With death upon his forehead, Neb was marked.
"He shall not live past tomorrow," Rosacer promised himself.
The bidding continued. It took a while to end, no matter what, no one was willing to give up. Moments passed, and eventually a bidder won the item. The announcer spoke his parting words, "Thank you for joining us."
Soon after, everyone stood up. Some were disappointed, others discussed the item's properties. The unsymmetrical-eyed man had already left the premises as soon as the bidding ended.
Rosacer brought out his Gewehr and quickly lodged it inside his arm, hiding it within his own flesh.
"I have to be quick."
Rosacer had no plan. He was simply going to shoot Neb point-blank, burn him on the spot, run, then change his attire and appearance and leave. The anger built inside him demanded nothing less. Even if he failed, he did not care. With Ananta and his immortal soul, he could always return. Still, it was better to hide his immortality for now.
The crowd moved closer and closer. Rosacer's hand tightened, his palm slowly opening as the barrel of the gun emerged.
At the exit gate stood a man with a pale, wraith-like appearance, checking each person. His gaze was piercing, searching for any disturbance. Eventually his eyes landed on Rosacer, but he failed to recognize his new appearance. Even after noticing Rosacer's unusual movements, his gaze soon shifted to others in the crowd.
Then, as Rosacer stood beside Neb, he raised the barrel to Neb's head and fired.
A blinding flash erupted. Pale yellow flames engulfed the man before him.
Without waiting a second, Rosacer bolted. His old man disguise ran like an athlete. He crossed buildings and broken streets until he reached the other side of the slums, where people were far more mutated. He transformed himself into one of them, copying their deformities.
His body swelled with grotesque mutations. His clothes tore apart completely. He ripped clothes from others, wore them, and merged into the crowd.
Back at the warehouse, the Men in Black were already on the hunt. Before them lay the charred body of one of their own.
A man with a broad beard and a tall hat marked with a cross shouted, "Search the whole city. Find that bastard."
The others bowed and answered in unison, "Yes, Master Maysee."
They rushed out immediately.
A man conjured purple flames and stepped through them, arriving at the slums.
"I know you are here, Rosacer."
"Come out now, or I will kill everyone here," Josan said. His voice was calm and steady as his eyes scanned the mutated humans. Some could no longer even be called human, their bodies completely overhauled by mutation.
Silence followed. No movement.
Josan exhaled in frustration, then flicked his wrist.
The entire slum ignited.
Purple flames roared through the area. Agonized screams filled the air as the inferno swallowed everything. The fire burned for hours before Josan finally extinguished it and left.
In the ruins, on the lower floor, a charred corpse slowly crumbled. Suddenly, flowers sprouted from it.
Moments later, Rosacer stood again.
"Looks like hiding is impossible from him. But how did he know I came here. A monster indeed."
"System, tell me more about the flames Josan used."
A blue window appeared.
[The flames born from the power of Ananta burn indefinitely until the very existence of the target is erased from reality. A power that rivals even the gods.]
"How did that monster acquire such an ability?"
"Damn it," he muttered, a snarl twisting his features.
"He will have to wait. One at a time." He said to himself.
With Neb already dead, he felt a small piece of his revenge fulfilled. A faint smile curved his lips as he left the slums.
Back in the warehouse, purple flames appeared from thin air. A hand emerged, followed by a body.
"Josan," Michael called.
"It was Rosacer. He is dead now," Josan replied, his gaze distant.
"Corrupted by the Dark Messiah?" Michael asked, stroking his long beard.
"Maybe. But he still survived. He may have powers similar to mine. He just does not know how to use them yet. If he had used Ananta, I would not have found him so easily. What a shame," Josan said.
His mind elsewhere.
With a flick of his wrist, he vanished leaving Michael hanging.
Inside the slums, Rosacer kept moving. The purple flames had done more than burn the residents to death.
Something else lingered.
Something strange and unusual.
An intuition screamed inside Rosacer.
Before him lay the aftermath. The purple flames had devoured entire streets, yet the ruins still whispered something.
He heard a calling voice, inviting him.
"What's happening? Is he back?" he muttered.
He stopped for a while. His mind felt as if it were splitting, yet there was no pain. It was as if the process was completely natural.
He looked at the remaining pyres of scorched bodies and buildings. Smoke clung like a funeral veil, and the stench of burned flesh mixed with rotting stone.
He walked again and forced himself not to stop.
He moved through the remains in silence.
His disguise had faded. His body returned to its true form.
He conjured the mask and the Dark Messiah statue, shaping them into a coat around his body once more.
He needed a place the Men in Black would never search.
That was when he noticed the ground.
Among the rubble of collapsed houses lay a space without any burn marks, yet the air above it seemed to fade and distort.
He quickly knelt before it.
His fingers brushed over the carvings.
"Warm…"
He felt something move beneath it.
He pressed his palm against the slab and poured a thin thread of blight flames into it.
With that, he exhausted his daily usage of blight.
Even after defeating the three-headed canine, he had not leveled up. Therefore, he still had only a limited number of chances to use blight burn.
The stone trembled, then sank inward with a deep, hollow groan. Dust rose as a stairway revealed itself, spiraling down into darkness.
A gothic underground chamber waited below.
"Ominous."
He waited for a second, contemplating whether this was a good move or not. But he needed a place to hide. The purple flames were already doing something inside his body, and he needed somewhere safe to examine it properly, without alerting the Men in Black.
With grim resolve, he descended.
The air grew heavy with every step.
The walls were carved from black stone, lined with statues of hooded figures whose faces had been deliberately erased. Chains hung from the ceiling, rusted but unbroken.
They were similar to the sculptures of the Weeping Court.
At the bottom, the stairway opened into a vast hall.
Torches ignited on their own as he entered, bathing the chamber in crimson light. At the center stood a circular altar made of bone and obsidian. Around it, runes glowed faintly, pulsing like a slow heartbeat.
"A ritual," he said, his voice echoing.
He felt it immediately.
Something was off. The sensation was similar to what he had felt in the Weeping Court.
There was one thing that had bothered him for some time. Why would the Sculptors create the Weeping Court in the Dream God's domain?
The scene before him also resembled the Sculptors' art, but he was not sure if it truly was.
Lost in thought, he stepped closer to the altar.
On its surface lay a book bound in black leather, sealed with golden chains and a broken sigil.
"What is this?" he murmured.
A whisper answered him.
"Dark Messiah's gift."
Rosacer did not flinch.
"Who are you?" he asked calmly.
The chains around the book rattled.
"We are him. As you are us."
From the shadows behind the pillars, movement stirred. Figures stepped forward, cloaked in tattered robes.
They wore black, their faces hidden by hoods. Behind each of them stretched wings, and on their necks hung dolls, their hair writhing and trailing toward their blackened hearts.
One of them knelt.
"Welcome, bearer of Ananta's mark," the figure said. "We have been waiting."
Rosacer's hand slowly closed around the grip of his hidden weapon, Gewehr.
"For me?" he asked.
"For the war you will bring," the cultist answered. "Tejasvin has lit the first flame. Now the underworld awakens."
"Death is with us. We are the Dark Messiah. We ride with the dark-maned horse and bring the world into his domain."
Rosacer looked around the gothic chamber. At the altar. At the runes. At the fanatics who worshiped ruin as salvation.
"What do you mean?" he asked puzzled expression on his face.
The cultist answered.
"The Dark Messiah has chosen you to act as a vessel for him, and like you, there are many more."
"The sculptor Tejasvin was the first to awaken with the Lord's power. Now it is no longer just one."
"It is an army."
"Our Lord," he continued, "is the ruler of Death and Reincarnation."
"Isn't the Dark Messiah the god of reality, an entity beyond the material world?" Rosacer asked in between, confused by the contraction of information.
He had heard that the Dark Messiah held no power over the material world. Instead, he was more of an outsider, detached from reality.
Without getting angry or annoyed, the cultist remained calm.
"Yes," the cultist replied. "He is that, and he is true death as well. The false Death only took his name. The true ending is true death. Our Lord is the true death, and we are its will."
"What do you mean by we?" Rosacer asked another question in between, confused with the sentences used by the cultist.
"We all are the Dark Messiah. And so are you. There is no single entity like those pagan gods. The True God is not one being. We are Him, and He is us."
They could tell that the Rosacer wasn't very knowledgeable about ancient wars and deities. The cultist then started his explanation.
"The Dark Messiah first appeared on the western continent when the Western Kingdom launched its war campaign against the East. That campaign led to the fall of many eastern gods, and among them was the Death God, Auresto.
With the fall of Death, the world began to expand and move at a pace that threatened to devour even the Lord's own domain.
As his territory shrank, our Lord descended through the Sculptor, Tejasvin, and devoured Death for himself.
The cycle continued, and the world became stable once more.
After becoming the soul-bearer of the Messiah, Tejasvin hunted the weakened gods one by one, those already broken by the war.
When the Rise Kingdom fell, its minister, cursed by the Sun God, also perished.
That left Tejasvin to gather the domains for himself.
But then came the descendant of the Sun God.
He stole the domain of Death from the Sculptor and vanished from the realm.
His name was Jkoi Maysee of the Har'Our.
With the death domain, which still carried the essence of our Lord, he forged a new dominion.
He called it Oblivion."
The cultists gathered around him, motioning toward the book as they chanted in unison, "The dominion of Death and Non-Existence, The Oblivion."
The book shimmered, inviting Rosacer closer. Before he realized it, his hand was already on its surface.
In the next moment, a window appeared with a prompt: [Domain acquired: Oblivion].