Chapter 29: Nightmare

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Let them go! Stop it!" The man didn't want to hurt the spirits. Hurting them was like hurting himself. He wanted them to be at peace, but the mark wasn't listening to him.

The young man clenched his fist as he made a terrifying decision to stop all this. 

He ran to a sword that was lying in the distance and picked that Sword in his left hand before chopping his hand from the wrist along with that mark to stop. 

"Argh!" He roared in pain. His actions were really painful, but he hoped he could stop the torment on these innocent souls just by sacrificing one hand, but it didn't work. His hand healed on its own, and the mark was back where it was previously. 

The process didn't stop for even a second. He was absorbing the souls of men, elders, ladies, and even kids! The young man felt so hurt that he couldn't stop it. With each soul absorbed, the man hated this mark even more. It was as if a part of his soul was breaking with each passing second. 

The cries of the spirits, it was too much, but the man couldn't do anything. He was going crazy! He even closed his eyes and his ears so he wouldn't have to hear the cries, but nothing worked. The cries continued for hours as millions of souls were absorbed in the young man's body. 

Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be the worst part of it as he heard a voice he could never forget! 

"Brother!"

The voice made him open his eyes abruptly, only to see the soul of his little sister being pulled by the mark. 

"Noo!!!" The young man roared in disbelief. He was about to devour the soul of his own sister? 

"I'm begging you; please don't! Please don't devour her!" He dropped to his knees, but it didn't stop. He heard the cries of his sister as her soul was absorbed in the mark as well. 

The young man's entire face was covered in tears. Not only could he not save his family, but he instead devoured them? He was broken... His eyes lost their focus as he sat with his back resting against the wall, seemingly defeated.

*****

"It is said that Karyk absorbed the souls of his entire family against his wishes, and he couldn't do anything. He was born a human, but the strange phenomenon had given him some form of divinity. He has become a conduit of death and the undead," Lambard explained.

He gazed at the right hand of Gabriel. "And that... That is the origin of the Mark of Karyk, which is also known as the Cursed Mark of Death and Necromancy." 

"It's the mark of the First God ever to exist that we know of. Also, that moment was what started the Era of Gods..."

"So the Element of Light... There was a human who gained the strength of Light just like Karyk?"

"That's right. However, it's not clear how the Woman gained the Holy Energy. As I told you before, most of the literature is lost in time. Only some related to Karyk's history managed to survive. We don't know how other Gods originated, but we do know some things."

"For example, all the gods that came later, they all came because of Karyk," Lambard continued revealing even more surprising information. 

"Because of Karyk absorbing so many souls, the balance of life and death was broken. The barrier between humans and something much more divine became much more blurry. The natural energies of this world became much more chaotic because of the lack of balance, and that chaos is what gave birth to the other gods."

"How do you know it's the truth and not just someone's figment of imagination?" Gabriel inquired, finding it hard to believe that this world belonged to gods. 

"You don't believe it?" Lambard moved a few inches ahead and looked straight into the eyes of Gabriel. 

"What you said doesn't make sense logically," Gabriel answered. "You said everyone in that city was dead; that meant no one was there to see what happened to the souls. If no one was there, how could there be literature about that incident? I don't believe Karyk would have written it on his own."

Lambard blankly stared at Gabriel before he tossed his head back, laughing. "So that's what makes you doubt this story?"

"No one had to be there to know what happened there. Someone peeked in the past of Karyk without his permission to see what he went through. And that person is the one who wrote about it in their personal entry. A few pages of that journal managed to survive. I paid a fortune to buy those pages a couple of decades ago."

"As I told you before, your knowledge about this world is really lacking, boy. You have six elements in this world. Counting the Element of Death and Necromancy, there are a total of Seven Elemental Mages that come from generation to generation, but that doesn't mean there weren't more gods in the past."

"The imbalance that created the Seven Gods also created the hundreds of demi gods that only a few people know about. Unlike the Gods, the Demi-Gods didn't leave anything behind."

"The Ring of Apophis that Lira came here to ask me? What do you think that ring is? Why do you think she needs it? Why do you think even the Church of Light doesn't destroy this place despite what I do?" he asked Gabriel. 

"It's all because of the Numen Artefacts that I gathered! The Artefacts that absorbed the divine aura of the Demi-Gods when they were alive, gaining a divine spirit of their own."

"One of those Demi-Gods was Apophis. The Demigod was known for many things, but mostly his tricks on commoners and unaware people. He was a trickster who could disguise as anyone he wished to fool people."

"I hope you aren't going to tell that disturbing story about him again. I don't care what he did in the past. He is dead now. All I need is his ring." Lira, who had been sitting silently until all this while, finally spoke up. 

"What disturbing story?" Gabriel asked, curious. The thing about Numen Artefacts had undoubtedly caught his interest. Mythical Artefacts that were used by the Demi-Gods that can even force the Holy Church of Light to reconsider attacking this place?

"No matter how disturbing the story may be, it's all in the past," Lambard answered Lira. "We can't do anything about the past. We can only learn from history, but we can only do that if we know the history. Now don't be a spoilsport and let me tell the story. I don't want Gabriel to walk down the same wrong path. Maybe he will learn something from the tragic story of Apophis."