*where am I?*
Wind swooshed across the clearing covered in dark fluid and monster bodies.
* ...oh, I fought those creatures till I lost consciousness*
Lioraen sat up, glancing around the heap of bodies. His hair fell over his face. He narrowed his eye, grabbing the string.
"It's... it's white."
He glanced around again and sat up. Having lost a lot of blood, he staggered back to sit, using his hand to support his fall.
"Huh?"
He clenched his right hand.
"My hand..."
*Come to think of it...I heard a voice...*
"Something about a gift..."
He sat up, his eye adjusting to the light before he began moving.
"I feel different. Alive. Was that a Divine? A great one at that. I could feel it."
He huffed.
*I have never really seen or felt one before despite living in a shrine all my life. How ridiculous*
He approached the one-eyed beast.
"If I tear this open, I can retrieve the bodies, right. Then—Rae..."
He grabbed the neck and pulled it.
"It's surprisingly light."
*I'll return to the mountain first.*
He began to pull it along with him on his journey.
The street was silent, covered in heaps of bodies. He had killed a lot of them, with no memory of how possible and how long.
*I have never really understood what my mother said about spirits but...*
His star-lit eye glanced around.
*Spirits are really everywhere.*
He glanced at the blur of energy floating around the vicinity. Some big, others small. The atmospheric pressure felt different from the normal life he had lived until three days ago.
*I can't believe that they are really here. Come to think of it, my mother once said something about spirits.*
"Although I can't see the physical, Lio, I can see the spirits," Serathiel once said.
"What's the use, if you can't see your son." He had replied that day.
Lioraen sighed, shaking his head.
"There are many things I want to change."
As he walked, pulling the beast along, a voice rang across the air.
**A mortal with the blessing of a Divine!**
He flinched.
*That was a spirit. Blessing of a Divine? So that voice...*
He turned deaf ears to the words and continued walking.
**Yes. He's truly blessed.** Another screeched, floating closer to him.
*Ignore them, Lioraen.*
**I have never seen a mortal with a Divine mark.**
*Divine mark, huh...*
**If we devour him, we can evolve into a domain spirit, or higher.**
He abruptly stopped. His eye twitched and he gritted his teeth.
"Devour?"
He turned.
"Screw off before I grind you both into powder!"
The spirits fled, cussing at him.
"Goodness!" He sighed.
The journey to the mountain took exactly an hour. He climbed the hill with the beast in his grasp. The vicinity, in just three days, felt like ages. It still showed signs of a fight. The broken window, the knocked-over bucket, unswept front yard.
He glanced around and dropped the beast, then went behind the house to get a new sword.
*Come to think of it. This is a shrine. The spirit here... forget it for now*
He retrieved the sword, then returned and began to cut the beast open.
The blade slid through its hide with a wet sound.
He cut it open completely. Steam and a foul smell escaped into the air.
*If I can bury them, would they rest? Are they really trapped in it? Was that vision real? From what I had always known, their spirits should have returned to its source. The great Divine*
He sighed and took a look inside.
Inside, there was nothing.
No bones, no scraps, no trace of the people it had eaten.
The beast had digested everything.
Lioraen just stood there, staring at the empty cavity.
A second. He stepped back, clutching his head.
"Aah..."
*Are they free?*
Then, suddenly the wind blew, carrying a refreshing laughter for a moment—soft, familiar.
He froze, the hair on his neck rising.
He spun around.
"Rae?"
But he saw nothing.
Just a cool wind drifting past him, gentle against his skin.
Peaceful.
Too peaceful.
"Lio..."
Her voice sounded, or perhaps just the wind.
He bit his lip and clenched his fist, trying to choke down the grief that pressed against his chest.
*They're free, huh?*
Then he turned away from the beast and walked toward his hut.
The door creaked as he stepped inside, the familiar space greeting him like a ghost.
The living room where he had buried his mother was quiet, untouched.
He sank onto the floor.
"I'm back, mother."
Awkward silence reigned afterward.
"I killed it..."
He sighed.
"I killed the creature, mother. So if you can hear me... I'd like you to rest now."
He clenched his fist.
"What next? What do I do now. I'm lost."
He paused, letting the words hang in the quiet room.
"Should I return and keep killing those creatures? What if I lose my life?"
The memories of his journey flashed in his mind.
"Did you know that I'll meet a Divine if I utter those words? Did you see everything that will happen?"
He chuckled.
"I suddenly have so many questions to ask you after you're gone."
Silence reigned again.
"Did you cross over well?"
A pressure settled in the air, or perhaps he just noticed it.
He stood up, his legs aching from the climb and the battle, and walked further inside.
*This feeling...those creatures?*
He grabbed a sword lying on the ground.
*No. It's a spirit*
He approached the shrine, the holy place he had lived all his life. The place that felt heavier, with a strong aura radiating from it.
*A spirit had been here all this while?*
The door creaked ominously as he pushed it open. Everything was in place.
Lioraen walked into the shrine without a sound.
The air inside was cool and still, carrying a faint scent of dust and burnt incense. Thin rays of light slipped through cracks in the ceiling, falling softly on the floor like scattered lines of gold.
At the center stood a simple altar behind a low stone table with a few faded offerings. Candles sat there too, melted down to short stubs.
A strong aura swept through his skin, suffocating him.
*It's not a spirit. It's a Divine being.*
He stopped, the silence settling around him.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Come out!"
At once, the air trembled. Shadows gathered, folding in on themselves, and slowly took shape. A figure emerged from the darkness, forming as if drawn from smoke. Long, dark hair spilled down its back, moving as though touched by wind. Dark eyes opened, deep and calm, reflecting no light yet missing nothing.
Its skin held a pale, muted glow, not quite alive, not quite dead. The body was mortal in shape, solid enough to stand upon the stone floor, yet faint traces of mist still clung to it, dissolving and reforming.
The Divine being stood still before him, weighing him with its dark eyes.
"You have grown quite bold...to call upon me, Lioraen."
The voice struck a huge blow to his mental health. He staggered back, his eye widening at the being his parents had served and dedicated their lives to.
Tall. Absurdly tall.
He gritted his teeth, using a great amount of willpower to reply.
"Othello."
TBC...