Necromancer
2235 Words
Ah, how many years have passed? the blue demon wonders.
His name is Ao. His eyes are cold blue, and he has leathered wings and two horns as ram horns on the sides of his head; his hair is black as the night and it falls straight and long on his powerful and muscular back, between his wings. His arms have many scars and are ended in powerful claws. All demons are warriors.
He scans the area as his brain banishes the slumber, and the memories return, his soul returns to him.
He is Ao, son of El, one of the mightiest demon lords, the only demon lord who ascended to divinity and is now the god of the demons. His mother was an admirable succubus who managed to seduce his father. She died defending his castle before his ascension.
"What am I doing here?" he thinks. The place is in absolute darkness, and dust covers all the luxury that once made him the proudest. He remembers servants, women, men, slaves. "What was of them?"
"My… lord?" the small demon asks. There is fear in his voice. Ao can't recall him.
"Who are you, pathetic creature?" he asks.
"Pathetic?" the demon replies, excited. "Is that my name? Have I received a glorious name?"
Ao sighs. This one barely has intelligence.
"Yes, I name you Pathetic," Ao confirms and the little red demon flies around in excitement.
"Yes! I've been named! Yes!" he repeats over and over with his tiny and unpleasant voice. "I'll celebrate taking another virgin's heart! I can bring you one! Do you want one? You want it, mighty lord?"
Ao is not patient. No demon is patient. He shoots a fireball from his hand and destroys one of the walls. The little monstrosity survives unscathed.
The blue moonlight enters through the hole, and snowflakes do too. He is in the eastern mountains and this is his fortress, the core of his empire, the place from where he fought Valor the blue dragon lord, and his empire of dragons. Or at least this is what remains of all his might.
"What happened?" he asks.
"What happened? What happened to who?" the little demon asks.
"Shut up!" he demands.
"To lord Valor and the remains of his dragons? To the crimson prince and his hordes of undead in the black castle? Or to the god who fought the nameless monstrosity? Haha, nameless! Like me! Haha! Wait! I'm not nameless anymore! I'm Pathetic!" the mad demon says, and that surprises Ao because as the creature mentions those names the memories come back.
"The nameless monstrosity…" he mutters. He came to this world for that monstrosity, to take its power to himself and become something that even the gods would fear. "But I wasn't like my father, I wasn't powerful enough…"
His demons went mad like this little one when they faced the thing, and he had to kill them while trying no to lose his sanity or they would have spread its rotten scent through the world. If only he had more power that would have never happened.
He sighs.
In the end, he had to call for the aid of the vampire lord and his legions and together they supported Valor and his dragons after the forest god was defeated. They had to fuel the spell of Valor and miraculously they contained the thing in the center of the continent.
"I remember now," he says, looking at the west, at the place where the rotten thing was buried by the efforts of Valor, Vermilion, and himself, sacrificing the lives and souls of all their people. They saved the world. "Its power has spread throughout the land it seems. We only postponed the inevitable."
"Yes, the monstrosity is still asleep, my lord," the little demon adds. "But it's ruining everything! The taste of the meat, the air, the water, everything! You have to do something about it! You are the only one who can!"
"What was of the others?" he asks.
"They slumber, recovering their powers," the little demon says. "Only the dragons have been active, but not so much. Their numbers remain low, and they have no magic. Don't waste your powers, my lord! Magic is running out."
He feels it, his throat is dry. He has never felt like this before.
"Humans?" he asks.
"They have flourished in these years, but as the thing spreads its influence they die," explains the little monster. "They are as tasty as you remember, my lord."
"I don't eat humans," he rejects. "Don't compare me with a lesser being like you. Again."
"I would never! I would never, I would never, my lord!" Pathetic quickly says, kneeling.
"Your name suits you," Ao says, and stands up from his throne.
He came here after the blue and mighty dragon Cikard fell from the sky, dead. The thing had killed the leviathan with just one hit of its countless limbs, just before it was sealed.
"My lord is asleep again, my lord is asleep again, I should get some fur to cover him," Pathetic lets out. "Too bad I won't hear the tale…"
"What tale?" Ao asks.
"My lord is not asleep, he is not asleep! Good! The tale of the angels and the demons," he says.
"Angels?" he asks. "Have you seen angels here?"
"No, my lord. I have not. But I'm a scholar. I'm Pathetic the scholar! Your best scholar!" Pathetic announces.
Ao chuckles.
"Indeed, you are," he concedes. He sighs. He doesn't have anything else to do at the moment, and maybe the little demon could tell you more of the things that have happened during his absence.
"Tell me, do you truly want to know the truth?" his voice resonates in the chambers.
"Yes, master, I want to know," the little creature answers.
"Long ago there was a little demon who fought," Ao begins. "He started fighting with insects, hunger, and death."
"Was he eaten? Was he eaten? Tell me that he did!" the small demon intervenes with a sadistic smile on his red big face with pointy ears, small horns, and big sharp teeth. His red burning eyes shining. He stays at a safe distance, flapping his little wings. His only clothes cover his prominent virility.
Ao continues.
"He fought and kept fighting until one day he was so powerful that he escaped hell," he explained.
"Must have been too powerful to escape the nine circles," Pathetic adds.
"Ah, but that hell isn't the nine hells, Pathetic," he continues. "It's a different place, a more terrible place…"
"What place could that be?" Pathetic asks, he can't conceive anything worse than the nine hells.
"The place from where the monstrosity came from, the place that gods call the realm of nightmares," Ao says. "The place where our grandparents slumber in a perpetual nightmare."
"Our grandparents must be powerful," Pathetic says and recovers his smile.
"Should I continue with the tale?" Ao asks. He won't waste time explaining to him how horrible their grandparents are.
"Yes, please, continue, my lord, continue, my lord! I want the demon to be eaten!" he says. Ao smirks, evil.
"I want that too," he says and continues. "The little demon flew with his seventy-two wings, and he arrived at the void, but he was not alone, others like himself had followed him."
"Did they eat him? They did it, right? Was he delicious?" Pathetic intervenes again. Ao shoots another fireball. It gets lost in the night.
"Are you still alive, Pathetic?" he asks.
"That was close," the little demon answers coming from outside, a little burned. "Ouch! Nice shot, my lord!"
"They didn't eat him," Ao continues. "They joined their powers and arrived at the current of fate, the place from which everything came, come, and will come. And after that, they reached heaven."
"Were they eaten in heaven?"
"Nobody eats anybody in heaven, little one," Ao responds, stopping a third fireball, the one that would have killed his only companion. "Did they die at the hands of the angels then?" the demon asks, anxious.
"The truth, Pathetic, is that long ago the demon lords that followed him fought and those who survived became gods of heaven," Ao continues.
"What?! How do you know that?" Pathetic asks.
"My father told us the tale," he says. "My mighty father is the only demon who has achieved something like that since then. And nobody else will ever do the same."
"The seraphim and all the angels are demons then," Pathetic concludes. "But they call themselves angels, masters of peace and order."
"They pretend that they are, they pretend to be different, and maybe they have changed, but their roots, I know what they are," the blue demon continues. "I bet they have forgotten where they came from. Yes, Pathetic. They have forgotten that we came here from somewhere worse than the nine hells."
"But I don't understand, were they created? They just appeared?" Pathetic asks.
"Maybe, maybe they just appeared. It doesn't matter. They are very real and the worst hypocrites of all," Ao says.
"But how about the three lords of chaos, and the only one God, lord of law who rules from the tower of eternity?" Pathetic asks.
"I don't know of lords of chaos or lords of law," Ao replies. "And you know? I can't remember you."
"My lord has been asleep for too long, his memory will return very soon," Pathetic says.
"Yes, it probably will," Ao says, but he feels that something is off. The fireball hit Pathetic, and he survived. "How did you survive here?"
"Eating humans, my lord, they are tasty," he replies.
"I see," Ao mutters.
"And how about you mighty father? Did he come from that horrendous place, the realm of nightmares?" Pathetic asks.
"He did," he answers. "He was in the last one, he fought to close the gates to the realm and nightmares. The last one, but preferred to rule in hell than serve in heaven."
"And the dragons? How about them?" Pathetic continues.
"I don't know of dragons, but my father told me that they must be respected, and I agree," he says. "Without them holding that thing, the world would be already doomed, rotten by a thing that not even the gods could stop."
"Not even the gods?" Pathetic replicates.
"Not even the gods," Ao says. "Have you forgotten?"
"Oh, I haven't," he says. "Not even they."
Ao smiles.
"Who are you, little one?" he asks, releasing his powers which he uses to grab the creature from its slender neck, about to crush him.
"I-" he struggles to speak. "Servant! I- serv-"
Tired of his games, Ao just crushes it. He doesn't need him in the first place.
"Why did I tell him that much?" he mutters, walking to the edge of the room. His castle has been reduced to just that last tower. "Pathetic."
He grins.
"I can feel your great power whoever you are," he warns. "I haven't felt something like this in ages. Show yourself and I'll spare your life."
"Spare my life?" the man says. His red irises shine in the shadows. It's not the first time Ao sees eyes like those. "Who do you think you are, demon?"
Ao grins. Pathetic was just a puppet of this vampire.
"Vermilion sent you? His power has flourished, I suppose," Ao says. He thinks that it wouldn't be bad if he fights the powerful vampire. He needs some exercise, after all. "Let's do this."
"Do this?" the vampire is confused. "What do you mean?"
"I'm a demon, naive vampire, and you have used me," Ao says, smirking. Angry. "I will rip your heart out of your chest, and I will take all those powers to me."
"Oh…" the vampire lets out.
"Stop playing games!" Ao screams. For some reason he's too angry, anxious, and… fearful. "What is this?! What have you done to me?!"
"He did nothing, demon," the charming and noble voice of a man says, coming from everywhere. Ao remembers that voice. Ao knows who is speaking, but he didn't get to know his name.
But why? What did they do to him?
"What is this?" Ao says, terrified. He knows that something is wrong, truly wrong.
"Do we truly need his soul, my lord?" the vampire asks.
"We do, Artorius," the invisible man confirms. Ao chuckles, then he laughs. Insane. He can remember now, he remembers very well the man, the golden flying ship fueled by an impossible amount of magic, the purple-blue armor, and the purple-blue spear that took his life.
Ao remembers now that he is dead, but the most impressive thing is that the most powerful demons like him turn into ashes when they die. Their magic consumes the shell. But this necromancer was powerful enough to prevent that process and create the first undead demon.
"He is stable now, end the illusion," the man commands.
The first undead demon, Ao laughs at his foolishness identifying three demons next to the armored figure that is looking at the center of the continent from the top of the last tower of the castle of the demon.
"Tell me, demon," the man, the necromancer says. "Where is the sanctuary of the god of this lands?"
Ao answers. He can't say no.
- Writer
