Chapter 19 ─ Dark Baptism

Since the beginning of time, human beings have believed in the existence of a mysterious being known as God.

There is no exact explanation as to why.

But that there is a being superior to us gave us certain joy, fear, gladness among other emotions to love and fear him.

The term of the word "God" has no real meaning, it has no origin of who created it, they just decided to call it that way.

That simple word has an enormous weight in all forms of life.

The Endymion Theocracy celebrates their love for God by linking their government and military with their faith.

To the whole world, they are God's representatives.

But... there is something they do not know.

Something only I know.

It was a long time ago that I discovered it.

The true face of "God".

But it is not the God that everyone talks about their beliefs.

My God spoke to me when I was falling into despair.

His voice that radiated fear, caring and most of all power in his words.

He opened my eyes.

That was when I discovered his existence.

Outer God.

That was the name of my God, Azathoth-sama.

That was how I was reborn as Nero Eden and carried out my goal.

"To save the world with the grace of the God of Despair."

◇

"What... did he say?"

After being defeated by Zald, a strange guy appeared and defeated them all.

He did something weird on the ground and then proclaimed some strange words.

He was talking to Zartras without even looking at him.

"Azathoth-sama may seem cruel, but the trials he gives you, those that seem like utter despair will become a ray of hope when you make amends."

"I have been the first to hear it perfectly he told me."

"Therefore, my goal in the world is to spread his word to save mankind."

(Huh?)

(This guy... Isn't he a bit similar to me?)

(The difference is that I hide my mission a little bit so that I don't manage to look for an enemy to defeat me.)

(But this guy. He defeated them all.)

(He's damn cool.)

(He even manages to understand how I feel about My Creator, Him being the most important thing to me.)

(But...)

Something inside me told me this was bad.

That guy, for some reason he makes me feel chills.

I want to run.

I don't know why, but we have to get out of here.

The alarm in my head indicates that we really are in danger, but the theocracy was destroyed.

And he said he came to stop them or something.

Why am I scared then?

The guy named Nero stood up and wiped his knees.

"There's something I need to tell you, first of all."

"Ever heard of 'Chaos Theory'?"

Suddenly, I began to feel my toes.

Slowly it seemed to regain vitality.

"The theory is something I heard from an old man a long time ago."

"He said, that a small change in the world, can influence the way we think, act, can even bring the whole world into an era of destruction."

"Imagine a water dam is clogged, the water will flow to another place, but. if you block every corner to create a plug?"

"In the short term that would work to stop the flow of water circulating, but its consequences would be detrimental to the ecosystem."

"Animals would invade human territories, crop fields would be devoured, farmers who lost everything would steal from other orchards."

"That would bring about a small-scale war that would devour large tracts of territory, all, for solving a small problem."

"That's why the chaos theory is wonderful."

"I am that small change. Azathoth-sama asked me to sow the seeds of despair in the world so everyone can pass their test and finally."

He clutched his chest as he looked up at the sky crying after speaking words I had no idea what they meant.

"Only then, when despair devours all and you discover yourself. Will you be able to 'reach heaven'."

(Reach heaven?)

(What the hell does that mean?)

I could already move a large part of my body, my lower body was now functional, only my torso and arms needed to move.

"Stop talking bullshit at once!"

Zartras, who was still all this time, burst out in fury.

"What the hell is this outer God stuff?"

"Chaos theory?"

"Reaching the heavens out of desperation?"

"Everything you say is sacrilege to my beliefs!"

"My ears bleed listening to every nonsense you say."

"You left me at first confused, but I can't take it anymore."

He raised both hands and manifested various magic circles in the air.

"I'm going to attack you with everything I've got, there will be no trace of you left!"

The area above him was illuminated by various bright colors.

Nero didn't take off his smile despite seeing how his enemy was preparing to destroy him.

His confidence level is impressive.

"No matter what you do already, it's past the five minutes required to begin."

Start?

What does he mean by start?

What was this guy talking about?

"My last words to you are these."

"Die, heretiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic!"

Zartras was about to attack him, Nero went on not caring about that at all.

"The 'Dark Baptism' has begun."

His warm smile turned sinister as he said those words.

Zartras stopped immediately.

He seemed to choke.

"What...?"

He staggered as he held his throat.

"Wh-what did you do to me?"

His long fingernails were tearing at his skin, blood began to ooze out of his neck as they tore deep.

I began to see the muscles in his neck due to how it was tearing.

It wasn't the only thing happening to him.

From his ears, nose, mouth and eyes blood started coming out in large quantities.

Even his lower body was bleeding.

I could already feel my hands, but what I saw terrified me so much that I couldn't move.

Suddenly, his neck stretched slightly until it was the same length as a leg.

"──────!"

The expression on his face indicated how much he was suffering.

Then, with great speed, a sound similar to a branch snapping I heard.

Zartras' neck went around a full circle and then hung down.

What on earth was that?

"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

He wasn't the only one suffering it seemed.

Zald and the others started screaming.

How Zartras, their facial orifices bled and some were stretching their jaw to the point where you could put your whole fist in and pull it out.

"What is this!"

"I'm scared!"

"What are you showing me!"

Zald was uttering strange words.

The language was slowly becoming distorted until it was unintelligible.

Nero answered him after looking proudly at the terrifying image he saw, he looked like a happy mother seeing her children.

"You guys are getting something I'd like to know about."

"Dark baptism is, in fact, hearing the word of Azathoth-sama directly in your head."

"I only heard it from him, but what he says to you are his deep thoughts."

"Only humans with dark hearts can hear his divine message and thus gain a new way of seeing the world."

"You are evolving."

"────────!"

Zald's words no longer sounded like an unknown language, now it was just strange grunts.

I slowly got up and went to Luvia, the chains that bound her gone.

I grabbed her and placed her hand on my shoulder.

Then I went to Alice, she was using magic to bind her split body in two.

"Hey, what the hell is going on?"

"I wish know it..."

Even Alice didn't understand what was going on.

Carrying two people was annoying, but we had to run away.

"There's nowhere to run."

Nero suddenly spoke to me.

It was impossible for him to have seen me because his back was turned.

"You can try to run away if you want, but what's coming now won't give you the chance to run away."

I was such an idiot that I asked him.

"What will come?"

He said smiling from my perspective.

"Lahmu."

"Jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiioooooooooooooooooooooo!"

A strange sound similar to a bird's squawk we heard.

My worst mistake was turning to look.

I regretted seeing it.

Zartras's limbs began to lengthen to two meters.

His body stretched just enough to look like a thin, small object in the middle.

His neck was so stretched, that like the turtles, he returned his head to where it belonged.

His neck and his upper body had become one.

His face began to deform into something resembling a huge mouth on its side.

He was not the only one.

Zald and the others came out of the ground looking the same.

But some were different.

Longer limbs, smaller bodies.

Even some like Zald kept his face that spanned from his nose to his head.

It really was a grotesque and repulsive image.

"The dark baptism is over!"

"You have received God's wisdom and have evolved, congratulations."

"You are now a new species, a new race, you have experienced despair, you just need to overcome it."

"Jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiooooooooooooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

One of the strange beings moved to attack Nero, it reminded me of running cats, but the way it did it was so repulsive and terrifying that it left me frozen.

Nero raised his hand and when it touched him, the creature flew away.

It wasn't the only one, they all started attacking Nero, but he repelled them without moving.

"The Lahmu are the future of humanity."

"Their way of seeing the world is different, but that makes them consume a lot of calories, that's why they need to recharge."

"Eating meat."

"They are carnivores who will never let their prey go."

Nero punched one of them hard and it flew away.

They all stopped suddenly.

Something similar to sniffing they did.

They focused their "stares" on me.

Cold sweat was still rolling down my back.

By the time I blinked.

Just like a pack of dogs they came after me.

I should run away, how do I do that having two injured people?

I should leave them alone and use them as a shield to run away.

That's what I should do.

But unfortunately I'm not a piece of shit.

I left them both on the ground and when I was close to one of them I gave him a strong punch that sent him flying.

They all reminded me of ants the way they ran.

"Jior!"

"Jior! Jior!"

"Jiiiiiiiiiiooooooooooooooooooor!"

The strange squawking, they were making made my eardrums ache.

My magic sword was at my waist which I retrieved after getting up.

I used it to cut them.

The moment I touched one.

"What the hell?"

The sword couldn't cut its skin.

I could feel its steel-like hardness through his muscles.

"This is no good."

Whether with my feet or the magic sword, I attacked every corner.

They surrounded me like a pack of dogs to their prey.

They were focusing on me, so ignoring the girls was the good thing.

At that I saw in the distance Lidvia hiding in the bushes.

"She was supposed to be watching Cedric, but in my current situation it's pleasing that she came along."

I shouted at the top of my lungs.

"Get them out of here!"

I told her to take those two who were injured on the ground.

She nodded quickly and gingerly went to grab Luvia's arms and have Alice cling to her.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

I screamed as I felt one of them try to eat out of my arm.

His teeth were so heavy that my armor besides cracking, began to fall apart.

I hit it hard and broke my hand.

They didn't give me a chance.

They enjoyed my suffering for some reason, as they did not devour me instantly.

I must escape from here!

"One more thing I forgot to tell you."

Nero spoke to me after watching Lidvia flee with them.

"You see, the magic circle that invoked the power of the underworld tree has a wide range depending on the dragon's veins."

I didn't understand what he meant until he horrified me with the following.

"The maximum range in this place of the dark baptism is so large that it can easily engulf the city of Crammond completely."

Huh?

No kidding...

Maryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

_________________

Instead of fanservice I leave you the design of how Zartras and the others look like, I clarify, they are uglier in my head, almost like the monster from John Carpenter's movie The Thing.

https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Laḫmu