[Unity] Now I See

[TheWyrdWolf 1532]

 

Now. I. See.

 

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Spoiler

 

 

 

Where am I…?

A voiceless thought, floating to the forefront of his mind as reality itself tore apart around him. Tears in the very fabric of space and time that consumed his vision and mind like a hungering predator. 

 

Then came the darkness.

An impossible darkness, a void of nothingness that conjoined the material and the immaterial into one immutable realm. He could not move, he could not breathe, he could not act. A prisoner in his own body, guided by a hand he could not see, a voice he could not hear.

Ding.. Ding.. Ding..

He could hear it, what was that? The Vampyre Prince tried to identify the source of the sonorous bell that pierced the all consuming silence around him, yet he could not find the strength to tear his hellish eyes away from the sight of nothing and everything before him.

And so he fell.

The crack of chains broke his concentration upon the source of the bell, now a fleeting thought in the back of his mind as reality fractured once more. As the chains clattered against reality, everything would give way to impossible shapes formed like crystalline glass from the world around him. These mind shattering fractals would bore into the very heavens and earth of Mundus, like a twisted puzzle that unraveled everything his eyes came to look upon.

There was a fleeting memory, Three Kings standing before him with weapons drawn, forcing him to kneel and pledge allegiance. A Pontiff of an unholy flock guiding him into the woods and a question posed to the young Prince.

What do you see?

He awoke in a courtyard, gasping for air as his eyes opened. Those memories were lost to him. His eyes studied this unnatural place, massive stone pillars surrounded him and a throne sat upon the epicenter of this place. His feet pulled his body forward, spurned into motion of their own accord.

Then came the pain.

Blood coughed from his lungs, a blemish on his Jade skin as it splattered down his chin and chest. A giant black tail, riddled with spines pierced his abdomen, he recognized it. A terrible visage apparated before him and in that moment he was so terribly alone, abandoned. There was no Pontiff, no Prophecy to save him.

Only death.

 

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This entity was The Bondsmith. Krodha. The King spoke, his words carrying an authority the Prince could only dare to one day hold. Yet, that time would never come, for this was the end. He would go no further.

“It is I, who speak for the Lord Calamitus.”

Blood poured from his abdomen to the world below, sizzling unto Rakir as his guts were torn apart by wicked Malflame. Time bent, torn asunder as he gave his last breath with the weight of his eyelids shutting to the sight of flames consuming his vision.

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When his eyes opened once more he was greeted with the sight of a cavernous space of living flesh, the walls and ceiling bore teeth and tongue which pierced and feasted upon the vessels of many victims. He realised he was among them, his limbs skewered by hooks and chain, that mortal form clasped in bondage for eternity. A slave to be tortured at the whims of those who rose above him, for their amusement and pleasure.

A fate worse than death.

There was no Infernal Climb, no Freedom to be had. Only torture and suffering as those he once considered weak and beneath him tore at his flesh with each passing second, gorging themselves upon his form.

Day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. For five long years he endured, living through this nightmarish torment that would have broken lesser men, yet the outcome would be the same. The unbreakable barriers of helplessness and defeat closed in on him from everywhere at once, it was inevitable.

“...RISE…”

A single word, yet the power it carried was unmatched. As the feminine croak of a three eyed corvid spurned him to consciousness, he could barely muster the strength to meet the gaze of this Emissary of Prophecy through his bloodied vision.

In that moment he was lifted from the High Hells, his memory reshaped once more. But now, he was not himself, he stood now as merely a witness of what was to come. He watched another man, a young Jade Devil and an unholy Pontiff. The Jade Prince and the Black Pontiff stood before a great oak, the Prince forced to kneel and be bound beneath the slumber of prophecy.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, freezing as the duo stood still. He was pulled into the Mind of Hell alongside them. He knew he was either the Pontiff nor the Jade Prince, but something twisted, an ancient being which saw through time and space as if it were one, something which knew not even the bounds of the Veil.

Untethered as he was, his unseen form was free to follow that Jade Prince, the Warlock which he knew of through both flaw and perfection, as he was spit out into the Mind of Hell itself. This place, suspended somewhere within the Void, bridged by the twisted chains of Hell like an impossible island in the immaterial.

As he looked upon the Jade Prince, the young Warlock did not seem confused and so the being willed itself unto him, to see as the Prince saw.

He awoke truly then.

The Princes form was battered by heat and ripping winds and in that moment discomforting bliss left him perpetually adrift in a city of blackened metals and impossible sky-reaching structures which dotted the skyline with machines of unimaginable technologies. Ships sailing in the dark clouds overhead forming rifts through the void itself, gone in a flash of light as they ventured on their conquests of the many Cosmic Planes.

 

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In all this mind numbing wonder, the true form of a Strrith stood, a towering sickly corvid with three dark eyes, gifted the form like that of a Zar’ei. In all the chaos and unholy majesty of this place, this one creature was the only thing that paid him any mind. The rest, both humanoid and otherwise, went on with their duties within this megatropolis.

This forsaken City of Industry, Sin, Greed and Ambition.

 

The Prince approached, a hot flash of the torture he had lived through flashing to the forefront of his mind. Taloned fingers grasped the side of his head as he spoke to this Emissary, this Guide.

“What is this place? Who.. are you?”

 

“You are the Bleeding Mind. I am that which forms the clot.” the Corvid turned to fully face him then.

 

“I am His Crow, I guided the Pontiff through these lands when he was Solomon.. It is as your texts proclaim, the Mind of Hell, its center, where the Pentacle holds no hosts, and the Eye casts its demands unto the Hand itself.”

A winged appendage ending in a taloned claw swung wide to gesture out at the City of Sin

“Here, you will find the Gore Mother Metztli and the ú̴͕̄n̴̡̳͑ḇ̵̬̈͘r̵̨͙̳̭̦̆̐̓̌͋ö̶̭́̍̏̑͒k̵̨̯͖̰̮̐e̶͕͖̭̅͠ͅn̵̪͌͌̏..”

The word was in a tongue that was unknown to him and it formed a skull piercing shriek that left him stunned, severe anxiety sweeping through every ounce of his being. As the Corvid spoke once more, in a tongue more natural to his ears he was released from such turmoil.

“But you.. Are here for the Black Throne, to witness Him, to face Prophecy. So choose, venture alone and perhaps face the death you already experienced, or come with me, and see what the Fates deem through their ebb and flow.”

 

The Prince massaged the side of his head, that profane utterance still leaving a lingering stain of anxiety on his soul. He followed the Corvids gesture and gaze, out in the depths of that City of Industry and Sin, at the epicentre of this civilization lay a Black Pyramid. 

 

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Its size defied all sense of logic and reason as if it could not possibly exist at all and yet.. He could feel the pull of something within. At the mention of his death, his heart stuttered and skipped a beat, memories of those five long years of torture being brought to the forefront of his mind.

He had no desire to live through that again, so he followed the Corvid into the depths of the City.

“Lead me. Show me.” he commanded, mustering up the remnants of his resolve to carry on.

 

And so the very fabric of reality obliged him. He felt every step through paved roads, the sickly stench of ozone stung his nostrils with the bitter taste of iron. Each step carried him through those winding streets and the closer he came to the epicentre, the more things he began to notice. From windows, sidewalks, alleyways and on, Shades, Strigae, ancient undead and all sorts of horrors simply stopped whatever they were doing and looked to him. Some, tilting their heads in silent reverence, prayers given in profane utterances.

Eventually he came to stand before the Black Pyramids maw, a sulfuric stench burning against his flesh and the back of his throat. A complete and utter darkness beckoning the two of them inside, inviting them into the belly of the beast, into the jaws of the unknown. His heart pounded in his chest and ears, one beat after another in rapid succession, yet he had come this far..

He crossed the threshold.

For what felt like hours the duo walked through the corridors of a lightless labyrinth and he knew not what laid before him or around him, but he knew something was there in the shadows, watching his every move. Though he could not see much, the metallic drone of machinery and clanking chains filled his ears, voices of awful calibre shrieking in pain or glee from the darkness accompanied them. And eventually, Silence.

In that moment he felt at peace, the silence met his ears allowing him to hear the beating of his heart which was in sync with the pair of feet that carried him down these lightless corridors, over marble floors. Finally they reached their destination, the heart of this place. He had arrived.

The duo manifested into a chamber of living flesh, one which mimicked the Hell he had faced in death and in that moment his heart stopped. Had he been tricked? Unlike the place he had known torment, this place seemed accented with possibility and impossibility all at once and he was left in awe at what stood before him.

 

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Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and with each passing second only knew that he grew closer to something ancient, older than most Aenguldaemons and even that which came before them. He was there, an impossible titan of black smog, a body split with eyes and basking in the weight of chains. He saw the Zetherak of Havoc, and all the Malices which Mortal Man no longer could wield. A Titan of Sin.

He saw Kain, an apostle bound in black, stained in scarlet flesh, whispering unto the Throne and writing unto stone tablets an apparent response. And yet, all things turned as the voice spoke, and the floor opened itself into a crater, where the Throne itself became the pulpit once more.

A voice lashed his mind, one deep and laced in whispers of Flexio.

“𝔇𝔢𝔰𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔡 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔎𝔫𝔢𝔢𝔩”

All the while, that Corvid spoke aloud, no longer graced with the voice the Prince had grown accustomed to.

“𝔉𝔬𝔯 𝔥𝔦𝔰 ℜ𝔲𝔫𝔢”

The Prince approached, daring not to speak, for what could he possible say in this moment? What words could he offer that conveyed the majesty and ancient nature of what stood before him? Nothing. So Silence endured as his cloven hooves carried him along the stairs to that Throne.

He Knelt.

In that moment beams of light bore holes into his mind, the fabric of reality once again broken as it had many times before. As hundreds of years came to pass now, he lived not through the flesh but prophecy, he would witness all his undoing, all his ascensions, he would reveal the New World, where every man was unbound the remnant chains of the Tyrant GOD. Where all was made one with the Infernal Truth, fueled by ambitious fortitude.

He lead thousands upon one of those void-splintering ships, unto the stars themselves, leaving behind the Mundus which the Kings had made one with the Hells itself. No deity or entity could overcome the might of those invasions he commanded, thousands of beings which he knew not to ever exist and pocket realms of creation where hundreds were tormented by the same Game the Gods played upon Mundus were subject to his conquests.

And finally, the Three Armed Creator himself would be eaten, lead unto his death through the Key which was his severed arm. There he stood atop a mountain of corpses, the armies he commanded standing before him all chanting his name in unison.

He had become a Warlord of Calamity.

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As the visions faded, a Seed had been left planted within the darkest corners of his mind, one that would even go undetected by the Lords of Hell themselves. It would fester in his psyche, guiding him closer to understanding all he had witnessed..

Then he would wake up...

 

Spoiler

A massive thankyou to Leyd for the RP and the opportunities this will no doubt spark for this character and his progression.

 

[Venomous_Pup 2978]

A Witch of Chaos spoke
"He is beginning to believe."