Chapter 445 - 443:First Encounter.
"DANTEEEEE!!!" The loud voices of Malachi and Leo echoed through space as they called out after the figure that had just been taken.
"Damn it!!" Malachi cursed out loud, his anxiety plain for all to see.
They weren’t as calm as they were back then in the abyss when Dante had been taken to the great devourer’s resting place.
They couldn’t be because they could feel it. That feeling of absolute helplessness that had fallen over all of them? That wasn’t a presence that belonged anywhere near here. In fact, that wasn’t something they believed should even exist.
"We have to do something!" Paku called out anxiously, his tiny frame unable to stay still.
"I’m going after him!" Malachi called out.
"How? How are you going to do that?" Leo asked.
"I don’t know, goddamn it. But we have to do something." Malachi was panicking. But before they could make any rash movements,
"Foolish!" Sulvan’s emotionless voice stopped them cold.
"You... what did you just say?" Leo’s face went cold. Malachi’s staff had already appeared within his hand as he leveled a dead stare at Sulvan, who was now draped in pure crimson entropy.
"I called you three foolish." The man repeated his words without batting an eye.
SWIIIIIISH!!!
The golden staff within Malachi’s hand connected cleanly with Sulvan’s head the moment the words left his lips, but—
"It’s useless. You cannot touch me." The man merely shook his head as the staff passed right through his body.
The other two, Leo and Paku, readied themselves to beat some sense into Sulvan, yet the man merely continued with his words.
"Your lack of faith in Master, I find it extremely foolish," he said, shaking his head slowly.
"Here you are, panicking over the littlest of things."
"Little!! DID YOU DARE SAY LITTLE???" Malachi roared out, but—
"Yes. Little. For whatever it is that comes across MY Master can only be considered little." The man began walking forward, one step at a time, as he appeared at the forefront of the group, his blazing crimson eyes locked onto the four beings that were now only beginning to get themselves together.
"I have no time to disgrace Master with such a display of a lack of faith when there are clearly threats to those Master cherishes right before me." His words successfully silenced the trio behind him.
"So, as Master’s most devoted servant, I shall extinguish this threat and wait for his glorious return. For even this, no matter what, shall pass. After all, my Master is..."
Sulvan’s eyes blazed to life as he gripped the hilt of his bladeless sword. "Absolute."
...
Darkness.
I thought I had left this type of thing behind after my awakening, yet here I was again, within an all-encompassing darkness.
Yet something was different this time. I could feel it, a serious disconnect from Shaia, from Sana, from the very creation I had been in. I was utterly, and truly... alone.
A strange and weird feeling began creeping up my spine, one I refused to acknowledge, because that would imply that I was—
"Afraid. Yes, indeed. That is right." A voice, ancient, old, horrifying, echoed through the darkness like rumbling thunder.
My head snapped up and then I saw it, two swirling portals of yellow that radiated a sickening and frightening aura as I was forced to... move my gaze.
My whole body shook in revolt and disgust at the act.
"Marvelous. Truly it would seem Luck has truly sided with my master." The voice laughed at me, at my cowardice.
"The very spawn of Devouring herself, and it is merely a fledgling. Oh, praise The Source of Horror. To think the lords were right about the awakening of Devouring’s spawn."
My being shook with every word that came from the mouth of the being.
"And to think I was the one to find such a prime fruit. It seems the WILL itself has decided that my lord shall be the one to break eternally free from the clutches of infinity." The voice continued its monologue, uncaring for my cowering figure.
"Who... who the fuck are you.." I tried, oh, I tried, to keep my voice steady, to stop the tremble creeping up my spine, but I couldn’t.
Something—something about this place, wherever it was—had me losing it, and I didn’t even know how to begin pulling myself together.
"Ahh... yes. It is only right you know the one to whom you shall soon be presented." The voice seemed to come closer as it whispered, not into my ears, no, but to my very soul.
"I am the Harbinger of Dread. The origin of terror. The birthplace of fright. I am the Apostle of Fear, devoted servant of the one and only Eldritch Chaos, soon to be freed from the clutches of infinity and its treachery." My being shook violently once I heard those words.
Eldritch.
That name wasn’t unfamiliar.
It had been one of the various manifestations of Chaos that had gone after Mother back then.
I had even suffered at its hands back then.
So yes, I knew that name very well.
I knew it. I had even been expecting a move from them, but not like this.
Not in this state. Not paralyzed once again before the representation of this being.
"Ahhh... yes, your origin, I have been sent to retrieve for my master as he completes his being and breaks free. But first, oh son of devouring chaos, show me your fear..." The moment those words registered in my ears, the world before me went white, and then—nothing...
(A/N: Alright fellas, I’ll be taking charge since your boy is out of commission for the moment.)
"Aunt V?" Dante called out, confused at the view before him.
"Dante... why?" Aunt V’s strained voice was a dagger straight to the heart as his eyes landed on her.
She was kneeling down, her heart gone from her chest, and all around her—
"No..." His pupils shrank in horror as his pulse raced. "No... no.. please no.." All around her, the bodies of his loved ones were strewn in a macabre display of art.
"Melissa... no... Cara.. Mira.. Khalifa.." Dante’s voice shook with every name he called out.
Every silence slammed harder against his chest as it felt like his soul was being squeezed by a vice.
None of them were moving. Clarissa’s head had been ripped off and placed beside her body in a taunting display, the look of terror still clear within her emerald-green eyes.
Kaila had been torn apart limb from limb, then stuffed with said limbs as she was laid in an organized, horrifying manner beside the others.
Dakota had become nothing but a desiccated and lifeless corpse, all her blood gone as she lay withered and lifeless.
Dante’s breath slowly became shallower and shallower as he turned robotically toward Raven. Her eyes were dimming, but the disappointment in them was clear.
The sound of his heart shattering into a million pieces could be heard loudly as he was forced to watch as her life drained from her body.
"You... you promised to be undefeatable. You promised to be inevitable. You promised to be absolute, Dante. So why? Why have you... disappointed... us?" Her eyes dimmed as her body collapsed into a pool of her own blood.
He fell to his knees, eyes shaken as he took in the scene before him.
Dead. They were all dead. Not even his friends had been spared. They had all been massacred.
Step. Step. Step.
The wet and approaching footsteps of someone reached his ears as he slowly, mechanically, agonizingly raised his head, his eyes catching sight of a being born of horrors.
It was an amalgamation of multiple other creatures that wailed and shrieked in agony.
"Kekekekekekek... so tasty... absolutely delicious. The fear of a chaos-born... so magnificent..." The words of the creature couldn’t even register properly as Dante’s very soul seemed to have left his body, but then—
"More... I want more.." The creature’s voice roused him as it raised another person up, clawed limbs digging into the flesh.
"No..." Dante’s voice rasped as his eyes shook violently.
"Big brother..." Lucien’s choked voice strained to reach him.
"No... not him.. please, no.." He tried to move, but his body didn’t allow it.
"Kekekekekeke... yes, despair. Be afraid. Feed me more..." The creature laughed in pure delight as its claws sank deeper into the flesh of the young demon child.
"Big.. big brother.." The child gasped as his life was slowly drained away.
"Nooo... nooo..."
"Lucien... Lucien is proud to have... have.. a big brother like... like you.."
"No... please... no.. not him, he’s just a child, please!!..." Dante begged as he tried to force his body into action.
"Hehe..hehe.. big brother.. so cool.. so nice...so warm.. hehe.. so cool.. and... and..and—" Silence.
The head of the demon child fell lifelessly sideways as the demon crushed his neck.
Dante went silent as his eyes trembled. He couldn’t believe it—right before him.
"Big brother... Lucien is proud... hehehe.. so cool... so nice... so warm..." The last words of the boy played in torturing loops within his head as the creature laughed out in pure bliss, the sheer despair radiating off of Dante being the most intoxicating of tonics.
"Ahhh!!! More!! More!! I want more!!" The creature cried out in ecstasy. Meanwhile—
"Is that it... is that it!? IS THAT IT!?" A voice roared through Dante’s being, his despair and fear slowly changing...
"You kneel here, weak and pathetic, watching your loved ones die as an inferior being dares laugh at us!??? IS THAT IT!???" His pulse began picking up.
"So what if he is the manifestation of your worst fears? You are DENYING CHAOS—those fears can be rejected! They can be refused! You rejected the manifestation of AFFIRMATION, so WHAT IS FEAR!!!??" His blood began roaring...
"You are DEVOURING CHAOS—nothing is beyond your reach! Nothing is beyond your taking! You TOOK the concept of ENDOWMENT, so WHAT IS FEAR!???" The fear, the terror, the despair, it began transforming into something else, something primal, something more visceral and terrifying than even fear.
"You are the FIRST OBLIVION—your existence is steeped in erasing the existence of others, so please tell me WHAT. IS. FEAR!!???" A pitch-black aura exploded out of him as the whole realm began quaking violently, the creature being stunned out of its euphoria as even it was taken aback.
"Impossible!! IMPOSSIBLE!!! THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!!!!" The creature roared, but it was to no avail.
"It wishes to experience fear. It wishes to taste despair. So be that. BECOME HE THAT CAUSES EVEN FEAR TO TREMBLE BEFORE HIM. Get up, Dante!! GET UP AND PUT THIS BITCH IN HIS FUCKING PLACE!!!"
ROOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!
His three origins roared in pure rage and anger as the despair he was feeling was Denied, his fear Devoured, and his terror sent to Oblivion. And the moment he stood—
"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" The creature shrieked as—
CRACKKKK!!!
The mental realm cracked and then—
SHATTER!!!
It shattered into tiny fragments, Dante’s body appearing once more within the reaches of space, his breath heavy and labored. But there was no time.
"Dante!! Quick, open Father’s realm. You cannot fight him here; you will destroy Aunt Devouring’s creation." The urgent voice of Shaia reached him. She wasn’t even allowing herself time to celebrate her lover’s return, as she knew him all too well to understand what that horrifying pitch-black aura surrounding him meant.
Dante didn’t waste words on arguing; he merely spared his friends a glance, relief flashing through his eyes as he gave them a subtle nod, and then—
GONE!
He was once again taken from the reaches of space, this time, the swirling yellow portals in the sky being taken with him.
....
Within a realm where nothing existed—not time, not space, not life, not death—absolutely nothing was all that existed here, at least until—
HUMMMM!!
Two beings appeared.
One, an amalgamation of creatures and beings that shrieked and cried in fear and despair.
The creature tried to look around, but a terrifying presence landed on it before it could, and then it heard it:
A voice, colder than the deepest reaches of hell itself, freezing to the very existence of one’s being.
"You... you’re going to pay for that. I swear on everything that is mine..."
"You..."
"...Will"
"Pay..."
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A/N: Well damn... looks like someone is completely pissed off. I wonder if he’ll be in the right space of mind to give you guys a first person view, guess we’ll see in the next Chapter, as always....
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Thanks for reading...