A piercing and reverberating clang filled the air when the broad sword struck Armis's armor. Light shined, everything stilled, before his voice rang out, lunacy dripping constantly,
"FUTILE!"
Armis spun and punched the sword, shattering it into pieces before it turned into mist. King Roiran stumbled into the upcoming herd of souls, gaining his balance and sending them back at Armis.
He grunted, clenching his fists and enveloping them in blue flames. Armis countered swiftly, snatching a bow and arrows from a soul, punching through its head, and using the bow to anchor another soul's head. Adding numerous arrows on both sides of its head, he held its body still by shoving his foot into its gut.
Armis fully stretched the bowstring, letting it go with full force. While shooting the arrows at the upcoming herd, he used the string to slice through the head of the soul he used as support, then used its fading body as a platform to jump forward in the air.
King Roiran spun and shoved his firm, flaming palm into Armis's gut. The flames instantly moved from his palm and enveloped Armis's body, only to be snapped away when Armis jolted back from the blow. Spinning and kicking King Roiran down into the herd of souls, he yelled out,
"INEFFECTIVE!"
King Roiran quickly jumped back on his feet, leaping from soul to soul. He spun and unleashed a giant dark energy blast, throwing it at Armis in mid-air. Armis remained undeterred, vaulting in mid-air to lunge towards the blast and seamlessly tearing through it. He then rushed into King Roiran, holding onto his waist and smashing him through herds of souls, yelling out,
"USELESS!"
King Roiran groaned in pain, blood seeping through his tattered lips. He gritted his teeth while Armis smashed him and tore through every soul in their way. King Roiran conjured misty daggers pulsing violet in his hands, quickly bringing them down to stab Armis, only to have them shatter upon contact with Armis's armor. Armis yelled out,
"FRUITLESS!"
He jumped down with King Roiran, slamming him into the ground with a resounding clash and devastating waves that destroyed all the dark souls around them, clearing the area.
King Roiran cried out in pain but quickly took hold of himself and kicked Armis away. He caught up with Armis's hurling body, enveloping his hand in flames once again. Spinning, he grabbed Armis's head, clutching it hard for a moment before letting go.
Armis stumbled back like a drunkard. He remained bent bizarrely, almost bringing a smile to King Roiran's face before he straightened up with the sounds of metal clanging and bones snapping. The flame and mist enveloping his head burst away, leaving behind his twisted expression, his lips widened in a grin that spoke in lunatic grimness,
"Pointless…"
Armis blurred in speed and kicked King Roiran away into the remaining dark souls he had conjured up.
Armis remained silent for a moment, the grin still on his face. He began moving toward the fallen herd of dark souls beneath which King Roiran was stuck. Suddenly, they began to morph back into mist, but instead of dissipating, they started merging with each other.
Armis chuckled, seeing the spectacle. He felt no threat from the eerie scene unfolding before him. Instead, he kept his eyes twisted in mockery and his tone laced with insulting arrogance, accentuated by his steps that became faster and faster with his words,
"Everything you were! Everything you do! Everything you are! IT'S ALL POINTLESS!"
With his bursting lungs, Armis jumped with all his might, bringing the crust of the ground he stood upon with him, transforming it into debris with the wind-breaking force of his jump.
The sound of which came later when he reached the titanic forming dark form of King Roiran, who brought a giant fist towards Armis. Armis charged back undeterred, until they clashed, and the first burned away all the air. Then the light diminished for a moment. Around their clash, no solid matter remained apart from themselves. Their clash produced no sound until it echoed, and it echoed so hard that it moved every brick of the chamber. Darkness faded with an explosion of light.
Suddenly, the temple reverberated with devastating shockwaves. Alan, barely managing to sit up, felt the piercing sound draw blood from his already damaged ears.
The tremors almost threw him off the platform, but he grabbed onto the debris strewn across it, preventing a fatal fall. As the tremors halted, his life still clung to that cursed thorn thread. Alan cursed himself internally; he wanted to die, to escape this unending nightmare, yet his body refused to give up.
It crawled and moved, grabbing onto the heaving pot of lava to help him stand. The pot halted as well, burning his blood-stained arm, but Alan felt nothing. His skin burned, his other hand dripped blood, but the physical pain was gone. All he felt was mental anguish—from tormenting memories to the words of his supposed friend turned demon.
Desperation filled him as he balanced his broken body, his blood-hazed eyes looking down at what seemed to be his final resting place, a pit sucking in damned souls. He wanted to end it early, knowing his body, his remaining strength, could never match those two monsters fighting out there.
He looked into the bubbling lava, its gold and orange hues, heat so intense he couldn't feel it. If his body understood the heat, it would have backed away, but he didn't. His heart sought the same path as his wife's—the easy way out. No explanations, no burdens, no responsibilities, just the end.
"What are you doing?" a voice from his mind asked his giving-up heart. Alan replied, not internally but through Alan's maimed lips, his stripped throat pushing out air that his bloody tongue turned into words, "En…ending…ev…eve…everything…"
"Oh really?" his other voice spoke. Alan's weary eyes began to imagine the source of the voice—his own contrasting, safe, and whole body—appearing in the bubbling lava. But Alan didn't want to do anything, talk to anyone, or see anything. He just wanted to die. He moved away from the pot, taking two steps back, stumbling down with a thud. He couldn't feel it but knew the stabbing debris below his withered body.
Despite escaping from his scrutinizing reflection, the voice still lingered, ringing in Alan's numbed ears. "You know that running away is not going to do us any good…" Alan heard but did not reply. His chest heaved with heavy, bloody breaths.
Despite his near-death condition, the voice continued, "As much as I want to blame the other one, I have just as much to do with our condition right now. We both have failed us. He is what he says, a real demon. Wind master or not, I don't think anyone could have seen that coming."
Alan remained silent, blood dripping from his mouth as his weary gaze darted around. Suddenly, he spotted a long rock shrapnel. Groaning in pain but driven by stubbornness, he leaned towards it, managing to grab hold of the piece. Slowly, he raised it towards his chest, gripping it tightly with whatever strength he could muster. He wanted to end this hanging torture that his life had become.
"Are you really going to do it?" the voice spoke again, but Alan's shivering lips remained silent.
"You know we're only going to prove him right. If we choose this path, we'll make sure everything went in vain. All the deaths, all the suffering, it was nothing but natural, the so-called fate. Sooner or later, everyone suffers, leaves, dies brutally. Because nothing in this life actually matters. We are born to suffer before we die, no matter the time or reason. It doesn't matter if we end up empowering a demon even more…"
As logical as the words sounded, they had no effect on Alan's ears. He remained deaf, a single answer escaping his trembling, groaning voice as he began to shove the shrapnel deeper, almost stabbing into his chest, blood seeping from the wound.
"Do…doesn't m…ma…matter…!" Alan spoke, brushing off the words from his head. But persistent as ever, the voice spoke again, "Yeah, it doesn't. We are to die. It's fate. No matter how tormenting or elongated, it has to come sooner or later. All we can do is wait while suffering…or…"
Suddenly, the last syllable of his internal voice halted Alan's hands, raising his eyes towards the pot of lava. He began to think, his eyes widening in realization, which then was voiced by the voice of his mind.
"We can make sure that bastard doesn't get what he wants. We can make sure he pays for every death, every betrayal, every ounce of pain he gave us, every word he filled in our ears and our broken mind. We can make sure he dies in pain just like us, feeling the agony of not getting what he wanted, the pain of losing something after coming so close to it. The pain one feels when they think this is it, but it turns out it was just the start, the start of their tormenting end. They may have taken everything from us, but we will make sure that for us, for our motherland, for the Emperor, our death will not only cause him pain but rip that mocking, arrogant look off his face and plaster a frown of endless agony that he will never recover from, JUST LIKE US…!!!"
———-thddhaaam!!!——
Suddenly, a clang echoed through the dreadful air surrounding Alan. As his lips moved and blood dripped from them, his pained tongue formed the anticipation borne from sudden realization and final determination forming in his heart.
"H…H…How…?!"
A chuckle echoed inside him before words followed, bringing forth a memory that held the key to not only changing Alan's fate but even the fate of the dreadful, agonizing story he was stuck in. It spoke, and scenes began to emerge before Alan's eyes.
"Remember the finger…?" Alan's eyes moved towards the middle finger of his surviving hand. The scene remained for a moment before memories emerged along with the words that echoed inside him.
"The finger of death they called it, right…? You don't think this is a coincidence, do you? That this was the hand that survived? So I want you to remember that time…"
Suddenly, Alan became lost in the memory that played before his eyes. It was the time of their evaluations after the final test. As expected, Alan had passed and had become a proud Sicarus, along with some of his closest friends. Together, they formed a fierce group called Ánemos Polemistés. It was the day of their final lessons, a day they would never forget. They were welcomed with greetings and congratulations, but then came the ceremony: their middle fingers were chopped off and replaced with prosthetics made from the stems and wood of Akhra Satha, a magical herb capable of filling even a normal man with the strength of gods or demons—if his body could endure its effects. These Sicarus were among the few born and raised specifically for such a purpose.
After the horrific ceremony, their assigned Guru explained the reason behind this ritual. Alan only remembered these words from his lecture, amid the usual jokes and sarcasm:
"It may be painful now, but you will thank these implements when you are facing certain death, when you know that no matter what you do, no matter how many levels you unlock, no matter how much you struggle, you are not going to make it out alive. These are your last resort, these fake bones hidden beneath your flesh. These natural-looking and functioning fingers are your final way out of the clutches of death."
The Guru emphasized, "They are made of Akhra Satha and have a hundred times more effect than the leaves, but only for a short time. Only five seconds!" Suddenly the voice of his Guru transformed from the memory to the voice of his head that continued, "After consuming the fake bone hidden beneath your middle finger, you will have the strength, healing, and power of a god. It may not be enough to defeat Armis or escape, but it will be enough to exact revenge."
"Now you know what to do. Don't worry, we're already number than a corpse, so it's not going to hurt. All we need to do is…" On the voice's command, Alan raised his surviving hand to his shivering lips.
"They may be trembling, shivering even, but they hold enough strength to chew through it, chomp it off, and grind through it. So, on the count of three…" Alan opened his mouth, his bloody yet determined jaw widening as he put his middle finger inside and waited for the command from his mind.
"Three!!!!!" ———CHOOMPPP!!!!!———Grindeee..!!!—-chewwwww!!!!!——-
Alan followed each command without hesitation. His heart beat only to the rhythm of revenge, numbing his body to anything else. He bit through his finger, chomping and chewing on it, devouring it bit by bit. His actions were accentuated by the voice of his mind echoing inside:
"YES!!! YES!!! And YES!!! Now stand up! Now you hold the power of gods! Let that song of death seep through your vitalizing lips, and move towards the abyss before you. Extend your hand and destroy those who threatened to consume YOU!!!"
Alan's broken, rasping voice suddenly formed the words of the prayer his mind spoke of:
Ὦ θεοὶ…..εὐλόγησον....καὶ...φύλαξον….ἐμέ…!
ἐν...…τῇ...ὕστατον...ὥρᾳ….τοῦ βίου μου….!
Ἄγγελοι...! φέρουσί με εἰς τὴν…..οὐράνιον βασιλείαν….!
ἐκεῖ ὅπου φῶς αἰώνιον ἀκτινοβολεῖ…..!"
"What happened, God?!! Finally giving up?" Armis mocked as he stood before the fading dust explosion where King Roiran was trapped. Only the sound of Roiran's wheezing groans and dripping blood echoed after the fading blast, soon drowned out by Armis's taunting voice. "I told you again and again that you are meant to lose, meant to be the sacrifice you mistook me for. I am superior, I am the god that will be born from your sacrifice! Struggle all you want; you can't do anything to me!"
As Armis's voice echoed in the chamber, the shuffling of debris mingled with it. A voice emerged, first spitting out what painted one of the fallen debris crimson. As the dust haze completely vanished, King Roiran's blood-ridden form emerged along with his voice.
"You…you…are nothing. You are just a mortal encased in armor meant for gods!" King Roiran bellowed, stumbling forward, barely maintaining his balance. His words and actions replaced the mockery on Armis's face with puzzled disappointment.
"Really?! The very mark you called weak?" Armis retorted.
"YES!" King Roiran shouted, gritting his teeth, his crumbling desperation evident in his voice. "Fight me without that armor if you consider yourself worthy of my title!"
Armis closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, his gaze half-filled with disappointment as he spoke with pity, "You were not a good warrior in your time, were you?" He grunted softly as his armor began to glow brightly before slowly turning into a vibrant mist along with his words.
"How did they ever make you the King of Pompeii, I wonder…" Armis's armor dissipated, revealing his pale red, muscular, and tall body, covered in the same etchings as his armor. He took another breath, raising his fist, gesturing an invitation to combat toward King Roiran before putting it into words.
"Well, whatever… it's your last wish, might as well grant it. Now, come on!"
At Armis's actions and vigorous invitation, King Roiran grinned with sinister intent. He leaned forward before charging at Armis, clasping his hands together as he bellowed out, conjuring a dark sword in his hands. He jumped and swung it down at Armis, shouting,
"YOU FOOL! You just walked onto a chopping board willin—thhdhaakkk!—dhhhammm!—thheddhhhakk—snaap!"
As King Roiran brought the sword down to cut through the still-standing Armis, with blurring speed and within an instant, Armis moved.
King Roiran stayed frozen in mid-air as Armis dodged the sword with a sidestep. Armis delivered a quick punch to King Roiran, causing him to let go of his sword. Following up with an uppercut, Armis then grasped King Roiran's right hand and forcefully snapped it in half.
Though no blood came out and there were no lacerations on King Roiran's skin, the protruding broken bones and the devastating bone-crushing sound that rang in the air, along with King Roiran's agonizing scream and fall, were enough to speak of the power behind Armis's strikes.
But undeterred, King Roiran jumped back on his feet, cursed, and charged back at the stern and emotionless Armis with a front kick,
"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!"
—swish—graphh!—Thdeeakh!—AAHHHHHHHHHHH!
But futile as it was, Armis swiftly dodged King Roiran's oncoming kick, catching it in his hands. He darted his eyes to King Roiran's other leg and, with devastating force, kicked his bent knee, instantly mutilating it and eliciting another scream from King Roiran.
Armis released his leg, giving King Roiran another chance to strike. King Roiran played upon it and used his surviving leg to lunge at Armis with his surviving arm in a back jab. Armis defended it with his forearm, easily grabbing it before shoving his elbow into King Roiran's, snapping the bones inside in half without blood or skin tear, mutilating it with another blood-curdling scream.
But Armis wasted no time. Using King Roiran's broken hand as an anchor, he jumped and spun in the air, before bringing his emotionless stomp down on King Roiran's lap. The impact shattered the bones inside, filling the chamber with the sound of breaking bones and King Roiran's screams, as the strike hurled King Roiran back, slamming him face-first onto the floor.
Remaining as emotionless as ever, the air was filled only with King Roiran's curses and agonizing cries. Armis stood before him, picking up his contorted, pain-ridden head with both hands. He looked directly into King Roiran's bloodshot, tear-filled eyes. Suddenly, a soft grin appeared on Armis's face, which then spewed out stern words,
"Just as you can't kill me, I can't kill you either. I need your body to be alive. So what I'm going to do…" Armis tightened his grip on King Roiran's head, clutching his locks. King Roiran groaned and kept cursing in agony and helplessness, but Armis was deaf to it. Armis turned King Roiran's head slightly to the right before continuing,
"…is snap your neck at a precise point, disconnecting all the nerves of your spine from your head. Then, I will snap them shut so your head and brain…" Armis's stern voice slowly turned into a lingering lunacy. Creeping closer to King Roiran's shivering eyes and stammering mouth, Armis's grin widened as he continued, ignoring all retorts from King Roiran,
"You fucker! You animal! Unhand me! I said unhand me! I AM A GOD! A fucking G—"
"Ah… don't worry, it's supposed to be painless. Alan taught it to me."
"No! No, please don't! Please! PLEASE! I BEG YOU! PLEASE HAVE MERCY! PLEASE SHOW ME—"
"Now let's see if he was RIGHT!" ——khtddhhhtaaaakk!——
With a swift and precise movement, Armis snapped King Roiran's neck. There was no scream. The sudden snap and jolt ripped the desperate look from King Roiran's face, leaving only a scarred, emotionless visage with lifeless, open eyes.
"Let's check…" Armis showed no regard for his cruel actions as he nonchalantly placed his fingers on King Roiran's neck, checking for a pulse. Exclaiming in confirmation, he said,
"Oh, we got a live one! Let's not waste any more time." Armis began dragging King Roiran's limp body behind him. He repeated his earlier grotesque act, puking out all six Lord Orbs and holding them in his other hand. He made a mighty jump, landing violently on the temple's entrance platform with King Roiran's body in tow. Armis spoke, continuing to walk ahead while dragging King Roiran,
"So all we need to do now is shove these orbs and you into that lava pot, and just as Father said, it should… oh, I know it would," Armis smirked and glared at King Roiran with a side-eye as he continued in his lunatic tone,
"Result in an all-powerful soul orb. And before shoving Alan down the pot, I'm going to make sure to seep out all the agony from him as I can, as you and I both know it empowers the process more and more, isn't it, dear King?"
King Roiran didn't reply; he only listened to Armis's mocking. Even if he could have spoken, even though his mouth, though bloody, was still functional and his tongue remained in his mouth, he didn't want to say anything. He just wanted to die. Now he understood Alan's pain—hanging on the verge of death, your own life, your own death in someone else's hands, within someone else's will.
He knew now how Alan must have felt, being dragged lifelessly by the person he had misunderstood, underestimated, the very person now the decider of their demise. The helplessness, the desperation, the killing agony, yet no death in sight. He could have cried, but he only wept in silence as a thought came to his mind.
When had he faced something like this? This scene seemed somewhat similar—not the feelings, but the helplessness, the sharp stabbing in his heart. Then he suddenly remembered: it was long, long ago, at a time when he was not a god, not a king either, but a brother—a little brother of an older and mature one, one who was caring yet strict but all the more loving. He had lost a duel to his brother. Yet these gruesome wounds, these dreadful and deathly feelings were not there; all there was, was a sting of pain yet amusement, annoyance yet excitement. But although he was dying to admit it, he knew that the words of this monster dragging him in his own temple were eerily similar to his loving elder brother's,
"You are not a good warrior, are you? How will you be a king, Roiran?"
These were the words of his brother; they were kind and caring, unlike the mocking disgust of the monster who dragged him inside but suddenly stopped. Just as he did, King Roiran suddenly heard a broken rasping voice, with a broken melody, saying something indiscernible, which echoed in the emptying air of the temple.
Ἀλλανὸς... Ἀνατόλιος...Κίρχα..τὸ ὄνομά μου…!
ἁγνὴ ψυχή…..μου, ἐν ταῖς….! χερσὶ τοῦ θεοῦ….!
Ὦ θεοὶ….δέξασθε...με ἐν…..τῷ παραδείσῳ….!
ἐν εἰρήνῃ καὶ ἀγάπῃ…..!αἰώνιον εὐδοκία!!"
"What is he doing…?" Armis mumbled. As he raised his halted gaze, squinting his demonic eyes to magnify Alan's silhouette, he became puzzled. Alan stood beside the pot of lava, with his hand—missing its middle finger—extended towards the pot.
Armis found the scene amusing, taking it as Alan's attempt at suicide before he could get to him. The words seemed like a prayer, spoken in the same language Goliath had left for Armis in the recipe for his revenge. The religious nature of the words raised Armis's amusement even more as he mocked Alan in a loud yet soft voice that echoed with his approaching steps,
"Alan… buddy? What do you think you are doing? You know I can literally get to you in one jump… Come on, buddy, back off. It is futile and certainly not funny."
"Φέρτε με ἀπὸ τὸ σκοτάδι εἰς τὸ φῶς,
ὅπου οἱ ἄγγελοι ψάλλουσιν ὕμνους.
Ἀλλανὸς Ἀνατόλιος Κίρχα, τὸ ὄνομά μου,
ἡ φωνή μου ἀναπέμπει εὐχαριστίες αἰώνιες."
Hearing Armis's voice, Alan's words quickened. Armis magnified his gaze again, and what he saw left him baffled. He stopped in his tracks, feeling true dread and apprehension for the first time since entering the temple. Fear began to creep in as he saw Alan's body suddenly glowing, his bloody locks floating, and all the air in the chamber gathering around him. The air compressed more and more into a white orb before Alan's palm, even as his body seemed to slowly heal.
"ALAN!!!! Alan, stop that!!! I said stop IT!!!!!" Armis bellowed, but Alan didn't move or pay attention. He yelled and even screamed, but just as he had done to others until now, Armis's voice fell on deaf ears, while Alan's voice seeped out again,
"Εὐλογημένον εἶναι τὸ ὄνομά μου, ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ τῶν ζώντων,
ἔλεος ζητῶ, ὦ θεοὶ, ἐν τῇ ὕστατον ὥρᾳ.
Ἀλλανὸς Ἀνατόλιος Κίρχα, τὸ ὄνομά μου…"
Without wasting time, Armis threw away King Roiran and the orbs from his hands, now not from confidence, arrogance, or mockery. His limbs were guided by dread and fright as Armis jumped in the air, vanishing mid-air and appearing instantly right above Alan.
His face contorted with fear as he realized what Alan intended to do. He could never have guessed it; it was unexpected. Armis now felt what Alan had felt when he had first tortured Alan, revealing his true colors—the dread Alan must have had felt upon realizing his mistakes, mistakes that had cost him everything, the kind of mistake that Armis had made unknowingly, leaving Alan alone.
Even at death's door, Alan was still capable of exacting his revenge on his tormentor, even if it was going to cost him his life. Armis felt the same frustration as Alan had, seeing everything he had planned about to be destroyed just as he had destroyed Alan. Armis yelled out,
"I SAID STOP!!!!!"