Voracious Bite" attack as a passive manifestation, but with the artifact's maximum critical damage capacity, far surpassing attacks against the ivy. However, the blow was deflected, reflected. At that moment, the choker around Giselle's neck broke, its incisors and jaw shattered into a silent sound as Giselle's throat was mutilated. Simultaneously, the staff on which "Two of Wands" leaned broke like a piece of old wood, the monkey paw vanished into the abyssal darkness. The "Voracious Bite" attack betrayed its bearer: tooth marks formed in the darkness like a spectral bite, and in a heart-wrenching act, half of Giselle's face was devoured, mutilated. Gangrene oozed from her corpse like a pool of blood, yet she still lingered in agony, casting a sideways glance at the deity before her, fearing, for that deity was a vampire.
Giselle's body teeters on the edge of collapse when everything takes on a white hue, like a vast ocean of milk surrounding her. Hanging Gardens vanish around her, leaving only her and the deity, as long, colossal black tentacles, as gigantic as cities, begin to shape reality. The sea of milk shapes the deformity, as Giselle's blood falls to the ground and blood from her mutilated body gushes from her nose. Then, the god chained by cables breaks free from his bonds upon touching the blood of the white-haired virgin. The blood of her sacrifice splashes the god's skin, and in an instant, he sheds the cables with an electric sound, freeing himself from technology. His body stops mutating through evolution, his stomach stops suffering hunger. He rises from his lethargy, still grappling with his mental issues, his gigantic wings towering over Giselle's body, which falls into a state of suspended time. Then, the deity is freed from his curses, though he cannot leave the castle, as he has not yet regained his identity or complete consciousness. He will remain thus perpetually until lust returns to the world, observing with his three heads until the prostitute regains control of the world. The virtuous weep and the wicked celebrate the return of the god of indulgence and sex.
In the dense air of uncertainty that follows this performance, questions crowd together, entangled, like in a frenzied dance. The truth behind the presence of that deity atop the Hanging Gardens, their identity veiled beneath the cloak of mystery, lies beyond human understanding. Their purposes, the reasons behind their torment, the very essence lying beneath the veils of their sufferings, all slip like shadows in the minds of those who contemplate their figure. Giselle, amidst her demise, plunged into deep uncertainty, questioning the mystery behind the apparent paradox. How could someone so powerful succumb to degradation? What was the true essence of their being, that figure embodying lust, yet whose chains unravelled upon touching the blood of a mere human?
"Hunger on Trial" and "Two of Wands" bowed before their presence, before the fluctuating manifestation of their three heads, whose corpulence is shrouded in mystery, while their great member hangs like a symbol of their might. Hunger and nature, which have tormented this deity so much, have been mutilated, stripped of their power. Giselle, on the other hand, bore the weight of misfortune with the dignity of the virtuous. She was devoured, dragged into the jaws of nightmare by the choker and the mere presence of the deity. Perhaps, this was all the purpose from the outset, and all, from Giselle to the Marquess, from the anomalies to the star entities, were mere pieces on a Chinese checkers board. Giselle's fate seems dark, as the deity struggles to regain consciousness. The end in Hanging Gardens and the truth behind the castle walls loom ever closer, like flickering lights in the darkness of the night.