Chapter 38: A Laying of Hands (2/2)

Chapter 38: A Laying of Hands (2/2)

Seldom has a light of such intensity been seen on the surface of the living world, the flash of metal sliding against demon claws showering out a wave of sparks that fly through the air, glittering as would the boundless stars in the night sky, to which the sparks seem to wish to ascend. Yet they all die out, glistening to lifelessness as their rising climb is met with wind and time, and they crash and fade down toward the empty void only to be replaced by a new thousand more as metal and beast both scream.

Impossible.

Swains endless eyes, in rage, glare at the single, simple man who stands now before him, his massive grip and claws holding the blade of the sword that he has now caught. The iron metal glows, softening and radiating a vivid orange shine, as the furnace-heat of the Demon-Core superheats the metal.

And the man holds on to the smoking hilt, his leather gloves hissing, as he stands before the beast that towers above him in everything from power to stature.

I will not ask you again, snarls the Demon-King, his legions of the damned cowering, hiding by the thousands, as they dare not lift their heads from their lowered positions in the presence of the destructive wrath of their true master. Swains eyes narrow. He needs it; he must have it. Whatever this man is in possession of, whatever secret he holds, it is the thing he is hounding. He can smell that familiar scent, feel that familiar touch on his skin, and feel that prickling that he cannot identify.

But he reeks of it.

Its drifting from him like an over-applied perfume, like the foulness of a skunk, the smell absolutely permeates everything around him, and it infuriates the Demon-King to no end.

Good, replies Knight Errant Orson. He lifts a hand to his mouth, his teeth biting the tip of the smoking leather glove and holding it as he rips it off of himself, before gripping the steaming, hissing metal with his bare palm. Then we wont have to waste any more time, he says.

The man twists the handle of the sword, as he had done before. The Demon-King, knowing the destructive power of whatever ability this is from its prior demonstration, immediately lets go as the world flashes to the blinding whiteness of a day that might never end. Waves of cascading power stream over him as the sun rises before his eyes. The Demon-King roars in rage, his massive arms lifting to shield his face from the shine as he barrels forward, swiping with his other arm out to strike whatever presence he can make contact with.

The night itself seems to move with him as he charges toward his incomprehensible opponent, a mere human with nothing special about him. Both the ceaseless blackness of the storm and the night that never stops collide with the opposing shine of the counter-threat, of a sunrise that threatens to never end as the Demon-King and nothing more than a man with burnt hands fight.

Orson flies, tumbling as a massive, barreling fist makes contact. The man tumbling and flying over himself, but saving his landing with grace that is unexpected of a man of his years, of a man who has been living the quiet life for so long. The old knight slides on his boots, his heel pressing back against the body of a dead, blackened tree, the tips and branches of which are on fire. Cinders drop down from above, silhouetting him with a red curtain as he bashes forward, the glowing blade cutting through the encroaching shadows and nightmares as Swain, pulling his fist together, carves a simple, elegant poem into his own flesh with a searing nail as he subconsciously recalls a familiar monster, one that he connects with this scent, as he recalls a feeling that he once felt, and as he says everything that he has to say from the pits of his soul with a simple, beautiful word.

A Thing that Hungers

Die.

A large, spiderish, skittering hand shoots out of the darkness, sprinting on the hunt. Each segment of the sharp thing is as long as a mans full grown hand. Attached to its base is a long, leathery arm that drapes over the smoldering floor all the way back into the burning forest. It immediately shoots toward Orson, desperate and hungry to grab fresh prey, after having been in slumber for so long now, ever since that night.

The Knight Errant sidesteps, his sword cutting into the palm of the shadowy hand from the darkness that grabs hold of the first thing that it can.

But instead of fighting it, he simply lets go of the sword, never stopping his stride as he runs toward the enraged, roaring Demon-King, who catches his fist, sending a shockwave blasting out in all directions.

Being a hero is dumb, recites Swain, narrowing his eyes as he looks at the man.

Sounds like something an idiot would say, replies Orson, reaching into his belt and pulling out a knife that immediately plunges into one of the eyes on Swains body. He screams not in pain, but because of his words.

A massive fist cracks into Orsons chest, sending the old man flying back, crashing as he slides through the ash and then further still.

The Demon-King stands there, his eyes welling with discontent as he stares at the man, whom he holds aloft with one arm, his body burned, battered, and broken.

And despite all of his rage, Swain has learned his lesson from last time, when he was robbed of his chance to receive an answer.

What is it? asks the Demon-King, trying to decipher the thing that this person is painted in, trying to understand the nature of the fabric that wraps his heart and soul those beautiful threads tickling and taunting him to know their name. Tell me, orders the monster, the melted, glowing sword clattering against the blackened stones of the bridge. The water of the river below boils as it flows, deadly steam rising up all along the river.

What power could there be in the world what secret force that would allow a simple, common, nobody of a man like this to stand against the strength of the Demon-King for even a moment? What does he know, what does he possess that all of the kings and heroes of the world do not?

He must know.

He has to know.

TELL ME! orders the Demon-King.

Knight Errant Orson looks at him through his bleeding vision and dirtied face, laughing as he reaches his end. The heat of the Demon-Core cooks the blood within his beating heart.

Slowly, the mans hand reaches out toward Swain, the old man laughing all the while as he seems to find something quite funny, as the ungloved palm touches Swains forehead this being his wordless answer to the question that he answers truthfully, on his knights honor.

Knight Errant Orsons fingers slip and fall away from Swain as his eyes roll shut and his body dies within the demons grasp.

And while an answer was given, it is not one that the Demon-King can understand.

And even if the man is dead, his laughter resounds around in Swains head, like that of a child looking at him and realizing something obvious, something stupid, that he himself cannot have noticed yet like a bug on his clothes, a smear on his cheek. The Demon-Kings claws rip into his own face as he tries to find it and understand what it is that STENCH in the air that continues to linger even now all around him.

The sight of this particular beauty that he desperately seeks is simply hidden from his eyes, no matter how plentiful and sharp they might be.

And so, the Demon-King turns his rage toward humanity at an even greater pace than before, as one million horrors of the dying world tear over the bridge, through the river, and through the grasslands, as they storm toward the human-capital and its defenses.

Swain looks back at the corpse of the man, and even his dark tides seem to flow around, rather than over.

It doesnt matter.

Soon, the Demon-Core will burst, one-million souls having been collected, and then

He returns to the carnival, where the carriages and his gallu are waiting for him as always.

And then he will end this once and for all. He will find out what that feeling is when he finds the person the girl who made him into this and tears those filthy secrets from the heart of her ghost, before sundering both the spirit and the physical domains and bringing on an era of endless nothingness, forever, and ever more, in which only the thought of beauty itself can remain, uncorrupted by the ugliness that is existence.