Chapter 2 The Blackgoat Prince is HUNGRY! Time for a Meal! Part 2

“I-I don’t want to leave the carriage,” Akane said gripping the uncle’s hand tight enough to restrict his flow of blood.

“I… I know. But… if we don’t leave… there will be trouble. The prie--”

“Hmmmm? What’s this? New sweets. New treats. New dearies? New disciples?” A voice so over-ripe it stood on the threshold of rotten twittered out over the den of terror.

Just the sound of it was enough to force Akane to shudder in revulsion. It sounded like a Doberman trying to sound like a chihuahua.

“W-who’r you?” Spat one of the braver pioneers who had ventured deeper into the prison.

“Hmm? My my, what a confident fellow.” That freakish voice said chasing its words with a giggle that was more guttural than girlish. “I would make you my boy toy for the night, but little birds have been singing sweet nothings in my ears all day about something even tastier in that caaabiiin.

“But, how rude of me! I didn’t answer your question did I, brave boy? I am Bishop Berthane and these sweet little toys are my cute assistants. I am your guide to Lord [Punishment]’s delicious little palace of pleasure.”

“A bishop?” Akane’s friend said. “Impossible! At most we should have been greeted by a deacon! Though even a deacon would be surprising! Acolytes usually handle these types of things.”

“Ah! Oh, adorable brave boy!” the bishop said. His tone was so trill, there was not a prisoner in range of his voice that didn’t flinch; his words sounded all the more bloodcurdling when combined with his tone. “Your courage is laudable, but I cannot allow my new sweets to be soooo rude.”

The air got cold as his voice changed. The dainty tone of his voice faded as something deep, dark and cruel thundered his titter into a fiendish growl. “I’m afraid punishment is in order.”

CLANG! “GAAAHH!”

“Eek!” Akane paled as they stole a glimpse beyond the carriage door. What waited for them was frightening enough to make them seek shelter back into the shadows of the carriage.

It was not the explosion of red and oozing slimy matter that slithered and dripped down the walls like slugs, the leftovers of the poor mouthy prisoner, that scared them. Though that churned the stomachs of all who saw to the point their stomachs threatened to rebel. Nor was it the men and women who crawled around on all fours, collared and chained like dogs, naked save for strips of scanty leather that hid only their most indecent parts. Though the expressions of ecstatic agony on plastered on their faces did manage to rattle the nerves.

It was the towering man who was three hulking meters, whose porcine body swelled in great protuberances. They bulged in jiggling masses that overflowed everywhere not constrained by the tight leather straps that crossed his body.

A hood hid most of his face away. Which was a great mercy, for what it failed to conceal was a swarthy chin and mouth. His jowls sagged and shook like they were filled with gelatin instead of fat.

Lord [Punishment] must have been a god well endowed in the area of miracles. That is the only explanation for how the Bishop squeezed himself into those leather pants; even that blessing was not enough to prevent the several seams from bursting, allowing veiny pink flesh to flow out through the gaps. On earth, a planet Akane was surprised to learn was favored with a certain modicum of reason, this would have been the limit to a single person's outrageousness. But they were on Alothas and reason was something the creators of this world added as an afterthought.

Draped over his fleshy body like scarves, jingling away with every jiggle and bounce, were tools with wicked spikes, twisted points, and barbed hooks that were so savage they appeared to be living things that existed only for gouging flesh.

“O dear…” the bishop brought a sausage sized finger up to pursed lips. “He died. I guess I played a little too roughly again. Oh my sweet Lord [Punishment] it is so hard to keep new toys from breaking… Bishop Birthane is sad.”

The massive heretic's fork he jangled on impact with his shoulders and the blood, bone, and tissue that rained down on him from its iron rim and teeth went ignored as it splattered on the ground around his gargantuan boots.

Cold sweat pooled into shallow lakes where the prisoners who had lost their strength to stand grasped the ground with desperate hands. Each of their faces was drained of blood and was as colorless as corpses; the only signs of life were the sweat running freely down their faces and the trembling that stole mastery of their bodies in the face of this newest terror.

“Alas, there is no reason to be so excited, my sweets.” the Bishop said, as he dropped his heretic’s fork to the ground dragging it behind him creating an orchestra of screaming metal protest. “For I have not come to play with all of you. Only one of you gets the great honor of Bishop Birthane’s company.”

Akane gripped the shoulder of the kind uncle as the carriage rocked to one side after the Bishop placed a massive hand on its top keeling it to the side with the pressure behind the great weight.

“Little birds have flown ahead courtesy of our dear brothers and sisters of [Love].” the Bishop said as a corner of his enormous head shadowed the front of the carriage almost completely blocking the exit. “They have informed me there is an, ah, especially delicious treat deserving a particular bit of, ah… personal attention.”

Akane’s chest locked up as the bishop’s great eye rolled around raking the insides of the carriage and those who remained. It only halted when it finally rested upon her.

“!...and what a sweet treat she is.” the bishop purred like an obese cat being presented with a saucer of warm milk. He took his time appraising her from top to bottom. “Come here, my darling, I know we are going to be the best of friends.”

Akane found that she could no longer breathe. Her lungs simply refused to move. The warmth was robbed from her fingertips. Numbness spread from them to her arms, to the rest of her body, crippling her with a ruthless cold.

As the bishop gripped her chain and tugged with deceptive gentleness, Akane stumbled forward on lifeless legs. To the kind uncle’s credit he only hesitated once before getting to his feet and following behind.

Each step she took, the music in the carriage grew louder. Akane had come to think of it as the soundtrack to her execution.

“To think suck wickedness could be found in the heart of something so lovely.” Bishop Birthane said as he ran his tongue over swarthy lips. “But you must be steadfast, my dear. It will be my great pleasure to purge such wickedness from your soul.”

“Most Reverand, Bishop Birthane…” The older man said, forcing saliva down his throat to moisten the area fear had left arid. “I-I beg you for mercy on this… this lass’s behalf. She meant no harm. She was just… she was unaware of how to honor your fellow priests.”

The Bishop cocked his head to the side as he half-turned to face the old man. His eyes lit with a cruel, cold light, before morphing without warning into a mask of benevolent piety. “Ah! It is good for you to plead for mercy for this poor sinful lass. After all, Lord [Punishment] is the very embodiment of magnanimity…"

He looked up with eyes of adoration towards one of the statues that loomed over the prison. Akane felt some warmth return into her limbs, and hope into her heart as she looked upon Birthane’s face.

“But… NO!”

Before she could even react, Akane found herself drenched beneath a downpour of crimson.

“Ah! Ah!” was all Akane could manage to force out.

She turned a trembling head towards where her only friend had been standing a moment before. There was only a puddle there now. A puddle, bits of flesh, and chunks of bone that was spread everywhere. It was like the kind uncle had exploded from the inside.

“Before this poor sweet thing gets divine absolution, she must receive the Lord’s love.” the Bishop said lifting his torture device back onto his shoulder.

He licked a bit of the blood that coated his face with his bulbous tongue. “She must receive the Lord’s love. She must suffer… She must face penitence… And then when she has found pleasure… Then she may be free of her chains of sin! After all…”

He raised his hands in rapture as the speakers around him blared, “...Penitence is Pleasure.”

A bit of drool leaked out of the corner of his mouth as his eyes rolled back into his head in evident ecstasy. It took him a moment to come down from the high of his words. “Ah! Poor soul. He died. Tch. Tch. Tch. I got too enthusiastic in my holy fervor. Alas, I will be more… gentle with this one.”

He licked his lips. “Hold her!”

His Acolytes leapt forward as loyal as dogs, throwing her to the ground and pinning her there for their master.

“I think…” the Bishop said, running a tongue over his lips again as he stalked forward. He placed a meaty hand on the tops of each of her knees and slowly forced them apart. “We shall begin with a bit of both in your case.”

“P-please,” Akane whispered as she fought to keep her knees together.

“Don't worry my dear.” The Bishop said his heavy-lidded eyes overflowing with lust and greed. “This kind of torment transforms into bliss after a mere moment of pain.”

Akane’s heart was in her throat, and tears soaked her face as the speakers around her blared Lord [Punishment]’s mantra. She looked away from the Bishop’s cruel expression only to face the ruins of her friend’s remains. Bile threatened her stomach at the sight.

“There is Pleasure in P-P-P-Pain.”

“Eh? What is this?” Bishop Birthane said his voice coarse and thick with interrupted anticipation. His eyes narrowed towards the speakers on the walls as he growled. It sounded as though the mad Dj that had highjacked the carriage radio, had infected the speakers inside the jail as well.

“M-most Reverend…” One of his acolytes moaned his words coated with enough oil to mark him as a sycophant. “There is interference with the radio.”

“Impossible.” the Bishop snarled spittle spraying everywhere as his jowls quivered in rage. “The magic signal is powered by Lord [Punishment] himself, no one here could possibly interfere.”

SCREEEEEE!!! PANG!! THUD!

Metal screamed as it was torn, creating a sound so wretched that even the bishop was forced to cover his ears.

SCREEEEEE!!! PANG!! THUD!

The hair raising sound repeated itself three more times before silence left the air vacant save for the skipping speakers... and the overflowing ominous aura spilling forth from the inside of the carriage.

Then, the silence was broken again.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Clip.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Clop.

The sound of cloven hooves and the tips of claws. The sound of something inhuman coming.

“Grrr-Neh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-rrrrr.”

Terror. It was difficult to describe the sound echoing on the inside of the carriage. But it was simple enough to describe the emotion it evoked. Terror. Terror of the unknown, of the unnatural; the terror of dark things and dark places, and the nightmares inspired from such things.

But if Akane was forced to describe the sound coming out of the carriage, she would say it sounded like the footsteps and voice of a wolf performing a dubious masquerade as a goat.

Trembling beneath the weight of the Bishop’s meaty paws, Akane tilted her head back until she could look into the dark recesses of the carriage she left behind.

The prisoners who had sought the familiar safety of the carriage, now fled it. They were shoving and stumbling over each other in their mad desperation to be free of whatever terrible thing their wild eyes sought out behind them. Whatever pursued them was terrible enough to overawe their fear of the Bishop.

Whatever nightmare seized their hearts coiled around Akane’s as well after the darkness of the carriage was lit by a pair of glowing eyes. Eyes that were similar only in the foreboding they emanated.

One corrupt, red, and slit sideways like a goat. The other as brilliant and silver as a burnished shield.

“Grr-Neh-eh-eh-eh-eha-ha-ah-KUHAHAHAHAHA!” The bizarre goat/wolf, bleat/howl morphed into a burst of wild demented laughter, that froze everyone that heard it like they had been turned to stone.

There was something awful crawling its way towards the outside of the carriage, and as it approached, the speakers outside stopped skipping. Instead, blasting the terrifying music they had left behind in the carriage.

Akane swallowed on a dry throat. It, whatever it was, was almost out. A few more steps and whatever monster lurked inside would be free.

Just as it looked like the unnatural darkness that acted as a curtain hiding the monster, was set to lift, snapping sounds that were like a chorus of breaking bones filled the air. The eyes shuddered in the darkness like whatever they belonged to had been seized by convulsions.

“KUHAHAHAHAHAHA!” the monster laughed as it shook.

Then, the clip-clop, ticking sound of those claws and hooves transformed into the familiar thud of bare feet striking wood. The eyes which had been close to the floor of the cabin rose up to that of an adolescent boy or a short woman.

With the slow grace of a stalking spider thin black fingers, tipped with sharp thick nails it would be irresponsible to call anything but claws, wrapped around the borders of the carriage.

“I smell [Punishment]...” cooed a faux gentle Alto voice that made Akane shiver like it carried with it a winter breeze. “Is that you boy…?”

Chastening’s dim light illuminated skin that was darker than ebony, darker than pitch, so deep that it made the night sky seem shallow. It was skin Akane had seen before, though the last time his hands and feet had been nailed to the back walls of the carriage. His eyes were narrowed almost tight enough to be no more than slits as he scanned the silent faces that watched him; somehow they had healed, the sclera on his right eye was a little red, though not as much as that goat slitted pupil. And the sclera on his left was dark enough grey that it bordered on black around that pupil-less silver iris. But outside of the bit of red corrupting the sclera of his right eye, there were no signs of the screws that pierced them before.

The wild grin split his face in a manner that seemed more natural to a hound than a person, indeed it almost seemed as though his cheeks were being torn almost far enough to reach his ears. If that smile was too long to be anything other than alien, the teeth they left exposed were too bizarre to line the mouth of anything but a monster. They were like a komodo dragon’s serrated chompers, far more suited to pulling apart meat than chewing.

“...eh?” the boy said his lips slowly turning downward until his canine grin shifted into a disgusted sneer ridden grimace. “Yo! I smell that bastard’s shitty ‘Holy’ power everywhere, y’know? But I don’t see ‘m. Yo! [Punishment], I came all this way ta see ya an’ ya ain’t even gonna show?”

One of his shoulders slumped and he ran a finger through the immaculate crimson dreads that ran only over the center of his head cascading down behind his neck until they reached his waist like a raging waterfall of blood.

“And I’m starving too.” the boy seemed to have been drawn into a tangent of complaints as he gripped his slender stomach, scratching at the corded muscles on his wiry body that looked tight as braided steel. “Tch! I wanna go back to Apocolypze, yo… Why did I even bother coming back up here, y’know?”

He seemed to have worked himself into a great depression as he hung his head sending his dread flowing before his face like a beaded curtain; he was mumbling towards the end, his words no doubt for his ears alone and they would have been had his entrance not been so ludicrous it both silenced and enraptured everyone in the vicinity.”

FLASH! Everyone who had been entranced by the boy’s debut tried to jump out of their skin all at once as lightning seemed to erupt from his left eye seering away the shadows around him.

“Tch!” the boy’s lips curled in disgust as he clutched at it and growled his voice heavy with menace to… someone? “I kno’, y’know? We came up here ta kill that shitty bastard [Punishment]. I ain’t forgotten, yo. So chill, y’know? Gotta find that piece of shit first. Gonna be hard since this whole damn place reeks of ‘im.”

It seemed the insults to their master was enough to wake the Bishop and his acolytes out of their stupor.

“Who is this fool who dares speak such blasphemy?!” The massive man sputtered too stunned to even lift his hands off of Akane’s knees.

“It’s the Du-sith, most reverend! The sorcerer.” one of the Acolytes said from where he still held down Akane’s arm. “The one they caught in Lord [Justice]’s city after he went on a rampage.”

“Don’t be daft, moron.” a female acolyte said, managing to hiss out a lisp somehow around the horse bit in her mouth. “The Du-sith was supposed to be bolted hands and feet to the back of the carriage, and I heard Lord [Justice]’s Holy Knights weren’t none to gentle wit ‘em neither, carved off his pointy ears, burst his eyes wit screws an everything! But look at ‘im! Ain’t nary a blemish on ‘is pretty face. Must a been another Du-sith they caught those bastards forgot to tel us ‘bout.”

“Don’t be so sure. His prettiness is nothing more than deception.” the frown on the Bishop’s face made him look even more swarthy. “He is a sorcerer, remember. Who knows what abominable spells he’s learned. Du-sith, those damnable black elves such as he and all of the denizens that lurk in the great labyrinth beneath the surface, have access to magics those of us that dwell in the sun only have nightmares about.”

“Du-sith?” the boy said toying with the great hoop earring that hung off of clearly uncarved ears so long they fell just short of reaching his shoulders. “Ah… right. I forgot about those guys, y’kno? Yo, it's been so long since I’ve been up to the surface th… What the hell are you shitty bastards doing?”

His voice was cold enough to make even the Bishop and his cronies shiver as his eyes roamed over their halted assault, seeming to notice them for the first time. It was as though they had been bombarded with a winter storm instead of words.

The acolyte had been truthful when she had called him pretty. In fact, it was safe to say her assessment was understated. Black elves, like all elves, for the most part, were known to be nefarious if beautiful. This young man’s features, however, were fine enough that he would no doubt be confused with a beautiful girl….

On an occasion where he was wearing any clothes.

A snake is swinging! Swinging! Akane squealed internally, wrenching her eyes shut.

Unconcerned enough with his nudity one could question if he even noticed it at all, the boy leaped from the carriage landing as graceful as a dancer on the tips of his toes and making as much noise as his shadow as he straightened.

Akane peeked at him with one eye. She was captivated by the silver eye that was pulsating in fast aggressive bursts as he moved towards them. What had happened to those vicious wounds that had carved a nauseating tapestry across his skin? Nothing but smooth black skin remained. It was only marred by the word BLASPHEMY, which remained a white scar that stood out like neon against the midnight skin across his collarbone.

“What is it to you, dear black elf?” Birthane spat back, finally releasing Akane’s knees as he stood. He hefted his favorite torcherer’s device over his shoulder with a menacing clang. “I was just about to show our little flower here a bit of pleasure before the pain begins. Jealous? Worry not.”

His eyes narrowed in wicked delight. “The good Bishop has plenty of love to go around.”

The Du-sith’s grin was not beaten by the bishop’s in cruelty. He pulled the fat screw that had sealed him to the carriage without a hint of flinching, maintaining his smile all the while. The moment metal fragment was plucked from his hand in a splash of blood; the wound began to shrivel quick enough for Akane to catch the healing with her eyes.

By the time the screw clattered on the ground the hole in the boy’s fist had left only memories behind. There was so little evidence of it ever being, even those memories could be called into question.

The Du-sith’s eyes were filled with sparkles, moisture filled them to the point of threatening to overflow. He was the very image of someone so overcome with joy they could be overwhelmed by it at any moment.

With eyes that faced heavens hidden away by [Punishment]’s temple, drowning in a fervor that was vast enough to put the Bishop’s reverence to shame, the Du-sith stretched out his arms like he was trying to embrace the ceiling.

“Oh, Mama,” he said his voice quivering with boundless affection. “How great… er(his silver eye gave off a particularly severe flash) yeah. Yeah. That’s a good word… acumen. Right at the, uh, height of my(another flash) deprivation--yeah! That’s great--you have guided me to a meal, y’kno? A meal of such…”

He lowered his eyes back towards the bishop running his wrist across his lips to wipe it free of spit. He growled in a ravenous tone after another brilliant silver eye flash, “Corpulence.”

As he flicked the moisture on his forearm away with a flourish of his wrist, the air screamed, torn asunder by wild streaks of black lightning that lapped up and down the Du-sith’s bare flesh. Every place the black energy touched, his body was cloaked in dark clothing. In an instant he stood attired in a flowing black hoodie that swept below his knees, and shorts that were bound to his calves by bandages fed into unlaced black boots.

“S-sinner!” the Bishop said, studdering his words as he retreated back a step. “Law-breaker! Heathen!”

“Law-breaker?” the Du-sith tilted his head with his arms crossed as though deep in thought. “I suppose I am at that, y’kno? That is my "punishment", though my only crime was being weak. But I ain’t here ta break laws today, ya shitty Bishop. I came to cleave the crooks, Kuhahahaha! Bastards like your shitty master, y’kno? He’s like the biggest shitty lawbreaking traitor there is(save for those other bastards anyway).”

“Enough lies!” the bishop said, strength and conviction returning as the insults to his master mounted. “I shall pass judgment on you here for your Blasphemy as a Bishop of Divine [Punishment]!”

“Ya know I planned on rushing off to kill that shitty bastard the moment I got here,” the Du-sith said watching the bulky bishop approach with as much trepidation as he might have for a menacing slug. “But I’m reeeally glad I came through here first, yo.”

His eyes touched upon the spot where Akane still lay confined by the acolytes. The silver in his eye blazed with a ferocious light that washed everyone around with searing waves of loathing.

When his gaze returned to the bishop, both the cold anger in his eyes and the brilliant silver light had vanished, replaced by something even more malicious.

It was strange, that eyes that seemed to glow on their own could hold such darkness within them. Odder still how eyes that brimmed with such ecstasy, they began to roll back in anticipation of levels bordering the orgasmic, could be filled with such terrible intent that the vilest heart would be crippled with terror at a glance. These were the idiosyncratic eyes that pierced Bishop Birthane as though he was just a mouse daring to bare its teeth at a cobra.

"Unfortunately, shitty rapists, you're the type of crooks I hate the most, y'kno?" He ran his tongue over those wicked flesh-tearing teeth. His cheeks split into a canine smile that threatened to reach his ears. "Well, unlucky for you bastards anyway. Kuhahaha! Cuz I'm starving! So thanks for the meal!"

"Lord [Punishment] give me strength to smite this abomination!" The bishop screamed his great body lumbering into a run as he raised his weapon above his head. The muscles beneath his rolling fat bulged and a faint glow formed a nimbus around him as he gathered energy to crush the enemy of his lord.

"[Holy Smi--"

"[Sinister Symphony]"

A thunderous bass ripped through the air, obliterating the bishop's momentum. The drumline assaulted his heart, as the violin cords sliced through the air sawing away his spirit. The assault was almost terrible enough to drive him to his knees. It was only the divine aura of his Lord that kept his feet beneath him.

“W-what is this onerous melody?” Birthane said, clutching his head in a vain attempt to squeeze the sound from his ears.

Feeling flooded back into Akane’s wrist; invisible needles danced across her skin without warning as pressure binding her arm to the ground was released.

It seemed the acolyte arresting her had decided to clutch his ears instead to limited effect. His mouth was foaming like a dog gone rabid, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he battled for consciousness. Somehow he managed to sputter words out through the froth.

“Th-this beat is savage!” It was all he managed to gasp before collapsing to the ground. His eyes were open, but there was nothing visible in them save the whites, as the savage sound beat him to unconsciousness.

“I will not be overcome by your wretched magics, Blasphemer.” The Bishop used his heretic’s fork as a staff and heaved his great mass back to his feet. Defiance lit his eyes, though his face sagged from the weight of the music’s assault.

Birthane’s hands trembled until he plunged his flabby fingers beneath one of his leather chokers; his fist raised high in triumph clutching a silver thorny rose in its meaty mass, the holy symbol of [Punishment].

“Acolytes of Lord [Punishment]!” Birthane said, his great lungs powering his roar to break through the brutal pulse of the Du-sith’s [Sinister Symphony]. A Golden Glow surrounded his fist as he held it above his head, and warmth began to return to the limbs of [Punishment]’s faithful. “Our Lord is our strength. Though we are weak our Lord is strong! This evil must be halted here. For the sake of our faith… no, the sake of our world get to your feet, brothers, and sisters! Stand with me and erase this evil from the Alothas!”

With [Punishment]’s warmth embracing them, the acolytes screamed out their defiance. They swept to their feet, swarming towards the Du-sith in a scantily leather-clad wave.

Bishop Birthane had never felt his god’s power raging through him with such strength. Nothing could stand before him at this moment. He was as mighty as a hero, no. He was like his Lord’s avatar. His heretic’s lure shone with the brilliance of the sun, radiating his Lord’s power with an intense heat that would blister the skin of the unbeliever before it even touched the skin.

With this power he would crush this heretic. Birthane’s eyes lit with serenity as he looked upon the lost soul, straining his muscles until they threatened to burst with the power of his swing. Wretched as the black elves were, he knew after this divine punishment at least this child would, at last, find peace.

The air howled as the heretic's lure ripped through it, ending its decent with the thud of meat on metal.

“Kuhahaha!” the Du-sith laughed as the torturing device struck his neck and shattered with an inhuman death scream; its light extinguishing as the remaining raindrop sized fragments pitter-pattered upon the ground.

“Such valiant words, y’kno?” he said, his head tilted and eyes and tone alight with mockery. “Yo, like here’s a villain spittin’ out the mantra of a hero.”

His grin widened and his eyes glowed while his voice grew husky in sardonic amusement. “How conceited, yo!”

Every bit of blubber exposed on the Bishop’s flesh was leached of color as he stared at the ruins of his treasured toy. “I-impossible. This cannot be! No mere Du-sith sorcerer could have such strength!”

“You are strong, you know?” the boy said. He grinned as his hands slid into his pockets; it widened when he stepped forward and the Bishop stumbled backward twisting and floundering as he fought to stay on his feet while trying to put as much distance between himself and the black elf as he could. “I didn’t think there were humans that could remain standing after experiencing my [Sinister Symphony] skill.”

“[Punishment] usually surrounds himself with trashes that are like a mirror to his own shitty soul. Congratulations! I have acknowledged your skills!” The Du-sith lifted one stiff leg up before him and he gave the Bishop a playful bow; Birthane’s great bottom slammed to the ground with a thunderous crash as he caught the sight of the boy’s cruel eyes which were at odds with his words. “Since you are strong you can help me test out some of my skills, right? You’re special, y’kno? Kuhahahahaha!”

“D-DEMON!!” The Bishop said, his shrill scream echoing throughout the prison as he scrambled on his hands and knees using mad violence to bash his way through his subordinates in his desperation to escape.

“Correct!” the boy said, his voice thick with perverted joy. His chest expanded as he drew in a deep breath and the color leached out of the surrounding area like he was sucking its essence out from the air. “Special skill [Sanguinary Intent]”

For everyone unfortunate enough to be in sight the world seemed to blur; color evaporated into nothingness, and images of dark terrible deaths devoured every thought in every head until only they remained. The rabid skill was indiscriminate, the acolytes, the bishop, and even the prisoners were at its mercy, and of mercy [Sanguinary Intent] was resolute in its ignorance.

Only Akane was unaffected, though she was not spared cold sweat leaking down her skin as she watched everyone around her thrash, vomit, and lose control of their bladders all over the prison’s floor.

“Y-you…” Birthane said barely able to do more than force air down through his throat. “Just what the hell are you?”

“...eh?!” the boy said curling his lip and raising an annoyed brow. “You got it right before, y’kno? Though I guess I do look like a black elf if I keep suppressing my powers. Hmm… I suppose thirty percent will do. That shitty bastard probably won’t notice if I only use that much, right yo?”

He tilted his head as though he were waiting for an answer.

The bishop was sweating even more than Akane. “I-I do not know…”

“Are you an idiot?” the boy said, his face sneering so deeply it twisted enough to almost lose its beauty. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

His silver eye burst into a brilliant flash. “Right? Right? That should be good enough for now. You say some good things sometimes, y’kno?”

The boy shook his head as though coming to a decision. “Might as well, y’kno. At this point it can’t hurt.”

Then he clenched his fists let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a bleat before black lightning rained down upon him until the dark light seared him away.

When the blinding darkness faded the creature that remained couldn’t be but a demon. Hand length horns that curved out and upward crowned the demon, sprouting on each end of his forehead; a whipcord sized tail slithered back and forth through the air like a serpent. It ended at a triangle-shaped head that wove back and forth like a dancing cobra, its edges gleaming with the wicked sharpness of a blade.

“A-a beast of Apocalypze!” Birthane said, tears flowing freely down his face as despair ate away any vestiges of hope. “M-mercy?”

“How many of the weaklings that begged ya for that did ya spare, yo?” the demon said, cackling. His beautiful Alto voice had become corrupted, and broken, morphing into something shattered, strange and demonic. “Besides I am starving! Time to carve up my feast!”

“Crook cleaver! Lawbreakers bane, come [Broken Law]”

The demon flexed his clawed hands in the air as though he was grasping for something invisible. Crackling energy began to lick at his fingers, all at once seeming fiery, electric and corrupt; it was insubstantial at first, before with a BANG of power it solidified in his hand becoming the handle of a razor blade-shaped sword. The monstrous blade was as large and long as the demon boy that wielded it.

The sword was crossguardless and its blade was black as its wielder, though its edge glowed red like his hair. It radiated an evil aura that polluted the air. It made the already corrupted atmosphere of the prison even more putrid. Those that managed to keep their consciousness in spite of all the demon’s pressure began to find it hard to breathe.

“Shitty Bishop of the shitty bastard [Punishment], you have broken the Law [Thou Shall Not Violate the Unwilling].” The demon’s conviction rang with absolute finality as he passed judgment. “Be cut.”

Birthane opened his mouth to protest, but with a bored expression the demon was already placing the massive sword behind his back where it hung as though bound by an invisible sheath.

“A-a...eh?” Birthane, the disgraced priest tried to speak but could only manage a croak. His mouth began bubbling as blood welled within it, and red lines formed atop of his skin before his flabby flesh slid into pieces along with all of his cowering acolytes.

Akane watched the demon’s back as he bathed in the blood of his enemies. He stared in silence as a red pool formed around his boots, and though he made her heart quiver in terror, she couldn’t help but think the demon sad.

She trembled as she walked to his side, closing her eyes and ignoring her imagination. It was difficult. As she got closer warm liquid soaked her legs all the way to the ankles. It was a struggle to hold her composure but she bit her lip and pushed on until she felt that mass of swirling cruel energy that bombarded her with so many emotions she got nauseous just trying to separate them.

Anger, hatred, grief, and terror flowed together in a vortex, but there was also ecstacy, passion, and the burning curiosity of a child. Cautiously she cracked open her eyes to glimpse at this strange… quite mad soul. What she saw there made her freeze.

There was no remorse in the demon’s eyes as he stared at the mass of meat he created. The only thing blazing behind those strangely colored eyes was a raging inferno of hunger. With drool oozing from the corner of his mouth, and his stomach growling like a beast was trapped inside.

“FINALLY!” the demon roared. “For the first time on the surface I get to have a decent meal!”

Akane wanted to… she desperately wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. So she ending up witnessing something that would haunt her dreams for many days to come. The only thing she could do was fight desperately to keep from vomiting.

It was a battle she was destined to lose.