"Whew, how many scouts was that?"
"Ten or so. Need more Fall Liquid?"
"I'm fine for now. Hoo~" Lah revealed an expression of disgust as she didn't even bother to begin eating the remains. She felt that the scouts in general were quite pesky, the myriad of forms they took as annoying as their general lack of presence, unlike their fellow cultist demons.
"…Waste of meat."
Oh, and they tasted worse too. Much worse, to the point where it felt like an affront to her soul to even be near them. Wiping her hands clean with her wings before flicking off the feathers tainted with the unappetizing scent, she stretched out her wings as she bounced on her feet.
"You don't want to use all your feathers like that, you know? It's gonna be hard to regenerate without this stupid amber fluid…"
"Hey, can I tell you something?" Lah broke Balir's suggestion as she turned around and locked eyes with him. Her green lips shook as rage filled her countenance, her wings shaking as they grasped towards the ceiling.
"I despise the gods. Isalde was taken, and I called out to them in prayer for help. This was before I was even a demon hunter, did you know that?"
"…"
"Ehehe. Plausibly, they should have listened to me. That's what that shitty church taught the common fucking peasants, that grace fell on all but those affiliated with demons. Heeheehee…
She clutched at her sides as if she had just told a hilarious joke, but her irises trembled within the confines of its sockets. Her gaze faltered not even once, tacked onto Balir like a vigilant owl surveying the lightless night.
"They didn't listen, so I did like what Isalde did. Living for hundreds of years, all because she had eaten of that demon. I was determined to return her back to the family she belonged to…"
"Yet. That energy was too much for a lowly born person like me. I became a Gant ridden demon faster than you could blink! And guess what…that stupid angel appeared before me. The one who is lighting these halls aflame with red lines…"
"Guess what he fed me? Fall Liquid. Guess what he prescribed me? More Fall Liquid. Guess what he did next!"
"Injected you with Falkas's Grace…no way. I knew he was performing experiments, but isn't that borderline heresy?!"
"Yeah. And now I'm this shitty hybrid. And I have to rely on that stupid liquid. You know~ I'm thinking on never drinking it again…"
Balir walked up to her and drew her into his arms. Patting her back as he ruffled a hand through her feathers, he leaned down and met with crying eyes.
"I can do two things for you. You know your mottled grace demands restoration from the Fall Liquid, or you'll most likely regress into being a demon. One great enough to wreak great havoc."
"So I will make two promises. When this is over, I will help you hunt down every single demon on Morris in an attempt to rid you of your dependency, maybe find an alternative. And…"
His words halted, his lips firm as he took a step backwards. The horn insignia glimmered as dark green shimmered from his gaze, and he lifted his axe as he began walking the corridor to descend down the steps.
"I'll kill you if you become a demon. Before you can suffer."
…
Silence filled the room that held a single inhabitant, the heaviness of the solemn declaration disrupted by the cheery guise Lah put up once more. She laughed to herself, not letting quiet permeate the room as she wiped away a green tear.
"Was that supposed to be comforting?"
—
Bie looked at the mural, seemingly entranced into the depicted image it presented. A heavy, ominous aura pervaded the entire room, though to him it felt as if he was swimming in a lazy river that sought only to hold him aloft as it carried on its way.
At first, it seemed simplistic. A majestic mountain range gave off a sense of overbearing majesty, with its indomitable peaks and the flourishing ecosystems it hosted. Flowers danced, animals ran, and corpses decayed, the mountain serving as a wondrous microcosm of a flourishing world filled to the brim with the signs of life.
Rays of light shone as a flag stood in the sky, casting the aura of the day on the craggy peaks. Yet the radiance seemed to carry the scent of trickery and deceit, the energy it carried fluctuating as if it deliberated on whether to spread its radiance or not. If it was worthy.
Mouths formed on the ridges of the mountains, and as the flag absconded, the light of day was absorbed within the mountain range. Next came the night, with a royal majesty that ruled over all that was shadow. Moonlight and stars peaked at the mountains, before attempting to reign over them with a tyrannical aura.
But then the mouths made an eerie smile, and soon, even the night had to retreat. It was being consumed by the mountainous peaks, the energy within allowing the rocks to grow to even greater heights.
There was nothingness. But atop the sky, who had ample distance from the peaks as of now, there was a droplet.
And then, black.
Bones fell from the sky as strips of flesh joined to become a world. The mountains were engulfed in the fragments of a titanous cadaver, the remnants so large that it was akin to a mid sized galaxy condensing into an orb. The peaks became buried underneath this flesh, and millions of years passed.
Yet the mountains did not remain dormant, refusing to submit to the peerless influence of the world born from a cadaver. The Flag and The Night appeared over the world once again, as well as many other aspects that baptized the infantile world with their essence, struggling to pick a direction that the World's Line would point towards.
The black droplet hung in the sky, surrounded by a murkier river that flowed around it. It began to stir, and the strange liquid with ancient magnificence descended down onto the globe…
And the peaks of the mountains shot up from beneath the ground and greedily absorbed all of the droplet, letting the liquid flow down their bodices. Energy gathered within, and black energy condensed into the forms of otherworldly embryos beneath the mountain's surface.
Time passed in stillness as the mountains flourished the bodies within. Soon, a humanoid was born, and it possessed a beauty so unearthly, so bewitching that even a Lord of Heaven would feel unnerved. They were the most beautiful creatures of existence, heralded above and beyond the dreams of the Aspects.
But it was a distant beauty. One to be shunned. For their appearances could not hide their inclinations.
The mountain the humanoid emerged from morphed and changed, separating from the range as it became an amorphous sphere. This was the humanoid's second body, it's luminous size so ominous and overbearing that it perfectly reflected the sheer carnage that made up most of the infantile creature's mind.
Soon, many more mountains formed humanoid bodies and the more larger bodies. They were not always spherical, coming in all shapes and sizes and some even being able to change accordingly. The hungry existences pulled at the creatures that cowered within their presences, consuming them entirely.
Blood from the creatures became their own, literally. The creatures, dubbed as Mountains, were able to collect the blood and use it to condense bloodlines. They could choose to place it in themselves, as the murky black liquid that surrounded the ancient droplet became their blood. It's properties allowed them to hold multiple bloodlines at once, the genetics always adhering to the Mountain's features and being controllable as long as they understood how to manipulate the energies within the blood.
They also discovered that they could place it in anything else. The more powerful ones were even able to place them in deceased or inanimate objects, creating new life from something that lacked it in the first place. They created a great many things, drawn by their creative spirits.
But the role of creation took a backseat to their formal role. They were born of destruction, and their origins were one of calamitous annihilation. Using their floating second bodies, they would travel in the Unworld to numerous World Lines, destroying and reducing all to nothingness as they came and went.
Even the movement of their bodies would result in destruction as a byproduct. When they willed to move faster, the massive condensed masses would shuttle through space so quickly, the energy would follow and be absorbed by their gluttonous physique.
With all this in mind, they were granted a title amongst the higher beings. The Tools of Creation, and The Cardinal Annihilation. Because wherever they went, destruction soon followed. But the nothingness they wrought allowed the Unworld to create from the shards of the remnants they left, and they were prolific creators themselves.
—
This information filled Bie's head, and something within him seemed to resonate with the story. Picturing a mountain in his head, the imprint of the smile materialized and engulfed him in full.