Azrael opens his eyes, gasping for air. He searches his surroundings and finds himself lying in a sea of grass. "W-What happened," he asks himself. A searing pain courses through his head and the memories of his subordinate's insubordination gushes through his mind. "I remember now." His eyes fill with a deathly gaze and he clenches his fists, "Azazel, that bastard. He had the gall to overthrow me using an army of traitors."
Surprised that the grass surrounding him still lives, Azrael remembers the gold scroll Azazel used. "That's right," he says, his hands shaking and voice dejected, "with that scroll, he's sealed my powers. I'm nothing more than a mortal being now." He takes a deep breath to calm himself. Then, he proceeds to lift himself and stand on his feet. A sudden stabbing pain envelops his entire body. With clenched teeth, he bears the withering pain.
What... is this feeling? This rush of pain... it's unbearable. Was this because of Azazel? And why does my body feel... different? It feels weak... like it has not been nourished for years.
He looks at his hands, confused. "My hands... Are they smaller?" He uses those same hands to feel his face. He pinches his cheeks and stretches his eyelids with his tiny fingers. Then he looks down at his ragged clothing, which is not much different than a tattered potato sack. He continues down to his bare toes that cement themselves among the blades of grass below. His face flushes with shock. "Am I... in a different body?"
Before Azrael can ponder this outlandish thought, he feels a presence approaching him from afar. The ground rumbles and the grass dances wildly. From a distance, a neigh draws ever so closer. The clacking of hooves soon comes within earshot. "I'm surrounded," he says, nervously scanning the figures in the distance.
As he said, ten black horses and one white horse surround him after galloping over the field. Atop the black horses are knights in white suits of armour. The white horse's rider has similar armour—the only difference is the five gold stars glittering on his shoulder and the sword, releasing an ominous aura, around his waist. But Azrael does not care about these small details. What shakes him is that humans are before him—a God.
The knight on the white horse stalks Azrael for a few seconds atop his horse. His breaths are heavy and his guard low. He draws his sword and points it to Azrael. "State your name, filthy heathen."
Heathen? Me? Does this human not know who he is speaking to? Azrael looks at his hands, then at the knights surrounding him. No, his ignorance is secondary to my current predicament. If there is a human before me, Azazel must have sent me to the human world, Gaia. He even sent my consciousness into a human's body. He clenches his fists and with a disgusted scowl, says, "How insulting."
"Insulting?" questions the knight, irate. He sheathes his sword and leaps from his horse, landing on his feet with a thud that shakes the ground. He walks to Azrael, his metal armour clanking as he inches closer. "So," he says, once face to face with Azrael, "you choose to disobey my order, boy?" He looks down at Azrael like a human to an ant. The knight slowly raises his hand, urging Azrael to flinch for a second. He pauses, bursting into laughter. "Yes, that's the look. The fear in your eyes is beautiful." The knight thrusts his hand onto his sword's grip and draws the blade from its sheath. He presses the tip against Azrael's throat, making a small puncture. The blood drips down his neck. "I will have to report a 'nameless boy' killed for insolent behaviour towards a proud knight of the Sapphire Kingdom." He draws his arm back and raises the sword to the sky. "I will make your death painless!"
As the knight threatens Azrael, the person whose life is in danger is...
The Sapphire Kingdom? If I recall, it's a corrupt country that I recently assisted.
...not paying heed to the threat before him. The knight strikes with all his might expecting to see a bloody murder. However, to his surprise, Azrael stepped back before the sword cut him. The sword misses its target and lodges into the ground before Azrael. He sighs. This was the expected outcome for someone trying to fight a G—
Azrael's heart stops suddenly and he falls to the ground. The knight stares at Azrael's unconscious body, confused. A smirk creeps on his face and he says, "See, this was the expected outcome for someone who defied an honourable knight of the Sapphire Kingdom."
"What must we do with his body, Sir?" asks one of the knights.
"Bring him to the castle. The Princess will love a souvenir."
As Azrael lies there, he has a dream. A dream so horrendously chilling and realistic that one would call it a memory instead. But if it were a memory, one would wish it were a nightmare.
In this nightmare, a young boy, Azrael, is born. The third son of a Duke made him a boy of noble birth. He had seven siblings: two older brothers, two younger brothers, two older sisters, and a younger sister. Azrael was the son of a prostitute, which earned him the ire and ridicule of his siblings. 'Follow in the footsteps of your mother', they said. 'Your blood is tainted with a prostitute's genes', they ridiculed. 'Die', they threatened. The boy's treatment worsened with each passing day. His father, who one would think would put a stop to this mental torture, only added fuel to the fire. He mistreated Azrael worse than the siblings did. He slammed his head against the walls. He beat him half to death. He starved him. And he tortured him, both physically and mentally. The boy's life was a living hell.
Azrael opens his eyes. "Where am I?" he asks, searching the dark room. The cobbled walls surrounding him are damp and infested with moss. The ceiling is leaking and flooding the ground with grey water. There is a rich stench of urine and excrement. He tugs on his arms, but they are chained to the wall behind him. His lazy gaze falls to his feet, which are in the same state as his arms. "So, the knights captured me," he says, cracking a laugh. But my capture is the least of my concerns. What was that dream about? A boy who suffered for seventeen years because of his parental circumstances. Was that the memories of this body?
The metal door to the cell rattles. From it, emerges a young woman. She appears to be in her early thirties. Her body is tightly wrapped in a red dress, emphasising her half-bare breasts and complimenting her crimson hair. Her face is thickly smeared with makeup, making her bloodred lips indistinguishable from a clown's and her pale face unmistakably ghost-like. "Who are you?" she asks, her voice low and calculating.
"I should ask you that question, don't you think? You are the people who attacked me first and proceeded to capture me."
"Your accent... it's not from this Kingdom. We also ran your DNA through our database but found nothing. Then there is the report."
"The report?"
"Someone found the corpse of a seventeen-year-old boy on the border of our Kingdom. That boy had hair as black as night and eyes as pink as diamond. When our knights arrived on the scene, you, a boy matching their description were alive and kicking. Now, how do you explain that, Unnamed Boy."
"Did you ever think that the person making the report lied?"
"I thought of that, yes—which was why I tortured him just before meeting you. His answer remained the same despite the bloody tears he shed. So, I can only assume he was telling the truth."
"Then I am exhausted of guesses just as you are."
The woman walks towards Azrael and grabs a handful of his hair. She pulls his head closer to hers and says, with an intense glare, "You speak to me with such a condescending tone. Do you know who I am?"
"Who you are doesn't matter, does it? All that matters is whether you release me or not."
"Release you? What if I decide to keep you down here forever? What can a boy as young as you do to me?"
"It would be in your best interest not to judge me based on my appearance."
"Is that so?" She lets go of his hair, takes a few steps back and snaps her fingers. A guard soon enters the room with a tea cart. On the shelves of the cart are tools doctors use during surgeries. "You're right," she says, taking the scalpel and analysing its sharpness with her index finger. "I should not judge you based solely on your appearance." She turns to look Azrael in the eyes, and says with a sadistic smile, "I will judge you based on the screams you produce."
Gods are vastly different beings from what humans are. Their amorphous bodies operate on a scale incomprehensible to humans, so, when Azrael first opened his eyes, he could sense something different about his body. Whether it was his beating heart or the chills marching down his spine—he felt weaker. Both physically and spiritually. Even now, when the woman searches through torturous utilities, he can feel his heart tightening in his chest. His pupils dilate, and his throat becomes parched.
What is this feeling?
An unexplainable feeling that Azrael never felt swirls through his body, weakening him. He doesn't understand this feeling because he is always the most powerful being in the room. Whether a horde of demons, led by Lucifer, marched his way. Whether his brothers and sisters would argue. Whether a subordinate had the upper hand in a revolution. He never fathomed this emotion. However, he is no longer in the body of The God of Death, Azrael. He is now in the body of Azrael, the human boy.
And along with this human body came human emotions. That heart-racing, throat-parching, spine-tingling emotion. That feeling which makes the greatest men minor. The strongest men, weak. The strong-willed become spineless. And the Godliest of them all, mortal. That feeling which never lets us go.
Fear. What I feel is... fear.
For an hour, Azrael experienced torture beyond description. His screams of agony pierced the cobble walls, frightening the other prisoners. As she continues to torture Azrael, a guard enters the cell and stares at the woman with a look of fear and awe.
"Why," she asks, with blood dripping down her pale cheeks as she glares at the guard, "did you interrupt my session with Unnamed Boy?"
"I-it's the King! He demands your presence!"
Her smile disappears. In its place, a disgusted scowl further frightens the guard. "What does that old geezer want from me this time?" She sighs, turns her attention to Azrael's bruised body, and with her sadistic smile continues, "You and I will continue this wonderful session later."
She and the guard exit the room, leaving Azrael lying there helplessly traumatized. His heart is still pounding; however, it is not fear that keeps his heart racing this time. His heart is filled with a wave of deep anger—a boiling feeling which can erupt at any moment. "I am going to... kill that woman," he mutters in staccato breaths. He looks at the chain. Matal? he thinks. This will be difficult.
Matal is an ore that is stronger and more durable than diamond. It has high magic conductivity, making it hard to break using magic. With this body's flimsy arms, I can't break through with physical strength alone. And this body seems to lack sufficient mana to bypass matal's mana-conductivity. Because of Azazel's seal, I cannot use my divine abilities. He lies there, on the cold hard floor, thinking, A robust seal requires enormous amounts of mana; the only people with the energy required are those five.
Azrael closes his eyes. He can sense the life energy within the room—revolting like the room's stench. It's the same nauseating feeling he gets from within his host's body. Life energy that is opposite to aether energy—nether energy. Is this a miscalculation on Azazel's part? A smile crosses his face, Or is it fate?
Days pass. The woman placed guards at Azrael's door to prevent an escape attempt. Azrael, who has been quiet for the last few days, finally moves. It has been five days now. For the past five days, Azrael has gathered the minuscule drops of nether energy in his surrounding environment. He uses this energy, swirling in his body, and directs it to the matal chains latching onto his wrists and ankles. Matal has high mana conductivity but is not designed to resist divine energies. After a few minutes, the chains turn vermilion and shatter like glass. When an object made from matal gets imbued with nether energy, its signature blue-black colour turns vermilion. This colour shows the matal has reached its limit. The shattered chains scatter everywhere in the small room.
The door rattles as the guard enters. "What's with all this…" He stops mid-sentence after seeing Azrael free. "Y-You. How did you…?"
Azrael as quick as a bullet, speeds behind the guard and knocks him out. He looks at the second guard, who shrieks and falls backwards. "I... I thought you were wounded? How are you this agile?"
As the guard says, Azrael, whose body was dressed in wounds, seems to be in perfect shape. "Do you know about nether energy?" he asks, tilting his head and stalking the guard psychotically. The guard hastily shakes his head. "Nether energy is a wondrous form of life energy. Well, it's not life energy, per se. It's more accurate to call it anti-life energy, or you can refer to it as an adaptable energy. Ironically, nether energy is much better at healing than mana is," he says as he starts bursting into uncontrolled laughter. The guard joins in, albeit hesitantly. Both laugh uncontrollably—until Azrael stops.
The guard does not stop his maniacal laughter despite the tears pouring down his forced expression. He doesn't stop laughing, even as Azrael lifts his partner's sword from the ground. He doesn't stop laughing, even as Azrael raises the sword high. He stops laughing but his forced expression remains plastered on his face, even as his head lies in his lap—his lifeless eyes staring vacantly into Azrael's cold, murderous eyes.
"You are next," he says, turning his glare down the hallway.