Beside Eva, Edo suddenly sat up as well. He didn't say a word and immediately tossed aside the rolled up mat serving as his pillow. Eva watched this scene calmly. She was certain Edo had also received a message in his dreams.
As the mat unfurled violently in the air, several papers, scrolls and books were tossed about the room from within. Edo snatched them up hurriedly, and only then did he sit down, a look of amazement dawning on his face as he stared at the objects laying on his lap.
"Eva," Edo looked up and into his lover's eyes, "I don't think we'll have to struggle in this world anymore." He held up the first book, entitled 'The Manual of Divine Weaponry,' "These are powers from higher forces, of those powers that apparently answer to Triac. We're finally gaining the knowledge I had asked for that time." There was no need to specify what time he meant.
"But, remember what Triac said about that stuff? It sounded dangerous." Eva cautioned, feeling something was strange about these gifts.
"Nonsense. Why else would his servants give them to us now?" Edo countered.
"Well..." Eva wavered, finally remaining silent, unable to think of a reason. "I guess now that things have gotten this way, he's decided it's necessary. But Edo-" Eva grasped Edo's arm holding the book, "please don't use this more than you have to."
"Of course. But while we have them, don't you want to see what they are?" Edo prompted with a sly smile.
Eva couldn't deny nor resist her curiosity and leaned in as she released her grip in Edo's arm. The next item after 'The Manual of Divine Weaponry' was a scroll. Unfurling the topmost part revealed the title, 'The Art of Man-Killing.'
Eva shuddered as she slapped it out of Edo's hand. "We don't need that." She glared at him, daring him to argue.
"Alright." Edo's eyes slightly narrowed after he agreed, but Eva's gaze had already locked back onto the scroll.
She felt the chains in her heart start to quiver, and she quickly changed the subject, "and the rest?" She regretted the question as soon as it left her lips. Weapons and killing? Just what was Triac expecting?
"Well this one looks like a compilation of drawings. Diagrams perhaps?" Edo held up some loose pages helplessly.
Eva grabbed them from his hand. A name rose unbidden from her lips. "Armaros' Enchantment Scripture." Eva started, shocked at her own words.
Edo looked at her pleasantly surprised. "Well I guess we've got that one down. Sounds perfectly, peacefully amazing."
"Yeah." Eva calmed down a little, and allowed a hint of a smile to cross her face. "One more. let's see it."
Edo pulled out the last book. It was bound in simple leather and didn't have a title page. Edo opened it up to the middle to see what sort of contents lay within. He immediately closed it shut.
"Hey! Let me see it!" Eva called out dejectedly.
Edo firmly shook his head, his face growing a deep shade of vermilion. Eva snatched the book from his hand and Edo immediately reached to grab it back.
"You don't want to see that!" Edo cried out desperately. Eva firmly pushed him away, and held the book hanging open in front of her face. As she peered within, her expression froze, and she grew bright red apples from her cheeks. Then she let out a shriek.
...
A dense, roiling grey fog advanced through a dark void. Mere senses couldn't comprehend the oppressive darkness of this place. Anything entering here should immediately be crushed and assimilated as darkness, yet this fog persisted. Within the fog intermittent cackling and screaming could be heard.
Tendrils of fog lashed at a grotesque silhouette bound by invisible chains within. This was the Demon King. This was a dangerous predicament that even the worst men wouldn't wish on their mortal enemies. Yet, this was no unavoidable circumstance or forced punishment. The Demon King inflicted this torture upon himself, pieces of flesh barely hanging by strings of lacerated fat and tendons on a fractured skeleton vaguely holding the shape of the thing that antagonized Edo and cursed Eva.
Though his eyeballs were long gone, a raging black flame swirled within his eye sockets, the emptiness at the center sucking in an endless outpouring of hellish flame. He stared into the fog, trying to perceive the nature of the fog passing through the place that was once his inescapable prison. This was the key to solidifying his reign over Vinetum, the planet once belonging to those beloved of Triac. Those lazy, dull, naive, planet-bound little animals somehow earned the favor of the Most High. He wanted to scream, he wanted to grow razors from his teeth and shred their flesh with his jaws as they screamed for mercy he would never give. He wanted them extinct from all forms of existence, to be forever unable to earn the attention of the being he, in his demented, unhinged mind, thought he loved.
For this, he gained the trust of Edo and Eva, for this he betrayed it. For this, he now subjected himself to levels of torture no creature had ever before lived through. He wanted to see through to 'nothing.' The entropic devouring of what is, to make that which is not. If he could obtain this power, in conjunction with the power from his contract with Death, he could kill these loathsome creatures in mind, body, and soul.
What appeared to be fog was only perceivable as such because of the unique nature of the surrounding void. Attempting to crush a thing that was not is naturally impossible. So the cluster of 'not things' comprised not of a material nor spiritual form, but of extreme lacking, seeking only to devour, pushed away even the darkness itself, creating the perception of a fog. It was these 'not things' that bound the Demon King, and lashed out at him mercilessly. He intentionally goaded them, earning their ire, so he might experience 'nothingness' with his own flesh and blood.
He got his wish. Lash by lash, bits of him disappeared into nothing, the fog growing larger as the converted nothingness was added to its mass, further tormenting the Demon King.
"Hahahaha! Hahahahahaaaahhhhh!!" The Demon King manically unleashed screams of laughter, no longer letting them out in turn, but laughing and screaming all at once. The dark pits in his eyes grew larger, as the flames swirled faster. The last of his flesh was stripped away, but he was unrelenting. "This is the might of The Great Nothing?! Stripping away flesh? I could do such simple tasks when I was merely a nebula." The Demon King laughed once more. "Why don't you try harder?" He intoned deeply.
All at once, the fog trembled and roiled more violently than ever before, the beings within clearly enraged by the Demon King's provocation. Then it grew completely still, the whip like tendrils of fog withdrew into the main mass, the Demon King remaining suspended within. The outer edges suddenly started drawing inward, the inside thickening with a pressure that the Demon King could feel in the entirety of his being.
As this phenomenon continued, the foggy nothing shrinking ever smaller, the Demon King felt like cement was clogging up every opening in his exposed and fractured skeleton. Before he realized it, his legs had disappeared completely. Next, his antlers, then one finger, and another, his arms finally vanished. As his ribs dissipated into the cloud, making it grow ever thicker, The disembodied skull of the Demon King shrieked with laughter, unending manic cackles like an eccentric game master watching an opponent walk into his carefully laid trap.
With the harsh echoing sound of the Demon Kings laughter, his skull finally vanished out of being.
But the laughing didn't stop.