Kellen felt as if all the energy in his body was being slowly drained and siphoned into the voracious weapon that resided at the other end of his surprised stare.
The weapon he had unfortunately failed to notice was glaring at him in a red light, as the concentrated red mist, that thickly covered the depths of the ravine, poured out from the edge of the blade.
Kellen's piercing red eyes were reflected back to him as he scrutinized his pathetic image in the blade's reflection.
'How did I fail to notice this damn thing right in front of me!' He angrily thought as he tried to break free from the lethargic grasp it held over his body.
The long blade glinted in a cruel light from its comfortable resting place that was pierced into the body of a lone and final stone sculpture. Kellen studied the poor sculpture that was impaled by the ruthless blade and discerned that it was one of royalty from its intricately carved fancy clothes and apparel.
The thick snaking red mist practically covered the sculpture's entire body like a sickening blanket as the cracks around the impaled blade glowed with a bloody tint.
The energy that naturally accumulated in Kellen's body finally dissipated completely, and he felt a sudden wave of light-headedness overtake him.
'Shit, this is bad!'
After his energy coldly departed with him, Kellen could feel his blood begin to thicken against the cold aura of the blade. He watched in horror as the tips of his fingers began to solidify and become stone.
"Fuck! Those weren't just some pretty sculptures! They were people!"
The disturbing realization hit him and shook his soul as he watched the edges of his body begin to resemble the poor frozen sculptures dotting the ravine and crumbling kingdom.
'Kid! Quickly circulate some demonic energy!' Shouted Osiris in panic from within his mind.
Kellen tried to urge the energy to flow throughout his body but it refused to flow due to the clotting blood in his system.
'I can't! I can't circulate let alone summon it because of this cursed blade!' Kellen screamed out anxiously as he fruitlessly continued to try and summon some energy with no success.
'Shit! What do we do! I've never seen an artifact as malignant as this! It shouldn't even exist in th-'
'Use the solar demonic energy that lies dormant in your blood.' Nergal intervened in a calm voice, cutting off Osiris's crazed words.
'What? Solar? You mentioned that like only once before!' Roared Kellen as the stone continued to creep along his skin.
'It's difficult to disseminate from your normal demonic energy cause it's extremely similar but still inherent. However, if you focus on your blood and try to recall that flaming urge you usually feel, you should be able to summon it.' Explained Nergal.
Kellen quickly heeded his instructions and concentrated on the strange burning feeling that he had been feeling in his chest. He closed his eyes and focused on the situation inside his body in hopes of understanding what Nergal was trying to explain.
The rapid thumping of his heart echoed in his head as he solely focused on the still and unmoving blood, clogging his system.
The cold feeling piercing his body was indeed able to enter and restrict his bloodstream, but Kellen noticed that his heart was still fighting with a burning passion. He concentrated on this feeling and burning sensation and attempted to spread it from his vigorous heart into his blood.
Slowly, the blood began to circulate into and out of his heart, with renewed life, and spread through his veins to the rest of his body and its extremities.
The clogged blood was no longer cold, as the invigorated blood produced by his raging heart burned throughout his veins, melting the the frozen portions, and recycled the stagnant clots.
Kellen tried to move his stone cold hands, curling his fingers, and balling them into fists. He still felt overwhelmingly exhausted, but with every passing moment, the heat radiating from his demonic blood warmed his body.
The areas of stone that had been progressively encroaching towards his chest, stopped, and receded back towards where it originated. A few pieces of stone even cracked and peeled off from his outer layer of skin like a snake finally shedding its dried shell.
Command over his movements soon returned, as he lifted himself up from the red floor of the ravine with some effort and frowned at the insidious blade, still pulsating the blood red mist.
"You really almost had me there..." Commented Kellen as he restudied the harrowing blade.
The blade protruding from the frozen sculpture's chest was a bright red that ended at its slightly curved black hilt. A dark black stripe raced up the thin sides on the two faces of the blade and had odd white chalk-like carvings, similar to those on the door that had led to the underground kingdom.
A small tracing red glow also resided in the center of these white carvings and bled into the dark hilt. This red glow snaked around the hilt of the blade and led to a small glistening gemstone at the very end.
This gemstone was a mineral Kellen had never seen before in his entire life within this world and his last. It was pitch black, like jet, with multiple pulsating red veins filled with what seemed to be the liquid form of the substance that created the red mist in the ravine.
The numerous small veins led to what looked almost exactly like a tiny heart, that was softly beating at a ridiculous speed.
"What is this thing..." Muttered Kellen as he carefully inspected the strange blade, refusing to touch it after the petrifying episode it had caused him moments ago.
'A blood core.' Echoed Nergal excitedly from within Kellen's mind.
'This thing is one of those blood cores you were raging on about!' Exclaimed Kellen in shock.
'Not the entire blade... Just the crystal there at the end of its hilt.' Explained Nergal with anticipation.
'Wait, so you said you wanted me to absorb this thing before, right?' Asked Kellen as he peered at the interesting blood core, eerily dancing in the red light of the ravine.
'Yes. In short, it will give you an increase in power like you desired and restore some of my strength.' Nergal chimed from within his celestial cage.
'What? Really? This little thing can?'
'That little "thing" is a remnant of my power and blood. It is one of the many that the stupid celestials scattered about the universe.' Nergal angrily corrected.
'So are these other celestials the reason why your still in that cage?'
'This annoying cage is part of the seal they placed on my soul after they destroyed my body. If you can manage to absorb and find more of the blood cores, then hopefully I can undo this ridiculous seal.' Boomed Nergal with a cunning look in his eyes from within the cage.
'Hahaha! So that's why our little demon bird is here in his cage! The great destroyer of worlds is now just a chicken in his coop!' Laughed Osiris at Nergal's now revealed predicament.
'Watch yourself you puny ghost or I'll throw you in here once I regain my power!' Angrily shouted Nergal.
'Oh really? Well you would have to actually manage to get out for that to happen, wouldn't you?' Teased Osiris as he snickered at the demon.
'So how do I absorb it?' Barged Kellen.
Nergal ignored the rest of Osiris's insults and irritably returned to the conversation.
'It's pretty simple. Since you have fully accepted my bloodline and my blood is what courses through your veins, just touching it should release its power into your body.' Nergal shrugged nonchalantly.
'That's it? No special ceremony or prerequisites I have to obtain?' Kellen questioned suspiciously.
'Nope. Just place your hand on the core and it should be absorbed into your blood.' Responded Nergal plainly.
Kellen nervously reached his hand out towards the core and waited for some kind of disaster to strike.
When the palm of his hand rested on the blood core, he could feel the rapidly pulsing beat of the small heart begin to slow and match his own. When the small heart completely synchronized with his pulse, a blinding red flash suddenly illuminated the ravine like a powerful strobe.
The bloody mist stopped its snaking movements and paused, before surging back towards the blade beneath Kellen's hand.
"What the hell!"
Kellen screamed out in surprise as the red mist swirled around his body and concentrated into a star like shape above his hand. The star of red mist continued to condense and harden into a dark red like crystal and sparkled in the eerie and blinding red glare emanating from the blood core.
Then the condensed star began to melt into a dark and thick stream of blood that flowed into the blood core beneath Kellen's hand.
Kellen shouted out in pain as his hand began to burn, like he had plunged his hand into a furnace, and could feel the skin in the center of his palm beginning to crack and split.
"What's happening?"
A small pit had been forcefully pried open in the skin of his palm, that was roughly the same size of the blood core resting beneath it, and Kellen's own blood poured out. Kellen watched in horror as his blood was getting greedily sucked into the small heart resting inside the blood core.
Suddenly, the ravenous core shattered, and the small heart, now encapsulated in a thick orb of blood, rose into the painful opening in Kellen's palm.
'It still remembers its owner!' Cruelly laughed Nergal from within Kellen's mind.