chapitre 5 : Cérémony (2)

The ceremony opened with a scene of pure terror, a black mass where the Hand of God, entities of unfathomable darkness, stood as masters of ceremonies of an ancestral and cursed ritual. Their rise was a sinister prelude, their inhuman silhouettes cutting through the veil of darkness, a circle of divine predators surrounding their mortal prey.

The air was filled with an ancestral song, a forgotten dialect of which each syllable seemed to weave the threads of a tragic destiny. These songs, rising from the ether, embraced space in a suffocating embrace, the twisted melodies awakening a primordial fear, an echo from the abysses of infinity.

The ground beneath the feet of the condemned came to life, pulsing in harmony with these funeral hymns, as if feeding on the surrounding terror. Above, the sky was changing, a maelstrom of shadows and flashes of light unleashed in a macabre dance, presaging the arrival of an eternal twilight for the souls present.

Spectral apparitions began to detach themselves from the weakened and dying bodies, torn from the flesh by invisible forces. These spirits, caught in a funeral procession, howled in spectral silence, their faces distorted by endless suffering, as their forms dissolved into the air, nourishing the unholy altar with their essence.

The desperate cries of the sacrificed, heartbreaking pleas for impossible clemency, rose in this symphony of horror. "No, please stop!" A man's call was lost in the tumult, a prayer doomed to the ignorance of the gods. "Why do this to us?" cried a woman, her voice drowned under the weight of abysmal despair.

In the midst of this apocalypse, Arden witnessed the devastation of his own being, each scene of horror carving an irreparable fracture within him. Holding the Behelit in his trembling hands, he moved forward, spectator and actor of a cursed pact which linked him to the darkest forces of this universe.

The intensity of the ritual increased, the deities of the Hand of God orchestrating the end of each life with cruel precision. Their movements, a choreography of death itself, dictated the fate of the condemned souls, the dance of their demise an offering to the voracious appetite of the Behelit.

Engulfed in the darkness of a cocoon shaped by the Behelit, Arden found himself at the heart of a process of transformation as mystical as it was ancestral. Immersed in a liquid of souls, he felt the energy of the sacrificed lives infuse his body, reshaping his essence until it became unrecognizable. It was not physical pain that he felt, but a sensation of tearing and incessant reconstruction, as if every particle of his being was dismantled and then reassembled into a new configuration. In this forced gestation, his consciousness wavered between the chaos of forgetting and flashes of lucidity, where the reality of the sacrifice he had made hit him head on.

The egg formed by the Behelit began to crack, announcing the imminent birth of a creature forged in the crucible of sacrificed souls. At first, they were just tiny cracks, as if the shell itself was reluctant to release its contents. Then, with a suddenness that shattered the oppressive silence, the egg burst, revealing a new entity to the universe.

Arden, now reincarnated, emerged in a silent explosion of dark energy, as a superhuman being, an embodiment of transcended power and grace. The dark energy that marked his rebirth dissipated to reveal a figure of almost unreal beauty, forged in the flames of an ancient ritual.

His body, now human, was a masterpiece of symmetry and strength, every line and curve sculpted with divine precision. Arden's skin glowed dazzlingly white, evoking the pure, unadulterated radiance of the moon. This skin seemed to emit a light of its own, a subtle halo that played with the shadows of interstitial space, creating around itself an aura of strangeness and mystery.

His well-defined muscles bore witness to superhuman strength, drawing on his body a landscape of contained power. Arden's every movement exuded a confidence and majesty that only belonged to those touched by the divine. This power was not brutal, but fluid, almost poetic, capable of manifesting itself with surgical precision or enveloping grace.

Arden's eyes retained their intense deep blue, but in this new context, they acquired an additional dimension. They glowed with an intelligence and wisdom that transcended human experience, capturing and reflecting every nuance of light and shadow. These orbs were windows to a soul that had crossed the abyss, carrying within them the echoes of a journey through despair and transcendence.

Her inky black hair fell in cascades over her shoulders, contrasting sharply with the luminosity of her skin. They moved with a life of their own, seeming to capture the very essence of the surrounding darkness and weave it into a web of dark beauty.

This superhuman being who now stood at the center of the ceremony was no longer simply Arden; he was the embodiment of a living myth, a bridge between the world of mortals and that of divinities. His presence was a challenge to the darkness, a testimony to the complexity and depth of existence. In this enhanced form, Arden felt not only the raw power pulsing through his veins, but also a deeper connection with himself.

"I have become what I sought…an apostle," he told himself, a realization that filled his heart with new strength.

"Look closely at me," Arden proclaimed, his voice carrying a new authority that defied the darkness itself. "I am the Apostle Arden, and I will carve my own path through this world and beyond. Whether as a savior or a destroyer, only time will tell. But one thing is certain: I will no longer be never the same."

———————

thanks for support. You can read additional chapters at this link: https://patreon.com/Ermers