Reincarnated as the Final Villain's Vessel

Chapter 282: The Ichor of Darkness

On the fourth level of the Hanging Islands the battle between Auerlion and Solaria raged on, people were being eliminated every so often, the belts moving them to the fortress, where the medical staff and the shouts of the healers met them.

It wasn’t the only battle, across the islands there were small clashes here and there, groups against each other or against rampaging monsters, each of them fighting to rise under the spotlight.

So once again the fortress was in a state of chaos, of sorts, taking in dozens of injured students at once wasn’t easy, especially since some of them were already dying.

So, nobody noticed Caius was missing... how would they know so quickly, the healers hadn’t watched the fight, so they didn’t know who would come next... and there was no room for error, everything was calculated.

Every belt was programmed to send them here, straight into the depths of the fortress, not to mention the dozens of trusted supervisors across the Hanging Islands, standing close to every fight, ready to step in.

Everything was safe, planned and backed by the emperor himself, while his eldest son stood as its public face.

Even many Kings were present there, from across the four Empires.

What would dare disrupt them?

What could happen that would threaten an event of this size, guarded by the Kings who stand at the peak of humanity?

...

Dozens of kilometers from the Hanging Islands, the full moon lit up the beach, and in one part of the stretch of sand there was a faint distortion in the air, shaped like an invisible dome... barely visible to the naked eye, hiding everything happening inside it.

And inside it Caius was on his knees, his shoulders hanging and his body leaning forward, his limbs severed and scattered across the sand... sand that had been dyed a vivid red now.

Five black needles came out of the shadow and pinned his body, boring holes through his thighs, his shoulders and the middle of his chest, and coming out the other side.

Crimson lines ran along the smooth surface of the shadow needles, and his head had dropped, his expression barely visible behind his messy hair... only two lost eyes.

In front of him stood the stranger, his relaxed air gone, replaced by a raw tension that was almost tangible.

Behind him the older supervisor wasn’t any better, he’d taken several steps back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. "Finish it," he muttered, but it came out louder than he meant, his eyes never leaving the dagger his partner had just pulled out and held over the heart of the half-dead Caius.

It was short and curved, with a small handle and no guard, carved from a single piece of dark ivory, and its surface, which lacked the sharpness of a blade, was covered in unknown letters.

Letters from outside this world, each of them pulsing with an ominous, dark aura, so strong that the moonlight dimmed inside the barrier and the stars in the sky could no longer be seen.

Each of those ancient letters seemed written in darkness itself... just being this close to them with nothing in between sent fear into the souls of the two Transcendent men.

Because every stroke of them had been written in the ichor of the Dark God, granted by the Devourer itself.

It’s true the Dark God died centuries ago, but its blood still exists, flowing in its new bearers, its chosen descendants.

When the stranger set the ritual dagger over Caius’s heart, the armor tore easily, even though the ivory had no edge of any kind... because the armor simply bowed to it.

With a tense look, the stranger pressed the dagger into Caius’s pale flesh, and unlike what Caius had seen, it didn’t take even a moment for the dagger to pierce his heart.

At that moment the man pulled his hand away and backed off to the edge of the forest.

Pulses of dark aura surged out in every direction... the sand scattered and the waves pulled back, running against the current, fleeing this place.

The moon was blotted out completely, and with it every form of light.

The leaves withered and fell from the trees, while the trunks rotted and bent.

The invisible dome trembled under the weight of the ominous aura, just as the two men who’d caused this did.

As if each of them were alive on its own, the ancient letters crawled from the surface of the dagger onto Caius’s pale skin... spreading beneath his armor, drawing themselves across his neck and climbing to his face, circling his eyes, which had lost every glimmer of life, leaving nothing but a dark, bottomless abyss.

In a moment every inch of his skin held the blood of the Dark God, and the dagger in his heart melted and spread through his body, reshaping it into something else.

Something that shouldn’t exist by the laws of the universe... but those laws were broken long ago, and all that’s left of them are shadows.

...

In the distant past, when the Age of Chaos beat its first drums, the Dark God was born.

A title it gave itself, because the Dark God was no god... it was a mortal being with gray blood flowing through its weak veins... living among the plains and valleys and gazing up at the distant stars.

In those days it carried crops in its hands, and lowered its head whenever the Great Races descended to its lesser world... because the Ashen were nothing but slaves in their eyes, nameless things that didn’t even deserve to bear a name.

Why?

Because their souls were small, mortal and empty of potential... their bodies were better, but far from touching essence.

It was no surprise when the people of small villages suddenly vanished... their fate was clear to everyone, like their ancestors, they’d been taken as slaves to the higher stars.

At that time, the Pantheon had reached its peak, the wars that had left worlds barren had ended, and the universe had reached a stage they called peace.

But the Dark God didn’t know, because progress had barely reached its homeland, and even though it was better off than the people of the small villages... it still belonged to a lesser race, so it was only a matter of time and luck before it ended up a slave in another world.

But that fate never came to claim it.

At some point in its short life, the higher races stopped coming, only unclear whispers reached them...

That something had appeared out of nowhere, and that entire worlds had been wiped out by it.

But for it and the Ashen, it wasn’t a source of fear but of mercy.

Because as long as the unknown being existed somewhere in the universe, they didn’t have to say goodbye to their brothers and their children.

So, they knelt and prayed in its name day after day, hoping its existence would let their peace last, even at the cost of countless souls.

And one day, it heard their weak voices, and stepped onto the soil of their continent.

The small world groaned under its weight.

The world was vast, but the Ashen were small.

And now that the being they’d prayed to stood before them in all its glory, they were afraid.

All but one of them.

It was afraid, it wanted to run, death would have been more merciful than standing before the unknown... but it stepped forward.

It stepped forward and knelt, and asked for grace without shame... what did it have to lose?

That’s when the One from Beyond the End raised its hand over the kneeling Ashen, and a single drop of its blood fell between the open palms, cut and worn from work in the fields.

The great ichor seeped into the mortal’s veins and touched its soul.

And because it was one of the lesser Ashen, it couldn’t withstand it, so the ichor took on the color of its desire.

Dark.

Its gray blood turned to pure darkness, changing its body and rebuilding it anew, then writing potential into its small soul... a soul that would later expand to take in the darkness.

Under the eyes of the being later known as the Devourer, its first follower was born, the one who would carry the name of the Dark God ages after the Devourer was sealed... and then die.

All of this flashed in those eyes behind the colorless fog.

In that moment, even though the Ashen one had gained strength and potential, its brothers weren’t happy... they were afraid... because fear was the purest of feelings.

And because it had the right to, it made the decision on their behalf.

From under its feet torrents of darkness poured out, drawing veins across the small world and spreading a copy of the Devourer’s ichor.

The black blood changed an entire race.

The Ashen were gone.

And all of them became the Children of the Dark.