Chapter 7 - Aftermath

Darius turns from the corpse of the nameless street rat and wipes blood off his hand onto the wall of the alley. He breaths out hard winded by the effort of having murdered a child, he glanced at the small, battered corpse and felt a modicum of respect for the brat. "He never begged" he murmured to himself as he turned and began to walk out the alley.

He does not walk fast enough.

The dead street rat's one remaining eye snaps fully open, a brown orb stares blindly forward as tendrils of darkness spread across the whites of its eye before devouring it entirely. An orb of utter jet-black darkness with no visible sclera, pupil or iris stares forward. Absolutely no light escapes the black hole where an eye once belonged it's abyssal appearance not due to colouring but due to the primordial absence of light. Bones snap and crunch with sounds not unlike the shattering of glass and the breaking of stone.

Darius reaching the head of the alleyway turns his head and in a single heartbeat becoming utterly and totally still as his heart freezes in his chest in a horror so primordial that Darius lacks the words to describe it.

Broken fingers twist and contort back into shape, the bones snapping into place with audible cracks as new flesh grows like a cloak over the damaged body fast enough to be seen with the naked eye. Willow thin limbs expand as muscles burst outward ripping the remains of the boy to pieces as new holy flesh replaces mere corporeal meat. The corpse of the boy once named Arba swells in size as it metamorphoses into, something. Fingernails extend into raking talons as bone spikes protrude outward from knuckles, elbows and shoulder blades before tearing out of newly formed flesh. Fangs, triangular and serrated sharper than any blade shove the shattered remains of teeth from bleeding gums as a mouth transforms into a maw of lamprey teeth. Skin darkens becoming an obsidian black, it aggregates from nowhere forming clumps of hardened flesh over the newly borne things body before it suddenly cracks. Bright red lines tear through the almost stone like skin before they begin softly weeping liquid fire scorching the ground black around where the creature lays.

Nubile horns begin to protrude from the side of the Demon head, for it can only be a Demon Darius's half frozen half panicked mind insists. Only a Demon, those malevolent and ancient creatures that have preyed on his kind for longer than they can remember could produce such a monster. The horns foetal weak strain at the sheath of skin trapping them before in an explosion of stinking get black gore, they tear outward forming a crescent moon shape on either side of the Demon's skull. Darkness miasmic and all-consuming materialises around the creature like a funeral shroud as though the world cannot bear to witness the birth of such a calamity, the shroud robs Darius's straining horrified eyes from seeing the rest of the creature's apotheosis. Slowly, almost feebly the horned Demon pushes itself to its feet, the thing that might have once been a mouth ever so subtly shifting into what Darius's screaming mind thinks must be a smile.

Pink-stained bile erupts from Darius's mouth as a feeling of such complete and total insignificance squeezes his soul, in perhaps the most horrific sensation of his soon to be extinguished life, Darius feels his soul begin to crack at the seams. Sensation flees his body as his knees fail him, he half-collapses half spasms as he falls desperately trying to tear his gaze from the creature but wholly unable to. It's like it wants him to see it, like it wants him to know the true meaning of despair before it snuffs out the candle of his life. The monster stared upward at the sky its mouth fixed in a rictus grin so wide it split its volcanic skin at the seams, black blood weeps from its ripped face in streams of abyssal life fluid that smack into the cobblestones with a hissing sound.

It takes Darius several seconds to realise the fetid stench assaulting his nostrils is coming from himself, he has voided his bowels sometime ago and now is kneeling in his own waste that begins to bubble as a wave of heat so intense it feels like his face is melting emanates from the creature. The Demon releases a contented sigh and slowly turns its singular eye upon the frozen trio. Darius stares into the thing's eye and ceases to be. Ego, id, self, all abandon his mind as he is rendered into a sack of meat just be looking at the thing.

The thing that had been Darius does not comment as the creature breaks its gaze from him and throws itself shrieking to the cobblestone floor. It does not comment as the thing rolls around in the dirt shrieking in a language that makes its ears bleed. It is no longer capable of speech. The thing that was Darius Primus stares forward blankly in a pile of its own evaporating waste. No thoughts dance behind its eyes as to think would mean to be, and to be would mean to confront the impossibility of the Demon's existence, it would mean to acknowledge this aberration of creation.

Still though the tattered shreds of Darius's being remain in the husk of its body. Without knowing why those tattered shreds goad the husk into action, instincts scream at him with sensations he can no longer feel that this thing cannot be allowed to exist. Primordial memories burned into his genetic matrix recall ancient and terrible mysteries in the creature's presence. Wounds dealt so long ago that they have passed even from myth resurface in the shreds of his mind, a colossal six armed titan bringing ruin to all it saw. A presence so monstrous that it seared even the secret life-code of humanity, and that code demands he act. In an act of either soul-shaking bravery or foolhardiness the thing that had been Darius Primus charges the monster unwilling to tolerate its existence.

The blow lands hard and heavy. A metal gauntlet smashing into foetal new flesh rending and tearing as the Demon's body rocks with the blow. It spine bent in a C shape until its face was touching the ground in a parody of athleticism. Darius attempts a second blow but his body refutes him, terror unlike any he has ever experienced even eclipsing the horror seizing his mind freezes his limbs. Slowly like the moving of glaciers the creature righted itself and stared at the fool in front of it. It moved so slowly yet Darius had no doubt in his mind he would never be able to escape this thing. Slowly it opened its mouth and carefully enunciated a single word.

"Die".

A tidal wave of abyssal dark energy erupted in a tsunami of annihilation from the creatures mouth that covered the distance between Darius and the monster before the tattered remains of its mind was even aware it had died.

*A bird's eye view

The Labyrinth city of Miletus was the centre of trade for the entire continent of Pulch, it was considered one of the seven great wonders of the world. A city built straddling a river that flowed from an inland sea it was connected to both a colossal mountain range and the undiluted fury of the ocean. Built in a forgotten age it featured architectural wonders that dwarfed any creation of man built in the last thousand years. A colossal edifice spanning close to four hundred square miles it was a city so monolithic that it held the economic power of entire countries.

It was as illustrious any city ever built. As such it was it used to great matters of history. Countless stories and historic events both true and false had been borne in Miletus from the earth-shattering politics of state to the lowliest of gutter rats striving to survive. It had survived twenty thousand years in a world defined by conflict. It stood as a monument to human ingenuity in the face of overwhelming odds. Its monolithic walls had been besieged by forces made of nightmares and it had birthed some of the greatest heroes the world had ever been privileged to know.

Nothing it's twenty-thousand-year long history would ever compare to that day. A single word half whispered from a fanged maw would shake the great city to its foundations.

"Die".

What escaped from the Demon's mouth was too great to merely be labelled sound. A shockwave of sound and pressure strong enough to level buildings for kilometres tore through the great Labyrinth city in an orgy of devastation. The wave of sound lanced outward like a physical force rendering the lucky into stains of red mist and hurling the unlucky people hundreds of metres into the air like playthings. Buildings in the immediate vicinity were reduced to mist before their residents even realised what was happening. Waves of shrapnel and detritus tore outward rendering every structure within five hundred metres of the blast wave into nothingness.

An entire district of the great city home to close to twenty thousand souls vanished in the time it took to blink.

The Harrowing as it would be called one day would sweep through the entire four hundred square mile city in under ten seconds shattering the sound barrier and every window in the city in a secondary eruption of destruction.

The Labyrinth city of Miletus home to a combined total of fifteen million people came to a complete and total stop. Every single soul stopped and turned towards where the sound came from. Absolute silence dominated the entire city with not even the rats daring to breath.

The tableau held for several seconds before people started collapsing.

They fell blood streaming from their ears and eyes struck by convulsions that threw them to the ground in screaming heaps.

*The Perspective of a city guard

Guard Prefectus Markus was debating in his head whether it was the right decision or not to leave the street rat to Darius and his thugs. He sighed before shaking his head, he wouldn't go against the young master for the same of some nameless street rat. He shrugged before putting the matter from his thought.

"Die".

All thoughts left Markus's head as he was hurled from his feet by an invisible force, Markus had enough to time to register that he was flying before he was reduced to a stain of gore on a nearby building.

*The Perspective of a city guard a kilometre away from the epicentre

When the blast wave hit Guard Prefectus Matais he was performing a standard patrol route in the city. Having just turned a corner Matais would unfortunately angle himself directly towards the epicentre of the blast and would have enough time to widen his eyes in horror before a wave of debris thirty metres high reduced Guard Prefectus Matais into his constituent molecules.

*The perspective of a city guard two kilometres away from the epicentre

When the blast wave hit Guard Prefectus Dontoriel he was busy supervising the offloading of a merchant caravan. Dontoriel had enough to half turn his head at the loudest sound he had ever heard before a bow wave of pressure slammed into him and hurled him nearly eighteen hundred metres into the air. Guard Prefectus Dontoriel was dead before he hit the ground roughly twenty eight seconds later as every organ in his chest had been reduced to pulp by the blast that had sent him flying.

*The perspective of a city guard three kilometres away from the epicentre

When the blast wave hit Guard Prefectus Zariel was inside a small stone booth examining papers of trade. The blast wave would level the small booth in the time it took Zariel to blink burying him alive under dozens of tons of rock. In this regard Zariel was extremely fortunate as the debris crushing his limbs would act as a shield from the swiftly approaching wave of debris that would have left almost as much of him behind as Guard Prefectus Matais.

Several minutes later Zariel exploded from the rubble. His face was a lacerated mess of torn flesh and ligaments. He was only still alive due to the impressive plate mail armour he had been wearing which showed the burden of keeping him alive clearly. It was covered head to toe in dents and scratches from the falling debris and bent awkwardly into Zariel back the bent metal digging into flesh painfully. Zariel ignored this agony as he looked around himself in utter shock.

In every direction he could only see carnage. Half collapsed buildings predominated the space intershot by luckier relatively untouched buildings and the simple absences of the unluckier ones. Zariel stared outward at the sea of destruction his mind utterly blank. His stasis was broken as a carriage slammed into the earth next to him, the wooden carriage almost ten metres long reduced itself into nothing but wooden splinters on impact with the ground. Zariel blinked his mind unable to process the sight as the corpse of the carriage's driver slammed into the earth beside his ride and was reduced to a wet mess on the floor. Zariel began to run as the sky began to rain bodies.

Zariel ran through the destruction as more bodies thumped wetly into the ground around him. He ran on pure instinct his conscious mind having no destination but to find the source of this destruction, luckily for Zariel that was easy enough. Zariel moved by following the lack of debris. Paradoxically the closer Zariel drew towards the epicentre the less debris obstructed his path, buildings that further away from the blast zone had been rendering into rubble and ruins had simply been erased closer to the heart of the blast zone. Zariel ran and ran and ran until the debris ran out.

Where the rest of the world had seemingly gone mad and was coated in a wave of dust, detritus and corpses the epicentre of the blast Zariel discovered was completely free of these obstructions. For five hundred metres there was almost nothing at all, no buildings, no people, not even cobblestone streets. Zariel walked forward stunned into silence on top of a carpet of debris that had been so compressed that it had solidified into a singular object.

Thoughts spiralled out of control as Zariel examined the clear patch and then began routing through nearby piles of debris. Some kind of forbidden magic? A demonic incursion? A precursor to a hostile nation invasion? As he shifted through the debris a disgusting smell caught his nose. Grimacing he turned towards another seemingly ordinary pile of rubble and began sorting through it.

After a moment Zariel collapsed vomiting his lunch all over the floor. He continued vomiting until nothing, but gastric acids-stained pink from his bleeding gums left his mouth, vomit spewed like pressurized fluid from his gut for almost a minute before he managed to right himself and examine the rubble again.

Zariel examined the quartet of corpses he had found that had caused his violet reaction. Three of them appeared to have once been adolescents but one was clearly a child's mutilated body.

One of the boys had been cleanly decapitated but whatever force had torn his head from his body had bent his chest inward as though it had hollowed him out. Another boy and at this sight more bile spewed from Markus's mouth, the other dead boy looked as though he had been turned inside out. His organs were on the wrong side of his skin, as Zariel watched the thing that no longer deserved the word human. The heart pulsated weakly with a mockery of life, "By the balls of my ancestors it's still alive", Zariel breathed these words hoping them to be a lie praying that the human body couldn't survive such an atrocity. The heart stilled and didn't beat again after a moment. Zariel turned to the third corpse which resembled a blackened skeleton, he touched a jet-black bone gently, but it dissolved into mist upon his touch.

Zariel did his best to extract the three mutilated corpses from the rubble before turning to the fourth smaller corpse. Whoever it had been they had died in agony. Its eyes had burst the sickly inside of its eyelids visible; necrosis had torn across the boy's upper body darkening his flesh to a sickly black - purple colour. One ear was missing and what had once been its jaw was simply a bloody toothless maw in the ruin of its face. Zariel felt sick as he gently lifted the corpse from the rubble.

Then he froze.

Bending one ear down to the mouth of the corpse he concentrated.

After a moment he heard it again. The tiniest inhalation. The boy was alive. Zariel's head immediately raced through calculations, he unstoppered a potion from his belt and gently poured it down the boy's throat the crimson fluid immediately began its work, and the boys condition began to visibly improve. After confirming the boy wouldn't immediately die, he began to run.

*The City Healer's perspective

The city healer was a worn-out man in his thirties though he looked like he was fifty, he wore sagging faded robes of white and gold like a cleric but less fine and with the edges torn and poorly fixed. His life was a monotonous series of repeating events and constant tragedy which had aged him greatly. Today would be like every other a nigh constant stream of the sick and infirmed, people yelling at him, begging him or just staring all of them expecting him to perform a miracle. He sighed once again weighing the worth of this job against the tiredness scalding his soul.

His thoughts were abruptly by a blast wave that shattered every window in his clinic and floored the worn-out man. The healer spent several seconds dazed on the ground, "What the fu-" the healer breathed unable to yell as he struggled to cling to consciousness. Then the magnitude of what had just happened struck him.

He pushed himself to his feet and looked out the window seeing the dust bloom from collapsed buildings and the sight of people collapsed on the street blood pouring from their ears. He felt his stomach drop as he realised on whose shoulders the weight of responsibility to save all those people would drop on. He closed his eyes for a second, before he burst into the main chamber and began yelling at everyone who could stand to prepare emergency triage conditions. They would only have a few minutes to prepare, and he would be damned if he was going to waste them.

To prove him right Zariel crashed through his door just a few minutes later holding a half-dead boy in his arms.