The Sins Of Our Fathers

Death rode through the forest, getting closer and closer to the familiar presence of his Law.

While Death could not really feel joy, at least not in the way that mortals did, riding through the slowly wilting forest on the back of Styx after all the millennia of imprisonment was probably the closest that Death had ever been to happy.

But even this vague happiness evaporated and was quickly replaced by a much more familiar feeling, namely the feeling of being watched.

The feeling was, of course, much less prominent than back then. Afterall Death and his brother's had been under constant Scrying magic from both gods and some of the greatest mages of their time.

This did not make the fact that he was being watched any less irritating, however, and while Death could easily kill, what he guessed was a scout, he felt it would be more appropriate to let him return to his destination and report what he had seen, he would die all the same.

So, without so much as turning his head Death sent out an invisible pulse of Hell Flame which soon hit a living being and slowly seeped into it. Satisfied, Death pulled a bit on Styx's reins making him slow down to a frisk trot.

Death soon felt the scout move quickly before he felt its presence fade.

When he felt that the scout had stopped moving, probably because he or she had reached their destination, he once again made Styx speed up racing towards his destination.

It did not take long for Death to exit the forest and arrive at a clearing.

In front of him stood a large stone wall. It was made of simple but strong-looking stone.

Death was not impressed. Afterall back during the war all wall even a remote fortress town like this one had enchanted steel walls.

This one had neither steel nor enchantments; it would do little if anything to stop him.

Turning his gaze from the less than impressive stone wall, Death spotted several figures staring down at him from the wall. There seemed to be nine people on the wall, which once again did little to compete with the rows of soldiers that had manned the ancient wall back in the days of the war.

Death studied each of the people standing on the wall. Two seemed to be archers both had an arrow nocked and were currently pointing the arrow tip straight at Death. They stood on either side of the group standing in the middle.

Death recognized the scout that he had sensed in the forest or at least he recognized his presence and his own mark. Standing next to him was an older man which Death guessed was his superior considering he wore the same type of light armor as the young scout.

However, Death attention was grabbed by the bizarre group of five people that were staring at him the most intently out of all the people.

An old man wearing what looked to be robes enchanted with resistance to magic and steel, a woman wearing robes that concealed her vampiric nature, a cowardly looking man with a big book under his arm, a beautiful black-haired woman and a blond-haired man carrying a huge greatsword on his back.

Each of these figures seemed to carry their own story, but Death's attention was directly focused on the blond man.

Death remembered a scene from long ago.

He remembered he and his brothers standing side by side on the battlefield staring down the gods and the members of the Order. He remembered one of the Order's founders standing at the forefront staring directly at him, his pale blue eyes burning with disdain and hatred.

A single name bore its way into Death's mind: Slirtoska Lenox.

Death continued to stare at the descendant of one of the people who had participated in the murder of his brothers, and for the first time in all of Death's immortal life, his face split into a wide grin.

Of course, the people on the wall was not able to see his face, but the air around them seemed to get colder.

Death finally opened his mouth and addressed the people on the wall or at least one of them.

"Descendant of Slirtoska!" Death's voice rung out, and the people on the wall flinched at the ethereal property of it. The archers were so shocked that each of them let go of their bowstrings, sending two arrows straight at Death.

Death was the least bit disturbed, merely raising his right hand, stopping both arrows in mid-air.

This was something only very strong and experienced Mana mages, and wind Elementa users could do, and even then only a few of them would be able to keep them still in mid-air.

Death's display did not stop there however as he lifted his index finger and twirled it around making each of the arrows spin around, so their tips now faced the two archers. Death then pointed his finger straight forward, and with that command, the two arrows flew towards the heads of the two archers even faster than they had been when they left their bows.

The archers didn't even have time to blink before their heads were smashed to smithereens, their blood and brain matter hitting the young scout and the cowardly man.

All this happened faster than any of the people could react. When they finally realized what had happened, everybody on the wall tensed up except for the young scout who was busy screaming his lungs out in abject disgust and horror.

Death just lowered his still outstretched hand and finger before he continued his address of the remaining people on the wall.

"Descendant of Slirtoska, you and your Order have taken something that belongs to me," Death noticed the expressions of disbelief that came to the faces of the five people but continued without pausing. "Return it to me, and I shall grant you and the townspeople a peaceful death, refuse and I-"

Death was interrupted by the young scout breaking out into another hysterical scream. Death did not forgive the interruption as he snapped his pale fingers, creating a crisp sound that seemed to echo around the whole clearing.

The scout immediately stopped screaming, instead it was replaced by the sound of the scout making a weird gurgling noise before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and black blood started to seep from his eyes, nose, and mouth. He soon after crumbled to the ground like a bag of dirt. The older scout who had been trying to calm him down froze completely, simply staring at the dead of the other scout before he began vomiting all over the wall.

Even his experience could not prepare him for the casual extinguishing of his trainee's life, and his mind seemed to snap as he also crumbled to the ground his eyes glassy as tears continued to seep out of them.

Death once again ignored the carnage his action had caused and finished his sentence.

"I will make sure your souls are bound for eternal torment."

Death's voice faded and all there was complete silence, the five final sane and alive people just standing frozen on the wall staring straight at Death with their eyes wide and bloodshot.

But it would seem that these people were slightly more resilient than your common mortal as they seem to snap out of it before the old wizard pulled out some sort of enchanted talisman and the group huddled together and began talking about something.

Death knew the mage had used some sort of muting enchantment to prevent him from hearing their conversation. Death was, of course, able to negate an enchantment of this level, but he saw little use in it as he knew whatever plans they may be discussing would be swiftly crushed.

After a couple of minutes four of the five people began running down the rampart, the book carrying man nearly tripping in his haste to get away, leaving behind the old mage who looked at Death before he opened his mouth.

"While we do appreciate your "kind" offer, hooded stranger, we sadly must decline!" The last part was said with a shout as the mage raised the wooden staff, the red gem at the top glowing with a bright light, creating three balls made of fire Elementa and hurling it at Death.

Midway through their path, the three fireballs which had previously been traveling in a row rearranged themselves so that two were now heading for Death and one was hurling towards Styx.

Death wasted no time, tapping Styx on the back making him turn back into black liquid which seeped into the forest floor, the fireball missed and exploded into a sea of flames as it hit the withered grass. At the same time, Death turned himself into a black mist making the two fireballs pass through him and flying deeper into the forest before the sound of them exploding reverberated out in the background.

Death, in the form of mist, rushed up the side of the stone wall arriving at the right side of the mage who was still facing his previous location. The mage was quick and turned to face him, but Death was quicker as he backhanded the mage in the ribs with such force that the mage flew off the wall and heavily collided with the cobblestone street below.

While the robe did protect the mage against magic and steel, Death had used neither magic nor steel in his attack only the raw strength that came from being one of the Horsemen.

Death looked down at the mage who was slowly struggling to his feet. His robe was torn, and his left arm looked broken, but he still held himself up with his staff and glared at Death who was staring at him from above.

Death had to admit to being slightly impressed that the mortal had survived his attack with only a broken arm, but considering the fact that the four people had left him here to face him alone, he should probably have expected the mortal to have a bit of power.

Death then jumped off the wall and landed gracefully on the ground, slowly moving towards the wounded mage.

Marcus did not idle when he saw his foes advance and tapped the ground with the butt of his staff red cracks forming in the ground toward the hooded adversary. His opponent seemed to ignore the red cracks that had formed under his feet, something Marcus would now make him regret as he once again tapped the ground with the staff. Making the cracks glow bright orange before walls of flames emerged from them ingulfing his enemy.

While Marcus had not expected actually killing his opponent with just that, he certainly had not expected him to just walk out of the flames unharmed, those spells he had used had caused him quite a bit of Elementa due to the flame gem he used, and he doubted that he could actually hurt this 'thing' with any spell that required the amount he had.

Deciding to switch tactics Marcus switched into a martial stance, which was a bit difficult due to his broken arm, he held his staff in a backhanded grip, the staff itself behind his back while he stood up with his back straight staring down his advancing opponent.

"I seem to need a bit of assistance." Muttered Marcus seemingly to himself, but this was not the case as a shout sounded out, and about two dozen people emerged from different alleyways forming up behind Marcus.

Death stopped in his track a distance from the now fairly large group standing behind the old mage. He had of coursed sensed people in the alleyways but had chalked them up to hiding peasant due to the low presence of Elementa and Mana.

If Death had a sense of humor, he would probably be laughing his heart out.

While some of the people indeed did wear some kind of crude iron armor and carried basic enchanted swords, most of the people in the group were just peasants that had grabbed some rusty swords or knives and joined them.

Death did not know whether he should feel insulted or grateful for the weak force. On one hand, he appreciated that the battle would not be dragged out; on the other he felt that he had been slighted, they were guarding his Law for Hell's sake! Death settled on the former and addressed the group of misfits in front of him.

"You guard a Horseman's Law, and this is what you send to defend it?" Death voice was calm but the air around the peaseants and the mage chilled to a degree that the peasants actually started to shiver.

Death did not wait for them to recover from their shock and once again transformed into a cloud of black mist rushing towards the scared men.

Marcus was not the first to react.

Instead, two men that stood beside him ran ahead to meet the foreboding mist. They both swung their enchanted swords at it but were horrified to see them pass through without so much as leaving any sign of damage.

As soon as Death felt the swords pass through him, he once again turned into his physical form and plunged his clawed hand through the chest of one of the men. The man's armor was no match for Death's nails and his hand easily destroyed the man's heart and exited through his back.

His companion seeing this panicked and aimed a crude swing towards Death's back, but he once again turned into mist making the man accidentally hit the side of his dead comrade. The swing had been strong enough to get stuck in the man's armor and without Death holding his corpse up, it crumbled to the ground taking the sword with it.

The now disarmed man's eyes opened wide, his mind not really catching up to what had happened before Death materialised next to him. Trying to turn around and defend himself all the poor man was met with was the back of Death's hand as his head was launched from his shoulders splattering all over one of the stone walls.

Death then watched as the man's headless corpse crumbled to the ground soon after. He then turned slightly to once again stare at the, now smaller group of people who stood frozen not having had the time to react to what had just transpired.

They were clearly scared. Each of them shaking or having beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads, and yet Death sensed that none of them were willing to flee.

He supposed they drew some kind of hope from their belief that staying and fightning would secure their loved ones escape, they were wrong of course.

Marcus had probably sensed the current mood among his 'soldiers' and let out a loud war-cry hoping to raise their spirits. It seemed to have worked as he was soon joined by the rest of his men.

Marcus then set off, leaving the group behind as he headed straight for Death.

The gem in his staff glowed once again, a layer of red flames covering the staff. As soon as he arrived in front of Death, he swung the staff towards his hooded head, a trail of flames being left in the path of the swing.

Death easily dodged the attack, but Marcus kept swinging his staff in quick motions. But Death kept dodging the attack seemingly with little effort as he moved out of the way of the different attacks.

Finally, Marcus managed to find an opening quickly thrusting his staff towards his opponent's chest faster than an arrow leaving its bow.

Death, of course, easily blocked the attack by grabbing the flaming tip of the staff and holding it in a tight grip, he could feel the mage try and wrestle it out of his grip, but the staff remained completely still.

Death then slowly began squeezing the sound of wood creaking, and glass splintering sounded out before a loud 'snap' and 'crack' sounded out, and the staff's tip and gem were completely destroyed.

Death then ripped the rest of the staff from the mage's hand and threw it to the side like a piece of rubbish.

Disarmed, Marcus had no way of blocking what came next, as Death punched him in the side. He could feel his entire ribcage shatter as he was blasted off to the side before he impacted with a wall and blackness enveloped him.

The mage's little entourage arrived just as he was blown into the wall, but they were so filled with fear and adrenaline that they just threw themselves at Death anyway.

The men fought like wounded animals, and Death put them down like they really were.

Death moved between them with fluid motions as he cut through them like grass. Each time Death moved past someone either their head would be removed, or their chest would be run through.

The battle took no longer than a few seconds before Death was surrounded by a pile of mutilated corpses, not a drop of blood on him.

In front of him stood the only two survivors, the one-sided slaughter had probably snapped them out of their crazy adrenaline rush as they both dropped their weapons and started sprinting down the street.

Seeing the two flee Death was not really in a mood to chase so instead he waved his hand making two black tendrils of Hell Flame emerge from one of the stone walls, where they then shot out and wrapped around the throats of the two fleeing men.

The men began kicking and screaming as they were slowly dragged along the street and up the wall, before their screaming was replaced with sounds of chocking as they hung from the wall the two tendrils had emerged from, their feet kicking empty air as life slowly left them.

Once Death saw they had stopped moving, he once again waved his hand making the Hell Flame tendrils disappear, causing the two corpses to hit the street below them with two dull thuds.

Death was just about to continue his search for his Law when he felt something collide with his back. His shadow robe did part slightly before it recovered and returned to its pristine condition. He slowly turned around and saw the old mage with his right arm outstretched with some remnant of fire Elementa still radiating from it. He was sitting down with his back to the wall behind him, a thick stream of blood running from the top of his head down his face.

Death slowly headed towards the mage who had lowered his arm in defeat and seemed to accept his fate. Death wrapped his hand around the lower part of the mages face holding it in vice grip before he lifted him above his own head, making him stare down into the void that covered his face.

Death then began talking.

"Hit from the back by a mere mortal...how embarrassing," Death then slowly brought the mage closer to the hole in his hood. "I know what you are thinking, something along the lines of 'I fear no damnation my faith will protect me,' and to be honest without my Law I do not have the ability to trap your soul,"

Death's voice was ice-cold as he slowly spoke to the mage. He then glanced down the mage robes as he continued.

"But I doubt you care much about damnation, after all from what I can see you worship no god, even that vampire had a totem of Valesi on her, but you hold no such thing," Death once again gave a rare grin when he saw the mage's eyes widen at the mention of a vampire but did not address it.

"No you worship no god, you believe in the Embrace, the theory that your soul becomes Elementa thereby returning you to your roots...pathetic." Death squeezed harder, making the sound of the mage's jaw breaking sound out.

His eyes widened in pain, but no sound came out as Death was blocking his mouth.

"Trapping your soul may be beyond me currently but burning your soul until nothing is left certainly isn't." And as soon as these words left Death's lips, a pale flame ingulfed the mage burning until not even ashes remained.

Looking around the empty street Death was satisfied, but there was one last thing to do before he went to retrieve his Law.

Pointing his index finger up he willed a pale flame about the size of a button to hover over his fingertip, moving his fingertip slightly he made the flame hover in the air a little away from him.

Death then snapped his finger's and uttered a single word.

"L'uon!"

The sound of a volcano erupting sounded out as the tiny pale flame burst into an inferno spreading out in all directions. The buildings were reduced to smoldering rubble, and any living being was reduced to a charred corpse, no one still inside the city was spared from the pale Hellfire.

Soon after the flames disappeared as if they had never been there, to begin with, and Death admired his work.

As far as he looked, he could see charred corpses and the flaming rubble. The only thing that had been spared from the Hellfire was the wall surrounding the city and a large tower that stood in the middle of the city.

Death had spared the tower as he could sense powerful magic coming from inside, and he had a powerful suspicion that it had something to do with his Law's location.

Death once again turned into mist and seeped into the tower arriving in the room where he had sensed the magic presence. He arrived in a finely decorated office, but his attention was immediately grabbed by the huge bookshelf that stood to the side of the room.

He could see that the bookshelf was enchanted with both illusion and reinforcement, which would make people pay less attention to it and reinforce against magic.

Death, of course, ignored all that and used his Hell Flame to toss the bookshelf out of the huge window behind the desk, revealing an average looking mirror.

Death knew of course that this was no ordinary mirror, but rather a Mirror of Illusion. This was a very powerful illusion enchantment that could only be made by gods.

The mirror served as a sort of gateway and container. The way it worked was, it stored your physical body in the mirror before it transported your soul and mind to whatever location the creator had determined. The downside was that if your soul and mind were erased inside the mirror, your physical body would also be absorbed by it.

Death was sure that is Law was stored inside the mirror. Normally you would not be able to pass purely physical object through the mirror, but his Law was a part of his soul which would make it eligible to pass through the mirror.

Wasting no further time, Death stepped into the mirror, feeling his Hellfire and mind leaving his body and being transported somewhere.

He soon arrived in a small square room and once again came face to face with the four people that had left the ramparts before he made his way into the city.

The vampire and blond-haired man immediately drew their weapons and entered their martial stances getting ready to attack him.

He turned his gaze from them towards the pedestal, which held his Law. Death was a bit surprised to see that the pedestal was enchanted with a space enchantment which would teleport his Law away should enough Elementa or Mana be injected into it.

Space enchantments unlike most other enchantment's weren't actually enchanted using Elementa but rather mana, and Death knew that an enchantment this powerful could only have been made by one of The Elders.

This explained what the raven-haired woman was doing as she desperately channeled water Elementa into the pedestal trying to activate the enchantment, but since the enchantment was so advanced, it required a huge amount of energy to function.

Death also noticed the cowardly man shaking in fear in one of the corners of the room clutching the big book to his chest.

Just as he was about to address the people in the room, the vampire girl lunged at him, both daggers drawn.

Death of course easily dodged her flurry of attacks but had to admit to being impressed. Not so much with the knifework itself but more on how she used it to mask her use of vampiric siphoning spells.

Since Death wasn't actually 'alive' so of they course did nothing, and Death grew tired of having her buzzing around him and sent out a fast punch.

The vampire was, however, more observant than he had expected as she did a backflip barely managing to dodge his punch.

Death could see that she stared at him in disbelief and fear probably finally coming to terms with the fact that he was who he said he is.

Death cared little for the vampire's revelations and instead willed two black tendrils off Hell Flame to emerge rushing towards the vampire.

Red quickly shook herself out of her short daze and used two quick swipes with her daggers to cut the tips of the two tendrils coming at her. Her attack seemed to be a success as the tips were cleanly sliced through and dispersed like smoke.

What she had not expected was for the tendrils to quickly regenerate and then wrap themselves around her wrists. Before she even had a chance to panic, she felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder. Slowly turning her head, she almost threw up, as she saw the tendril that had been wrapped around her right wrist holding her severed arm.

Death saw the vampire's expression twist at the sight of her severed limp but still made the tendril that was holding onto her remaining arm throw her into the wall sending cracks along the wall.

Death knew that this would not be enough to kill her as you had to destroy a vampire's entire body or else they would just regenerate, so he willed the last tendril to make its way into her wound where her arm used to be, before expanding making her whole body implode.

Instead of blood and gore though her body just disappeared as if it had never existed, her soul and body having been absorbed by the mirror upon her death.

Death suddenly sensed something coming from his back as he quickly turned into mist and moved away. The tip of a huge greatsword passed through the mist before heavily hitting the ground, sending cracks through the stone.

When Death materialized, a strange sensation filled him as he glanced down at his body only to see that the side of his robe had been sliced through and a thin wound was present on his body. His flesh and robe mended themselves shortly after but the fact that he had been wounded did not sit well with Death.

He looked at the blond-haired man who had hoisted the greatsword onto his shoulder and stared at Death with hatred. Whatever enchantment that sword had it was powerful enough to cut him even when he was immaterialized.

It would seem that he had to use a bit more of his power to finish this man off quickly.

Henry charged at the robed figure swinging his greatsword at him once again this time however his opponent managed to completely dodge it before he stretched out a finger sending an invisible wave of force straight Henry sending him sliding back a few centimeters.

Using the opportunity, the figure rushed at Henry punching out towards his chest. Henry acted quickly and used the flat side of his greatsword to block the punch when the fist collided with his sword another wave of force travel through his arms, making them tremble a bit.

Death was surprised by the sturdiness of the sword, but it would do little to save this man from his fate. Making two spikes of Hell Flame emerge from the ground entering the feet of his opponent, Death used the distraction caused by the pain to place the palm of his hand on the man's exposed chest sending another wave of Hell Flame into him breaking his ribcage and sending the man into the wall behind him breaking his spine.

The sword heavily landed on the ground a little distance away from the fallen man the golden glow it had before slowly dissipating.

Death then slowly moved towards the fallen; the man stared back at him unwavering. Death was just about to plunge his hand into the man's heart when a blade of water hit him square in the back of the head.

The attack had gone unnoticed due to Death's attention having been fully on the mysterious sword, and while the attack did no damage to him, it did manage to blast his hood away, revealing his face.

Rage boiled in Death's chest as he slowly turned and came face to face with the raven-haired woman who stood in front of the cowering bookworm staring at him with determination though she did seem to freeze up a bit when she saw his black and red eyes.

Death let out a low growl before he burst into mist traveling faster than ever before, arriving in front of the woman and grabbing her by the throat and slamming her into the wall making her cough out blood.

"Lillian!" The blond man shouted out, sounding concerned, Death could hear him trying to move his body, but there was little a human with a broken spine could do, no matter how strong they may be.

Death stared into the violet eyes of the woman who glared back at him hatefully before she tried to spit a clump of blood into his face. The blood however, just hung in the air before it disappeared.

Death pulled the woman a little closer to his face before he twisted his hand, twisting her neck to the left until the crisp sound of her neck snapping rung out and her body disappeared without a trace.

"NO, NO, NO! LILLIAN!" The man's shouts got hysterical and tears fell from his eyes and his teeth were gritted so hard that his gums were bleeding.

Death moved towards the grieving husband once again. Without even looking back he stretched out his arm sending a ball of pale Hellfire behind him which engulfed the cowering bookworm in the corner. He screamed as both he and his book were burned by the flames and then disappeared leaving only Death and Henry in the room.

Death grabbed Henry by the throat and lifted him up so that they were now staring into each other's eyes. Henry's eyes blazed with hatred, and Death's were filled with a sort of sadistic glee he had never felt before.

"You really do remind me of your ancestor; he also had to watch his love die before he expired." Death smiled a bit when he remembered killing the old man back on the ancient battlefield.

"I'm... not... afraid... of... dying... Horseman." Henry managed to utter.

Death just shook his head a bit.

"Of course you aren't, dying is the easy part," Death used his free hand to tap Henry's forehead. "It's what comes after you should be afraid of."

Death had expected Henry to remain quiet but instead, Henry began smiling and said.

"I...know...the...truth...you...can't...trap...our...souls...without...your...Scythe."

Death frowned a bit at Henry's statement before he began smiling sinisterly.

"Your and your wife's souls may have escaped my grasp but," Death brought his mouth right next to Henry's ear as he whispered. "I sense that your bloodline does not end with you two."

Death then removed his mouth from his ear and watched as Henry's face twisted into a fearful expression.

"My...son...has...nothing...to...do...with...this."

Death just chuckled.

"What is it you mortals say: paying for the sins of your fathers." Before Henry had a chance to plead further Death ingulfed him in his pale flame.

Henry soon disappeared, and only Death remained in the room.

Death finally moved towards his true objective.

He arrived in front of the pedestal and hit it with his backhand smashing it to smithereens. His Law just kept floating in place even without anything holding it up.

Death grabbed its handle, and he immediately felt himself become whole once more. His red pupils glowed bright red, and the green fire and red veins on the Law also began glowing much brighter than before.

Soon after Death's pupils stopped glowing and returned to normal, the flame and the red veins on the Scythe also disappeared leaving only a normal-looking Scythe in Death's hand. Death materialized another hood and covered his head the veil of shadow covering his face.

His Scythe had been recovered and Death was once again whole.