Chapter 571: Embrace of the Despair
A beautiful white-haired woman, donning silver armour, stood at the foot of a small mountain. But her white hair could barely be seen because she was drenched in blood from head to toe.
But there was boundless anguish in her blue eyes as she looked towards the peak of the mountain, where a small wooden hut lay, and from the windows of that spot, a small boy peeked out, looking at the infinite expanse of inhumane carnage of her own making.
She could see the boy tremble in terror, and the pain in her heart only increased.
In the end, she gritted her teeth and stepped forward. Yet each of her steps felt as if she were carrying an infinite weight on her shoulders; with each step, her heart bled.
After what felt like an eternity, she reached the top of the mountain, drawing closer to the door of the wooden hut.
She eventually opened the door with trembling hands.
The boy within immediately hid himself, as if a monster had entered his room. The woman’s blood-soaked face twisted in pain.
She stood there frozen.
Eventually, the quivering boy came out from hiding. He screamed through gritted teeth, with a mix of fear and chilling fury, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT? YOU.....YOU KILLED THEM; YOU KILLED THEM ALL.....SO MANY LIVES GONE JUST LIKE THAT..."
The woman felt as if millions of swords were being driven into her heart with each word her lovely son uttered.
She closed her eyes for a moment and could not bear this agony any longer; if she hesitated a single more second, she would not be able to go through with it.
She opened her eyes and lunged forward at an inconceivable speed, and her bloody blade pierced the stomach of the little boy so fast that he did not even realise what happened until a few seconds had passed.
The boy let out a gut-wrenching scream while hugging the bloody woman.
An unimaginable sadness and a sense of betrayal swept through his entire being. Blood started coming out of his mouth; he said his last words in a choked voice, "Why.....mother???"
Tears fell from her eyes; she bit her lip so hard that it began to bleed. Now, amid her bloody visage, the crimson traces of her son now lached onto her body. She hugged her dead child and wailed, like a mother would after losing their only child.
She whispered in a shattered tone,
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my son. This is...."
"This is the only way... to..."
She choked and could not even finish her sentence. Eventually, she laughed; the mother had gone mad due to the overwhelming pain of loss that broke her very psyche.
It was the laughter of someone who had lost everything she ever cared for, everyone she ever loved, the tone of someone who could not escape her butchered fate no matter what she tried.
SHE HAD CHALLENGED DESTINY...
AND SHE HAD LOST....
SHE HAD LOST SO BADLY THAT NOW SHE HAD TO KILL HER OWN SON....
A PRICE OF HER DEFIANCE...
Slowly, her head turned towards the black-haired, scarlet red-eyed female figure standing amid the shadows of the room.
The mother pleaded to her in desperation despite her insanity, her voice broken, "Please promise me,,,, PLEASE!!!!"
The female standing in the shadows wore a pained expression, her red eyes flashing in bitterness, but in the end she nodded, and it alone seemed to take all the energy out of her existence, as she bit her lip.
***
Axel’s eyes snapped open within the bloody battlefield; his mind was groggy, and he was deeply confused by the vision he just witnessed. But he did not have the luxury of thinking about that matter, not at this moment, as he felt his entire figure burning in the unbearable agony of the Black Despair flames.
He could feel his skin melting while he was alive; not only that, the weapons of his followers were skewered in the vital parts of his body.
Enduring the horrid pain, he pulled out each of the Rune tools skewered into his body.
Yet, by the time perhaps he was done so, it was already too late.
The purest essence of despair extracted from the entire race of humanity seemed not only to burn his entire body in black flames, but also to wriggle beneath his skin like wretched worms. From afar, it would look like black tattoos jumping all over his skin, trying to reach for something.
What the essence of despair was trying to reach was the very core of Axel Nomrad, and at that very moment, the despair had touched his Soul Sanctum. Lighting up the entire structure in black, burning flames.
"AAAAAAAHAHHHHHHHHHH" screamed Axel, feeling the magnitude of pain that he never thought possible.
Cracks formed on his Soul Sanctum as it was being broken down by the black flames.
High above the Soul Sanctum hung a blazing Red Sun with a Golden Nexus imprint on it, which represented Axel’s soul. As fragments of his Soul Sanctum crumbled, slowly but surely, a blackish hue began to encroach upon the Red Sun.
As the Demon of Despair struggled against the encroachment of despair, he suddenly heard the words once spoken by his Demon Phantom.
Acknowledge your Sins, Confront your Sins, and Embrace your Sins.
He whispered to himself, "Embrace the Despair..."
For a heartbeat, everything was still until all of it changed, like the world being turned upside down; his pain became 10 times worse; he could feel it all.
Every moment of despair from all of the 2.7 billion people in humanity.
Every child that died of suffering,
Every mother who wept for their dead offspring.
Every father who worked tirelessly without speaking their pain.
Every loyal subject who died for their Lord’s selfish gain.
Every woman waiting silently for her lover’s dead body.
Every son standing beside their mother’s cemetery.
Every man unable to provide for his family.
Every disabled man never finding someone to love.
Every kid sold by his parents for money.
Every mundane person struggling to make ends meet, not seeing a bright future.
Every woman who was violated at the whims of the powerful.
Every woman forced to be a slave.
Every man shamed by the nobles.
Every pain hidden behind the smiles of daily livelihood, left unattended.
Every despair that remained unexpressed, every story that remained untold.
Axel Nomrad, in that moment, felt all the emotions in their boundless, profane glory with such vivid clarity, as if he were the very person living through those moments of drowning despair.
This anguish was so great that it was turning his very soul dark, as no sane entity could handle that horrendous amount of despair; tears fell from his eyes like a river, as he completely accepted all that pain of humanity.
It is easy for one to cast away the sadness of others as long as they are not privy to it, and in this moment Axel was very much privy to that pain.
Axel went mad as he began to scream like a Beast and writhed on the ground, because that was the price.
The price for his cruelty, the price of asking for greater power than what he should possess.
The instant when his Soul Sanctum crumbled, his demon bloodline, which had been silent till now, like a predator waiting behind the bushes, pounced forth; the power of his insidious bloodline exploded in such a maelstrom that it was horrifying to even think about.
All the purest essence of despair was being absorbed, and by that absorption his destroyed soul sanctum began to be rebuilt, stronger, better.
Mirroring that reconstruction, Axel’s broken mind also began to regain traces of sanity; even his destroyed body was being reforged like hot steel being hammered and condensed into the most perfect of shape.
The demon’s skin formed once more, now being light grey in colour.
Two long, pitch-black horns protruded from his forehead, with three stripes of pristine white.
His eyes were completely pitch-black until a white, narrowed slit formed; it held a gaze that seemed foreign, so unknown it could not be described; and that unknowable could cause even the powerful to feel the greatest fear.
His teeth were white, sharp and long, and monstrous like a demon who ate human flesh for a living.
His claws were long and completely black.
The Demon’s height had increased to 7 feet 5 inches. His frame broadened, more defined, his face handsome like a devil in a human facade.
Long black hair reached his shoulders, dancing in the wind of the carnage-soaked battlefield.
Suddenly, two spots on his back, near the collarbones, protruded unnaturally.
Squelch x2....
With two flesh-tearing sounds, two 1-meter-long glistening black bat-like wings came out. Redefining his imposing profane grandeur with a final touch that was missing.
As his transformation was completed, a storm of messages from Prime Nexus shimmered in front of his eyes.
[You have successfully absorbed all the Despair of the Human Race.]
[Congratulations!! You have successfully advanced to Initial Third Phase]
[Your bloodline has evolved to Ancestral Demon of Eternal Sin]
[You have become a Complete Demon.]
[You have grasped the essence of Eternal Despair]
[Your Demonic Energy now contains the Sin attribute of Eternal Despair]
[Your Title Demon of Despair grows stronger.]
[You have acquired the transformation, Demon of Eternal Despair]