Chapter 4: Body
Plains of Vabos
"Kakarai… we should go now."
Vabon's voice cut through the lingering echoes of the blood-rain, low and urgent. Resurfacing from the mud, he extended a cautious hand toward the priest, his fingers trembling despite his effort to appear composed.
"He!"
Kakarai answered with a guttural bark of ecstasy. His bulging eyes gleamed with manic, unholy delight as he reached back—but the instant their fingers nearly brushed, Vabon recoiled as though burned by invisible fire, leaping several paces away.
"You dare?!" Vabon's voice cracked with raw outrage, his face draining of color. "What is wrong with you?!"
A single truth thundered through the space between them, unspoken yet deafening:
Condemnation.
Vabon froze, the realization crashing over him like ice water.
So that's it… His mind reeled. He knelt. Kakarai knelt to that monster—and now he has been abandoned by our god, even though it wasn't of his own volition!
Slowly, as suffocating dread washed over him, Vabon's gaze drifted back toward the epicenter of the terror—the figure hovering amid the clearing storm.
His soul seemed to collapse inward.
"D–Demon God…" The whisper escaped him, barely audible, his body shaking uncontrollably. "This guy… this thing… he can only be a Demon."
Before his horrified eyes, Dax's human flesh began to slough away in wet, glistening sheets, melting like wax beneath the relentless crimson downpour. Skin dissolved into rivulets of red; muscles unraveled thread by thread; and the blood washed clean, revealing the horror beneath.
An abomination of dark majesty hung in the sky.
It was a skeleton forged from absolute blackness, glistening with impossible vitality, as though death itself had been inverted into something fiercely alive. Above the hollow skull floated two halos—one radiant and drenched in unity, the other shadowed in a constant state of devouring. It was utterly blasphemous, projecting the image of divinity while defying every law this world knew.
It was a sight that would make gods avert their gaze.
Deep within, Dax drifted across an endless ocean—boundless and familiar, yet strangely alien.
"What is this place… Have I been here before?"
His reflection stared back from the dark waters. Catching a glimmer above his head in the mirror-like surface, Dax lifted his gaze. Far above the horizon hovered two infants—one cloaked in deepest black, the other wrapped in eternal silver.
Their tiny forms radiated conflicting light: one pulsing with raw, primal hunger; the other with cold, analytical clarity.
My traits… how interesting. This must be the Trait Emperor realm.
Dax lowered himself onto the ocean's surface, crossing his legs as he sank into profound meditation. The water responded, rippling gently at first before lifting him higher—wave upon wave buoying him upward until he towered over the twin infants like a colossus.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
The tranquil sea churned into violence. Towering waves rose like mountains, crashing down with apocalyptic fury as a war broke out for supremacy—body against soul.
Out in the physical world, Dax's black skeletal form inhaled sharply, though he possessed no lungs to fill and no breath to stir.
The plains convulsed in answer.
Air howled inward. Dirt, stones, and torn roots were ripped from the earth and dragged skyward toward him. The forest floor collapsed, spiraling into a towering vortex of debris that wrapped around the black skeleton like a living cocoon.
Inside that swirling shell, flesh birthed itself anew. Tendons slithered across pitch-black bone like eager serpents. Muscles braided together in thick, pulsing cords. Veins took root, and blood surged through them like crimson rivers finding their course.
"Ahhhhh…"
Dax exhaled—a long, serene sound of profound satisfaction.
As if in obedience, the blood-rain ceased instantly. The bruised clouds parted like curtains, and sunlight pierced through the canopy once more, bathing the ravaged plain in golden warmth.
Ding.
System notifications rang clear and triumphant, like bells heralding the descent of the divine. Within his inner world, the storm had ended.
Dax now floated beneath the twin infants while the ocean lay mirror-calm below him.
Trinity.
The word reverberated through his mind—sacred, terrifying in its implications—dragging up terrible memories from the past that weighed upon his heart: the image of himself as a child, his mouth stained with blood.
Will you do it again? demonic whispers hissed through his heart. Now that you have a second chance, you still cannot save her. You will always fall short to your flaw.
"…Why do you bother me?" Dax answered the dark calmly. "On my path to freedom, I accepted what I did then, and I accept it now without a shred of guilt. The heavens have given me a second chance. In the past, I lacked control when I followed my heart. Yet my heart is my path."
His entire being quivered with ecstatic realization.
"My mind served my body all my life. That is the life of a slave, and I shall not be shackled in this life. Desire. Greed. Hunger. These are not my flaws—they are my nature. That is the truth… and I gladly accept it."
His laughter intensified, shattering the ocean's surface and tearing a crack across his inner realm that hurled him violently back into waking reality.
Dax opened his eyes—and beheld an entirely different world.
An insurmountable number of threads crisscrossed the land and sky in a vast, shimmering web. Each strand pulsed with ethereal energy, alive and humming.
Mana.
He reached out a hand, watching the glowing strands pass effortlessly through his fingers.
"Fascinating…" This world was truly beautiful in its own essence. "Still, what has changed in my sight? Could this be how Emperors perceive the world?"
Kyaaa!
A deranged screech echoed through the trees, followed by the sharp ring of clashing metal.
Dax's gaze shifted toward the clearing where the cultists had stood, finding it empty. Not far off in the distance, two figures darted frantically between the trunks, desperation driving their every step.
Dax did not rush to pursue. Instead, he summoned a simple black robe from his storage ring and draped it around his frame with casual grace. Then, with a single step, he flickered out of existence—reappearing an instant later within a distant pool of shadow beneath the canopy.
"They're fighting."
Beneath the trees ahead, Vabon dominated the clash, his movements precise and lethal as he used his overwhelming earth manipulation to batter the mad priest back. Yet Kakarai kept lunging forward; he had utterly lost his mind, and even condemned by his god, he refused to die.
Disgust and grim purpose twisted Vabon's features. "Book Two of the Wretched Grimoire… Tongue of the Damned."
He licked fresh blood from his fingers—Kakarai's blood—savoring the metallic tang.
"I will end your suffering, you stupid bastard! You should have killed yourself when you had the chance!" Vabon spat, biting down on his own tongue to mix his blood with Kakarai's. "Now stop wasting my time and kill yourself!"
"Vooooos!"
Kakarai's body jerked as though struck by lightning. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as his demonic arm trembled upward—unwilling, yet forced by the curse—and plunged straight into his own chest with wet finality before he collapsed lifelessly to the dirt.
Or so it seemed for a single breath.
Thum.
A heartbeat later, Kakarai materialized directly behind Vabon. The gaping hole in the priest's chest had already coagulated shut, his presence radiating a monstrous, festering corruption.
"Damn it! Fucking bastard!" Vabon spun, barely blocking the claw strike in time, his expression darkening with grim resolve. "You truly deserve your title, Psychopathic Troll of Blood! Fine—I told the enforcers not to add a lunatic like you to our group, and they ignored me anyway! Someone dies here today!"
Vabon slammed his palm flat against the earth.
"Corrupt the land and obey my call! Petrified Soul Weaver who died beneath my hands—heed my will through the blood I have tasted!"
The forest floor tremored violently. A massive stone pillar erupted meters into the air, its surface writhing with dozens of agonized faces frozen eternally mid-scream.
From its base, three blood-stained stone statues stepped forward, each bearing three tormented faces and wielding weapons of impossible size: one gripped a bow that hummed with malice, while the other two carried greatswords longer than any man. Threads of blood linked the statues back to the pillar, and from the pillar straight to Vabon's palm.
The battle exploded anew. Within moments, the stench of fresh gore filled the woods as the statues tore into Kakarai time and again, preventing the madman from laying a single finger on Vabon.
Hidden in the shadow of the trees, Dax observed the slaughter in perfect silence—tracking every motion, every thread of blood, and every ripple of intent. Slowly, his eyes narrowed, not in strain, but in profound discovery.
"My eyes… no." He lifted a hand to his temple, his fingers tracing the skin as if touching something newly awakened.
"I am different." His voice was quiet, almost reverent, laced with the awe of a scientist witnessing the birth of a new reality.
"What have I become?"