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Chapter 20 - The Demon

I

        Immediately, the nest’s unnatural taint sought to overwhelm the Demon’s senses. This was no surprise – since vanquishing the nest in the inn’s cellar, the Demon had awoken more powers. The Demon was still nowhere near as strong as it once had been, while the Gods walked on the World, but with each hour passed it regained more.
        With a blink, its true sight inverted the dark to a grey colourless light. With a snort, the stench from the stigma, from the Ghouls presence, was repelled from its nostrils. It felt its body change and adapt – both internally and externally – to the inhospitable environ. Organs changed to combat and overcome the taint and its armour became waxen bone, which prevent the air from grazing its skin. Its long-serrated teeth spread to where its ears should have been.
        The infestation had grown rapidly, faster than the Demon thought possible. This fact did not trouble it, but the Demon wondered if it should have pursued the one-armed Ghoul rather than follow the greater taint it smelled on the wind, which turned out to be a burnt-out ruin. Of all its powers, the one it lacked was the ability to predict the future, and it would have never thought a mortal would so thoroughly destroy a town when the taint showed itself. It was a feat that impressed the Demon and one that made it capture the Untouched Champion Veturius. From a practical standpoint, it needed the manpower to vanquish this disease, this blight; so, the divergent journey was not a complete waste. The Untouched were weak, but they would serve its needs by culling the herd. As for it… it would ravage the source.
        Confident with its body's metamorphosis, the Demon marched heedlessly into the dark with its sword drawn and the weapons pure white glow lit the way.

II

        The rat’s fled from the Demon’s path and it snarled in rage. The vermin were just as corrupt as the Ghouls. It could smell the reason. The taint had seeped into the sewer’s water from where the rats drank and lived. It was little wonder the taint had taken the town and the surrounding land so quickly. Everything would have to be cleansed with rage and fury that only flames could provide.
        From an alcove, a moan floated – sluggish in the rancid and thick humid air. The Demon peered inside and snarled. With a speed and force that would have been impossible for a human, it reached in to snatch the occupant by the throat. It casually pulled the flaying creature out from its hiding place and the Demon showed its disgust by spitting acidic saliva onto the cobblestones.
        If the Ghoul had been uninflected, it would have been little more than a child – eight or nine years in age – likely a girl by its structure. Black veins webbed around its jet eyes and its fangs clamoured together in its struggle to break free. Despite this, it somehow retained some innocents in its twisted and skeletally thin features.
        The Demon met the child Ghoul’s jet eyes. It watched the orbs grow slack as it swept its sword – bisecting the Ghoul’s chest to witness its heart be severed. Its legs and lower body fell wetly to the floor and sloshing into the sewage channel. The Ghoul’s hands slid from the Demon’s wrist that still held its throat. The Demon casually cast aside the arms, shoulders, and head once it was sure the Ghoul was truly dead. It refused to chance one escaping again. This misbegotten task ended now.
        Without further pause, the Demon continued down the sewer channel, allowing its clear senses to guide it to its true prey. The oppressive stench sought to consume it the deeper it went, but it brushed it aside with minimal effort. It was ready to face the tumour growing within the depths.

III

        The sewer channel opened to a room a few metres ahead and was flooded with foul grey- brown water: up past the walkways and beyond the Demon’s ankles. The Demon did not pause, nor did it slow its inexorable advance. With each sloshing step it grew closer to its goal. It knew this was the nest’s heart. The smell told it so. It knew what it would find in the room beyond. It could feel the Ghoul’s presence and felt their numbers. Ready to burst, the nest was about to flood across the town – the Demon would dam the tide. With sword, teeth, and talon it would dispatch the unclean from the World.
        It crossed the threshold into the square chamber, bearing witness to a charnel house beyond. Bodies – none whole – were flung carelessly and without design throughout the room. They were piled and savaged with such a destructive fury that it seemed unfathomable such mutilation could exist in a sane world. This was far from sane, it was the unclean, the unnatural, and the unholy. It was a carnage that would destroy a person’s mental safety net by showing them a hunger that should have been impossible; for the Ghoul’s not only ate to quench their hunger but also to erase their past lives. By destroying others, they vanquished all that they had once been and became the animals their thirst demanded them to be. Into this chaos, the Demon strolled, again without hesitation, as if it were casually walking through open plains with long, swaying grass and blue skies on a warm sunny day.
        Bodies shifted and thin skeletal forms began to rise from amongst the flesh debris. Somehow, the Ghouls’ black eyes reflected in the lightless void, like a feline. The Demon’s grin rose high, revealing its angular teeth and dagger-like fangs. Slowly, a horde rose – between thirty and forty in number. They crawled onto the flesh mounds, unwilling to draw to near, but groaning with unsatiated, and glutenous hunger.
        The one-armed Ghoul lifted from the tallest corpse pile and growled like a cornered feral dog. The Demon could see recognition in that Ghoul’s black eyes and could feel its fear. The grin grew, revealing more serrated teeth. A particular self-satisfaction twisted the Demon’s mind to put fright into the tainted.
        “Who seeks their freedom from this World first?” The Demon announced with a snarl and pointed its sword’s tip at the horde.
        The closest Ghoul shrieked and flung itself, headfirst – with its fangs bared and drool strands running from its lips and down its chin. It gagged as the Demon’s free hand caught and gripped it by the lower jaw with fingers down the Ghoul’s throat. If the Demon moved at a mortal's pace, the Ghoul would have bit down and severed the fingers. Instead, the world blurred, and the Ghoul’s skull was shattered. Necrotic brains dashed across the wall as the Ghoul was forced against the stone by the Demon’s incredible strength and speed. The first Ghoul was dead, before it even realized its charge had been stalled just as its feet had propelled it into the air.
        The Ghoul’s limp form was not allowed to fall. The Demon yanked hard on the Ghoul’s tongue and freed it with a savage twist and pull. Not once did the Demon break eye contact with the one-armed Ghoul as the first kill was made. Rancid blood filled the air; somehow, overpowering the sewage. With a sinister chuckle the Demon raised the tongue – with all the meaty innards still attached – as a trophy and presented it to the snarling horde. It tossed the tongue into the crowd and its mirth grew into a laughter darker than any night. The nest stirred into a fever. Every Ghoul roared. It was deafening. Through it all the Demon’s laughter and smile merely grew.

IV

        The Demon smashed its fist into the supporting arch at the room’s entrance. Cracks flew through the stone like lightning. A new roar filled the sewer – brought on by collapsing earth – as the arch sagged inwards. The Demon stepped forward casually as the tunnel behind it collapsed in a dust torrent. Debris launched throughout the room, shifting the piled bodies and knocked the closest Ghoul’s to their backs.
        Without warning, the Demon launched from the dust and gave credence to its name. Its sword lashed out with a silver white flash and a new body was added to the piles. Black gore spilled from the vanquished Ghoul as it writhed in its death throes. The Demon bellowed its rage at the tainted, extending its jaw far wider than should have been possible.
        Its sword was not the only weapon the Demon used. With a growl, the Demon turned on the next Ghoul and with a gale’s force, struck. Midnight black claws and silver teeth tore through pale flesh with ruthless abandon. It was a carnage that could only be described as a whirlwind. The Demon was remorseless and untiring. In a blink, several Ghouls were in as many pieces as it crashed into the horde. Flesh and hunks of meat flew from its rampage and flopped atop discarded flesh that littered the floor.
        The Demon raged in its bloodlust, “Die abominations! This is the God’s will!”
        As one, the remaining Ghoul’s charged – except for their sire, the one-armed Ghoul. They were not without number, but still numerous enough to be a threat. The Demon may have gotten faster and was able to overcome the sickness they spread into the air, but the Ghouls were still creatures from a similar stalk as itself – albeit lesser forms. They moved with speed – as one, as a herd – forcing the Demon back a step. Despite dying in droves and being split apart from the Demon’s remorseless onslaught they heedlessly kept up the pressure. They circled like sharks around a prey and lashed until they got inside the Demon’s guard. The Demon felt their clawed fingers knife into its bone-like armour as they grappled over each other to get closer. The Ghoul’s were ravenous – hunger incarnate – and the Demon was the most delicious feast ever presented to them. Even if it cost all their lives, they wanted to taste the Demon’s flesh more than anything else; only then, might their hunger cease for a time. Their numbers began to tell, and the Demon took another step back. It no longer smiled but snarled with contempt now that the Ghoul’s were no longer afraid and were presenting a near overwhelming front. Bright as the sun, the Demon’s sword lashed out just as the Ghoul’s tide became an avalanche. The act freed the Demon from their clawing hands and gave it space to spin its blade in a vicious overhand arc that caused the wave to crumble and the Ghouls to sprawl over each other in an uncoordinated mass.
        The one-armed Ghoul gave its own bellow; spittle launched from its stretched and gapping mouth. As one, the Ghoul’s ceased their attack and backed away from the Demon’s reach. Over half their number lay in heaps of broken flesh – marking the Demon’s fury.
        Breathing hard, the Demon’s snarl twisted back into a grin. Exhilaration filled its breast. Not since the God’s Wars had it felt so alive. Fresh powers surged into its limbs as it awoke further. Its body wanted to twist itself into a truer representation of what it could be. Its claws grew longer, and its armour shifted into more pronounced bone-like plates. Its skull-like mask conformed to its face and horned spikes sprouted from its crown and jawline. The transformation was nowhere near complete and not what it had been in the past, but to come so close to its true form and the perfection that form represented... it was a sensation it would have not thought possible with the World’s lacking power while the God’s slumbered.
        The ground rumbled.
        The air sucked back into the stinking passage on the room’s opposite side. A new smell entered the Demon’s upturned skeletal nostrils. The air shot back out in a rolling wave. As one, the remaining Ghouls smiled and chittered as they backed away to the room’s edges. The Demon could see pleasure in their black eyes and wanted to pull them out, one by one in response.
        Again, the ground rumbled.
        The one-armed Ghoul squatted and crawled to the side – freeing itself from the tunnel’s path, joining the Ghoul’s already hugging the walls. Only the corpses and torn limbs provided any barrier from what was coming.
        Another rumble.
        Debris and grit fell from the ceiling as the very earth rocked with a distant earth-quaking fury. The Demon lowered its stance and braced for whatever was coming. It drew back its sword so that blade was in line with its clavicle, with the point aimed at the far tunnel; its grin did not subside, and anticipation stormed in its heart. Nothing could threaten it with the fresh power surging through its limbs
        The rumble repeated – over and over again – gaining speed.
        It was as if a drum were being savagely beaten.
        The tempo increased.
        A shadow consumed the passage.

V

        Air was pushed from the tunnel in a ferocious gust. The Demon squinted and picked out the hazed form in the tunnel. With each step it took more air rushed out. The Demon’s grin twisted to something that held no humour and for a second a knot twisted its innards.
        In a blink, a massive creature was in the room and thundered across it. With a force that could fell mountains, the Demon was rocked from its feet by a boulder-sized fist. Spittle flew from its mouth as it collapsed sideways. The creature’s other fist collided, redirecting the Demon’s momentum in the opposite direction, and sent it sprawling, end over end through the air. The Demon came to rest against a wall and spider webbed crackers split the bricks behind it. It slid to its hands and knees – noticing its sword had escaped its grasp. Blood drooled from its mouth in long strands; the broken bodies beneath it smoked with acidic haze wherever its life fluid touched. With wobbling legs, it rose shakily to its feet. Metal returned where bone had once been, a ghost-like after image hovered around its outline, and the flames in its eyes lacked their previous brilliance. The smile, however, returned and grew wider than before.
        It laughed as only a madman could. The dual aspects in its voice were separated now, but with each mirthful note they grew closer and closer together – eventually becoming one, once more. Its eyes blazed with renewed fury the instance the two voices meshed, and the metallic armour bent and twisted back into bone-like protrusions. Fresh strength surged through its muscles and the laughter grew deeper like the bass notes in an orchestra.
        The creature bellowed its hatred and beat its chest, like a rampaging ape. The Demon rose steadily and met the creature’s rage-filled gaze, before letting its laughter die into a rolling echo throughout the room.
        The creature was vast beyond any human proportions. Where the taint had shriveled the other Ghouls, this one had become swollen beyond its human frame. While the others were skeletal, this behemoth was fat with both muscle and blubber. Its form was so vast, it was a wonder it could fit in the room, let alone the tunnel it had just travelled through. While the other Ghouls grew claws, this creature grew sword length talons. Somewhere in its transformation, its neck was consumed by rolls and bulging shoulders, which were littered with black and throbbing veins. The only feature to mark this creature as the others of its kind were its fangs – though they were long and proportional to its bulk– and the pale corpse skin dressing its girth.
        In short, it was hideous and an abomination – even when compared to the others. For that crime, the Demon would take delight in vanquishing it from the God’s creation.
        The creature did not wait for the laughter’s echo to fade. Again, it lashed out with a speed that belied its size. The Demon leapt into a roll from the creature’s stampeding feet. It snarled as it found its leg enclosed in the creature’s tree trunk fingers. Suddenly and violently, the room spun and rounded upside down. The creature’s free hand seized the Demon’s throat. The Demon gagged as the creature’s strength stole its breath. With a gut churning twist, the corpse covered ground race up to meet the Demon’s face and the impact caused even its vision to snap out.
        Unlike a mortal, it would not suffer unconsciousness from physical trauma. But, like a mortal, its form could be damaged beyond repair should enough force be thrust upon it. The impact was hard, but softer than it should have been. The Demon found the bodies had served as an island of sorts. They were thick and solid enough to accommodate its graceful and agile movements without a ripple – so much so that it did not realize the bodies solidity had capped the sewage beneath. It was forced through them by the creature’s savage strength and was awash with drowning filth. The creature’s long thick shins stretched through the sewage depths and were firmly planted on the stone below. It explained why the thing was able to push through the rotten flesh mounds so fast and fit in the room.
        With the Demon fully submerged beneath the thick grey murk, the creature squeezed with all its might – causing the Demon’s throat protection to crack – and the Demon’s mouth opened to scream. Sewage poured into its gasping maw, swirling around its tongue, and caused it to gag as the thick liquid rolled down its throat to fill its lungs.
        Drowning was a concern it had not realized before, and, in a fatalistic manner, it found that dying in mortal sewage was a sardonic way to be released from its flesh form and returned to Gods.

VI

        Its vision blurred and its mundane mortal sight was beginning to return as the sewage flooding its lungs stole its strength. So, it did what any predator would do when pinned. It bit. With a mouth that stretch from ear to ear, it knifed every single tooth it had into the massive creature’s wrist. Rancid blood spirted into the sewage water and clouding it with black tendrils. It preferred the sewage’s taste, but, unlike the sewage, it did not allow a single drop down its throat. The taint could consume the Demon, just as it had consumed the town. Even in its dire straits it felt the God’s testing presence; it felt thirst. It far preferred to die in mortal filth than to become what the others had – they who had become weak and succumbed to their thirst.
        Even beneath the sewage, the Demon could hear the creature’s pain-filled bellows. The Demon spat a flesh chunk – letting it float away in the thick excrement – and bit down again to rip more meat free. After two more savage bites, its teeth severed a tendon in the closest finger and the pressure released at last.
        It pulled free. With freedom, its vision focused. With a defiant roar, it launched itself from the sewage and threw itself at the creature’s face. Having lost its sword, it used its claws to rip through the creature’s corneas and push deep into the eyes. Fluids and jelly erupted from creature’s sockets and mixed with the sewage pouring from the Demon’s gapping mouth.
        The massive Ghoul howled its pain, thrashed wildly, and swung its weight around with reckless abandon. The remaining Ghoul’s scattered, lest they be crushed by their rampaging giant.
        The creature’s massive hands raced to its face, but the Demon was gone. Leaping high – away from the creature’s reach – the Demon spiraled, end over end, to land softly on its feet atop a thick mound of ruined bodies in a crouch.
        A Ghoul launched itself and the Demon reached out casually. It took the Ghoul by its throat. With its free hands, it pulled the Ghoul’s upper jaw upwards and pried the Ghoul’s head off, before throwing it at another at the flank. A snarl escaped the Demon’s lips as a third Ghoul pounced on its back and bit down. The fangs could not find purchase against the bone plates on the Demon’s shoulder and the Demon dislodged its attacker with a barrel roll over the corpses. From instinct, it dodged to the side as it came out from the roll; the massive blind creature raced to the confrontation, using sound alone to find its foe. Its sheer bulk was a violent destructive tornado of movement as it waded through the room.
        Before any others could attack, the Demon reached out with all its senses to find its sword as it slid across the rolling corpses beneath its taloned feet. The blade was nearby, and the Demon used its momentum to dive through the loosened floating bodies, back into the sewage, in the massive creature’s wake.
        The Demon kicked furiously at the perusing Ghouls, who swam after it like hideous fish grasped at its ankles. Just as the Ghouls dug their claws into the Demon’s feet and hips, the Demon grasped its sword from the sewer’s floor. The blade flared with renewed life – having gone dull when it was flung from the Demon’s touch. Light entered the first Ghoul and it simply exploded from the sword’s renewed power. The second closest gasped wide – sending bubbles in a torrent from its gaping mouth – and made to get away with a panicked push. With a glowing white flash, the second Ghoul’s upper body was cleanly split from its legs and the two halves fell away in different directions, lost to the grey murk. The others were beyond the Demon’s immediate reach and disappeared into the sewage.
        The bodies exploded upwards as the Demon launched itself from the sewer’s floor and irrupted like a being from myth and legend. It gained its feet, arched its back, and roared with a savage cry that froze the Ghoul’s diseased hearts. Only the creature was not cowed. It turned to face the Demon with black ichor pouring form its eye sockets and gave its own bellow in challenge. Its face twisted with a hatred that was beyond natural as its muscles flexed with raged filled power.
        It charged.
        And the Demon met the creature’s assault.
        Both blurred from with the speed at which they collided. A pure white flash filled the room with its radiance. The Demon seemed to vanish for a second that lasted an eternity as its image was burned into the Ghoulish onlookers. It reappeared on the creature’s hunched back and spun the sword into a reverse grip; then drove the blade into the creature’s skull with a two-handed thrust.
        The hatred on the creature’s face grew slack and it became stupid as death stole its rabid mind. It took two stuttering steps and moaned its last breath. Its hands did not reach to its head, but instead held guts spilling onto the bodies in long grotesque ropes and into the sewage when their weight became too much for the floating bodies to hold – the result of Demon’s first devastating strike, which radiant flesh only just dissipated within the room.
        Almost casually, the Demon freed its blade from the massive Ghoul’s skull, and it stepped onto the bodies with the creature’s downward momentum at the remaining tunnel’s mouth, similar to a sailor walking onto a dock to tie his ship.
        The few remaining Ghouls hissing and snarling their contempt, like beaten feral dogs. The Demon had no eyes for them. Its burning gaze settled on the first. This was the closest the Demon had come to death in nearly a century and a cool rage burned in its breast. The prey it had missed in the inn those weeks ago was only the immediate cause to this blight and it would soon punish the one-armed Ghoul for its part, but it reserved a special hatred for those who had started it all by creating these abominations.
        The Demon would never stop and never quit; not until those who had lost their way lay dead at its feet – sent to the Gods to be judged by its sword.
        The one-armed Ghoul slinked backwards at the Demon’s approach and hissed continuously, like a wounded rat. With its customary grin returning, the Demon seemed to vanish, but reappeared with its sword punched into the Ghoul – forcing it deep, until the hilt smashed into the Ghoul’s ribs. The Demon stared at the skewered Ghoul and took a deep satisfied breath. It met the Ghoul’s cold black eyes and saw its own burning gaze reflected in them. Somehow, the Ghoul no longer seemed monstrous as its features slackened. It had once been a young man and a small part of that past life showed through in those last moments it suckled air into its lungs. Its lids grew heavy, making the flames in the Demon’s eyes look like they were dying out, which was far from reality.
        Without warning, the Demon punched so hard that the one-armed Ghoul’s head crumpled into wet ruin beneath the blow's fury. With another savage cry, it tossed the broken body from its sword to land amongst those few remaining. They glanced at each other with an animal’s desperation, as the Demon turned to face them. It stood before their only exit.
        As the Demon met their fear-filled gazes, its grin grew wider with a sadist's passion, and it aimed its sword at their black eyes.

Thank you for reading! The conclusion will be up next week at 7am on Tuesday 27-Jul-21!

~Brett