The world began to invert as Domison transitioned from the world of shadows back into his home plane. His view once overrun with nebulous structures outlined in white, resolved into a landscape of cracked black glass for miles around. The once shadowy forms of the Naxcrupe became solid, fetid green flesh stretching too tightly across a distended bone structure. The figures milled about aimlessly several hundred feet away from him with some digging their scythe-like arms through the smoky shards littering the ground. Several of the monsters that Domison could make out in the half-light of the setting sun were appearing to burrow out nests in the surroundings. Sharp retorts of cracking and shattering glass could be heard echoing across the horizon. With the conjunction of inhuman screeching playing along the wind, it created an eerie ambiance that sent a shiver down Domison's spine momentarily.
Taking a deep breath, the man retreated into his inner world, hoping to quickly understand the mechanism behind drawing out his soul-bound weapon. As his consciousness slid down into the center of being he noticed a change. Previously the silhouette of his persona had been sitting in the lotus position, arms to the side and palms facing each other to encompass the black core at his navel. Now, however, the palms and the flats of its forearms were facing the sky. Resting along its hands, slightly above his core, was his soul-bound sword. Even sitting against the black silhouette of his inner body, the ebony of the blade was like an infinitely black scar on the world and he could make out its outline perfectly. Domison reached out and grabbed the proffered handle by focusing his will. As soon as his mental hands wrapped around the handle, he felt a new weight in his right palm and he opened his eyes.
A beautiful five-foot-long sword stretched from the man's right hand, so black that it was like a stamp on the world. Taking a few practice swings he marveled at the balance and was surprised to hear whistling as the blade split the air in its passage. Domison's eyes focused as he honed in on his nearest enemy. The veil of tactical hardness that he wore on every operation descended upon his being like a cool breeze and he began to walk forward. His gait was slow at first, completely silent. As soon as he was able to ascertain there was not another beast within two hundred feet or so he broke out into a dead sprint, holding his new blade down and to the side.
The bent form of the beast in his sight stiffened when he came within twenty-five feet of it. Its head bent to the sky and long slit nostrils began to flutter as it took in Domison's scent. The man seemed to almost float along the ground in his breakneck ambush of the blind creature. He wanted to hit fast and hard, cutting the creature down before it had the chance to react.
When he was in striking distance the Naxcrupe spun, its form blurring as a scythe-like arm aimed right at Domison's neck. His eyes went wide and without thinking, the world became monochrome for only a moment his form dropped into the shadows and slipped through the now-wispy body of the monster. He reappeared in the real world directly behind the beast, spinning his sword and plunging it back without looking. The blade hardly met resistance as it tore into the creature's flank and the Naxcrupe elicited a bone-chilling scream.
As the ebony sword bit into fetid green flesh, Domison could feel a slight tug from the creature's form. He had to quickly rip the blade free before he could think about it too much as the monster began to spin on him. This time when the monster swung at him again, the man dropped into a crouch and brought the weapon down in an arch. Flesh was flayed from shoulder to hip, leaving a deep gash that leaked a purple-tinged ichor. It screeched and brought its arms together in an x, trying to trap and slice Domison into pieces.
The only thing Domison had time to do was drop back into the shadows. As soon as the monster's bladed arms connected where his body used to be he reappeared two steps back and lunged forward. His sword impaled the creature between where its eyes should have been. Its large form shuddered for a moment before succumbing to the damage and sinking to its knees. Guttural wheezing finally ceased as the sound of shattering glass filled the air around Domison. More had noticed his presence and the battle he had just been in and they were coming.
Domison continued to push doggedly forward, cutting down one monster after another as he went. They washed against him like waves in a storm, but step by step he came closer to where he instinctively knew his shanty town apartment lay. He couldn't yet see the form of buildings rising on the horizon, but he knew that would be changing soon. After traveling approximately two miles of distance, dispatching monsters in droves as he pressed onward, Domison could feel the wariness of battle start to soak into his flesh. The monstrous creatures had started thinning out the closer he got to the edges of the obsidian landscape, but a group of five Naxcrupe flanked him when his pace began to slow. As they approached the monsters fanned out in attempting to box him in and for the first time, a scythe-like arm caught his flickering form.
He felt as though he had been hit by a truck when the appendage clipped his left shoulder and his body went tumbling across shards of glass that had been broken down by the intensity of the battle. A grunt of pain slipped from his lips as he pushed himself to his feet, supporting his rise from the ground by plunging the blade of his sword into the ground. His left arm hung limply by his side and seemingly hundreds of small cuts had been opened up along his body by the violent tumble. Domison did his best to compartmentalize the pain, standing and rushing toward the beasts once more.
He ducked between two Naxcrupe whose arms crossed above his head, aiming to bisect him at his chest from both sides. He rose along with the swing of his sword, arching it to rip the beast at the back of the procession in twain. This time when the blade bit into flush, he took hold of the tugging situation and pulled with all his mental might. A black frost began to eat at the edges of the wound as the beast fell to the ground in two pieces and Domison felt power surge up his right arm. Black veins began to worm their way up his forearm as he spun and ripped through another two in quick succession. Now every time his blade bit into the Naxkrupe, he ripped as much of that energy away as he could, filling the growing pit of hunger at his core like raindrops in a bucket. Every slash left a line of frostbite that penetrated deep into the wounds, fetid meat shattering under the weight of the monster's own movements.
There were only two monsters left then and Domison pounced like a feral animal, plunging directly back into another fight. Domison's left arm still hung limply at his side but as he pulled another stream of energy with his next strike, a wet popping could be heard and a new agony briefly filled him. Without thinking he lashed out with his left fist at the remaining Naxkrupe. It had been rushing him from the left side as he cut down its final brethren. When he first made contact with the left side of its head there was a loud SNAP and it was sent tumbling fifteen feet away, never to rise again.
Domison screamed in animalistic rage as the final body fell. For a moment the pain of that deep hunger and his wounds overwhelmed him, his left hand curling into a claw. He pushed through the pain, carving his way towards the horizon, battle after battle taking the tired man closer to his home and finally satiating the hunger that had been echoing throughout his core. After thirty minutes of near-constant conflicts, he saw the distant forms of hundreds of news vans and rolling hills of red-crusted dirt... He was finally at the edge of this forsaken landscape.
Purple-tinted ichor was running in streams down his bare chest, his tactical gear having burned away long ago while any remnants of his shirt had been torn away in battle. Ichor also completely stained the scraps that remained of his pants, which were hanging at his waist by barely a thread. Those pants had already been dangerously loose due to his condensed mass, so Domison became slightly worried he would end up fighting in his underwear. When he reached the first news van he stopped, throwing his left arm against the cool surface as his sword arm went limp for a moment. He heaved in deep breaths as shudders ran through his form. The black veins that had begun worming their way up his forearm slowly faded away until there was no way to mark their passage across his skin.
When Domison had chased away the lightheadedness from overexertion, his eyes wandered the area while he attempted to hike his pants up higher on his waist. Bodies littered almost every inch of space between the interspersed vans and Raze appeared, floating over the man's left shoulder into view, a dull tint to his eyes. 'Master had constructed a barrier to prevent the advent at the time of detonation. It seems many of your kind had been waiting to see what lay beyond. When the barrier dropped.... the tutorial would have begun right on the other side and this area would have been the first where integration occurred. I wouldn't even deign to guess at how many appeared within moments of Advent.'
Raze shook its head solemnly and after several moments Domison spoke allowed, his words carrying across the now eerily silent surroundings. "They should have ran." His eyes took in every inch of the horror around him. Artificial limbs had been torn off and strewn about, some being launched away from their bodies with such force they were embedded into the surrounding vehicles. He could see chrome-plated fingers sticking out of a hole in the hood of a van where the metal appendage had been tossed away with enough force to punch a hole in the engine block. Any organic body parts left had been reduced to near mush between the shredding and the onset of decomposition due to the heat…
Domison closed his eyes for a moment and pulled a deep, shaky breath through his nostrils. While he knew that he was not strong enough to stop an atrocity like this from happening again right now, he vowed to do everything he could to change that fact in the future. Ichor wettened black hair stuck to his forehead and he could feel the fluid begin cracking with every expression as it hardened against his skin.
Small pieces flaked off as he opened his eyes, a new glint of determination appearing in their depths. Domison nodded in respect at the bodies as he passed, and without another word, he stalked away towards the shantytown apartment block lying only a few more miles down the road. As the gravel of the service road crunched beneath his feet Domison lent his gaze to the buildings on the horizon. "I'm almost home buddy, please just wait a bit longer. I'll be there soon."