Face of Eternity : The Little Angel

As we approached the coffin that housed Yamin, a faint breath could be heard coming from her mouth, giving audible confirmation that her vitals were still good. She looked suspiciously comfortable in that resting place of the dead.

Adding to the already perplexing sight was her absolutely gorgeous black wedding dress. Even in the dark, that dress had a weak shimmer of crimson across its cloth. A small detail I noticed was that little snake and apple patterns were embroidered around the whole thing. You had to be very close to spot them though.

Besides her, the second focal point of this room was the evil plaque webbing conjoining on a single point above her, sending all the corrupted mana energy deep into its fleshy looking core.

“Yalda, do a scan of that location,” Uncle ordered.

My eyes concentrated on the spot above.

-…-

When the scan concluded, the results were a bit mixed. It said it was some sort of pod of darkness, absorbing unfathomable amounts of spirit energy. Something was in there, taking in all that power. My guess was that whatever was in there had to be what they were preparing to stop us with. Maybe even the demon lord was inside.

The first order of business was to get Yamin out of that coffin. Then we’d destroy the pod with stardust energy before it could get any stronger.

As Uncle was adjusting Yamin’s position so that he could pick her up, the pod of darkness burst open. Mana, like red blood, washed over the floor, suspiciously avoiding Yamin completely, but coating us in the glowing red liquid.

A frail and weak body emerged from the pod. Its arm was still stuck inside, preventing the person from falling. A weak sound came from it, softly uttering in a male voice “No.”

He flailed around a little until his second arm was free, then another great eruption blasted away the remaining fleshy substance that subdued him.

Wings, like that of an old decaying bat, stretched out, carrying this person down to the floor, where he landed on his knees next to Yamin’s coffin.

He threw his arms over her, as if protecting her. His head laid carefully on her bosom, comforted by its warmth.

“Le-leave her alone,” he said, weakly.

From here we could see this person had gray skin and looked incredibly emaciated. Bright red eyes with distorted looking pupils pierced through us, framed by tired looking bags under the lids. His black hair was so thin and stringy that it was just a few thinning tufts scattered around his scalp. Two barely visible horns protruded just above his ears, but it looked like at some point they’d fallen off and failed to grow back properly. He looked more like a corpse than a living being. Was he a zombie?

-Analyzing-

-...-

-Unknown demon detected-

-WARNING! Extreme levels of darkness detected! Fleeing is advised-

Could this have been the demon lord? He certainly didn’t look nearly as healthy as I remember him in the dream… Whatever counted as healthy for a demon, that is.

“We’re not leaving here without her,” I said.

His glowing red eyes turned toward me.

“Y…you’d take her…from me? I will not lose her again.”

His hand raised up, radiating red and black energy.

A red fiery glow raged across the room, swallowing everything up as it passed. It didn’t burn, but for a moment I was blinded by the strange brightness.

When my vision returned, no longer was there a demon before us, nor Yamin. The room was completely empty.

The walls started to growl and grind.

CRASH!

The stained glass shattered and all the walls began closing in.

I started racing out of the room, but even out there the walls were closing in on all sides, circling inward like a mirror trick. A light at the end of the tunnel kept me going at full speed.

Just in time, I reached the end of the tunnel before getting crushed, but the light just gave way to a basement of stone slabs and chains connected to them, like this was some sort of dungeon prison.

“Uncle…” I reached up to grab his jacket, “I’m really really scared…”

I kept trying to grab him, but he wasn’t there.

Oh no, where’d he go? Where’d everyone go?! Why was I totally alone?!

I could see little things running around on the edge of my peripheral, darting in and out of the darkness in the corners of the dungeon room.

“Who’s there?!” I raised up my stardust spear, lighting up the corners. Whatever was in them, the spear’s light turned it to ash.

Even with the corners covered, I continued to hear pitter patter all around. The noise led me to an open door, allowing me to escape this dungeon prison room.

Then it was quiet again, and I wasn’t picking up on anything…

*Sploosh!*

What did I just step in? It was some sort of sludge! “Yuck!”

I skipped back to escape the sludgy mess.

Bile-like substances were dripping down from the ceiling. I didn’t want to look up, but curiosity was killer.

My spear slowly lit up inches of space above, revealing tiny sections at a time.

Black slime was webbed all over, pulsing red like blood vessels, identical to the things we’d seen before, but more concentrated.

Caught in its clutches were people. Tons of them were scattered across the ceiling like they were caught in a spider's web.

This stuff strung them up by various parts of their bodies, attaching itself to their skin and drawing out that red mana.

“Please turn out that light,” one person ordered in a calm voice as my spear shined over him. “I have to go to work tomorrow.”

“Oh, that is rather bright,” a woman added. “Dear, please turn that out, or my husband won’t get any sleep.”

“Kids these days.”

Why were they talking to me like this was a normal day? Couldn’t they tell they were caught in that horrible web?

Because I couldn’t deny the order, I moved the spear light away from them and shined it elsewhere.

Someone started coughing. I turned over to see him hung upside down and being especially tangled up.

“I was sleeping so well… Why’d you turn the lights on?”

The evil webbing was stuck to his face, keeping his eyes wide open. How could anyone sleep like that?

I slowly backed away, clenching the spear closer to me.

“I can’t sleep!” a stuck person next to him announced. “You little brat! Why’d you wake us up?! I was dreaming about this hot babe too…”

His screaming was freaking me out even more… I continued to back away, but where was the exit?

It seemed like the webs were moving around, because the room looked different each time I turned my head.

“Hey! Where do you think you're going?!” He shouted. “Aghh!”

“Hey, shut up!” A person on the ceiling shouted. “You’re keeping us all awake!”

“You shut up! Everything was great before that stupid kid showed up!”

They all started arguing, snowballing into much worse arguments full of cursing and anger. The original complaint had been lost in the fight.

I was bolting out of there as fast as I could. That place… It was scary.

I just kept running, but I couldn’t leave the room completely. My legs weren’t working right, as if I was being petrified from the waist down.

No matter how much I just kept going, I was dragging my feet along.

More of that black webbing appeared, covering up just about everything around me. It was so concentrated that no longer was there a hint of stone beyond where my spear light touched.

I curled around the glowing weapon… The only significant source of light left. The webs didn’t seem to want to reach for me so long as I kept this light close.

“Give up,” said a calm and deep voice.

“Turn out the light. Join us here.”

“It’s time to sleep.”

“No!” I screamed.

“Sleep. Sleep with us forever. Why not rest here? You’ll be safe from all your pain.”

“I’m not tired!” I shouted.

“But it’s been a long day. Come and lay your head down…”

The webs parted, revealing my bed from back home was before me. It looked so warm and inviting. My room was much safer than anywhere I’d been today.

“Your dreams can be reality. But you must sleep first.”

That voice… I knew who it was. It was most definitely the demon lord! I remembered it from the dream!

“I’ll never rest! Not now, not ever! Dreams suck!” I shouted. “I’m going to make reality worth living in so people have a reason to wake up in the morning!”

I may have been tired, my eyes had a hard time keeping open, but I fought. I denied this demon the chance to take me. Round two wasn’t going to be his to lose, it would be mine!

There were too many webs surrounding me. If I wanted to get out of here, I’d need to get rid of those first…

-Initiating Stardust Nova sequence-

…And what more surefire way existed then completely nuking them?

A blast from the Stardust Nova was going to be plenty of power to clear all this demonic crud away. Maybe it was overkill, and I had no idea what it would do to the people in the other room, but my systems didn’t have any problem lighting me up. So it was go time.

The sequence primed quickly. My body shot out rays of light, ready to burst with mighty solar energy. I was now as bright as a star.

“Let there be light!”

Waves of pure solar power burst through the dam of my synthetic flesh, rushing out of me as I let the massive explosion tear down the walls of this nightmare. Everything was obliterated. All that remained was a cold void of white, freeing me from their clutches.

But that void wasn’t some ethereal plane beyond my understanding, it was white because I was in the middle of a blizzard…