"What… what just happened?"
The priest's voice trembled, his eyes wide with dread. "W-what are you? I knew it… you were cursed. An abominable child—"
He never finished the sentence.
In a blink, Azareal was before him — one hand around his throat, lifting him high off the ground. Bones cracked under the pressure, the flesh splitting as his throat was crushed. A spray of blood painted the priest's white taboque crimson.
Azareal smiled — blood seeping between his teeth, his two eyes weeping scarlet tears.
"Abomination?" he whispered darkly, head tilting. "Hmm… what's that? Food?"
His tone shifted — an echo of madness threading through it. "Like that healer… she was delicious."
Before the priest could even breathe, Azareal's hand darted forward, tearing one of his eyes clean from its socket. The priest gurgled — air and blood mixing into a wet gasp.
Azareal pressed the torn eye into his own skin. It sank in. The eyelid formed instantly — blinking, twitching, unfocused… then focusing on the priest.
A low, guttural sound filled the dungeon — the sound of reality folding wrong.
The priest tried to scream, but his throat was nothing but a mangled ruin of flesh. He could only choke, his body trembling as Azareal reached again — widening the hollow where his eye once was, flesh stretching, tearing.
Then, one by one, every eye across Azareal's body blinked in unison.
A whispering sound followed — like a thousand voices sighing.
Suddenly, eyes began tearing open across the priest's body. Each one blinked — bleeding, black tears dripping to the floor. His veins bulged, glowing faintly — then burst open in sizzling arcs of smoke and blood.
The smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
He froze.
His mouth hung open, silent — and his eyes stayed wide, unblinking, as life vanished.
When it was over, all that remained was a corpse — hanging limply, covered in burnt eye marks, a gaping hole where his soul once was.
And in the silence, two blood-drenched eyes on Azareal's body turned toward Gareth — unblinking, watching.