Interlude 5
The moon was virtually tucked away behind the dark blobs, so the fire streaking through the sky should’ve been a relieving sight, yet it had the opposite effect. It was a human being – or rather, once was a human being. From his appearance, mannerisms to emotions, there was nothing about him that was human. Had it not been for him roaring under his breath, “... Die...” there’d have been no telling he was a living organism.
Every inch he reduced between him and his final destination, a sense of release washed over him. Besides the times he was devouring flesh, seldom did he feel a sense of fulfilment. Hatred, blood, flesh, flesh on flesh mashing together, anger and the sensation of burning weren’t worthy of his time; not even the time he spent imprisoned was deemed worthy. The only things that could make him budge were things related to “God”.
Not long after he was born in an impoverished village by the border that virtually had no travelling merchants coming through, the individual who was held in the highest regard in the Western Regions visited the sandy village. Someone who had ascended the ranks of mankind couldn’t have human family and friends. Thus, no residents of the village lived to see another day after the day the prodigy was taken.
He possessed a rare fire attribute. Villages with nothing more than dirt and stones were the most likely places to give birth to such children, but this particular boy stood out even among prodigies; he had the capacity to learn Lawless Twelve Stances and the potential to reach the apex.
The pure-minded boy learnt of the massacre at a tender age, but he didn’t see an issue with it since he had done the same thing prior. To him, severing ties with the world of mankind was the duty of one apotheosising. Or rather, it was an act of severing himself from pollution and idiocy.
He was the representative of the god of punishment. Everyone was meant to bow to him, yet there was one person who had the audacity to walk up to his face. When they first met, the infant was still a clingy baby who couldn’t speak. However, he was ecstatic to see the child for the child’s existence proved the legend was true and that the prodigy truly existed. Who could leave God be when God had finally arrived?
The other states were against him taking the infant away by force. Hence, he and the other elders planned out a kidnapping, not that it was any more convoluted than how he was taken away at a young age – severing connections.
The elders were the only people he could count on, so it wasn’t up to him to disobey their will, except he was oblivious to the fact that he was a puppet on their strings. That being said, none of the elders had their guard up against him since he had long become one of them. The fact of the matter was that God was God; God was different to mankind. Nobody could’ve taken him away against his will even if he was only a three-year-old kid. Nobody.
He watched the child emerge from the inferno with so much joy that he shed tears. He believed that he created God. One time, they lost track of “God”, and he had become a demon feared across all seven states by the time they found him. The elders allowed “God” to rob the seven states as they believed he’d return to his rightful place at the end of the day. When Ximen Chuideng welcomed God into their ranks, he nearly killed himself because God said to him, “I remember you. You were the first one to set fire,” in an innocent tone.
He didn’t understand what was implied in the comment, but he recalled the scene of him using his fire ability to set alight the child’s small home in front of his zealots. He remembered the scene of people futilely trying to extinguish the fire and the child’s eyes interrogating the world. As a smile came to his lips, he stopped himself, reminding himself that it was necessary for God to be born, not something he wanted to do for his selfish ends. To his surprise, God pardoned him with a smile because God understood it was all for the sake of the cult.
In the following years, life was miserable as God turned his understanding of religion on its head. God exterminated the elders, orphans and even servants who sacrificed themselves, but God spared him. If punishment was the intent behind sparing him, then the punishment was resoundingly successful. He gradually didn’t know what to believe. He blindly followed all of God’s orders until God gave him a human arm and told him to eat it.
He never understood why God made life hard for him. He blindly believed there was a purpose to every action, except he was unable to comprehend them. Hence, he did as he was told again. After the first bite, terror flourished in his mind. The taste and texture were certainly a part of the reason, but the violation of the cult’s rules and the violation of the elders’ stipulations created a sense of thrill he had forgotten for a long time. From then on, eating raw human flesh became one of his hobbies.
Over time, he became weirder and weirder. Not only did people distance themselves from him, but they even began to ignore him, except he was oblivious to the fact. To the contrary, he felt he was getting better and better, believing what he worshipped was being restructured. Though it was twisted and ugly, it was his. He was ecstatic to see the distorted growth. It was all God’s gift. His faith in God knew no bounds. Eventually, he came to understand why he was chosen as a substitute.
When he went through his breakthrough, he saw the God-like golden glow. As God’s replacement, he swore to serve God until the end of his life, which was why he despised the human who defeated God. The only explanation he had for why God would serve a human being was that he had been fooled and was too kind. Why was God not Lord San Shen?!
Lord San Shen zealots were blinded by power and madness, perpetually accumulating essence and sin to create the demon.
When he sensed “that”, his spirits ascended past the clouds. “That” was God. God had finally woken up, flapped his fiery wings and brought the Western Region’s golden wind to the Central Plain.
Unless essence was constantly fed, the flame wings didn’t hold up long. After landing in a quiet spot, the best course of action was to recuperate, but he wasn’t willing to wait. Besides, there was no reason to be guilty about stealing blood and absorbing essence for a demon. He had been recovering, raising his level, reaching newfound heights and transforming his appearance into a more savage along the journey east.
The demon loved the taste of flesh, so he never thought it necessary to clean up himself. It didn’t matter what shape the flesh was presented to him. Due to his activities of mayhem on the journey, he was covered in a thick layer of black, putrid stuff. It was hard to tell what his bizarre “armour” was made from, but it’d grow thicker after each new location he visited. To be fair, he didn’t look freaky; he only started looking freakier and freakier as he engaged in more and more violent activities on the way over. Having flesh and blood smeared all over his body as he feasted on raw flesh was a paradise joyful enough to ease the aggression in his eyes – a fact that even he was unaware of.
When he landed in the realm of man, there were more buildings around than any city he’d been to in the Central Plain or Western Regions. The troops who chased after him were also incredibly swift. Nonetheless, he didn’t budge.
The demon sprouted flame wings from his back again, flapping them at a higher frequency than birds by far, thereby blowing over boulders and taking the troops’ balance from them. The flames made it clear what the stench on him the entire time was – human flesh remains. As for what the black stuff spread all over him was, that was self-explanatorily disgusting.
It wasn’t hard to imagine his excitement level considering he was only a few kilometres from “God”. He didn’t care about the humans who just approached him. Alas, his wings wouldn’t take form no matter how he tried. Somebody was using their power to impede him. Enraged, he dispersed a blast of flames, only to hear a voice in the night that was even freakier than a demon’s voice.
“Your... ugly wings look familiar.”
A gentleman who couldn’t use his legs showed up.
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