"I am the beginning?" She crossed her legs as she examined the blindfolded teenager. "That's what you said in your report. Could you explain to me what you mean by that... Omen?"
The boy did not respond immediately; instead, he merely smirked, and then he felt the woman's frustrated gaze as she crossed her legs and examined him.
He turned his smirk into a full smile and said in an extremely low tone,
"It is exactly what it means: every journey has a beginning and an end, but I... I am the beginning of the journey itself, and I will be the end."
….
Time: Unknown, Tenebris Capital.
The sword effortlessly sliced into his stomach muscles, violently tearing apart a jumbled mass of intestines with a single swift movement. Chuckling to himself, the knight muttered,
"Yet another wretched celestial being banished from this realm."
Being one of the empress's army's strong forces, he was indeed powerful. His excitement was short-lived, though, as a colossal giant, towering at fifteen feet, emerged from a gleaming golden portal, instantly crushing his body into a mangled mess of flesh and shattered bones. The giant was completely enveloped in almost impenetrable armour, radiating a golden hue. It tightly grasped a massive club, roughly half its height, which it used to pound the battling surroundings while roaring in rage mercilessly.
Before even thirty seconds had passed, an incredibly massive creature with dark wings, spanning over forty feet, swiftly decapitated the giant, effortlessly severing its head along with a chunk of its spinal cord, drenching the battlefield in a sea of blood. Dropping the decapitated head onto one of the celestial warships, a deafening explosion ensued, shaking the very earth beneath. The winged creature soared into the sky, seeking out another formidable celestial invader, yet its flight was abruptly halted by an immense burst of luminescent gamma rays, instantly obliterating it from the planet's atmosphere as if it had never existed.
The battle between the celestial realm and the dark realm of Tenebris was a clash of unimaginable power and magic. As the armies of celestial beings ravaged by war, their mighty spacecraft of warfare hovered above the dark realm, casting an intimidating shadow across the land. These celestial beings, with their radiant armor and shimmering wings, were masters of arcane, light, and rune magic.
With their celestial creatures at their sides, each one a powerful being ablaze with unearthly energy, the celestial army fell onto the dark realm. Bolts of arcane energy and beams of pure light fought against the forces of darkness in their fast and unrelenting attack. Devastating spells that ripped through the demonic legions like a raging storm were cast by the celestial wizards using ancient incantations. Too many things seemed to be happening at once... it was war after all.
The dark realm, however, was not helpless. Leading her army into combat was the empress of Tenebris, a goddess of death renowned for her unnatural agility. She fought fiercely and gracefully, her gloomy aura giving off a sense of impending disaster.
Tenebris' warriors, enraged with their love for the empress, battled valiantly, utilising their understanding of blood magic, shadows, and curses to repel the celestial attack. The battlefield, a desolate landscape ravaged by conflict, extended as far as the eye could reach. The sky was veiled in darkness, as if the heavens were preparing for the impending calamity, and the air crackled with terrifying intensity. In stark contrast to the Empress in front of them, the ground trembled under the weight of the celestial warriors, their armour sparkling with supernatural brilliance.
The Empress, her voice a haunting whisper, wove her dark magic through the air. The celestial soldiers became entangled in a web of misery as the shadows twisted and twirled. The Empress's unrelenting assault caused their celestial fire to weaken and flicker. The troops fell one by one, their bodies disintegrating into dust as the Empress's ravenous grasp absorbed their essence.
Like a ghost of death, she glided amid the tumult with an eerie grace. Her invisible scythe cut through the heavenly soldiers with icy accuracy, and her touch was deadly. The Empress's might caused their celestial forms to wither and their divine force to diminish. Her eyes were burning with cruel pleasure as she revelled in their misery.
She walked through the bodies and stood behind a small boy hidden in an invisible cloak in the woods. The child was of average height and only fifteen years old, with short black curly hair. He had an uncontrollably terrified expression on his face.
"Are you alright, Omen?" She said, her face filled with concern, completely different from her fierce expression in battle. The boy nodded with tear-filled eyes. She had to protect her son, even if it meant witnessing the destruction of their home. Gripping Omen's hand tightly, they fled through the chaos, darting through the darkest corners of the battlefield.
Finally reaching a hidden sanctuary, the empress began performing an ancient sealing technique. But before she could complete the ritual, tragedy struck. A powerful celestial warrior unleashed a devastating strike, impaling the empress with a weapon capable of killing a god. Omen could only watch in horror as his mother fell, her life slowly fading away.
With tears streaming down his face, Omen rushed to his mother's side. Her smile, filled with both love and sorrow, pierced his heart.
"Echvakohlatra ouckes oucniovazechouclakohsineva!"
Gasping for breath, she spoke her final prayer in an ancient language, her voice barely audible. As her trembling hand lightly touched Omen's forehead, a surge of energy coursed through his body.
"No! Mother!" he said as he felt his soul being pulled forcefully as reality shifted into a symphony of colours, transporting him out of the boundaries of the dark realm.
The first thing Omen felt was a sharp, merciless cold that tore at his bones. He felt tiny and weak because the air was so cold that it seemed like his blood was freezing from the inside out, restricting his motions. Standing on a frozen lake in a barren clearing, he was encircled by massive, towering trees that jutted up towards a sky engulfed in shadow-like skeleton fingers. The moonlight was covered out by the dense branches overhead, transforming the entire scene into a haunting dusk. Cold, ferocious gusts lashed at his face and clawed at his flimsy garments, every gust threatening to topple him from his unstable footing. His legs shook under him, his body's power ebbing away as though the air itself were stealing it.
Then everything stopped abruptly. The trees stopped their ominous moaning, the winds stopped, and the ensuing terrible calm smothered all sound. It was as if time itself had frozen. Gasping, trapped between a faint sense of relief and shock, Omen collapsed to his knees. The silence surrounding him intensified each beat of his heart, which hammered so fiercely that it seemed to be tearing from his chest. Below him, the surface of the frozen lake gleamed with an odd sheen, as if its pulse matched his terror. His relief was fleeting, but he forced himself to take a quivering breath.
It began as a subtle feeling, a chilling fear that slithered across his skin. Behind him, he sensed it, a huge, ancient, and formidable presence that radiated an aversion so greatness that the air itself seemed to shudder at it. Omen turned slowly, his vision narrowing and his breath coming in short gasps as fear took hold. However, the vast, empty darkness that stared back at him as he scanned the treeline was a never-ending, consuming void devoid of any shape or movement. He exhaled shakily, pushing himself to think it was merely a trick of his frazzled mind. He peered down again at the frozen lake, hoping the reflecting surface would bring him some grounding in reality.
And then he saw it.
High above, arching endlessly into the sky, was a gigantic, massive humanoid creature shrouded in complete blackness as if carved from the night itself. It loomed over him, a massive thing that devoured all of the light around it, engulfing Omen in an oppressive shade thick enough to suffocate. He felt insignificant, like a bug beneath the sole of an invisible giant, his presence dwarfed by the creature's sheer size. His mind could scarcely fathom its shape, which was shrouded in writhing shadows, as if reality itself was attempting to reject its form.
But it was the eyes that shattered him.
At the top of the monster form, well above the reach of any mortal vision, were two vast, throbbing pools of crimson light—eyes so intense and terrible that they appeared to pierce straight through him, leaving his soul bare and shivering. Omen's mind shifted, possessed by an indescribable horror. Every instinct screamed him to run, but his legs had turned into lead, and his entire body had frozen under the creature's gaze.
Omen's mind could not take it; his thoughts became jumbled bits, and his vision dimmed as the edges darkened. His chest heaved, his breath caught in his throat as he strained to draw in air, but it was ineffective. His thoughts bowed to the dread, and his body slackened as the frozen surface cracked, and he plunged into the lake's cold embrace. As his eyesight faded, the last thing he saw was the creature's unblinking eyes, two pools of burning crimson that appeared to reach deep into his soul.