> "The gods built cathedrals to glorify their light. I will build cathedrals from their flesh to glorify the dark."
— Nero Caelum, the First Fleshcrafter
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The Silent March
After the massacre in the square, Nero walked alone.
Not in triumph. Not in fury.
In hunger.
His body was twitching as the parasite coiled deeper through his organs. Each step left behind a wet, rotting footprint. His shadow had grown longer — it slithered instead of following.
The people of Thal'Varrin dared not speak his name aloud. They watched from behind shuttered windows, fingers clutched to talismans, whispering useless prayers.
Their prayers fed him.
He could hear each one now.
> "Deliver us, Flamebearer."
"Send your wrath, O Sky Father."
"Protect us from the skinless blasphemy."
He grinned.
> "Let them pray harder."
---
The Vault Beneath the Basilica
At the center of the city stood the Basilica of Sacrifice — once the crown jewel of the divine regime.
Now its gates were smeared in arterial red.
The guards at the front door trembled. Their masks were gold. Their armor engraved with holy glyphs. But their eyes were human.
And humans bleed.
The first screamed. The second didn't even get the chance.
Nero's shadow shot forth with a wet snap — splitting into dozens of needle-like tendrils. They pierced through helmets, mouths, eye sockets. The bodies convulsed, then dropped.
One still breathed.
Nero approached, kneeled, and tore the mask off.
A young woman. Barely twenty.
> "P-please," she whispered. "I was just following—"
He reached into her mouth.
Fingers jammed past her teeth, into the throat.
And ripped out the tongue.
> "I follow, too," Nero said. "I just don't stop when the path ends."
He left her gurgling in blood.
---
The Vaults Open
The Basilica was empty.
Not abandoned — evacuated.
Hollow prayers echoed in the air like decaying songs. Divine statues wept oil. The candles burned black.
He walked through it like a king returning to his stolen throne.
He stopped at a wall of living stone — it pulsed slightly, as though breathing.
Most saw a blank marble face.
But Nero had been reconstructed.
He whispered a phrase in the tongue of the worm-gods:
> "Let the womb open for its returning child."
The wall shivered.
Split open.
And the Organ Garden exhaled its first breath.
---
Descent into Madness
The Vault was no mere room.
It was a living cathedral buried inside the earth, stretching downward, not outward.
The stairs were spinal bones. The walls were fleshy — some covered in skin, others exposed to reveal pulsating nerves, twitching muscle, twitching eyes. The torches along the path were skulls fused with tongues, singing hymns that made blood curdle.
Nero descended into the wet dark with a smile.
> "They called me unholy," he muttered. "But they raised this place from the corpses of angels."
At the bottom, the air grew thick with embryonic fluid.
The chamber opened wide — a cathedral made of meat.
Hundreds of divine organs floated in glass vats, suspended by red fluid and tubes of feeding blood.
Each bore a tag.
Each was alive.
Some pulsed. Some blinked. One brain inside a jar was whispering scripture to itself, over and over, weeping milk.
---
The Choir of Lungs
A long platform was lined with lungs from failed gods.
They sang. Not beautifully — but in disjointed, discordant gasps, each pitch different. Together, it formed a choir of suffering.
> "Breathe for me."
"Sing for me."
"Feed me…"
Nero walked among them, choosing.
He placed his hand on one, and it shuddered with joy.
> [Lung of Apostle Sketh] – Emits blasphemous fog when exhaled.
He added it to his collection.
---
Harvest
He took:
A seraph's broken eye, split into seven irises.
A tongue from a demon-bishop, severed with acid centuries ago, still twitching.
A cluster of arteries, red-black with divine infection.
A pair of wings, stunted and fused to a spinal cord, torn from a failed godchild.
A fetal heart that pulsed with two rhythms — one divine, one void.
He laid them on the Stone of Becoming, an altar soaked in liquified prayers and ossified regret.
Then, he reached down…
…and began to cut himself open.
---
Self-Surgery
With no anesthesia.
No hesitation.
He carved open his chest with a bone scalpel taken from a saint's jaw.
Each cut was slow, deliberate.
He snapped his own ribs. One by one.
> "I am the altar now."
He removed his beating heart — still warm.
Held it in one hand.
Crushed it.
And stuffed in the fetal godheart.
It fused instantly — his veins darkened to purple, then black.
His blood boiled.
His scream echoed across the entire vault — not of pain…
…but birth.
---
[FLESHCRAFTING COMPLETE]
> Organ Assimilation:
• Heart of Dual Pulse: Doubled regeneration rate. Increases hatred-based abilities during battle.
• Demonic Tongue of Skareth: Each word spoken corrodes sanity of nearby Marked.
• Seraphic Eye Fragment: Unlocks "Death Perception" — sees weaknesses in divine bodies.
• Wings of the Fallen: Can sprout semi-functional wings during battle (initially unstable).
• Veins of Rot: Blood is now corrosive to sanctified material.
---
The Fleshbound Blade
At the center of the vault was a cage of bone, and within it…
…a mass of tendons, nerves, and fangs.
A failed construct.
It sensed him. Shrieked.
He opened the cage.
It lunged.
He bit it midair, ripped it into chunks, and forged it with his aura and his hand, twisting it into a blade made of:
Cartilage
Sinew
Teeth
Pain
It fused with his right arm — not held, but grown into his muscle.
The sword was alive.
> It breathed.
> It hissed.
> It thirsted.
---
Final Warning
As Nero stood upon the altar, blood steaming from his pores, bones cracking anew…
The bells above tolled.
Not for prayer.
But for extinction.
> [ALERT: ORDER OF THE SERAPHIM DEPLOYED]
An elite wing of divine warriors is descending.
Estimated arrival: 7 minutes.
Prepare for combat.
---
Nero looked up, his mouth lined with stitched runes.
> "Let them come."
> "Let their wings break."
> "Let the gods smell their burning flesh."
He raised his new weapon.
The blade sang in tongues.
The Vault echoed with its scream.
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