7 Phantasmagoria Of Harm And Self-Worth

As Lothair was led by Terma to the location of the forbidden section, the ever-smiling demon couldn't help but stare at the jolly homicidal demon happily swinging his knife to reminisce the feeling of cutting veins. It was just like watching a puppy daydreaming their most precious memory. Which in itself, sounds better than the true context of the story.

"Despite your spellcasting prowess, I'm amazed that you haven't switched to wind blades, phantasmal swords, and other elemental props instead of using a bladed toothpick."

"Calling this sword a toothpick will hurt its feeling, you know?"

"As if it had one to begin with." Lothair maintained his poker smile. "And since when does kitchen equipment qualify as a sword?"

Terma chuckled. "It just feels different, Lothair. Cutting the precious lifeline of others with an artificial nature doesn't really constitute the ideal replication of committing a horrendous act.

"Whereas a sword, albeit insufferable, connects your nerves to the very thing you sought to destroy. The weight is a vivid presence, directly visceral, and so is the bloody stigma."

"No, I'm more questioning on how a knife really constitutes the required aspect to be a sword."

"Even after the deed is done, you can still feel the tremor in your arm that you've indeed killed someone."

"Why is a knife, a sword?"

"And we've arrived! If you please, be right behind me as we advance."

"Knife, a sword?"

"As much as I want to his section will be a little bit tricky."

Lothair followed the guide in front of him as he made himself a tourist in this neverland of knowledge. Corners and turns were taken in order to avoid a precarious hunter in the form of unrelenting forbidden books. Some of them could be very contagious, and would immediately affect any soul or mind that had the slightest urge to walk towards their direction.

"Say, seeing your annoying face after you killed those guards enticed me to learn how to use a sword." Lothair wryly snickered, managed to convince himself that a knife is indeed some form of a sword. "Any useful tips you can share?"

Terma turned his head, replying so casually, "You mean, how to wield a knife?"

Lothair stared at his newfound partner with an upward frown and a pained smile.

"It's simple, really." Terma continued, casually ignoring the puncturing gaze behind him. "Just grab the handle however you like and swing it on a whim."

He then proceeded to slash some air in front of him in an insanely quick succession. There were some angles where the arc was reflected in a trail of faint light. While his words were not utterly convincing, the elegant, deadly knife-play of his was not of a jesting matter.

To Lothair's surprise, it made his desire to wield a bladed instrument much more significant.

But perhaps Terma was too eager to show his new partner in crime about the rope. The force behind the hurled edge of his knife was stimulating enough to probe one if not many of the effects from the books within this sea of forbidden knowledge.

In a seamless sudden, a reverberating pulse scurried away from an unknown source ahead. Cleansed and caressed, the consumed surface was instantly overwritten into a world of two sides — the faintly gentle green that took over the hue of the right, and the ominous mist of red filled with anger and sorrow on the left.

Both sides were crowded with many phenomena aside from their prominent color. Invigorating primordial choirs of many sources were churning from the green wind, whilst bone-chilling whispers were infecting and invading the left ears of Lothair and Terma.

Even though this event looked critical, Lothair wasn't even fazed nor did he possess any thoughts of taking the slightest of action. As if he was mesmerized, hypnotized by the duality of the clashing mirage.

It seemed to be the same for Terma, as he hadn't made a single move aside from latching his eyes onto the illusive dark ceiling, where the sound of waves and gales could be felt by just sighting them.

And as if this whole thing hadn't frozen them enough, an entity descended from the upside-down dark sea above.

It was the upper body of an eerie, hairless humanoid with pale skin. Fully-opened deranged eyes were aiming at the soul of the two visitors, with a widely open gaping-mouth — housing the whispers of 103 truths and 103 lies.

That 'thing' heaved its hand to point its conjoined index and middle towards the unruly visitors.

As soon as its hand stopped moving, a thunderous force struck the ground which splitted the realm into two. Having their mesmerized states taken away for a moment, both of them managed to avoid their doom.

Lothair jumped to the right side, where the green lament resided.

And Terma moved to the left side, where the hate and sorrow resided.

Just after they regained their footings, a corroded, viled, and violating voices unleashed into this realm.

It was indecipherable.

It was agonizing.

The two visitors of the realm began to melt and decay while they were still alive. Within the vacant time torture, Terma was able to barely cast his mysterious signature 'instantaneous' spell, completely coating himself with a forcefield that neuter the effect of the forbidden realm.

Despite the success, casting such a counterspell for the power of the forbidden was proved to be too much. His eyes were bloodshot and a pool of red became the new floor underneath his feet.

The area of the neutering forcefield wasn't wide enough to reach Lothair.

Terma mustered every bit of his faltering strength to reach out his hand, just for the slightest length, the slightest faint, and the slightest essence of the forcefield to make contact with Lothair.

But before it could happen, Lothair's mind had already succumbed into the void.

"Why are you standing still?"

A hoarse voice of a man was heard.

Lothair was dumbfounded. The sensation of his melting skin and flesh was no longer there. He was standing still, finding himself wearing a tall mitre hat and a robe with a big cross on its chest. If he were to look in a mirror, he might mistake himself for someone from an ancient organization known as a 'church'.

"Where is this?" Lothair scurried his eyes to the surroundings. He was within some-kind of a large natural tunnel, a cave, heavily illuminated by the scorching floor in front of them, stretching beyond what eyes could behold.

"Have you forgotten, my king?"

Lothair was then reminded once again that there was someone right in front of him. It was a humanoid pitch-black figure, a shadow, with two white circles that seemed similar to that of crayon scribblings attached on a canvas of face which signifies a pair of eyes.

"Who are you?"

"What kind of appearance do you perceive me as?"

"Coarse shadow… something that should belong in the past."

"Indeed, my king." The shadow figure turned around, facing the endless land of scorching platforms. "What happened in the past should be kept in the past. Now that I'm nothing but a shadow, you have lost everything that you once dearly possessed."

"You're saying, I once lived as some-kind of a leader in my past life?"

"You did, everyone once did. But, it doesn't matter anymore." The shadow figure placed its sole onto the scorching terrain, before heaving another of its legs, and eventually walked forward to the endless flame horizon — leaving a path less taken made out of scalded remains of the shadow's soles. "You lost everything, and there's no point of getting them back."

Lothair saw it as a cue to follow the shadow figure through the footprinted path that it left behind.

"Where are we going?"

"To the place of the accursed time." The shadow figure paused. "The accursed chime."

"You refer to me as your king, but you act as if you're very familiar to me in the past. I assume that you're some kind of my past siblings or mentor, yes? Pray tell how close my prediction is."

"Your playful tendencies in your most confusing moments have never ceased."

"Seems like I was quite the party-goer."

"There is no harm to assume so."

Both Lothair and the shadow figure marched to what seemed to be an eternity.

Lothair kept prodding questions at the shadow figure, but no matter the topic, he always ended up acquiring nothing.

As if the past should be left in the past.

"We have arrived, Lothair."

What after an eternity of pilgrimage through the sea of fire, was a significant amount of ceramic platform and a single mammoth door reaching to the edge of the ceiling.

"This is the first time you've called me by my name."

The shadow figure was left nothing but the upper half of its head, as the rest were slowly scrapped by the scalding field.

All just to guide its king to destination.

"Will we be seeing each other again?" Lothair casted his weary gaze to the ground.

"This will be our final meeting, I'm afraid."

"At least, can you tell me your name?"

"Like I have said, Lothair, I'm nothing but a husk, incapable of reminiscing my own memory."

"Anything is fine, don't need to be the name you used to wear in the past."

"May I ask why, my king?"

"I have lost everything that makes up your existence, I don't want to lose this very moment of our time." Lothair paused in contemplation. "It might be the first time since I feel this close to someone. It might be the last time I experience it in my current life."

"Are you a little bit lonely, perhaps?"

"Lonely, huh. If you meant by the neverending void that kept pushing down my guts, no matter how hard I try to remove it from my lungs. Then, yeah maybe I feel a bit lonely."

Lothair unconsciously scratched his cheek with his index, all while trying to look away in embarrassment.

"If that's so." The pair of crayon scribbles began to shift its form into a pair of arches, representing its utmost joy. "Then, feel free to refer to me as Louis."

A genuine glimmer of happiness could be seen in Lothair's eyes and smile.

"I'll never forget your name, Louis."

Louis' remaining head began to crumble into soil. A moment after, a red sapling rose from it, marking the end of its service to what remained of his king and dearest someone.

Without hesitation, Lothair headed towards the gigantic door. Before he could go any closer, the door began to open itself. Along with it, the surrounding place began to shift into bleaching white.

In the middle of it all, Lothair glimpsed what seemed like the back of a figure of someone from the 'Human Tribe'. Black hair, no long ears nor any animalistic traits could be found on his body. A plain, yet comforting sight to see after the barbaric world that he currently lived in.

His wide shoulder made him look gallant, and his straight posture gave off the confidence from within. If one word was needed to describe him, it would be 'heroic'. Unlike many demons Lothair met, it was the first time where such a clear silhouette was capable of capturing his complete attention without any spells and hallucinogens.

Right after Lothair lost his focus on him, many other heroic figures of the same kin started to appear. All of them were facing one direction.

Wondering what they were gazing at, he followed the cue subconsciously where the source of attention was revealed, suddenly manifesting in front of everyone.

Towering everyone by a hundredfold, an entity solely composed of darkness. Its head seemed to be that of a dragon, but the rest of its appearance was inherently humanoid in nature with most of its proportion encompassing the image of a brute and sinister cataclysm, waiting for the day it could split the world into two with just a swing of its arm.

But unlike anything that exists within this clear white space, this menacing entity appears distinctively aberrant and corrupted. It was as if it got brought directly out of someone's long forgotten imagery of something that had already happened a very long time ago.

Needless of its true identity, it was clear that this being was the ultimate adversary of this heroic group.

One of them began to raise their weapon in the air, followed by one and another. A faint glow of green was emanating from the tip of those weapons before it burst out into a ray, eternally ascending in this space of white.

At first there was only one emanation in the white sky, and then two, and three! Until a total of 44 gleams of green were planted within this space. Immediately after, all of those rays bursted into a large body of pillar, slowly consuming everything in its wake with its gentle force.

"Aaaa.. aaaa.."

Lothair hurled his gastric acid out of his stomach due to the intense stimulant of the green hope. His limbs felt weak, his heart felt heavy. Disgust, an extraordinary sensation of disgust began to envelop his whole sense, He wanted to puke out his eyes, he wanted to gouge out his lungs. Yet despite all of this, his eyes were permanently latched onto the ray of hope with very little sense of regret.

Would you say that someone with every intention to be brave, was a coward?

Lothair tends to always keep this thought to his shoulder, wondering that this whole time, he hasn't done anything significant to change the flow of the current tide within the demonic society.

At the same time, he felt an overwhelming feeling of unease. To be extremely worried about the outcome of events, a sharp, yet rhythmic, enveloping feeling of neverending worryness.

Lothair's anxiousness began to crumble with every second he bathed in those rays of hope.

This sensation of repugnance.

He wished to make everyone feel this abhorrence.

Soon enough, he woke up from his weirdly vivid dream. While he managed to find a new aspiration in his little pilgrimage, his body and face was still as unmotivated as ever.

"I thought I would lose you there."

What Lothair saw when he turned his gaze was the bloody appearance of Terma, writhing near his deathbed — spanning his usual cheeky smile.