“Curtis, make sure this man does not flee,” the captain says.
A guardsman with a scar on his right eye nods and stays near Adam.
“Everyone, charge!” the captain yells.
The captain along with his men charge toward the man in black robes. Their weapons drawn and shining with mana. Each one with their own unique color and hue.
Adam looks on somewhat mesmerized by this scene, and then he notices that a moving red gas-like substance is settling on the corpses underneath the charging guards.
Instinctively Adam yells, “Below you!”
The captain notices the abnormality first, but before he can bark out orders the corpses leap toward him and his men.
AHHH!
Sching!
Some of his men fell prey to the moving corpses dying on the spot. Some dying, some maimed, some only inflicted with flesh wounds.
The captain easily dispatches the corpses that tried to attack him by surprise.
“That man, Travis, has good instincts,” the captain thinks.
“Curtis, protect that man! I will slay this heretic while the rest of you can deal with the undead here,” the captain says.
Clap!
Clap!
The sound of clapping can be heard despite the onslaught of the undead.
The cultist finally breaks his silence.
“Well done Captain Jackson,” he says in a hoarse voice.
“I knew that those corpses would have posed no threat to you,” he continues.
“Die Fiend!” Jackson yells interrupting his monologue.
His sword bursting in red flames. Jackson charges at the cultist.
“Foolish,” the cultist says, “and quite impolite.”
A large explosion of magic soon follows.
While Captain Jackson is battling the unknown cultist, Adam is currently fighting the undead along with Curtis.
“That’s it. Pull your mana into your sword and strike to kill,” Curtis says while slicing the head of a charging undead.
Adam swinging the blade he picked up from one of the fallen corpses imbues his mana in it and slices a zombie in half.
Graggh!
The sword now black due to mana is covered in blood.
“This is not actually too bad,” Adam thinks.
“It looks my mana is black and appears to be very good at slicing objects. Also, I am getting a crash course in swordsmanship and when a zombie finds a gap Curtis slays the zombie and points out my flaws,” Adam continues thinking as he glances at Curtis.
“Keep your eyes on the enemies!” Curtis yells.
Adam looks at his front and barely doges a blade aimed for his neck.
“Stay focused,” he thinks.
Adam dodges another attack by the zombie and slices down on its neck.
GRagh!
It screams in pain.
Adam pulls back his blade and chops down at the zombie’s neck.
GRa-
Adam decapitates the zombie.
Suddenly the red gaseous substance permeates the entire battlefield.
“Fall back!” Adam yells.
“Don’t run away!” Curtis yells back.
Soon, red-like threads of magic shoot out across the battlefield decapitating and maiming zombie and human alike.
AAAHHH!!!
Curtis barely blocks the oncoming magic and has his right torso wounded by a thread. His sword blocking the thread from digging deeper into his body.
Adam is lucky to get out unscathed.
Jackson is pushed back coughing out a mouthful of blood.
“Captain!” Curtis yells.
Finally cutting the red thread attempting to bisect him, Curtis runs toward Captain Jackson.
“You insolent bug!”
A voice is heard at the center of the explosion of red thread.
The cultist has a twisted expression on his face and blood drips down from his arm and body.
He is holding a staff on his right hand and what appears to be a pistol on his left hand.
He looks at the three remaining people standing with fury.
“Just die already!” the cultist yells.
The cultist raises his left hand with the pistol toward the captain.
“Captain!” Curtis yells.
He runs empowered by the last of his mana.
A gunshot is heard.
Curtis swings his sword at the magic bullet.
His sword breaks, but he deflects it.
He is pushed off the ground.
However, Curtis then coughs up a pint of blood.
There was another bullet.
Curtis’ heart explodes due to the bullet’s impact and like a puppet his strings are broken he lies on the ground dying.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“That looks like one cockroach,” the cultist says.
He then stares at Jackson.
“There is only one filthy animal left,” he continues.
“I am out of mana bullets. I have to finish this soon,” the cultist thinks.
“It looks like I can only call on him to save me,” he continues.
He starts his incantation,
“O Lord of the Luminous Mysteries,
The Ever Searching Seeker of Fate,
The Journeyman of Light,
I your servant Zerubabel call upon you to uphold the [Contract].”
Seeing Curtis dying, Jackson stands up and speaks to Adam behind him.
“I will end this now, Travis,” Jackson says.
Looking back into his eyes, he continues, “If the heretic survives, promise me to kill him if you can.”
“They both look exhausted. I don’t think that cultist will survive past tonight whether I intervene or not,” Adam thinks.
“I will do my best,” Adam says crossing his fingers.
Jackson nods back and faces the cultist, Zerubabel.
“Praise Righteous Sol! I will see you and my comrades in the world to come!” Jackson says.
He slices his left arm.
Adam is somewhat shocked, but then Jackson’s arm turns into flames and covers Jackson in an armor of flames.
The fire from his sword burns as bright as the sun.
Soon, an arm and hand made from fire appears on his bloody stump of an arm.
His sword extends becoming a large claymore. He raises the sword in front of his face and grips it tightly with both his human and infernal hands.
“Stay back,” Jackson says to Adam.
Adam nods and backs away.
And backs away.
And backs away even more.
He is booking it out of there.
Zerubabel lifts up his staff and says, “Know the Lord’s power!”
The power of the stars in the night sky fills the staff to the breaking point with mana and divine power.
Jackson raises his sword above his head. The power of Sol’s fire within it.
He swings down.
“Die heretic!” Jackson yells.
“Filthy insect!” Zerubabel retorts.
The power of starlight shoots out of the staff colliding with the flaming sword.
BANG!!!!
An explosion occurs.
Its shockwaves cause Adam to fall to the ground while he was running away from their final clash.
“It’s over,” he thinks.
He decides to head back over to see who was eventually victorious.
He sees only figure standing in the dark.
“Are you still alive cockroach?”
Zerubabel has won.
“Ki- ll me…” Jackson says.
“Not yet,” Zerubabel says.
He puts his staff on the man’s chest.
“You said that you will head over to you false god’s side after your death. What would happen if instead you were at my Lord’s side instead? He is always happy to have more servants,” he continues.
The man’s eyes open wide.
“No…” he says.
Sching!
Adam swings his sword.
Clash!
Zerubabel blocks it with his staff.
“Don’t think I forgot about you,” Zerubabel says.
“Wait, why does this cultist look completely fine!” Adam exclaims in his mind.
He backs away.
Besides his ragged clothes, Zeubabel skin is no longer pale and has no wounds on him either.
“Surprised simpleton, this is due to the [Contract],” he says.
He looks at Adam more closely.
“You have the type of body that I have been looking for. Be grateful that your life was not in vain,” he says.
“That should be my line!” Adam retorts.
Adam attempts to flee.
But he is caught.
Zerubabel appears right in front of Adam and places his hands on Adam’s face.
“Don’t struggle. You have two choices. Either let me take your body and mind or explode,” Zerubabel says.
“It looks like I am at the end of the rope,” Adam thinks.
He then vaguely remembers that black darkness that felt like hell he was in before he woke up and the maddening inscription on the wall.
“I will go with the first option. What’s the worst that can happen,” Adam continues thinking, “I might have a hidden ace up my sleeve.”
“D-don’t…” Jackson mutters.
Adam says, “Fine you can try to take my body.”
“Yes!” Zerubabel says with the eyes of a madman.
“O Lord of Luminous Mysteries, a new [Contract] has been made!” he continues spitting saliva at Adam’s face.
“I really hope this guy dies in my mind,” Adam thinks.
The light from the stars shines upon them engulfing them in a serene light. A wave of dizziness overcomes Adam.
“I hope this works,” Adam thinks.
Adam then enters a deep sleep.
He is now in his mindscape. It is dark. He soon sees a blinding rainbow of colors along with the sound of a voice.
“Surrender to me!”
Adam looks at the source of this sound. It is Zerubabel garbed in a cloak of many colors while Adam has only dreary hand-me downs of his late father.
“Surrender!” he yells again.
Annoyed, Adam says, “Never.”
“What about the [Contract]?” Zerubabel asks.
“I said that I will let you try to take my body not give you body,” Adam says coolly.
“That shouldn’t be able to invalidate my [Contract] sorcery,” Zerubabel says, “What did you do, dirty insect!”
“You want the truth?” Adam says calmly.
Zerubabel eyes Adam wanting to kill him.
Pausing for dramatic effect, Adam then says, “I don’t know.”
“What?” Zerubabel says, “You are lying!”
“I am really telling you the truth,” Adam says, “I don’t even know what is going to happen to you and me at the end.”
“Are you threatening me now,” Zerubabel says, his killing intent now sweeping over Adam.
“Yes,” Adam says with a straight face, “surrender now, and you just might live.”
“HA! HA! HA!” laughs Zerubabel.
He then goes silent.
“You dare!” Zerubabel exclaims.
“Die!!!” Zerubabel yells.
A great collage of colors burn into Adam’s eyes. One color changes into its opposite and then it changes to a different color perpendicular to both. All of these lights shine at a single point above Zerubabel’s head.
“Do it, coward. Like hell I will break with a light show,” Adam thinks, “Let’s see if my gamble paid off.”
He reminisces about that weird vision or dream he had earlier before he woke up while facing this light show.
CRASSHHH!!!
A giant door crashes onto the dreamscape separating Adam and Zerubabel.
“Yes!” Adam thinks, “I knew there was something wrong with my mind.”
He looks at the large black door in front of him. Nothing happens.
“Eh…” Adam thinks, “Is he dead, already?”
Thump!
He hears a bang on the door.
“There he is!” Adam thinks.
Adam continues, “I don’t think he will be able to break that door. I hope he is experiencing hell.”
Meanwhile, Zerubabel stares blankly at the wall.
“What is this?” he mutters to himself.
He shoots some lights out of his staff at the door.
Thump!
They don’t budge.
“Is this why that man agreed to let me try and take his body?” he thinks.
“Unfortunately, this is not enough to stop me, Zerubabel, an Archpriest of the Great Lord of Luminous Mysteries!” Zerubabel yells monologuing.
He gathers up even more colors of light above his head.
The lights are now like a diamond of light each refracting and reflecting with the other colors.
He then raises his staff in front of him and guides the light to the tip of his staff.
He shoots out the light. It is like a laser brighter than the core of the sun. It hits the doors.
Nothing happens to them.
“What!!” Zerubabel exclaims furious.
“This shouldn’t be happening!?!?” he thinks.
He then raises his hands over his head and proclaims,
“O Lord of the Luminous Mysteries,
The Ever Searching Seeker of Fate,
The Journeyman of Light.
I call upon you for aid to help me enforce the [Contract]!”
Even more blinding lights appear before Zerubabel, but before they fall upon the staff, the door opens.
There is nothing behind the door. No light, no dark. No space, no time. No love, no hate. No unity, no plurality. No body. No magic. No spirit. No intelligibility. No …
An endless strings of no’s going on for infinity. A Gate leading to the True Infinity.
“AGGGHHAKDFSJAJ;LSADJ;KLSJAL;SDA;FAJFLK;JKLSJ;LFASJKASJWEIURQUOCZMNZX!!!!!!!!!!!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!”
Zerubabel saw something he should not have seen.
He along with his lights are sucked in.
Even the [Contract] magic binding Zerubabel and Adam is sucked in causing the [Contract] magic to be broken.
The very Laws of Sorcery upholding [Contract] magic in this universe has been violated. Like a fair maiden violated by a Japanese tentacle monster. Luckily, the maiden was in a dark room where no body could see her and was not totally broken; otherwise, she and the other Laws of Sorcery would have been totally corrupted.
As for Zerubabel, mind and soul became one within the Abyss and he is currently experiencing incognizable suffering and pain with maximum self-awareness for eternity. For whenever Zerubabel attempts to destroy his self-awareness, the [Redatcted] behind the Gate stops it from occurring and ups the pain, suffering, and clarity. Zerubabel can never degrade into a rock. He is stuck forever as a fully cognizant unwilling lunatic.
Adam looking through the Door sees nothing.
“Is he dead or did he run away?” Adam thinks.
Then, a dizzy spell again overcomes Adam causing him to lose consciousness. He wakes up and sees the green moon high in the sky again.
He stands up and looks over to his side.
There lies Zerubabel dead with intestines overflowing from his body filled with moss and muscles exposed filled with white and black maggots.
“Looks like he died a painful death,” Adam thinks, “I guess the universe really is just.”
“This is what you get for spitting on my face,” Adam says to the dead corpse.
Adam then looks over at Jackson.
“A…,” Jackson says.
“He is still alive?” Adam thinks.
“The cultist was right. This guy is a cockroach,” Adam continues.
He can barely talk.
“Do you think you can make it?” he asks.
There is a look of sadness and regret in his eyes. His skin is pale. The hole in his chest leaking out pints of dark blood.
His death is inevitable. He will not survive past the hours.
“Okay,” Adam says.
He takes Jackson’s broken sword and says, “Close your eyes.”
Jackson’s eyes are slowly shut.
A quick downward stab. And Jackson is dead.
Adam looks on at the scene before him and turns northward to Merchant’s Rest.
“I need to figure out what happened to my mind. I need more information,” he thinks.
Thus begins Adam’s search for the forbidden truth that was lost to time.